[sirclueless]

    for the most part it feels like TV shows don't have
    that pressure to fit into a very tight box.

Don't they? I feel like TV is a lot more constrained than movies. The forced "last time on XYZ" cadence means that it's very difficult to have natural story-lines when things need to be wrapped up in a suitable emotional resolution and/or cliffhanger every 22 or 45 minutes. Especially when the writers are working with 25% of the screen time being commercials (thankfully much less of a problem with Digital-first TV from Netflix, HBO etc.).

I think it's a lot easier to write and produce a quality movie about just about anything. Yes the mass-produced sequel machines look pretty cookie cutter, but you also get some extremely well-told stories like In Bruges or Wes Anderson's stuff. There's anything-goes stuff like Swiss Army Man. I feel like this kind of thing couldn't realistically be produced for TV. The acting, writing, and production value falls off a cliff very quickly as soon as you leave the mainstream. Even a single season of a TV show means 6-10x as much content as a movie, and consistently conforming to the structure of a serial TV show means the content feels inevitably more repetitious.