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How many movies actually follow the three-act structure?
I tracked every turn in the stories of 7,225 films to see how many follow the shape the screenwriting books teach.
9 hrs ago
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Stephen Follows
12
5
3
Pre-order my new book
I've made a satirical picture book about the film industry with the artist Miriam Elia. It looks like it's for children. It isn't.
Nov 6
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Stephen Follows
26
2
Everything that’s wrong with film finance
I spent a year digging into film finance with Phil Hunt, who has executive produced more than 300 features. Here's everything we found that's broken.
Nov 4
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Stephen Follows
30
3
10
Would movies treat women differently if more women wrote them?
I analysed every line of 2,607 screenplays to see how movies portray women and what changes when women write them
Nov 2
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Stephen Follows
37
8
6
October 2026
How much more do Hollywood union bosses earn than their members?
I went through 877 annual filings from 35 entertainment unions to compare what the people running them are paid with what their members earn.
Oct 30
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Stephen Follows
19
3
3
The film finance numbers nobody shows you
Five things I learned from loan files, budgets, sales sheets and investor statements which reveal who in a film actually gets their money back.
Oct 28
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Stephen Follows
33
8
10
Do the sound Oscars just go to the film with the most explosions?
I measured every second of sound in 1,423 films, including 478 sound Oscar nominees, to test an old Hollywood joke.
Oct 26
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Stephen Follows
20
6
1
How many films get into top festivals with nobody behind them?
I traced the backing behind 3,037 features selected by Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto to find out how many got there cold.
Oct 19
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Stephen Follows
62
21
17
How accurate are the numbers studios use to greenlight films?
I matched 35 of Sony’s leaked greenlight models to what the films actually earned, and read the emails of the executives who signed them off.
Oct 16
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Stephen Follows
19
13
4
Does Film Twitter only share the good reviews?
I tracked 435 wide releases to see which ones had their Rotten Tomatoes score posted by four of the biggest film accounts on X, and which ones didn’t.
Oct 14
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Stephen Follows
20
1
6
How many shots are in the average movie today?
I counted the cuts in 8,770 films from the last century to find out how many shots a movie has now, and how fast we are cutting.
Oct 12
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Stephen Follows
37
3
4
A data-led investigation into the on-screen height of Tom Cruise
How tall does Tom Cruise look in his movies? I measured 8 million frames from 2,000 films to find out whether Hollywood's most famous 5'7" man is…
Oct 7
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Stephen Follows
14
2
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