It's the art of cinema done properly.
There's always been more commercial titles since the beginning, but there used to be a lot more of this in movies.
I feel like we're missing more of this because so much of our media now is "hello this is the show and we're sooooo self aware haha" and more serious series and movies are not something people usually have patience for.
Better Call Saul for example, in my opinion is a much deeper and more mature show, but people get tired of it because Breaking Bad's more fun and active plot is more engaging, and in a way it's less subtle about a lot of its themes (i.e. (spoiler) Gus' death scene was a little on the nose). Not to say they're not great in spite of not being so subtle, but they are "easier" to consume to the general public.
It's almost impossible to talk about this without seeming pretentious, but it's the truth. People aren't that interested in anything nowadays that requires a little more patience. Which was already true 10 years ago, but it's not getting better.
Even stuff like the new Avatar series was shot so it could be easily sharable on Tik Tok (they shot all the action points vertically).