ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Our study investigates the evolution of global cinema through the TMDB Movies Dataset, a repository of over a million entries aggregated from the community-driven Movie Database API, and the Letterboxd Movies Dataset, movies data from a popular social platform for film enthusiasts.
Research Question
How do film genre preferences change over time, and how are those shifts shaped by major historical events, social conditions, and cultural context across different countries and platforms?
Film Genres and Cultural Change
Films are one of the most popular forms of entertainment worldwide. Through this medium, filmmakers convey stories and messages with elements such as plot, music, characters, and genre. However, films serve more than just entertainment; they function as a dynamic cultural mirror, capturing the shifting values, social movements, and rising technologies of the eras that produce them. Genres, in particular, act as a collective shorthand for human experience, evolving alongside major historical events. They are the foundation of describing films, as they are shaped by every aspect of the movie, from the lighting to the storyline (Szawerna).
So what?
This evolution raises a central question: how do film genre trends change over the years and across cultural contexts? To investigate this, we utilize the TMDB Movies Dataset alongside the Letterboxd Movies Dataset. Both datasets are uniquely relevant because their crowdsourced nature reflects not just what films were made, but how a global audience perceives and categorizes them.
UP NEXT
Background
Learn more about the dataset and methods used in this analysis and explore a timeline illustrating how film genres and audience ratings have changed across different time periods.
Narrative
Examine the relationship between film genres, audience reception, and how these patterns change across time periods. Explore new directions in film data analysis and genre trend research.
About
Meet the GlobalCinemetrics team and learn more about what goes into a digital film analytics project, including the data sources and analytical tools used in our research.