Percentage of Movies Seen by Decade

[kanafani]

As I was watching The Girl from the Marsh Croft this morning, I realized I had not seen a movie from the thirties in a while. I decided to take a closer look at the breakdown of movies seen by decade of release.

I compared my 2019 views to my all-time views. Yep, almost 75% of my 2019 views are from the 70s or later.

[wba]

Very interesting!

Could you do something like that for me as well?

[kanafani]

Very interesting!

Could you do something like that for me as well?

I’ll look into it next time I’m crunching numbers!

[liquidnature]

Very interesting!

Could you do something like that for me as well?

If you're up for the math, pretty easy to do on letterboxd using >profile>films>sort by decade

edit: 2019 viewings part is little bit trickier

Spoiler!

[liquidnature]

My numbers (all-time):

Total films seen: 1,632

1890s = 2.5%
1900s = 5.2%
1910s = 2.9%
1920s = 2.8%
1930s = 4.3%
1940s = 7.5%
1950s = 8.2%
1960s = 8.6%
1970s = 8.5%
1980s = 7.9%
1990s = 11.3%
2000s = 17.9%
2010s = 11.2%

Pleasantly surprised to see such a relatively even spread, especially from the 1940s-1980s. Having grown up in the '90s, the list is naturally skewed towards the '90s-present and most of those I watched as a kid. Need to step my 1910s and 1920s game up. Didn't calculate my 2019 viewings, but I'm sure it's pretty identical to this.

[liquidnature]

whoops just realized this is your personal forum kanafani, was I supposed to reply here?

[kanafani]

whoops just realized this is your personal forum kanafani, was I supposed to reply here?

Yep, that’s the idea!

[kanafani]

Very interesting!

Could you do something like that for me as well?

Here ya go

[kanafani]

(sorry I can't help myself)

[kanafani]

Decade Champs:

• 1880s: liquidnature - 0.736196 percent
• 1890s: evelyn - 9.494422 percent
• 1900s: evelyn - 6.788512 percent
• 1910s: lencho - 5.303549 percent
• 1920s: twodeadmagpies - 6.621842 percent
• 1930s: matias - 21.161290 percent
• 1940s: evelyn - 13.387135 percent
• 1950s: tugging - 20.370370 percent
• 1960s: karl - 17.499270 percent
• 1970s: zulawski - 17.129387 percent
• 1980s: gregx - 19.275375 percent
• 1990s: thoxans - 28.346690 percent
• 2000s: monsieurArkadin - 27.041742 percent
• 2010s: vikram - 53.043478 percent

[Curtis, baby]

Sickest thing ever, thanks kanafani. I've long suspected that I was relatively unexposed to the 80s but I didn't know it was so severe! Only Evelyn has seen a smaller percentage of her films from that decade

[Curtis, baby]

Also shout out to Karl for having seen 2% of his films from this decade

[sally]

yay i win the 20s i am awarding myself a clara bow.

[...]

Ugh, fucking '80s. I'd happily trade all those views for a like number from pretty much any other decade if someone wants to do swapsies

[...]

And what's up with Flabrezu and the 2000s? I like the moxie involved in ignoring a decade one lived through, but it does stand out as odd, especially with the 2010s, 90s and before having so much stronger numbers.

[kanafani]

yay i win the 20s i am awarding myself a clara bow.

Hey you earned it!

I was kind of surprised that the highest 20s percentage was only 7%, but then realized that letterboxd lists only 7,766 films made in the 20s (versus 14,223 made in the 30s), so it's not that surprising after all...

[kanafani]

And what's up with Flabrezu and the 2000s? I like the moxie involved in ignoring a decade one lived through, but it does stand out as odd, especially with the 2010s, 90s and before having so much stronger numbers.

Hes only logged 742 movies total, so I guess there are tons of things he's seen that he's just not logged on letterboxd

[Curtis, baby]

i believe flab has logged everything he's seen up until the year 2000, and then only things he's seen recently besides that

[Lencho of the Apes]

7,766 films made in the 20s (versus 14,223 made in the 30s)

It would be instructive to have a breakdown of "films that exist" per decade, to measure individual watching habits against. In which decades has production been highest, etc.

[kanafani]

7,766 films made in the 20s (versus 14,223 made in the 30s)

It would be instructive to have a breakdown of "films that exist" per decade, to measure individual watching habits against. In which decades has production been highest, etc.

Well, according to letterboxd:
1890s - 1169
1900s - 2285
1910s - 5521
1920s - 7766
1930s - 14223
1940s - 12259
1950s - 16162
1960s - 23709
1970s - 30378
1980s - 33551
1990s - 38475
2000s - 78592
2010s- 147307

That is what exists in their database apparently

[Lencho of the Apes]

So heavily skewed in favor of C21? There must be some factor at play that's distorting those numbers, seems impossible that that could be right.

Breaking it down into percentages looks approximately like this:

1890s 0.2%
1900s 0.5%
1910s 1.3 %
1920s 1.8 %
1930s 3.6%
1940s 3.0%
1950s 3.9%
1960s 6.0%
1970s 7.3%
1980s 7.9%
1990s 9%
2000s 19%
2010s 35.7%

So obviously, we're all heavily biased in favor of past decades.

[kanafani]

It’s just what’s in the database, which can be wildly different from what was actually produced in those decades. A lot of people tend to watch newer movies, and they add them to the database as they watch them - I would guess that includes tons of shorts. Might be interesting to compare to imdb... that database might have totally different numbers.

Btw the numbers I posted are just based on easily accessible info e.g.
https://letterboxd.com/films/decade/1990s/

Just change the year in the url to get a view of other decades.

[liquidnature]

woah, so cool. That chart pleases my brain in unspeakable ways. Thanks kanafani.

[flip]

i've added several films to the letterboxd database - a ton of old films are missing (most lost films are missing, for example), and a lot of recent films, like short films made by letterboxd members that are on youtube, are in the database. but similar homemade films from 1950 or 1980 mostly won't be in the database. so that partly accounts for the huge discrepancy in films per decade. but another contributor is surely the explosion in production in some national cinemas -- if i can trust wikipedia, the number of films produced in nigeria, for example, doubled between 2004 and 2008 alone (from roughly 3.5 per day to roughly 7 per day) and has probably continued to increase -- and if i can misuse the term "recency bias", the latest films are the ones people are most likely to see and add to the tmdb/letterboxd database. so i think the letterboxd data kanafani posted above reflects genuine changes in film production overall, but there are also reasons to question the numbers, and if you were focusing on, say, films that gain wide distribution or films produced within a specific country, the true numbers would surely look very different.

[pabs]

Wow kanafani! I'm really impressed! Thanks! Your saying that you couldn't help yourself marks you out as a true stats-junkie! Love it!! (We're two peas in a pod, you and I! )

[pabs]

It seems there's a consensus here with regard to 80s films. I'm not surprised. So much rubbish was made that decade, especially in the USA. Maybe it was because the decade of Reagan, the cardboard president, celebrated immaturity and cheap thrills?

[...]

I think the issue with the 80s is indeed tied to the Reagan years, but not entirely limited to the US. I know there are those who dig those 80s movies, but it's as a comparative that the decade really seemed a downer, not an absolute. After the late sixties early seventies growth of quasi-independent filmmaking, auteur driven films that were starting to explore previously underexamined areas of human interaction in new ways given the loosening of censorship around sex and relationships, as well as violence, the backlash of the conservative movement of the 80s was something of a shock.

The violence remained, but it was often redirected towards the defense of conservative ideals and traditional values and studio blockbuster driven filmmaking returned formula driven, teen centered stories to greater dominance. The sixties and seventies had their problems, just like the pre-code, pre-war thirties did in regards to how values around relationships and sex were shown but they also branched out in new directions and were telling stories that weren't so formula driven that could have led to a different kind of popular cinema, but the conservative backlash killed that and rendered stagnant some of the least attractive elements of the exploration of new ideas, while killing off the more interesting developments.

This didn't play out exactly the same way around the world of course, but there were echoes of those same patterns in response to the student movements of the sixties as the desire for tradition made its return. Some filmmakers continued to explore their interests at the margins for those who didn't fit the pattern or in the mainstream for those who were interested in violence and masculinity, but a lot of the energy of even idiosyncratic filmmakers was turned towards addressing the backlash and social conservatism in ways that largely reiterated many of the same subjects, just in a different, perhaps mocking, tone as the eighties moved into the nineties. It made for a strongly pared down feeling of movie going compared to what came immediately before, closer to the US movies of the fifties instead, and even more so compared to the movies of recent years where so many more directors and stories are able to be filmed thanks to the growth of the industry and changes in technology. (The fifties differed though in the enormous regrowth of world cinema after the war, where the US was largely left behind in many of the major developments until the later 60s.)

The major studio driven movies are much the same as ever of course, though informed by changing attitudes and greater awareness of both film history, that was the driving force of a lot of nineties movies, and shifts in social dynamics that make certain conservative/traditional ideals less appealing. The big change is in how many more movies are available to watch that aren't major studio productions, even if those movies don't find a big audience. It at least allows people interested in seeing stories from outside the mainstream to find lots of examples of it both current and throughout movie history. (Sorry I realize I've gone over this before, so apologies for the repetition, I'm just interested in trying to lay out the best snapshot of the era as I saw it, so I get carried away sometimes in refining the argument.)

[wba]

Ugh, fucking '80s. I'd happily trade all those views for a like number from pretty much any other decade if someone wants to do swapsies

I'd swap my 2010s with your 80s.

[wba]

So heavily skewed in favor of C21? There must be some factor at play that's distorting those numbers, seems impossible that that could be right.

letterboxd is missing hundreds of thousands of films, so that's the reason, basically. And because most (letterboxd) people tend to watch like 80% new stuff and maybe 20% of older things, there's just little interest in adding older films.

[...]

I'd swap my 2010s with your 80s.

I'd do it too. Just gotta wait until someone develops a swapsies machine and we'll be set!