It is not you, the sound really is getting worse

@twoleftears,

Yes, Nolan seems to be the current master of undecipherable dialogue.

Going by this article it seems to be a deliberate policy on his part.

Only box office receipts count, I guess.

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Hard to pardon: why Tenet’s muffled dialogue is a very modern problem

"In Nolan’s case, Price and Bochar are confident that the director does it intentionally. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, sound designer Richard King – who has worked with Nolan on seven films, including Tenet – said:

“He wants to grab the audience by the lapels and pull them toward the screen, and not allow the watching of his films to be a passive experience.”

It’s hard to imagine that Nolan is unaware of the criticism. Price suspects the director wants to make the audience work harder to understand the dialogue; he thinks Nolan believes this will make the film a more immersive, engaging experience.

But, Price says, “I think he is the only one in the world who believes that.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/03/tenet-dialogue-christopher-nolan-s...

Saw Does/Ferrari in the theatre. Understood every word and I can't watch HBO without rewind and/or headphones, for "what dey say?"
Of course, it got the Oscars for sound.

When I went to see "Mother", I had the same experience.  If it were not for the fact that the movie was so beyond brilliant, I would have left over the sound quality in the theater.  It was ear shattering noise.  Maybe that was the point during some of the later scenes of war, but it was hard to handle.  I was so enticed by the visuals and the theme that I let the noise take a back seat.  

Right.  Closed caption on Hulu, Netflix etc solved all my problems.  And my popcorn is better, and less expensive.  I will never enter a theatre again.  

Movie audio is a dealbreaker. Unintelligible dialogue with juvenile sound effects. Since forever. At home with headphones is the way to watch a movie, if ever again a watchable movie should be made. A movie with no Tarantino gore, no superheroes, no zombies, no intergalactic warfare. Nor, on the other side, the standard puerile navel-gazing, however artsy or Swedish or French or Italian.