Side by Side

Side by Side (2012), directed by Christopher Kenneally, is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Keanu Reeves travels the world asking one question to the people who actually made the shift: what happened when cinema moved from photochemical film to digital, and what did the art form gain — or give up — in the process?

The interview roster is extraordinary. James Cameron, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, David Lynch, George Lucas, Lars von Trier, Danny Boyle, Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater — each talks from direct experience, not theory. Nolan shot The Dark Knight exclusively on IMAX film and argues there's something irreplaceable about the grain. Fincher moved to digital early and never looked back. The disagreements are candid and specific.

What makes Side by Side more than a trade-press explainer is its timing: it caught the industry mid-leap, when the outcome was still genuinely uncertain. Watching Scorsese and Lucas talk about light and texture, you realize they're really describing how memory works — what an image feels like decades later. Stream Side by Side (2012) online on iFILM.