What is the most popular time period for movies?
An analysis of 17,752 films reveals which time periods movies are set in, and why some decades appear far more often than others.
Movies may be a product of their time, but they don’t always take place in it. Some films nostalgically revisit decades gone by, while others imagine distant futures.
I wondered if filmmakers show any clear preference for certain periods over others.
To find out I analysed the synopsis of 17,752 films, tracking the the time periods the events of the movie took place in.
Let’s start with the biggest time frame and then zoom in.
20th Century FTW
When movies mention anything which allows us to place the events within a particular century, they overwhelmingly prefer one above all others: the 20th century.
Among films with a identifiable time period, 65.1% are set in the 20th century, 18.7% in the 21st century, and 9.6% in the 19th century.
The dominance of the 20th century makes sense. Not only is it a period well-documented and familiar to audiences, but it also coincides with the invention of modern filmmaking. That means the past hundred years or so offer a wealth of references, nostalgia, and lived experiences filmmakers can draw from.
In fact, for almost all of the history of the film business, around three quarters of movies have been set in the same decade they were released in.
The chart above shows that the 1950s stand out as the one exception in filmmakers’ tendency to set films in their own time. In every previous decade, around three-quarters of films took place in the period they were made, and in the 1940s, that figure was over 80%. This was largely due to the war - when a conflict dominates global events, it also dominates storytelling.
But by the 1950s, audiences seemed less interested in seeing themselves on screen. Instead, movies leaned into escapism, favouring Westerns, musicals, and war films that looked back rather than capturing contemporary life. The result was a decade where only about half of films were set in the present, marking a sharp shift from previous patterns.
When films look back
We can look at this another way, asking ‘If a film is not set in the decade it’s released in, when is it set?’.
I’m calling these “non-contemporaneous movies” (e.g., a 1994 film set in 1980) and they provide an interesting window into nostalgia and historical storytelling.
The 1940s leads the pack as the most popular decade, with 11.5% of non-contemporaneous films set in this decade, followed by the 1970s (9.6%) and 1980s (8.9%).
The 1940s coming out on top makes sense to me, due to a few factors:
Wartime is a dramatic setting for any movie, no matter the genre.
The under-indexing of contemporaneous films made during the 1950s, as we saw previously.
The massive rise in filmmaking in the 2000s, and the tendency for filmmakers to want to tell stories set in their own childhood era. As the number of films made in the 21st century is vastly higher than those made in the 20th century (two-thirds of all movies made have been released in the current century), it stands to reason that they would swamp the data.
The last trend is also seen in the delay between original movies and their remake. I studied this a couple of years ago and found that the average remake comes out 27 years after it’s original. There’s more on that here: How long does Hollywood wait before remaking a movie?
Do films prefer the past or the future?
Far more films are set in the past than in the future. This could be due to the availability of research material, audience familiarity, or simply the fact that historical periods gain more cultural significance over time.
Award for the ‘Best Year’ goes to…
Certain years stand out as particularly popular choices. The most commonly referenced year is 1944, followed closely by 1999, 1969, 1963, and 2001.
Why these years? Major historical events, cultural nostalgia, and generational memory all play a role.
Different genres, different time periods
Finally, not all genres treat time the same way.
Some genres have a high clustering around particular time periods, such as war films in the 1940s and horror movies around the 1980s.
While most have a more gentle curve.
The 1940s was the most popular era for most genres, including Action, Adventure, Drama, Family, Fantasy, History, Musical, Romance, War.
The 1960s was the peak for Animation, Comedy, Music. Biographies peaked in the 1970s, while Crime, Horror, Mystery, and Thriller films favoured the 1980s.
Sci-fi has had a fixation with the 1990s - perhaps because, at the time of filming, that was the “near future.”
Will we see a wave of 1990s and 2000s nostalgia?
Given that the 1940s peaked roughly 50 years later, and the 1980s have been experiencing their own resurgence, it stands to reason that we could soon see a wave of films set in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Notes
This study analysed 17,752 feature films that grossed at least $1 at the US box office. The data primarily came from Wikipedia, Opus, OMDb, and IMDb.
Time settings were initially determined based on explicit mentions in film synopses, which could reference a specific year, decade, century, or a general time period such as “medieval.”
Films set in multiple decades appear in the non-contemporaneous data. For example, a film set in both 1944 and 1974 but released in 1974 would be classified as a non-contemporaneous release for the 1940s but not for the 1970s.
Films with no clear indication of their time period were assumed to be set in the decade of their release.
I think the attraction to the 1940's as a period to set movies is that it is a relatively modern period, ie, not the 1900's or 1800's, but it is culturally and visually very different to today, or post 1950's if you like.
Much less technology, different social attitudes, different architecture, design and dress style, and different values. Even the 1960's or 1980's can be related to present day in all of the above, they're different, but not so radically, and the culture and look of these later decades are closer to present day and change slowly.
So, I think the attraction to these movies about the past is in a look at, 'how it was back then'. Look at the resurgence of westerns, or Michael Mann's Ferrari, though the latter doesn't quite support my theory! Mind you Michael Mann seems to have a whole load of films from the past in development.