Film or movies get a bad rap in the self-improvement world, or productivity culture in general, due to the obvious fact that those are 2-3h you could have spent working that you won't get back. But there are second-order consequences.
Netflix is filled with modern media which, when you watch, has second-order consequences, specifically vis-à-vis dopamine. Filmmakers, and even writers like Colleen Hoover, have gotten really good at making addictive content. One can call it the Mr. Beast-ification of all media to hook you, to keep your attention. Whether this is now secondary to the purpose of telling a story is arguable, but it has become so effective at gripping you that going back to the real world after a movie, and especially after a binge, feels like falling off a cliff.
I could talk about how this kind of media lowers your dopamine baseline such that you seek more escape in the form of media - like a meth addiction. But I'll leave that to the Hubermans of the world.
There's a purity to simpler works, to calmer works like "The Red Turtle" and "Where is the Friend's House." I really don't know how to make sense of them. I usually have to go to Reddit to see what the film means. Which, after doing for 2 films, I realized that those art-first sorts of movies are really up to interpretation; there is often no right one. Which is why it is art first - minimalist to make you think, to ponder.
This does not exist, or rather, sparsely exists as a possibility except for endings. The leap from "what does this ending mean" to "oh all of this is up to interpretation" is rather large.
I find that art-first media does inspire me. To write, to work, to ponder.
I'd like to take a second to mention my friend, Arya, who is currently in film school and has the best movie recommendations.