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 lots of generous voting.
Great article. One of the biggest blind spots, though, is director gender. Many of us who are women directors see our films systematically pushed down by low ratings and logline-based “reviews” that appear before anyone could have watched the work. This happens consistently, and often affects queer projects as well.
Would love to see your analysis applied to that bias. We believe IMDb is aware of it but has chosen not to address it.
The hard thing is determining what's about the work and what's about the people, as the score and votes flatten everything.
Here are some articles I've done previously, which do split by gender: (I've grouped them by year as it's an evolving picture and the older my research is, the less it is to reflect today's realities)
I bet we'd see the same tactics on most other rating sites too (Amazon, Goodreads, etc). Some of it is likely bots or targeted campaigns, but I also think your observation that "young people like things too much and old people hate things too much" is worth diving into culturally.
I've also noticed younger folks tend to hand out high ratings freely, as if everything they enjoy deserves the top possible rating, while anything "problematic" deserves a 1.
Meanwhile, I suspect older reviewers are harder to impress since everything feels derivative to them, so they hand out more low ratings because less breaks through the clutter. (That, or they're specifically review-bombing demographics and topics they dislike.)
Great post. It was pathetic that IMDb stopped providing age and gender data. Some of it was really amusing to see among certain movies the large gaps in score. I guess they were afraid of people like you making insightful posts regarding demographic differences in voting (actually probably more afraid of alt-right types with huge followings making viral posts saying something like, "See!! Haha!! Women like musicals!! etc.)
What really pissed me off was them shutting down the individual message boards for each movie. They were awesome for see people's takes, confusion, explanation, etc.
Great article. One of the biggest blind spots, though, is director gender. Many of us who are women directors see our films systematically pushed down by low ratings and logline-based “reviews” that appear before anyone could have watched the work. This happens consistently, and often affects queer projects as well.
Would love to see your analysis applied to that bias. We believe IMDb is aware of it but has chosen not to address it.
Thanks Isabel
The hard thing is determining what's about the work and what's about the people, as the score and votes flatten everything.
Here are some articles I've done previously, which do split by gender: (I've grouped them by year as it's an evolving picture and the older my research is, the less it is to reflect today's realities)
2025
Why are actors getting older? https://stephenfollows.com/p/why-are-actors-getting-older
How do women fare in gender-neutral Oscar categories?https://stephenfollows.com/p/how-women-fare-at-the-oscars
2024
What jobs are women allowed to do in movies? - https://stephenfollows.com/p/what-jobs-are-women-allowed-to-do-in-movies
What percentage of movies are written by women over 40? https://stephenfollows.com/p/what-percentage-of-movies-are-written-by-women-over-40
2021
Do male and female film critics judge films differently? https://stephenfollows.com/p/do-male-and-female-film-critics-judge-films-differently
2020
How well are women represented among short filmmakers? https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-representation-in-short-films
2019
How often are women hired in key film departments? https://stephenfollows.com/p/women-in-key-film-departments
What percentage of film producers are women? https://stephenfollows.com/p/what-percentage-of-film-producers-are-women
Are women less likely to direct a second movie than men? https://stephenfollows.com/p/are-women-less-likely-to-direct-a-second-movie-than-men
2018
Is Jason Blum right that there is a shortage of female horror directors? https://stephenfollows.com/p/shortage-of-female-horror-directors
Gender diversity among film professionals working in sales & distribution https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-diversity-in-film-sales-distribution
Are movies dominated by a small number of old male film composers? https://stephenfollows.com/p/film-composers](https://stephenfollows.com/p/film-composers
Gender Inequality and Screenwriters https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-inequality-and-screenwriters
2016
Cut Out Of The Picture
https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-inequality-in-the-uk-film-industry
2015
UK films with public funding hire more women https://stephenfollows.com/p/uk-films-public-funding-hire-women
2014
Gender in the International Film Business https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-in-the-international-film
The most employed women in the British film industry https://stephenfollows.com/p/the-most-employed-women-in-the-british-film-industry
Do women in film have a harder time than men? https://stephenfollows.com/p/women-in-film-have-it-harder-than-men
What percentage of a UK film crew is female? https://stephenfollows.com/p/percentage-uk-film-crew-female
Gender in Hollywood Film Crews https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-in-hollywood-film-crews
Gender in UK Film Crews https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-in-uk-film-
What percentage of a film crew is female? https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-of-film-crews
2013
Gender in the International Film Business https://stephenfollows.com/p/gender-in-the-international-film-business
If I like this post, am I gaming the Substack algorithm? Perhaps. Now you get to fax me an orange juice!
I bet we'd see the same tactics on most other rating sites too (Amazon, Goodreads, etc). Some of it is likely bots or targeted campaigns, but I also think your observation that "young people like things too much and old people hate things too much" is worth diving into culturally.
I've also noticed younger folks tend to hand out high ratings freely, as if everything they enjoy deserves the top possible rating, while anything "problematic" deserves a 1.
Meanwhile, I suspect older reviewers are harder to impress since everything feels derivative to them, so they hand out more low ratings because less breaks through the clutter. (That, or they're specifically review-bombing demographics and topics they dislike.)
Great post. It was pathetic that IMDb stopped providing age and gender data. Some of it was really amusing to see among certain movies the large gaps in score. I guess they were afraid of people like you making insightful posts regarding demographic differences in voting (actually probably more afraid of alt-right types with huge followings making viral posts saying something like, "See!! Haha!! Women like musicals!! etc.)
What really pissed me off was them shutting down the individual message boards for each movie. They were awesome for see people's takes, confusion, explanation, etc.