Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2023 May 21

= May 21 =

Organizing movies
I have a large collection of movies. While they're typically sorted alphabetically on my shelves, I keep a spreadsheet so that I can keep track of what I have in what format with what add-ons, etc. Because I apparently don't have enough trouble in my life, I also like to group the movies in the database so that like movies can be sorted together (Sci-fi action, Dystopia, Kaiju, etc. etc.). It's a pleasantly futile task because of course there's no one way to do that, but I was wondering about sources that attempt to categorize movies systematically. The actual thought process is part of Library and information science, but I'm not really looking for theoretical frameworks at this point, but more like specific attempts people have made to say "there are X basic aspects of a film and when aspect 1 is A and aspect 2 is C that means you're got a folk horror movie, whereas if 2 is a B you've got gothic horror. You pretty much have to use a rubric with multiple axes, but how many? Back in the day when people rented/purchased physical media of films, stores would attempt to group movies according to what worked best for them, but now that we're mostly freed from physical restraints for stuff like that, I assume people with too much time on their hands have attempted to do it in a more holistic and organized way. I was a little surprised that IMDb had such a poorly developed attempt; even our article is much more robust an attempt. Anyway, what I'm looking for is either a) a source that attempts to do what I'm suggesting or b) a site or group (FB page?) that would facilitate discussion on the topic that I could take part in. Matt Deres (talk) 03:48, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Good luck with that. Unfortunately film genres are often subjective and easier to recognize than to define. See Film_genre. Shantavira|feed me 10:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * It being your collection, you can organize them however you want, in whatever way feels right for you. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:08, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The question is not, "How should I organize my film collection?", but "Have others attempted to categorize films systematically, such as by assigning film genres to patterns of specific basic aspects?" One pattern I have noticed is that if one character never utters anything other than I am Groot, it is a superhero film. Another one: the utterance I'll be back signals an SF action flick. --Lambiam 19:13, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, there's no harm in using the ideas of others rather than one's own imagination. The OP could check the genres of their films as indicated in the individual wikipedia articles on those films. That would be a reasonable start. Another idea would be to assign a "general" category to each film and then see how it could be further subdivided. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:51, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Matt Deres, while this doesn't help you organise your own collection, perhaps you're interested in Netflix's well known highly specific categorisation system via the use of microgenres [//www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/01/02/259128268/netflix-built-its-microgenres-by-staring-into-the-american-soul] [//www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-netflix-reverse-engineered-hollywood/282679/] [//www.inverse.com/article/45132-netflix-secret-codes-list] [//docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XyswDlnyP6dlLyL8brhTFfTORFm-GZ2MnwTPEgp0HCc/htmlview] [//www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-netflix-id-bible-every-category-on-netflix/]. Note that as I understand it, Netflix does not limit a show to one specific microgenre, instead it's more like a tag or Wikipedia category, so shows are generally in multiple e.g. "Visually striking understated movies" or "Inspiring Sports Movies for ages 11 to 12" or "Critically-acclaimed Witty Movies based on real life" (to be clear, I mean in general, I don't know if anything was able to fit into all three of these, notably "understated" seems to conflict somewhat with "critically-acclaimed"). And they relied and I think in part still rely on people they hired watching shows and categorising them in various ways with guidance from Netflix on the data they wanted, to come up with these microgenres. Historically, it was quite important to their personalised recommendation system. I assume by now it's less important since they have a lot more mostly automated data including from reviews which also help to guide their microgenres although it probably also can play a big part in that. E.g. they know people who like shows with these specific microgenres often like shows with another microgenres so will recommend them to others with those preferences. Or even people who like X, Y, Z (likely way more than that) and A like 1, but people who like X, Y, Z and B do not like 1. But this still relies on their microgenre data. Their data also plays a big part in them making shows, and in whether to continue to fund something, one of their reasons their cancellations IMO often get way more criticism than more traditional US networks since the data is both private and way more obtuse so it comes across as extremely arbitrary or even "inhuman" when they cancel stuff. While this affects Netflix a lot, user generated content companies (and social media companies) like Youtube tend to come in for even more criticism for their use of algorithms and highly automated data collection (big data) leaving people scratching their heads as to why it's recommending or doing certain things since in some ways even the developers don't really know. Nil Einne (talk) 12:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that; I had forgotten about Netflix's micro-genres. As I mentioned in the OP, I'm aware that there's no way for it to be perfect or complete, but even my rudimentary attempts have made me think about films in different ways. The subtle ways that tone and setting and style, etc. can contrast or blend with each other really gets highlighted when you try to pin down the borders. I'd still like to find a place where folks have made similar attempts to what I'm doing, even if it's for other media like books or whatever. Matt Deres (talk) 15:12, 25 May 2023 (UTC)