What's a good, recent movie that could never have been made 20+ years ago?

Spider-Man: No Way Home. Mixing the different versions of the same character from different adaptations was a really cool, modern idea I don’t think could have been done without our Cinematic Universe/Superhero boom in recent years. I can’t think of an example of that from the past. There’s no James Bond team up movie or Hannibal Lecterverse or anything like that.

Unfortunately, I think it’s a really boring trick to see a second time, and now we’re going to have to see the same idea repeated in every superhero movie for years to come.

I think they could have built up to it 20 years ago, it's just no one took the time to make movies, then establish the multiverse. Probably couldn't happen with James Bond because it's based too much in reality, but a fantasy franchise could have easily pulled off a multiverse movie.

Nolan movies like Inception, Interstellar and Tenet. Not at this scale and quality.

And most sci-fi stuff, really. 20 years ago, SW Prequels were basically the best we could get (at that scale). You couldn't made something that looks like Dune Dune back then.

Everything Everywhere All At Once couldn't be made 20 years ago for so many reasons. I don't even know if it would be received as well at the time, but I think it will because the movie is that good.

Also, Marvel stuff. Things they can do now, both from technical technical perspective, but also they have the whole universe to build on, they don't need to spend half of the movie explaining who is the guy in a red spandex is, and what was his relationship with his uncle, and immediately go to the main story. They also can experiment with formats, knowing that they don't need to hedge bets catching the widest audience possible

Marvel movies are disqualified from this question, because OP asked about good movies, not disastrous barely watchable steaming piles of overwrought over hyped, over edited, crap with terrible sound mixing and too much CGI.
- That's, just, like, you know, your opinion, man.
Specifically, Into the Spider-Verse stands out to me. The combination of story and animation would never get greenlit (a mixed-race Spider-Man? Multiverse theory? 2003 ain't ready for that) and would be fantastically expensive if it did.

Into/Across the spiderverse. I don’t think the technology or the appetite for the animation style existed 20 years ago

20 years really isn’t that long ago so this is harder than I expected.

I’d say Blade Runner 2049, though that’s probably pushing the line of ‘recent’.

Top Gun: Maverick really pushed a lot of limits of tech and access to aircraft that I don’t think could have been pulled 20 years ago.

Funny that both of those are sequels to even older movies.

Prey in Comanche I don’t think would have happened 20 years ago.

I’ve been in a movie rut lately though, I’m craving good hard sci-fi on the big screen.

Dune

Dune was made years ago. Honestly it holds up pretty well except for the sand worms.
- Personally, I like how shields are depicted in the 84 version. Big ol' boxes that looked goofy as shit actually conveyed to me how they were difficult to move in.
- Timothy Chalamet would have been 7 years old 20 years ago, thus they never could have made it.

Not a movie, but a TV series:

The Whitest Kids You Know

This was how they debuted.

Season 1 episode 1: https://youtu.be/gbWfAAzNlg4

Also: Baked beans, finger rings https://youtu.be/chD6qQk7JcY

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- Good bot
But it was made 16 years ago. Is it a stretch to think it could have been made 20 years ago?
- Gah, i saw the question backwards.
  As in what could not be made today.
  But really im suprised it ever got made in a way.

Tron legacy

TÁR is maybe the most recent great movie, and it's absolutely a product of its time. You could tell a story about abusive, manipulative people in the past, but the specific way that her story spirals out of control over the course of the film (and the way that it reflects the culture around her) could only have been told recently. It's really gripping stuff.

I can’t even think of a good recent movie, let alone a good movie that couldn’t have been made twenty years ago, when movies had to actually try.

You should expand your movie viewing net then. There is a ton good movies, and I mean a ton. There is also a lot of boring shit, yes
- Nah. It’s not my lack of seeing movies, it’s the lack of movies to see. Everything is a rehash, a cliche, or a big loud overblown cgi turd. I tried, honestly, to give a fuck about movies, but they’re making it kinda difficult.