Study finds all types of movies contain more violence
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – The amount of murdering and killing in movies has increased overall over the past 50 years, according to a new study that analyzed a massive database of film dialogue.
Researchers used machine learning to search a database of subtitles from more than 160,000 English-language movies produced from 1970 to 2020. They calculated the amount of dialogue from characters using variations of the words “murder” or “kill” in each of the films.
While the total use of these “murderous verbs” varied widely from year to year, there was a clear increasing trend over the five-decade period, said Brad Bushman, corresponding author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
And not just in crime movies, where violence might be expected.
“Characters in noncrime movies are also talking more about killing and murdering today than they did 50 years ago,” Bushman said.
“Not as much as characters in crime movies, and the increase hasn’t been as steep. But it is still happening. We found increases in violence cross all genres.”
The study was published online on Dec. 30, 2024 as a research letter in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Another notable finding was that violent language increased for both male and female characters, said Babak Fotouhi, lead author of the study and adjunct assistant research professor in the College of Information at the University of Maryland.
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What’s not clear is how long the trend of increasing violence will continue, Bushman said.
“The evidence suggests that it is highly unlikely we’ve reached a tipping point,”
he said.
Added Fotouhi: “Movies are trying to compete for the audience’s attention and research shows that violence is one of the elements that most effectively hooks audiences.”
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Read the full release here, written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu.