StephenFollows.com - Using data to explain the film industry

StephenFollows.com - Using data to explain the film industry

Can we measure great acting?
I used 3,144,427 data points to decode Emma Thompson's performance in Love Actually to understand the 'maths' of great acting.
 • Stephen Follows
What happened to the sound of action films?
I have been on a bit of a mission in recent months to identify how movies are creatively changing.
 • Stephen Follows
How often does one person write, direct, produce, and star in a movie?
After analysing 38 million film credits, I found 11,827 movies where one person held all four creative roles. I'm calling this 'Egocore' and it's more…
 • Stephen Follows
Movies have become more intense (but not in the way you think)
It’s a common claim that movies today feel more intense than they used to.
 • Stephen Follows
3 smart sounding reasons movies feel dumber…er
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.
 • Stephen Follows
What does the patent behind Netflix’s acquisition of Ben Affleck’s AI company actually do?
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…
 • Stephen Follows
Are movies becoming more simplistic?
A reader, Peter, got in touch to ask:
 • Stephen Follows
What do movies get wrong most often?
I analysed over 200,000 errors across 11,842 films released between 1930 and 2025, to understand where and how audiences say movies gets facts, physics…
 • Stephen Follows

February 2026

How one-star and ten-star votes break IMDb's user score
A deep dive into IMDb’s 1-star and 10-star extremes, analysing time trends, genres, countries, demographics and the people who seem to benefit most from…
 • Stephen Follows
You’re right about woke movies… and also wrong
A new video from me, under The Film Data Scientist banner, examining the claim that "Go woke, go broke" applies to movies.
 • Stephen Follows
Risk mitigation and casual nihilism were the main themes at the 2026 European Film Market
Despite the clement weather, everyone feels like they are on thin ice in Berlin (with cold hearts).
 • Stephen Follows
My YouTube channel is live!
After waiting almost exactly 21 years after launch to see how it worked out, I think it's time I join this thing called YouTube.
 • Stephen Follows
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