The Film Data Scientist returns to dig into what it means for a movie to be "dumb", and how movies are changing in this regard.

I read all 68 pages of the patent behind Ben Affleck’s stealth AI start-up that Netflix just bought in order to understand exactly how the system works (and so you don't have to).

Hollywood cinema is not known to be a bastion of truth. It’s a place where entertainment and expediency are prioritised over accuracy and authenticity. It's frequently claimed that NASA uses the 1998 ...

A reader, Peter, got in touch to ask: People often complain about a sharp decline in the quality of film writing in the last 10-15 years. So my thinking is, are modern screenplays objectively worse? I ...

Colour is one of the quickest ways a poster can tell you what kind of film it’s selling. Before you’ve read the title or registered the actors, your brain has already clocked the palette and filed it ...

Yesterday, Donald Trump announced a plan to impose a 100% tariff on all foreign-made films. He claimed that international tax incentives were draining American productions from US soil and accused ...

A few weeks ago, John August dropped me an email which included a simple question: "How accurate is the page-per-minute rule of thumb?" The rule John is referring to is that a film based on a ...

Some see the Oscars as the pinnacle of artistic achievement, a night of cinematic excellence that honours the best of the best. Others view it a TV reality show in which over-paid and over-dressed ...

This is part two of my collaboration with Screendollars in which we spoke to 246 cinema owners and film professionals affiliated with exhibitors. We quizzed them on a range of topics, and their ...

Cannes 2025 was not a washout. The Croisette was crowded, the sun came out, and over 15,000 industry professionals turned up. But something has shifted. I believe that we will look back at 2025 as an ...

The horror genre is a perennial favourite among filmmakers. The general perception is that they are fun to make, achievable on the lowest budgets and can earn a lot of money. The final item on that ...