The end result—films too dark to see (with inaudible dialogue)—is a result of both deliberate creative choice of the movie makers (starting, as I recall reading, sometime in the early 2000s) and the difference in the technical capabilities of the displays in theaters vs homes.
I don't recall when I first learned this. A quick websearch (using duckduckgo, of course) turns up this reasonable discussion from Variety in 2022
Don’t Adjust the Brightness: Here’s Why TV and Movies Are So Dark Now
Have you ever been enjoying a film or TV series, only to suddenly find yourself squinting at the dark screen? Recent releases including “Euphoria,” “The Batman” and “Handmaid’s Tale,” as well as classic films including “Alien,” “Taxi Driver” and “Seven” all utilize dark imagery, but what if the visuals are simply too dark to see everything in the frame?
While dark scenes are usually due to the filmmaker’s vision, there are several factors both at movie theaters and when viewing at home that will affect the viewer’s ability to see what’s going on onscreen...
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/why-movies-so-dark-hard-to-see-batman-1235195535/
We call these films "Worlds Lit Only by Fire" in reference to William Manchester's brilliant book on pre-Renaissance Medieval Europe.
It is sobering to recall just how recently it was the literal truth that the world *was* lighted only by fire. This is not somewhere we want to go!
= new reply since forum marked as read