Filmmakers and film enthusiasts will debate the merits of shooting on celluloid film or shooting digitally until the Earth falls into the Sun, but I take the stance that there's room for BOTH since they each have their own pros and cons.

However, I'm honestly curious...how many people can REALLY tell the difference between a movie shot on film and a movie shot on digital, either by viewing it on a television or in a theater that's using digital projection? Now, obviously this doesn't apply to older films. Anything shot on film up to 2005 or so generally still has enough visible grain that there's absolutely no mistaking it.

Newer movies though...honestly, I can very rarely tell the difference. Film is so grain-free now that the image ends up looking just as sterile and flat as digital. Nearly all editing, color grading, and VFX work is done digitally anyway, so really the only step of the process that stays analog is the shooting itself. Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan make a big-ass deal about how much they hate digital and how they'll shoot on film for as long as they can, but when you saw The Dark Knight or Django Unchained, could YOU tell that they were shot on film?

Here are some good examples of movies shot on digital that could pass as film:
Pacific Rim
The Social Network
Drive
Skyfall
Iron Man 3
Dress
Contagion

Some movies that are very obviously digital:
All of the Hobbit films
Public Enemies

Recent movies that I could definitely tell were shot on film:
The Amazing Spider-man 2
The Walking Dead (tv show I know, but the graininess is beautiful)

I could once, but with recent improvements in digital, no longer. Or at least, no longer reliably. There are still some shabbily made films, usually low budget, that are obviously digital.

The difference between digital and film projection, though, is still pretty hard to miss.

It can be hard to be sure, but the thing is, if you were shown two versions of the same movie, one shot on film and one digitally and could compare them side to side, then you would immediately find the film version better looking. So it's important to keep using it because it improves our experience a lot regardless of weather we consciously notice it or not.

You are right that film itself nowadays is starting to lose its look, which is very sad. It seems like the filmmakers want the image to be as neat and glossy as they can, even when it's shot on film, which is stupid as it kinda negates the whole point of choosing film in the first place. The textured and grainy look is what gives this cinematic feeling and it it seems to be dying unfortunately.

I find Nolan movies clearly look like film, especially Interstellar thanks to Hoytema's old school approach. For Django and The Hateful Eight I really don't like the work they did which makes it appear more like digital as you say. Inglourious Basterds looked perfectly cinematic though.

Agreed. I myself am an independent filmmaker working on a positively tiny budget, so naturally everything I've ever shot, and everything I will shoot for the foreseeable future, is on digital, but I would LIKE to someday shoot something, even if it's just a 5 minute short, on film, just for the experience. However, if/when I shoot on film, I want it to LOOK like film. I want grain, I want fuzziness, I want flicker. If I'm gonna put out the effort to buy film stock, operate a film camera, get the film stock developed, and edit it, I sure as hell don't want it to have the same clean, glossy look I could get by using my Sony digital.

You could learn how to manipulate the digital to get the same effect. Or continue to bitch

I myself am an independent filmmaker

Whoa, so you're telling us you don't have major studio backing?!

a while back you could generally notice it (Collateral(2004)/Public Enemies(2009)) but not really much lately because movies like the OP mentioned, Drive/Skyfall, those look great.

Huh. While I agree that 'The Hobbit' trilogy looked pretty digital, I didn't think it looked "cheap" like 'The Legend of Hercules'...

The Hobbit movies have a lot of things working against them that make them look cheap. It wouldn't be too bad if they were just shot on digital, but they also consist of so many mediocre green-screen and CGI effects (as opposed to the Lord of the Rings films, which were filmed on real sets and locations and used more practical FX) and suffer from the super-high frame rate which gives them a TV or video game-ish look that isn't appropriate for theaters.

Yeah, it sounds like high frame rate had something to do with all the issues with that trilogy...

The DVD and regular Blu-ray releases for Godzilla suffered from overly dark, murky transfers, making most of the nighttime scenes (which comprise a pretty major chunk of the movie including almost every single monster scene) very difficult or even impossible to make out, depending on the screen. This is despite the fact that the movie looked fine in theaters, the ads for the DVD and Blu-ray looked fine, and the clips of the movie shown in the special features on the discs looked fine. Also, the 3D Blu-ray looked fine.

Also, there was talk of a director's cut or at least an option to view the film's many deleted scenes, including a cameo by Akira Takarada, an actor who has appeared in many of the Japanese Godzilla films and is one of the people most associated with the series, but neither the cut nor the scenes have ever materialized.

I think I can tell the difference most of the time.

Yeah. Star Wars Episode II and III look like garbage compared to 1.

Well, that's to be expected since they were shot on digital when it was still a very new and relatively primitive medium. There's a staggering difference between the digital movies of the early 2000s and digital movies of the 2010s.

Strangely enough, 'Sanctum' looks even worse than 'Revenge of the Sith'. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if the former was shot in 720p.

That's true - yet even back then, I think the majority of people couldn't tell the difference. This is bizarre - it seemed to me even at the time that you would have to be functionally blind not to be able to tell the difference - but still true.

And Rick McCallum was claiming in interviews, circa 2002 (probably earlier - it was some time before releasing Attack of the Clones) that not only could digital already replace film, but that Lucasfilm could by purely digital means precisely duplicate the look of any film stock in existence.

Did he really believe this was true then? I'm sure some of his readers did.

If "The Social Network" was digital, then no I don't think I could. I could guess with certain movies, but it would only be a guess.

It's funny, I actually remember around the time The Social Network came out, I saw someone on some forums bitching about how it looked awful because it was shot on digital. When pressed for an elaboration of why they thought it looked awful, the poster cited the orange tint that most of the film carries. It didn't take long for everyone else to point out that weird color grading like that happens in every David Fincher movie by design, not as a side-effect of using a digital camera.

Since then I've never heard any other complaint about Fincher's digital work.

No. Cant tell a damn difference.

I can tell the difference. Mission Impossible 5 was shot on film and the grain was very visible. Same with Love And Mercy. Plus the colors, to me, looked far richer and more depth. I'm lucky to still have a theater that still runs 35mm and I still think it looks amazing compared to even 4K projection.

People can't even tell the difference between dvd and blu-ray.

So I doubt it matters.

People without eyes you mean? The difference between DVD and Blu-ray is often pretty drastic to my eyes. Maybe if you have a small TV it doesn't make a big difference, but on a nice big set, the improvement is obvious.

What makes you think there's room for both, pretty sure studios prefer digital due to many reasons but the base reason is that its cheaper. MUCH cheaper. General audiences don't seem to be able to tell the difference or care either way.

Nowadays Paramount makes an exception for "powerful filmmakers" (like for MI: Rogue Nation, well more for Tom Cruise then Christopher Mcquarrie. Also a wonderful looking film.) but they are strictly digital distribution only.

Who knows what in a decade or two, I am sure pure money will win over any lingering "artistic considerations". It always does. I think "film" is dead...

e: Well maybe I contradict myself. I guess if some future kooky powerful director preferred film, the studios would oblige like they do today I guess. Maybe.

Ah *beep* it.

I think there's room for both because there are still so many directors who prefer to use film (and pretty much any filmmaker who shoots on digital dreams of shooting at least one thing on film when they have the budget for it. It's like a rite of passage almost) and there are still theaters that show film (not that many, but you can probably find at least one in each major US city). Digital is cheaper, but for a film that costs $200,000,000, the cost of shooting on film is a tiny, tiny fraction of the budget so it really doesn't matter. The cost difference is only a valid argument for low budget works.

Depends on the film. I could obviously tell that The Hobbit movies were shot in digital, while something like Interstellar definitely has more of a film-feel to it, if that makes any sense.

Yes, and anybody who says they can't needs to purchase some better eyeballs.