In conclusion, this project examined whether film genre trends reflect the social and cultural conditions of the societies that produce them. Through our analyses, the data suggests, though not as strict causation, as a consistent pattern.
Genre distributions in the United States shifted across decades in ways that align with broader periods of tension and recovery. Darker genres like Crime and Thriller became more prominent during uncertain periods, while Comedy and Romance expanded during more stable ones. The word cloud analysis added a global layer to this: keyword patterns shifted noticeably across the pre-COVID, during-COVID, and post-COVID periods, with heavier themes appearing more during the pandemic and lighter, community-oriented keywords becoming more common after. These shifts suggest that the themes most visible in the dataset changed alongside social conditions, though the relationship is interpretive rather than formally tested.
The cross-national comparison showed that genre is also shaped by national context. Comedy is prominent across most countries, but meaningful differences exist: romance makes up a larger share in France, horror is more pronounced in Canada, and Japan’s genre distribution is notably more spread out across categories not captured by the main labels. These patterns suggest that genre reflects local audience preferences and industry histories, not just global market trends.
Comparing TMDb and Letterboxd also showed that platform structure matters. Popularity and rating signals are not neutral measures of audience taste. They are shaped by what gets recommended, reviewed, and made visible. The two datasets classify and surface films differently, and that distinction matters when interpreting engagement data.
This analysis is primarily descriptive and comparative. The patterns we identified are consistent with the idea that genre functions as a cultural signal, but we are not claiming causation. Data coverage, genre labeling, and platform effects all introduce limitations that future work could address more formally. Even so, the project shows that genre trends, read across time and across countries, can be a useful way to study how film reflects broader social patterns.
