What is replacing love as the dominate theme of movies?
What do 25,353 films reveal about the quiet transformation of movie storytelling over the past century?
Last year, I published data showing a remarkable decline in sexual content on cinema screens. Slightly less racy but equally interesting was my follow-up article a few months ago highlighting how romance itself has steadily decreased as the central focus in movie storytelling. Over the past 90 years, love stories have gradually slipped down filmmakers’ priority lists.
This naturally raised a follow-up question - If fewer movies deal with romance, what topics are filmmakers turning to in its place?
To answer this question, I analysed the plots of 25,353 feature films to extract the key moral messages or lessons audiences might reasonably take away by the end of the movie.
These moral messages were then categorised into thematic groups (more detail at the end of the article). Movies could address more than one moral message, and indeed, they typically contained multiple themes, averaging around 2.7 themes per movie.
But first, let’s address that initial question and look at what has replaced love as cinema’s dominant theme in recent decades.
Movies are moving away from romance.
Fortunately, this methodology confirmed the trend noted in February’s article in which love and romance themes have significantly declined over the decades.
In early film history, romance was central to over half of all movies that were produced. This number has steadily decreased decade by decade, dipping below one in five films today.
Clearly, we're living in a cinematic era less centred around epic romances and star-crossed lovers. So what has cinema turned to instead?
The data reveals two apparent storytelling shifts.
Firstly, filmmakers are looking inward, highlighting personal themes around self-empowerment, resilience, personal authenticity, and emotional growth.
Secondly, movies remain focused on human connection but are increasingly exploring lasting non-romantic relationships such as those found among friends, family and communities.
Filmmaking is practising self-love
The most apparent thematic shift is toward stories centred around empowerment, personal strength, and resilience. Movies now commonly feature characters directly facing challenges, overcoming personal adversity, and finding inner strength.
This rise has been substantial, with empowerment now cinema's most common moral theme, appearing in over 60% of modern films.
This mirrors wider societal currents that increasingly prize independence, self-reliance, and psychological resilience. In a world marked by economic uncertainty, social upheaval, and a barrage of global crises, it’s perhaps unsurprising that audiences are drawn to stories of inner strength and perseverance.
This is wider than just one or two films but recent releases which come to mind include Barbie which eschewed romantic love to be a story of personal awakening and empowerment, and Everything Everywhere All At Once which had a core message of personal growth and (multiverse-spanning) resilience.
Finding ourselves on screen
Alongside the rise in empowerment, cinema has increasingly spotlighted characters' authentic identities, self-discovery, and personal truths. Films prominently exploring individual identity and authenticity have more than doubled their representation over the decades to reach their current prominence.
The rise of identity-focused storytelling reflects a broader societal preoccupation with self-definition, belonging, and authenticity, both among indie and mainstream releases.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (multiple selves and chosen identity), Black Panther (ancestral heritage and cultural pride), Turning Red (generational expectations and cultural duality), Lady Bird (teenage self-definition), Call Me by Your Name (sexual identity and first love), and Encanto (individual worth within the family unit) all centre characters wrestling with who they are and where they fit.
Franchise films have followed suit: The Batman (trauma and self-perception), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (legacy and reinvention), and The Marvels (intersectional identity and team dynamics) all signal a shift from external stakes to internal reckoning. Even films like Joker (social alienation and self-construction) and The Whale (shame, forgiveness, and self-worth) suggest audiences are increasingly drawn to characters discovering, reclaiming, or remaking who they are.
Cinema, it seems, is less concerned with finding “the one” and more interested in finding oneself.
Family. Family. Family.
While classical romance fades, movies continue to emphasise the fundamental importance of strong, lasting, non-romantic human connections. Family dynamics, in particular, have stayed persistently popular, rising steadily over recent decades and appearing prominently in more than a third of films.
Likewise, friendship and community themes have maintained their steady importance over time, highlighting the lasting resonance of the everyday dependable relationships that enrich our lives.
Movies are quietly becoming emotionally smarter
A more minor but still interesting trend also surfaced around the growing presence of emotional intelligence as a moral theme in cinema.
Films examining psychological health, empathy, emotional understanding, and characters' self-awareness may still be a minor share overall, but they have steadily grown in prominence, reaching their highest point today.
Greater societal openness around mental health, emotional well-being, and self-reflection appears to be shaping not just what audiences are willing to talk about but what they want to watch. Stories that once might have been relegated to niche dramas or festival circuits now form the emotional backbone of mainstream cinema.
Films such as Inside Out (emotional literacy), A Beautiful Mind (mental illness and genius), and Silver Linings Playbook (coping with bipolar disorder and trauma) place psychological complexity front and centre. Even genre films like Black Swan or Don’t Worry Darling lean heavily on themes of psychological breakdown and perception.
While these stories vary in tone and treatment, they reflect a growing appetite for emotional nuance and for characters who process as much as they act.
Whether it’s through therapy sessions, panic attacks, or simply learning to communicate better, cinema is slowly evolving from the stiff-upper-lip archetype to something closer to emotional fluency.
We’ve stopped asking if the hero will get the girl, but just whether they will get through the week.
Notes
This analysis covered 25,353 feature films, each with a running time of over 60 minutes, which were produced and released up to and including 2023.
The plot summaries of each film were analysed to identify the primary moral messages or lessons portrayed and then categorised into thematic groupings such as love and romance, empowerment and resilience, identity and authenticity, emotional intelligence, family dynamics, friendship, and community, alongside several others.
Films frequently included multiple moral messages, with the average film featuring approximately 2.7 themes.
really interesting article
Wonder how much this has to do with the increasing global audience for films and if romance is often so culturally specific that it's harder to travel.