Top 5000+ Movies
Every big movie studio wants to make a great movie that creates a lot of revenue. But where do you start? There are a lot
of options to choose from. Which genre creates the most money? Which actor attracts people to the cinema?
We did a study on the dataset of IMDB's Top 5000 movies to create a clear conclusion. We hope this helps your studio
with making a good and profitable movie.
You are probably not here because you want to make the perfect movie, a true masterpiece. You are probably here to simply earn a lot of money. It seems intuitive that these are correlated, but this is not necessarily the case! It could even be the case that mediocre cash-grabs make the most money! So, before you start thinking about the artistic side of your movie, let's actually inspect this correlation.
To inspect this correlation, we have provided a simple scatter plot that compares the total gross income of each movie to its score on IMDB. One can simply notice that such correlation does indeed exist: the higher the gross income, the higher the lowest score. However, this lower bound on the score seems to be pretty lenient: you do not need a score of at least 8 to make a lot of money. A score of 7 still has the potential to give a giant boost to your wallet. Also notice that there is no such correlation between the income and the highest score. So just because a movie is a masterpiece, does not mean that it will make you rich.
When looking at the data points that represent movies that were a massive financial success, you'll find some of the most famous movies ever made. There is not a single person who hasn't heard of Star Wars, Spider-Man, Avengers or Avatar.
The scatter plot features a broad range of movies, but you can explore specific names by using the search bar. If you want to focus on more recent activity, you can filter by the time period in which they came out. This might be helpful, since it follows from logical reasoning that older movies made less money. Finally, you can also select a specific genre to focus on at the title of this section. As you may see, certain genres (such as Animation) differ greatly from the general scatter plot.
When creating a movie, a specific genre is chosen to set the overall theme. Choosing a genre is equally crucial as choosing a director or an actor, as there is always a genre that is more prominent than others. In order to understand this, we created a graph that determined the average box office score for every genre each year
We see that there were three main genres that were dominant in the most recent data we have, 2021. These consist of action, adventure, and animation. If we look back between 2011 and 2021, we see that animation is one of the most popular genres. Except in 2017, where horror movies took the upper hand. This is due to the great success of Jordan Peele's film Get Out and David F. Sandberg's Annabelle: Creation. If we exclude this exception, we can see that animation is the most profitable genre.
The popularity of the animation genre can be explicated by examining this graph. We've analyzed every censor rating alongside its average box office performance, encompassing all the movies in our dataset. Utilizing boxplots, we've depicted a spectrum of average box office per censor rating, showcasing their minimum, maximum, median, and quantiles to offer a comprehensive and illustrative insight.
For censor ratings "12" and "18+" the box-office is unknown. We also removed banned and no rating because these do not have an impact on the insight we want to provide. The ratings All, U, and G are combined to the censor 'For All Ages' because these censors mean the same thing. The box-office is in million dollars.
It's evident that films rated 12+, UA 7+, and U/A excel in the box office. This aligns with the animation genre, as such movies are primarily tailored for children and teens, drawing numerous family outings to the cinema.
Genres and ratings play significant roles in a movie's success, but the cast and crew are equally vital. When planning a movie, you strive to bring together an exceptional cast and talented directors. The scatter plot below explores the correlation between the average ratings of movies and the number of films in which actors have appeared. This plot also provides insights into the quality of actors and directors based on these metrics.
The plot illustrates that a high average movie rating doesn't always mean that an actor has a large filmography. However, it does suggest that actors with a significant number of films usually have average scores in the 6.5-7.5 range. This pattern indicates that these actors often feature in movies with higher ratings but also appear in some lower-quality films. Essentially, it shows they've had a diverse career with both high-quality and lower-quality movies. Those with higher average ratings generally have shorter filmographies, possibly because they were lucky to be in a few well-received films or because they're underrepresented in our database.
When looking at the data points that represents actors or directors with higher movie counts, you'll find some of the most famous names in the industry: actors like Samual L. Jackson, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling and directors like Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan.
The scatter plot features a broad range of actors and directors, but you can explore specific names by using the search bar. If you want to focus on more recent activity, you can filter by the time period in which they were active—for example, excluding those who last worked in the 1960s. Additionally, you can adjust the plot's display by setting a minimum average score and a minimum number of movies to concentrate on individuals with higher ratings and more extensive filmographies.
Finally, it also makes sense to review the best performing directors and actors categorized by movie genre. By using a treemap we visualize exactly this such that the best performing directors and actors, based on their average revenue per movie, can quickly be spotted.
With this information we hope to provide a good insight into which actors and directors seem promising choices for a desired movie genre. By filtering on the amount of movies a director or actor has made, a more stable decision can be made: it will show those actors and directors that perform well on average even after making more movies. This gets rid of outliers that have directed or played in only one very good performing movie.
As an example, this plot quickly makes clear that action and animation are genres that could be good choices for a movie studio: the best performing directors and actors can be found in these categories and thus most money can probably be made in these genres, given that one of the better actors in the genre is chosen.
These visualisations were made possible with the IMDb 5000+ Movies & Multiple Genres Dataset
Gross income vs score in:
You are probably not here because you want to make the perfect movie, a true masterpiece. You are probably here to simply earn a lot of money. It seems intuitive that these are correlated, but this is not necessarily the case! It could even be the case that mediocre cash-grabs make the most money! So, before you start thinking about the artistic side of your movie, let's actually inspect this correlation.
To inspect this correlation, we have provided a simple scatter plot that compares the total gross income of each movie to its score on IMDB. One can simply notice that such correlation does indeed exist: the higher the gross income, the higher the lowest score. However, this lower bound on the score seems to be pretty lenient: you do not need a score of at least 8 to make a lot of money. A score of 7 still has the potential to give a giant boost to your wallet. Also notice that there is no such correlation between the income and the highest score. So just because a movie is a masterpiece, does not mean that it will make you rich.
When looking at the data points that represent movies that were a massive financial success, you'll find some of the most famous movies ever made. There is not a single person who hasn't heard of Star Wars, Spider-Man, Avengers or Avatar.
The scatter plot features a broad range of movies, but you can explore specific names by using the search bar. If you want to focus on more recent activity, you can filter by the time period in which they came out. This might be helpful, since it follows from logical reasoning that older movies made less money. Finally, you can also select a specific genre to focus on at the title of this section. As you may see, certain genres (such as Animation) differ greatly from the general scatter plot.
Average gross income per year and per genre
When creating a movie, a specific genre is chosen to set the overall theme. Choosing a genre is equally crucial as choosing a director or an actor, as there is always a genre that is more prominent than others. In order to understand this, we created a graph that determined the average box office score for every genre each year
We see that there were three main genres that were dominant in the most recent data we have, 2021. These consist of action, adventure, and animation. If we look back between 2011 and 2021, we see that animation is one of the most popular genres. Except in 2017, where horror movies took the upper hand. This is due to the great success of Jordan Peele's film Get Out and David F. Sandberg's Annabelle: Creation. If we exclude this exception, we can see that animation is the most profitable genre.
Average box-office per rating
The popularity of the animation genre can be explicated by examining this graph. We've analyzed every censor rating alongside its average box office performance, encompassing all the movies in our dataset. Utilizing boxplots, we've depicted a spectrum of average box office per censor rating, showcasing their minimum, maximum, median, and quantiles to offer a comprehensive and illustrative insight.
For censor ratings "12" and "18+" the box-office is unknown. We also removed banned and no rating because these do not have an impact on the insight we want to provide. The ratings All, U, and G are combined to the censor 'For All Ages' because these censors mean the same thing. The box-office is in million dollars.
It's evident that films rated 12+, UA 7+, and U/A excel in the box office. This aligns with the animation genre, as such movies are primarily tailored for children and teens, drawing numerous family outings to the cinema.
Legend:
- A: Adults Only
- 18: Suitable for 18 years and above
- R: Restricted
- UA 16+: Unrestricted Public Exhibition - but with Parental Guidance suggested for children below 16 years
- 16: Suitable for 16 years and above
- 15+: Suitable for 15 years and above
- UA 13+: Unrestricted Public Exhibition - but with Parental Guidance suggested for children below 13 years
- 13: Suitable for 13 years and above
- 12+: Suitable for 12 years and above
- UA: Unrestricted Public Exhibition - but with Parental Guidance suggested
- UA 7+: Unrestricted Public Exhibition - but with Parental Guidance suggested for children below 7 years
- 7: Suitable for 7 years and above
- PG-13: Parents Strongly Cautioned (13 and above)
- PG: Parental Guidance Suggested
- U/A: Universal/Adult Accompaniment
- For All Ages: Suitable for all ages
Average Movie score per
Genres and ratings play significant roles in a movie's success, but the cast and crew are equally vital. When planning a movie, you strive to bring together an exceptional cast and talented directors. The scatter plot below explores the correlation between the average ratings of movies and the number of films in which actors have appeared. This plot also provides insights into the quality of actors and directors based on these metrics.
The plot illustrates that a high average movie rating doesn't always mean that an actor has a large filmography. However, it does suggest that actors with a significant number of films usually have average scores in the 6.5-7.5 range. This pattern indicates that these actors often feature in movies with higher ratings but also appear in some lower-quality films. Essentially, it shows they've had a diverse career with both high-quality and lower-quality movies. Those with higher average ratings generally have shorter filmographies, possibly because they were lucky to be in a few well-received films or because they're underrepresented in our database.
When looking at the data points that represents actors or directors with higher movie counts, you'll find some of the most famous names in the industry: actors like Samual L. Jackson, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling and directors like Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan.
The scatter plot features a broad range of actors and directors, but you can explore specific names by using the search bar. If you want to focus on more recent activity, you can filter by the time period in which they were active—for example, excluding those who last worked in the 1960s. Additionally, you can adjust the plot's display by setting a minimum average score and a minimum number of movies to concentrate on individuals with higher ratings and more extensive filmographies.
Most successful
per movie genre
Finally, it also makes sense to review the best performing directors and actors categorized by movie genre. By using a treemap we visualize exactly this such that the best performing directors and actors, based on their average revenue per movie, can quickly be spotted.
With this information we hope to provide a good insight into which actors and directors seem promising choices for a desired movie genre. By filtering on the amount of movies a director or actor has made, a more stable decision can be made: it will show those actors and directors that perform well on average even after making more movies. This gets rid of outliers that have directed or played in only one very good performing movie.
As an example, this plot quickly makes clear that action and animation are genres that could be good choices for a movie studio: the best performing directors and actors can be found in these categories and thus most money can probably be made in these genres, given that one of the better actors in the genre is chosen.
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These visualisations were made possible with the IMDb 5000+ Movies & Multiple Genres Dataset