John Campbell is a senior vice president at Walt Disney Co. who oversees streaming ad sales solutions. He also coaches his second-grade daughter’s basketball team, and recently asked her teammates to name their favorite TV show.

“Eleven out of 13 girls said ‘Hannah Montana,’ ” Campbell said in a recent interview, citing the popular Disney series starring Miley Cyrus that produced its last episode in 2011, before any of his players were born.

Campbell was pleased they selected a show from the Disney library, but wasn’t all that surprised based on the advertising demand he’s seeing for the company’s vintage shows.

A recent study from National Research Group found that 60% of all TV consumed is library content. Among Gen Z, 40% say they watch older shows because they find them comforting and nostalgic. Disney’s own research finds that 25% of the programs kids call their favorites were made before 2010.

While newer cutting-edge series typically win critical kudos and accolades, Gen Z and Gen Alpha viewers are binge-watching programs that became hits on the broadcast and cable networks in the pre-streaming era. They are also devouring holiday movies and specials, even on traditional TV.

“We do see, especially around the holiday time, that people are looking for that comfort, that sense of ease,” Campbell said.

As more TV ad spending moves from traditional networks to streaming, Campbell said Disney is capitalizing on the retro trend thanks to its massive library of series. The company has seen the Gen Z audiences devour hits of yesteryear such as “How I Met Your Mother,” “Modern Family” and “Golden Girls.”

“Scrubs” and “Malcolm in the Middle” are such strong performers on Hulu and Disney+, the company has ordered reboots that advertisers are eager to be a part of, according to Campbell. Disney has even worked with advertisers to make throwback commercials to run in classic films on its streaming platforms and TV networks.

“The younger audience is drawn to the perceived simplicity of the old times and humor,” Kavita Vazirani, executive vice president of research, insights and analytics, ABC News Group & Disney Entertainment Networks. “It’s programming that just makes them feel good, and it’s something that they can watch with their friends, their families.”

Older shows have long had a place among young viewers. Previous generations grew up watching reruns of “The Brady Bunch” and “I Love Lucy” after school, when their choices on broadcast TV were scant.

But the current viewer has an endless plethora of viewing choices through streaming and cable. One executive at another media company not authorized to comment publicly cited research that said teens and young adults are gravitating to the more conventional sitcoms and dramas from the early 2000s, believing they were made explicitly for their age group.

During the era, the WB Network — later merged into the CW — was turning out young adult dramas such as “The Gilmore Girls” and “Dawson’s Creek,” while the Disney Channel was at the height of its popularity. “Friends,” the idealized rendering of urban life for young adults and long a favorite on streaming, was the ratings leader at the time.

The appetite for such programs showed up in the most recent “Teens and Screens” study by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers @ UCLA found that among the 10- to 24 year-olds, 32.7% said they want to see “relatable stories that are like my personal life.” The previous year, the top answer was fantasy, which ranked second in 2025.

But another reason young viewers are digging into the vaults is volume.

The UCLA survey showed that the favorite show among the measured age group is the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” The series has only 42 episodes over five small-batch seasons.

When a young viewer finds an older successful series that ran on a network for years when 22 episodes per season was standard, they can binge for hundreds of hours.

“There are a lot of seasons of available episodes that you can watch, in typically any random order you want to,” said Nii Mantse Addy, chief marketing officer at the streaming service Philo, which also has seen a sharp rise in viewing of library programs.

“There’s not as much decision fatigue,” Addy said. “The shows provide something that you can go back to and just turn on and know kind of how it’s going to make you feel.”

Executives also say that binge-watching old shows provides a respite from the angst young people experience while scrolling through social media, which escalated through the COVID-19 lockdowns.

But social media have also been a tool to help consumers discover new programs. Fans of vintage series post TikTok videos reacting to episodes that first aired years ago. There are also fan communities online and “re-watch” podcasts that are driving people to seek out programs.

“Social media has been quite a catalyst for essentially introducing these old shows to a whole new audience, whether it’s through memes, viral clips or whatever it may be,” Vazirani said. “It’s like the modern day water cooler, essentially.”

The Testament of Ann Lee, 2025.

Directed by Mona Fastvold.
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, Matthew Beard, Christopher Abbott, David Cale, Stacy Martin, Scott Handy, Jeremy Wheeler, Tim Blake Nelson, Daniel Blumberg, Jamie Bogyo, Viola Prettejohn, Natalie Shinnick, Shannon Woodward, Millie-Rose Crossley, Willem van der Vegt, Esmee Hewett, Harry Conway, Benjamin Bagota, Maria Sand, Scott Alexander Young, Matti Boustedt, George Taylor, Alexis Latham, Lark White, Viktória Dányi, and Roy McCrerey.

SYNOPSIS:

Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, proclaimed as the female Christ by her followers. Depicts her establishment of a utopian society and the Shakers’ worship through song and dance, based on real events.

The second coming of Christ was a woman. Narrated as a story of legend and constructed as a cinematic epic, co-writer/director Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee tells the story of the eponymous 18th-century preacher who occasionally experienced divine visions guiding her on how to teach her and her followers to free themselves and be absolved of sin.

This group, an offshoot of Quakers known as Shakers, did so by stimulating and intoxicating full-body rhythmic dancing movements set to many hymns beautifully sung by Amanda Seyfried and others. The key distinction between the group, and arguably the toughest selling point of the film aside from the religious nature of it all, is that Ann Lee asserted that the only way to achieve such pure holiness is by giving up all sexual relations, living a life of celibacy (as evident by some laughter during the CIFF festival screening when she made this decree, which quickly subsided as it is relatively easy to buy into her mission and convictions).

It shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise that Mona Fastvold had trouble getting this one off the ground. Perhaps what finally secured the project’s financial backing was all those awards The Brutalist (directed by her husband Brady Corbet and co-written by her, flipping those duties and credits this time around) either won or was nominated for, which was notably another film that almost no one had interest in making. The point is that this should serve as a reminder that there is an audience for anything and everything.

Whether one doesn’t care about religious movements or is a nonbeliever, The Testament of Ann Lee is remarkably hypnotic in its craftsmanship. It features a flat-out career-best performance from Amanda Seyfried, who blends all of her strengths as an actor and unleashes them at the peak of her talent. Yes, there are moments of tragedy and trauma, but the film refuses to wallow in misery, chartering her Shakers movement with hope, miracles, and perseverance as the journey takes them from Manchester to Niskayuna, New York, in search of expanding their follower base while dealing with other setbacks within the movement and personally.

Chronicling Ann Lee’s life with precise editing that rarely drags (and mostly fixates on the early stages of the Shakers movement and decade-plus long attempt to battle sexism as a female preacher and find a foothold amidst escalating tensions between British and Americans), the film also offers insight into the events that gave her a repulsion for sexual intimacy, her marriage with blacksmith Abraham (Christopher Abbott), and dynamics with her most loyal supporters which includes brother William (Lewis Pullman) and Mary (Thomasin Mckenzie, also serving as the narrator). Given the unfortunate nature of how most women, especially wives, were expected to have zero agency compared to their male counterparts and deliver babies, it is also organically inspiring watching her find a group with similar beliefs willing to trust her visions and take up celibacy. Whether or not all of them succeed is part of the journey and, interestingly enough, shows who is genuinely loyal and in her corner.

This is no dry biopic, though. Instead, it is brimming with life and energy, mainly through those “shaking” sequences depicting those outstandingly choreographed seizure-like dance numbers (typically shot by William Rexer from an elevated overhead angle, looking down at an entire room, capturing a ridiculous amount of motions all weaving together and creating something uniformly spellbinding). The songs throughout are divinely performed, adding another layer to this film’s transfixing pull. Nearly every image is sublime, right up until the perfect final shot. Admittedly, the film loses a bit of steam in the third act as one awaits a grim confrontation with naysayers who feel threatened by her position, movement, and pacifism regarding the burgeoning American Revolution.

Still, whatever reservations one has about watching a religious movement preaching peace and celibacy while laboring away building a utopia (an aspect that puts it in great juxtaposition with The Brutalist) will wash away like sin. That’s the power of the movies; even someone who isn’t religious will find it hard not to be swept up in Ann Lee’s life. Fact, fiction, bluff… it doesn’t matter; the material is treated with conviction and non-judgmental respect. In The Testament of Ann Lee, Amanda Seyfried channels that for something holy, empowering, infectious, and all around breathtaking.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist