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    [OC] I analyzed IMDb movies with 100+ votes to answer two personally important questions about movie genres
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    [OC] I analyzed IMDb movies with 100+ votes to answer two personally important questions about movie genres

    I have always questioned why comedy films tend to receive lower ratings compared to dramas. It seemed that dramas consistently held higher scores on IMDb. To understand the underlying reasons and verify my observations, I conducted a data science analysis using Python. Through this project, I was able to find answers to the questions I had in mind.

    Q1. Which genre is "easier" to make? (Action vs. Drama vs. Comedy)

    A1. It is significantly "easier" to make an acceptable Drama than an acceptable Action or Comedy movie.

    Q2. Should I use lower search bounds for Comedy compared to Drama?

    A2. YES. Absolutely.

    I used Python and Matplotlib to process and visualize data. If you want to see the thought process or the source code, here it is.

    Data: IMDb Data Files
    1. https://datasets.imdbws.com/title.basics.tsv.gz
    2. https://datasets.imdbws.com/title.ratings.tsv.gz

    Posted by fezcodex

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    9 Comments

    1. fezcodex on

      [OC] Data & Tools

      – Data Source: IMDb Non-Commercial Datasets (title.ratings and title.basics).

      – Tools: Python for data processing and analysis. The visualization is done by Matplotlib

      – Context: This analysis explores the statistical rating “floors” and variance across different movie genres to explain why a 6.5 rating isn’t a universal benchmark for quality.

      Full deep dive and methodology: [https://fezcode.com/blog/what-genre-should-i-watch/?theme=editorial](https://fezcode.com/blog/what-genre-should-i-watch/?theme=editorial)

    4. dariansdad on

      This has already been anecdotally confirmed by comedians and comedy actors, especially comedy actors who also excel in drama.

    5. krautastic on

      Horror fan here. Your data doesn’t necessarily prove that it’s easier or harder to make such a film. I read that as there actually just is more poorly made films in the category. Horror certainly is this way.

      I do share the conclusion of lowering standards. I use 50% as a rough cut off within horror, because I’ve pretty much watched all the top shelf stuff, and the tropes repeat so often, I like seeing what oddball stuff people are attempting in lower tier work. Hulu originals are often B at best, but they try interesting new things. Sometimes there’s good content wrapped up in poor cinematography, or poor actors, or poor scripting. But the concept is original.

      Its interesting because I’ve often been disappointed with high ranking comedy. Comedy is the category I seek out the least. I find many movies have a hard time finding the balance of being inherently funny vs shoving the jokes/bits down your throat (this is the joke! laugh right here!). I prefer crafted characters and situations to slapstick and those are hard to come by. In horror, you could replace jokes with jump scares.

      Also, as a general rule, I believe 90% of people don’t review a product unless they’ve had a very bad experience or a very good one. So, I look at the balance of 5 star to 1 star knowing a large percentage of people don’t come back to review if the thing was just fine.

    6. LaucsM on

      Thanks ! I watch a lot of horror movies, and I had the strong feeling they were the worst rated movies of all genres

    9. tyen0 on

      That title is pretty clickbaity rather than appropriately descriptive. Interesting comparison, though. I always suspected that we sci-fi geeks rate things more harshly than fans of other genres.