What are all the reasons that make say a commerical looks so different (film wise) than a movie?

Question

When you see a movie, or a movie preview on TV or the bigscreen, it has a distinct look. I know it has to do with the film, but can someone offer some more depth?

Answer 1

Oh, wow - there's a lot of reasons for that.

Cameras, film stock, film size, aspect ratio, lighting, production values.

And of course, film and TV generate images differently - film is projected, and well, non-fancy TVs use cathode ray tubes to produce pixels of light.