This was the point of the type of film stock used. The film grain is why pretty much everyone will wince when you ask to do a 16mm->4K. Hell, 16mm->HD was rough.

I don't have any examples on hand. But with large amount of time I have found myself with over the past year to watch a lot of content, I too have noticed even some of the last episodics to be shot on film (2005-2010 range) are very noticeable. I have also seen some features from the 90s that looked really clean in comparison. Lots of things go into that, from how much the camera department "cared", what film stock was used, what film processor was used, etc. Towards the end of mass film production, there were fewer and fewer labs left. During they heyday, the soups used in the processing where in constant use. As demand lowered, the soups kind of stagnated especially in the shops financially strapped.

Film is fickle to be sure.

Another point to consider is that many 4K 35mm movies, are actually upscaled from 1080p or 2K scans.

Here's a good list to check whether a film is real 4K or not.

https://www.digiraw.com/DVD-4K-Bluray-ripping-service/4K-UHD...

I've now remembered that the X-Men films from 20 years ago did look pretty good in 4K HDR. And apparently they are "real 4K". Also the 4K remaster of The Fifth Element.

Sorry, I was assuming we were not talking uprezing and true film scans. Uprez outputs can look disastorous as people tend to use a heavy amount of noise canceling. Bad temporal noise filters look so bad when you can see residual artifacts from 4-5 frames earlier. shudders. Or someone that did this to content that had a 3:2 cadence, and now want to restore to original frame rate even though the cadence is undetectable by filters. Select fields it is! Ugh. too many flashbacks popping off.

Not quite what you ask, but very related: http://yedlin.net/ResDemo/

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

But I like film grain. :) Barring exaggerated sharpening, it's closer to how it looks in a cinema film projection.