Are Filipino Films More Cinematic Than Hollywood Blockbusters Today?
Because there’s no budget to construct digital worlds, our filmmakers are stuck with real, physical places, focused on innovating in camera work. And honestly, they are better off with it.
Published on Feb 26, 2026
In 2025's breakout hit Sunshine (dir. Antoinette Jadaone), Pao Orendain photographs Manila as a visceral living character. The titular protagonist Sunshine, played by Maris Racal in her career best so far, wades through the city's filth and smoke and all its tangible textures. Conversely, Steven Evangelio captures Cagayan in Bloom Where You Are Planted (dir. Noni Abao) as a breathing body – not a space where its subjects are superimposed on, but a place where they are linked, rooted from.
These films are only two examples of recent Filipino outings that present a cinematic setting. But what, we ask, does "cinematic" even mean? Essentially, it is something that is aesthetically appealing that registers very well onto the screen. Aside from editing, cinematography is an element that distinguishes film from the other arts. Cinema is an art of moving images; it has to look good.
Cinematography as a practice has come a long way through the decades. Before, film stock, which was expensive and finite, was the most valuable filmmaking resource. But the start of the millennium saw digital technology make a breakthrough. Filmmaking was suddenly made a lot more accessible. Film grain was replaced by pixels. The way scenes were lit and shot has changed. What was then practical can now be achieved digitally.
The Philippine film industry, as some would say, is a decade or two behind Hollywood. By the time our filmmakers were beginning to handle digital cameras and making independent efforts on their own or with friends,
Hollywood was having a honeymoon with computer-generated images. More than two decades later, CGI leads Hollywood filmmaking. There is no turning back.
Could it be that as Hollywood progressed too far, its cinematic look got worse?
Real Vs. Manufactured Worlds
Production design goes hand in hand with cinematography. The camera can only capture what's in front of it. A good setting helps a lot for great shots, immersing us further into the film.
Sunshine and Bloom Where You Are Planted were both shot on location, so the depth and texture of their shots were already baked in the setting.
Even period pieces like Quezon (dir. Jerrold Tarog, dp. Pong Ignacio) and Manila's Finest (dir. and dp. Raymond Red) used lived-in locations around Manila like the National Museum and Binondo. Through the art of production design, contemporary spaces were transformed to evoke the past.
Likewise, a cursory look at Magellan (dir. Lav Diaz, dp. Lav Diaz and Artur Tory), which this writer has unfortunately not watched yet, shows the full extent of how on-location filmmaking and meticulous production design are married to achieve a cinematic marvel. It's worth noting that Tarog, Red, and Diaz all have their roots back in the digital revolution, when they were very hands-on with their independent projects.
Hollywood blockbusters these past years have an increasing obsession with chroma screens. Their technology can afford imagination, but blank screens demand film worlds and their details to be built up from scratch. Money and time pressures lead to shortcuts being made. So what you get is plasticity – blurry, uninspiring out-of-focus backgrounds that can be deemed corporate slop.
Take for example a handful of previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films like Captain America: Brave New World and Deadpool & Wolverine; Disney live-action remakes like The Lion King, its sequel Mufasa, and Lilo & Stitch; big franchises like Fast & Furious and the Monsterverse; and box-office hits like Sonic the Hedgehog, A Minecraft Movie, and even the Wicked films.
To appropriate a famous line from Jurassic Park, a franchise that sadly also looks like doo-doo: "Your [filmmakers] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." What's next in technological advancement? AI filmmaking?
Because there's no budget to construct digital worlds, our filmmakers are stuck with real, physical places, focused on innovating in camera work. And honestly, they are better off for it.
A Bad Year for Philippine Cinema?
FDCP Chairperson and CEO Joey Javier Reyes recently stated that 2025 was a bad year for Philippine films. "OK, it was a bad year in terms of number. It was also a bad year in terms of creative output," he said, as reported by PEP.ph.
MTRCB Chairperson Lala Sotto conceded, saying, "I think it's important for us to accept the fact that there is a problem… Because we cannot address the problem, we cannot solve the problem if we won't be admitting it to ourselves."
There is a problem, I agree. Ticket prices continue to rise along with basic commodities, leading to bad sales. But what I don't agree with is that there is a glaring problem with our creative output. If anything, the past years see Filipino films churning out great cinema.
This thinkpiece hopes to show that our metrics for success cannot be weighed by a single scale. Institution heads use box-office earnings as a measuring stick and find themselves wanting. I find myself fulfilled in watching Filipino films in 2025. Not only because they've been looking like their best, or because they're made with great care and passion, but because they are a testament to the kind of progress that is healthy, organic, and endemic to our cinematic heritage.
I am aware of my fallacies. Comparing big Hollywood blockbusters to Filipino films built from shoestring budgets is indeed an apples-and-oranges situation. And there are still Hollywood blockbusters that look excellent: hits like Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, and Ryan Coogler's Sinners; and film series like James Cameron's Avatar and Denis Villeneuve's Dune.
To end, I would like to cite two closing scenes from films last year which I believe are nothing short of the most cinematic endings I have seen in quite a while. One is in Some Nights I Feel Like Walking (dir. Petersen Vargas, dp. Russell Adam Morton), where the camera follows a group of friends grieving over a raging fire pit from close-up to wide shot in an unbroken take. The other is Cinemartyrs (dir. Sari Dalena, dp. Kiri Dalena and Neil Daza), where we see the protagonist literally projecting cinema from her womb, as if giving birth.
Are Filipino films more cinematic than Hollywood blockbusters today? Ask me and I'll say, hell yeah.