Capitalism and Cinema

How the market shaped film over the last 100+ years

Licensed from Adobe Stock

Over the past two centuries, capitalism has not just influenced cinema — it has defined its very structure. From the birth of motion pictures as coin-operated curiosities to today’s data-driven streaming platforms, the economic system of capitalism has influenced who tells stories, how those stories are told, and who gets to hear them. But the story is not one of commerce alone — cinema has, even within the constraints of the market, reached hearts, sparked revolutions, and mirrored the dreams and anxieties of its time.

🎞️ The origins: capitalism and the birth of film (Late 1800s — 1910s)

Cinema was born in the crucible of industrial capitalism. The late 19th century was a period of rapid technological progress, mass urbanization, and expanding consumer markets. Motion pictures, like electricity and the phonograph, were seen as inventions to be commercialized.

Thomas Edison, whose kinetoscope was one of the earliest film-viewing devices, :

“I am experimenting upon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproduction of things in motion ….”