Serious movies earn more critical appreciation than money-making action ones

A new study has examined that serious movies earn more audience acclaim and appreciation as compared to action movies that drive box office revenues.

Mary Beth Oliver, Distinguished Professor in Media Studies and co-director of Media Effects Research Laboratory, Penn State, showed that most people thought that entertainment was just a silly diversion, but their research showed that entertainment was profoundly meaningful and moving for many people.

Oliver asserted that it was not just types of entertainment that they usually thought of as meaningful, such as poetry and dance, either, but also movies, television shows, video games or Youtube videos.

The researchers examined the critical and financial success of 582 films released during the past 30 years and to study the financial success of the movies, they used U.S. domestic gross box-office revenues. Critical acclaim was measured through awards and award nominations, along with online ratings from Internet sites, to determine how regular viewers and non-critics responded to the films. In addition to examining the genre, the researchers also recorded the way people described how silly, dark, thoughtful, or emotional the movies were on websites such as the Internet Movie Database.

The researchers also examined Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winners and nominees released between 1980 and 2010 and to test acclaim from common audience members, they used ratings from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, two popular Internet sites for movie reviews.

Oliver said that what they saw was that movies that encouraged one to think may be seen as more moving and emotional, even if they tackle troubling issues or darker aspects of life.