Back in the 1950s and 60s certain film-makers were experimenting with wider images on 16mm film, without using anamorphics. In February I got emails from Steve Buckingham in Australia, describing the work of his late father. Laurie Buckingham had invented a system which utilized nearly the full width of the film, giving something like 2.2:1 ratio. And as I have discovered, there were others carrying out these projects. Ian Smith in UK called his system 'Variscope'. Yet despite the obvious advantages over anamorphic the ideas of these unsung widescreen pioneers were never adopted by manufacturers. But they can be done fairly easily on a DIY basis.
Is it time to take another look ? Trouble is, these days the film manufacturers' ID marks and numbers tend to interfere with such wide images. It would mean their cooperation, making them less intrusive. But wouldn't it be worth it to enable higher definition widescreen ?
See
http://filmisfine.co/can-16mm-become-wider/
http://filmisfine.co/henry-l-buckingham-widescreen-pioneer/