Hollywood movies' ratings are controlled by the Motion Picture Association

The Hays Code limited the ways horror films could scare audiences

Beginning in 1930, the Hays Code laid out a strict set of guidelines for Hollywood filmmakers to prevent films that might corrupt those with a “susceptible mind.” That meant no graphic violence, no sexual relations outside of marriage (or of a homosexual nature), and no interracial relationships, among other dictums.

Rotten Tomatoes scores have gone up by 13% in the past decade

Rotten Tomatoes is the gold standard in the film industry, offering viewers aggregated critical scores of recently released movies. Filmmakers have criticized the site, though, suggesting its scores are now meaningless, evident from the past decade's inflation, and that the company has a conflict of interest.

Hollywood's 'golden age' was controlled by vertically integrated studios

Hollywood in the early to mid-20th century was largely controlled by the "Big Five" studios: Paramount, Warner Bros., Fox, MGM, and RKO. The studios were vertically integrated, overseeing every aspect of film production, distribution, and exhibition. During this era, actors like Cary Grant and Judy Garland were under contract with specific studios—typically for seven years. Garland signed with MGM at age 13, which counted on them to draw audiences.

The 'Movie Brats’ ushered in a new era of Hollywood

"The Movie Brats" is a name used to describe a generation of directors who blended classic cinema with the rebellious, crowd-pleasing spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. The figures most often associated with the tag are Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Brian De Palma.

A statistical breakdown of the global film industry

Dive into this collection of stats and infographics explaining the current state of both Hollywood and the global film industry. The page covers a variety of topics, including independent film production, box office revenue, global film markets, movie-going demographics and more. It also addresses the relatively new phenomenon of home video streaming.

Oscar winners are selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The organization includes over 10,000 members who work in various aspects of the film industry. Specific branches nominate for relevant categories, but once nominees have been selected, all members can vote for the award winners. For most categories, the nominee with the most votes wins. Best picture, however, uses ranked-choice voting.

Classic movies are prone to decomposition because they're captured on nitrate film

Nitrate film was the standard in early Hollywood and is prone to decomposition over time. It's led to an estimated 75% of early American films being lost to history.

Learn how Hollywood tries to get mental health portrayals right

"Entertainment is always the first priority," the director of medical research for "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" explained in this Newsweek article. But, medical consultants and dedicated groups like the University of Southern California's Hollywood, Health, and Society program, can help inform shows' characters, actions, and sensitivities on subjects like mental illness.

Cult classics are often defined by their polarization

Films that reach cult status are far from universally beloved. In fact, fans of cult movies often become such passionate supporters because a title has been lambasted by mainstream audiences. Stat Significant breaks down some of the most polarizing films of all time based on the data behind audience scores. It should come as no surprise that many in the top 10 are considered cult franchises.

Why countries have credit ratings

Sovereign credit ratings work like national credit scores, measuring a country’s ability and willingness to repay its debt. Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch are the major agencies assigning these ratings, which influence borrowing costs and investor confidence.

Netflix's original movies are intended to be in the background

Netflix's original content follows "taste clusters," those wildly specific tags for content, like "cerebral Southwestern murder mystery." The low-budget films and shows designed for these genre buckets are written with abundant exposition to remind casual viewers where they are in the story.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Popular films not yet added to Congress' film registry

The Library of Congress' National Film Registry's annual announcement of 25 new inductee films always makes a splash in the news. These films are considered significant enough to be preserved by the US' central library. But over the years, the library has maintained a separate list of films you might think would be added but haven't received the necessary votes yet. Check out the list of "not yets" here.

The Hollywood sign originally said 'Hollywoodland'

The original sign, which was only intended to be up for 18 months and erected around 1903, advertised a new housing development in the Hollywood Hills. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce shortened it to "Hollywood."

The studio behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled its promotion before the national release

Before its national release in 1975, the studio behind "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" decided the musical movie was too strange, campy, and unwieldy for most audiences and cut its promotional efforts, hoping to minimize its losses. That decision led to the film's commercial failure.

In communist Poland, the VHS black market provided a window into the US

Although government censors often banned official releases, Polish residents enjoyed a healthy black market of stores and traders, who offered all the latest Hollywood movies.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Hip-hop has been criticized for obscenity and violence

In 2008, a Pew Research poll found that over 70% of Americans believed the music had a negative societal impact due to its sometimes violent, sexist, and homophobic lyrics. Many rap artists argue they’re not endorsing the lyrics but simply reflecting the world around them.

American Psychological Association issues recommendations for teen social media use

Listen to this three-minute podcast to learn more about the American Psychological Association's recommendations for teenagers' use of social media. The first report of its kind, it advises parents to closely monitor teens' social feeds during early adolescence, continually screen for signs of problematic use (such as sleep interference), minimize the amount of dangerous content their child is exposed to (such as disordered eating), and limit their teen's use of social media around appearance-related content.

The Madison Avenue Walk of Fame

In Hollywood, the most prominent celebrities get “stars” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now, industry events producer Advertising Week has created a virtual walk of fame for the biggest stars of the ad world, from the Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Bear to the Energizer Bunny.

Memento Movi

Have you ever wanted life to be a little more like a movie? This somewhat absurd website shows you how far along you are in life, if your life was an actual film. Enter your birthday, how long you expect to live (using your best judgment!), and pick a film. The site will show you where you are in life—if your life was, say, "Inception" or "Wicked." A little silly, we know.

The duties and importance of Grammy expert panels have shifted over the years

The anonymous expert panels were first introduced into the Grammys voting process in the '90s to counteract claims that the awards weren't "with it" anymore—basically, that they were biased toward more traditional music acts. Of course, that was also the argument for disbanding some of them in 2022: Many people thought the panels were introducing their own bias into the nominations. Now, they exist mainly to ensure genre nominations are correctly categorized. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Kal Penn explains credit scores

Kal Penn, the actor who played Kumar in the “Harold and Kumar” films and appeared in shows like “How I Met Your Mother” and “House,” just so happens to know a thing or two about how the credit scoring system works in the US.

A number of Hitchcock's most celebrated films are based on novels

Hitchcock’s films are often cited as being literary, and with good reason—many of them are based on works of literature. This list from the Los Angeles Public Library not only names the many novels that were adapted for the screen by Hitchcock, like "Rebecca (1940)," but also provides excellent context for how and why Hitchcock came to make his adaptations.

A brief history of Cannes controversies

Cannes is one of the most prestigious festivals in the world, but that hasn’t shielded it from controversies, including inflammatory statements, political protests, and booing audiences.

The FBI was thrilled with 'The Silence of the Lambs' and its portrayal of the agency

The film's ultimate purpose was to terrify, but the FBI made it clear that they appreciated the accurate, professional portrayals of its agents. "It never hurts to see the organization we all care about and know to be good well-depicted on the big screen," special agent Walter B. Stowe, Jr., wrote in a letter to director Jonathan Demme.

Tourists are significantly influenced by pop culture

A 2024 study from Expedia Group found that two-thirds of tourists said movies and TV influence where and how they travel.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

This poison ivy knowledge quiz—accompanied by photos of the plant's varied forms—may help you identify this common rash-inducing growth.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.