The data behind the rise of film industry Substacks

The first time someone said “You should do a Substack” to me, I thought they were suggesting lunch. As more people started to say it, I moved on to thinking they meant some kind of exercise (too many lunches).

Eventually, I googled it and learned that Substack is a platform for writers to publish newsletters directly to their audience, with the option to charge for paid subscriptions. For some, it’s a way to turn their passion for writing into a potentially lucrative side gig, while for others, it’s the fulcrum of their online community.

So far I have not taken up the challenge of creating a Substack, but many film industry voices have. So, I thought I would finally get around to understanding what Substack truly is and what it does for both its authors and readers.

How many film industry Substacks are there?

Substack’s user base has grown exponentially, with over 35 million active subscriptions across various categories, and it’s attracted a wide variety of voices in industries like journalism, politics, and entertainment, including film. Earlier this year, Axios reported that Substack had over 3 million paid subscriptions across all platforms.

I found 241 Substack newsletters talking about the film industry, together having produced 33,956 posts (as of the end of September 2024).

The rate of Substack launches has been increasing, with January 2024 seeing the largest month for new publications.

What are they all about?

My goal was to track ‘Substacks about the film industry’, but I quickly discovered that this is a rather nebulous definition. It can be hard to draw the line between what is industry analysis and what is just a personal essay. Likewise, film criticism and the art of filmmaking often blur.

Nonetheless, I did my best to assign a principal category to each Substack based on their self-penned description and recent posts.

The largest type is that of film criticism (i.e. film reviews but with a connection to the film industry, rather than just mainstream reviews). During 2020, they accounted for over half of the posts on my list of Substacks; however, by 2024, they represented just a third.

What is the typical Substack post like?

It seems that it took a little bit of time for the format to settle into a generally agreed form, but over the past few years, it has homogenised somewhat.

While some newsletters feature shorter, quick-take updates, others take a more in-depth approach, publishing long-form articles that can range from 2,000 to 5,000 words. These tend to generate more engagement, especially among niche communities that appreciate detailed analysis or unique perspective

The average film industry Substack post is 814 words long and receives 6.9 likes and 2.1 comments.

How much Substack content is free to read?

Some newsletters are entirely free, while others keep some or all of their content behind a paywall for paying subscribers.

Just over half of all studied Substacks offered their writing entirely for free. Even those who charged for content offered some free access.

Although the majority of Substack newsletters are entirely free to read, some of the most prolific and consistent authors charge for their new work. Consequently, 30.6% of posts are behind a paywall.

How much do Substacks charge?

The vast majority of Substacks with a paid subscription option charge around £4 a month (currently around $5.23 or €4.78). 10% of this is retained by Substack, with the rest going directly to the author(s) of the newsletter.

The most expensive Substack I found was The Optionist which charges £200 a month, or £1,980 a year (or £7,665 if you want to be a Founding Member). The site is run by Andy Lewis, the former books editor of The Hollywood Reporter, and offers readers exclusive insights and advice around intellectual property (i.e. books they may want to adapt into movies and TV shows).

We saw earlier that it took a few years for the typical length of a Substack post to settle down. This is in part because it’s a new medium and is still finding its own identity. This is also mirrored in the choice authors have to make when choosing how much of a discount subscribers will get if they pay annually or monthly.

Some offer huge discounts (Enfant Terrible, Film Yap, Dust On The VCR, A Celebration of Cinema, The Screen, and Showbizing Strategies all offer discounts for 50% or more for annual subscriptions) while a small number actually charge more (including Seeing Through Film, and 812).

Who’s writing the most?

I’m going to avoid making a single league table of who’s ‘The Best At Substack’ I thought it might be useful to highlight some of the Substacks that are performing well across a few different metrics.

Not all Substacks display their subscriber count, and none reveal their split of paid vs free subscribers. However, of those that do have publicly available figures, here are some of the most popular:

• “The Making Of” explores the creative pros behind the scenes of today’s top films, TV shows, documentaries and news content.- 88,000 subscribers

• The Ankler is a full-on magazine, with numerous writers, describes itself as “Giving Hollywood the business” – 85,000 subscribers

• On the Circuit is a newsletter from Jon Fitzgerald focusing on the evolving film festival circuit, new trends and keys to maximizing success. “Create the ideal strategy for your film, and advance your career” – 77,000 subscribers

• The Industry describes itself as “Keeping the Film Industry Informed!” – 49,000 subscribers

• Cause Cinema is as second Substack from Jon Fitzgerald, this one focusing on “impactful films and documentaries that inspire change and social awareness” – 34,000 subscribers

Alternatively, we could look at output. Below are Substacks written entirely or mostly by one person and their average number of posts per month between January 2023 and September 2024 inclusive.

• The Hot Button features David Poland writing an average of 51.3 posts a month, including his daily “David Reads The Trades” feature.

• The second most prolific one-person Substack is Buffa’s Buffet, which sees an average of 20.3 posts per month from Dan Buffa.

• Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas come in at the rate of 18.3 per month.

• The Outside Scoop is where Scott Mendelson, self-described “infamous film journalist, kill-joy movie critic and bloviating box office pundit”, writes an average of 13.5 posts a month.

Among the most recommended by other Substack authors in my dataset are:

• Hope For Film is producer and indie film hero Ted Hope’s current home for his thoughts on the art and business of independent filmmaking.

• Stat Significant is close to my own heart, providing data-driven insights and analysis on statistical trends and research findings.

• Cool People Have Feelings, Too has weekly writing about films directed by women, silent cinema, and other esoteric (mostly) film-related stuff.

• The Entertainment Strategy Guy hides out on his Substack, analysing and discussing strategies in the entertainment industry.

Those with the highest number of average likes per post include:

• Enfant Terrible calls itself “a provocative newsletter challenging conventional ideas and sparking debate”.

• Black Film Archive comes from Maya S. Cade and explores the history and significance of Black cinema.

• Hollywood Woketopia explores “the intersection of Hollywood and progressive culture” (and this might be the only time you see this and the previous Substack in the same list anywhere online!).

• Madwomen & Muses covers the intersection of creativity and mental health through essays, interviews, and personal stories.

In a fitting end to this piece, the most liked post in my dataset was on the topic of… Substack itself.

• My Honest Thoughts on Substack & Growth, After 3 Months from Enfant Terrible (1,000 likes)

• Which Studios Won the Summer, Fall Box Office Preview by Sean McNulty on The Ankler (561 likes)

• What David Bowie Read (Or: 100 Ways to Make Yourself More Creative) from 5AM StoryTalk (304 likes)

• When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis from Stat Significant (293 likes)

• 5 Black Queer Films To Urgently See & Naked Acts from Black Film Archive (231 likes)

• Death Spiral of Hollywood Monopolies by Alena Smith on The Ankler (209 likes)

• Review: Am I Racist? – by Sasha Stone from Hollywood Woketopia (207 likes)

Notes

To build up the master list of film industry Substacks, I started by looking at the recommendations of the Substacks I did know about. I then followed that trail to the recommendations for those newly-discovered Substacks and so on.

As Kevin Bacon knows only too well, you don’t have to go many levels deep before you have an unwieldy number of substacks. So I then whittled the longlist down to ones I personally regarded as ‘aimed at the film industry’. This is a personal and subjective call, and I could have accidentally excluded some which serve the film industry more than their ‘About’ page and recent posts suggest.

I then got concerned that I would be studying an insular group of self-recommending people, so I supplemented the list via Google searches. I’m 100 pages deep into Google search, and I think I got a few extra (not all that many – as it turns out, recommendations are a good method for discovery). I explain all this as I am worried about insular bias and could have missed some Substacks or even siloed communities of Substacks. A small number of Substacks redirect to their own domain, meaning that they are harder to identify (for example dearproducer.com is actually just dearproducer.substack.com with a pretty domain).

Therefore, please add your film industry Substack recommendations in the comments below. I am normally a little wary of self-promotion on my blogs, preferring the comments to be about the topic or data. But in this case, it feels entirely appropriate to give people a platform to mention any Substacks they either read or write.

The datasets

Below are the datasets used in this article’s charts