The Changing Popularity Of Movie Genres From 1910 To 2018, Visualized

We have always enjoyed watching movies, but over the past 110 years, the popularity of certain genres has spiked while others have waned dramatically.

Using data from IMDb, Reddit user BoMcCready has put together a graph that shows the percentage of different movie genres released each year from 1910 to 2018. The range of the percentage axis is different for each genre, and so these charts are more well-suited for focusing on the ebb and flow of popularity for each individual genre over the years rather than directly comparing the different levels of popularity amongst different genres:

The graph reveals several interesting trends. Some genres, for instance, have evidently fallen out of favor, such as musicals and westerns. In the 1930s, 15% of the movies released were musicals, while in 2018, the figure has fallen far below 5%. And although westerns saw a resurgence in the '70s after its decline in the '60s, the genre has had scant representation in recent years.

Some movie genres, on the other hand, have witnessed a large swell in popularity in these past two decades. Documentaries, thrillers and horror films have all seen production numbers climb steadily since the 2000s. The surge of documentaries is notable — a change in popularity some trace to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which was released in 2004 — especially given the fact that the percentage of documentary releases has come close to comedies, one of the most consistent staples in cinema, in recent years.

[Via Reddit]