Film cameras can capture amazing beauty. However it was not possible to get that quality on a home format, because of home standards of the time. Film really has no "resolution", no pixels. TVs have a resolution, they have pixels. Film cameras capture light and throw whatever image the camera is pointed at directly onto the film. The standard for film is 35mm, that standard was capable of being projected on a 40 foot screen with out being converted to any other format. Meaning that the film lost very little information between shooting and displaying.
Now when talking about viewing those films at home, which I assume thats where you've primarily have seen these old films. You really have to talk about formats and standards of the time.
When home video really took off the Standard TV resolution was 720X480 amazingly small compared to a film that when projected would encompass a 40 foot screen. When putting a Film negative on a VHS in the 80's you'd take the film and digitize it, significantly lowering the quality. To get a film that was meant to be shown in a wide screen format (close to todays 16X9) to show on a TV you'd have to squish, squeeze, and pan/scan it to fit the standard square 4X3 format. The VHS and the DVD format are not capable of holding all the information that a film had. Simply put there was not enough space on VHS and DVD to display the movie in the quality that the original film would have. So technicians of the day would have to sacrifice image and sound quality to get these films on to a home format.
Now that blu-ray exists and the standard for home TV is 16X9, and the technology has evolved far enough, technicians have been able to go back to old films and rescan them from the original film negatives in a 2K to 4K resolution getting most of the original information that was shot. When doing this the technicians may fix things that have going wrong with the film over time. If a film is stored properly it can last for centuries; however, if its stored badly film becomes susceptible to many problems. Films just now in the last 10-15 years are being able to be shown in the home close to the way that most people would have seen them in the theatres.
If you are more interested in digital restoration and the process behind it. track down the Criterion copy of "The Red Shoes." it has a interesting documentary with Martin Scorsese about the restoration that the film underwent.
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