A YouTube video showed up in my feed, and it was about how to post-process your digital images to get "near professional" black and white images. The results were pretty horrific, very HDR-ish.
Black and white is already inherently dramatic, probably owing to its artificiality and its working solely in light and shadows. The underlying images in the video were completely forgettable and relied on HDR type effects to make an impact.
And I was reminded, which I noted in a comment, of the more restrained, natural yet beautiful and powerful digital black and white images in the movie, "Roma". When I visited the trailer again, I was reminded of how every frame is itself a wonderful black and white photograph. I was also reminded that it's the best movie I've seen in the past 20+ years. The image quality is very film-like though not in a classic movie sense -- more modern looking with greater subtlety in the tonal values.
https://youtu.be/6BS27ngZtxg?si=Ch_jI2RHd9uFcGDt
