What can you tell about somebody's personality based on their taste in film?

[The Panda]

Something that I have been curious about is can you tell anything about a person based on their taste in movies (beyond, they have a subjectively good or bad taste in film)?  There's been studies that have found a correlation between music taste and personality.  One from Cambridge found people who are empathizers, "appear to prefer music that is romantic, relaxing, unaggressive, sad or slow such as soft rock and some R&B," whereas people that are more analytical (math and science type people), "tend to prefer more "sophisticated" music such as from the avant-garde, world beat, traditional jazz and classical genres." 

 

In general, people who fall more on the empathy spectrum focused more on how the music was making them feel (such as from a sad sounding minor chord or the lyrics of a song), whereas inversely people who were higher in being analytical cared more about, "the instrumental elements, seeing how the music is mixing together. It's almost like a musical puzzle that they're putting together.”  It ends up saying that we choose music that reflects who we are.

 

So my thoughts, do the same concepts apply to film?  Does a person's taste in film say anything about them personally?  I did find an interesting Psychology paper over the big five personality test, gender and how those two variables relate to film genre preference.  Summing it down, Males tend to prefer Fantasy and Action genres and Women's top two genres were Romance and Fantasy.  People who preferred comedy score highly in Openness (more open to new experiences, open minded, etc).   Horror fans scored poorly in extraversion and agreeableness and highly in openness and neuroticism.  People who preferred action scored highly in conscientious (more aware of how they are appearing, determination, high work-ethic, like familiarity) and openness and low in being neurotic (so more emotional stability).  People who preferred romance were more neurotic and conscientious.   And lastly, people who preferred fantasy were less extroverted and more open.

 

The study above wasn't a particularly strong one, and it was only looking at film genres, whereas there's much more nuance to each individual film and what could make it appeal to somebody.  And similar to the case with music, it might actually be less about genre and more about the mood the movie portrays.  Maybe somebody's who's more analytical cares less about how a movie moves them emotionally, and more about technical aspects of the film and creative directorial choices, whereas somebody who's more empathetic may care more about characterization and emotionally engaging material.  And likely most people are going to fall somewhere in between and can't be categorized into a tiny box.

 

There's a lot that could be discussed about this so I want to leave this thread open for discussion.

 

References:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/music-taste-linked-to-personality-traits-by-cambridge-psychologists-a6965796.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4492868/Study-finds-taste-movies-highly-idiosyncratic.html

http://mypersonality.org/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=assessing_the_impact_of_gender_and_personality_on_film_preferences.pdf

http://www.lifehack.org/417256/what-your-movie-preferences-say-about-you-according-to-researchers

[That One Girl]

If their favorite genre of film is 3 hour Russian films in black and white, then they’re probably a very old person

[SLAM!]

This could be a very deep discussion, really. This is something I need to think about before I contribute to the discussion.

[AniNate]

Perhaps a less complicated topic would be studying the movies people get hyped for before release, not necessarily the ones they actually love. I imagine most moviegoers do fall in that middle ground between analytical/emotional, yet we only latch onto certain movies to "stan" for, whether they actually end up being good or not.

 

I suppose in the case of Star Wars it already has the fanbase built up through that appeal to both their analytical and emotional sides (though probably more emotional). But if a movie's original or lacks a fanbase, why do we only seem to care about it before critics start championing it if it has sci-fi/fantasy elements? 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2018 by tribefan695

[CoolioD1]

trust no one who says the boondock saints is one of their favourite movies.

[Barnack]

They're was a link between loving really bad movie and being particularly intelligent, I imagine it is a bit of an hipster think to like The Room, Sharknado, etc... and have that kind of interest:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/enjoyment-of-trash-films-linked-to-high-intelligence-study-finds-a7171436.html

 

Trash films are for the elite.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Barnack

[Joel M]

4 hours ago, Barnack said:

They're was a link between loving really bad movie and being particularly intelligent, I imagine it is a bit of an hipster think to like The Room, Sharknado, etc... and have that kind of interest:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/enjoyment-of-trash-films-linked-to-high-intelligence-study-finds-a7171436.html

 

Trash films are for the elite.

I assume hipsters have already done a 180 on the Room since it's become so popular and will become even more because of the Franco movie. Troll 2 is next.

[DAJK]

On 2018-01-04 at 12:49 PM, CoolioD1 said:

trust no one who says the boondock saints is one of their favourite movies.

No joke one of my managers today went on a five minute rant about how much she loves this movie 

[Lordmandeep]

It depends If someone likes a movie like American Sniper, I can tell a lot about somebody. 

[Webslinger]

American Sniper is an odd example. All my hardcore conservative friends loved it (duh), but so did the vast majority of the not-insignificant number of liberal friends of mine who saw it. The guys I saw it with are both pretty comfortably on the left (as am I), and yet we spent a solid hour after the movie got out raving about it.

[dxmatrixdt]

.

Edited May 5, 2018 by Thematrixfilm

[grey ghost]

It depends.

 

Does your film taste honestly reflect your true self, your ideal self or a combination of both.

 

I always loved mythology, science, and imagination so superhero and sci fi movies have always scratched an itch since childhood.

 

But other movies resonate due to how the validate my values or personal outlook.

 

Or maybe I want them to validate my journey or I want my journey to validate them.

 

Lots to chew on. Excellent thread, @The Mad Panda

[Avatree]

On 1/4/2018 at 8:53 PM, Barnack said:

They're was a link between loving really bad movie and being particularly intelligent, I imagine it is a bit of an hipster think to like The Room, Sharknado, etc... and have that kind of interest:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/enjoyment-of-trash-films-linked-to-high-intelligence-study-finds-a7171436.html

 

Trash films are for the elite.

Please don't associate the Wiseausterpiece with Sharknado. It's not a trash film. Got nothing against trash cinema but the whole point of trash films is they're deliberately cheap/crap/exploitation. The Room is a sincere drama that happens to be absolutely terrible. It has a real heart and spirit to it.

 

On 1/5/2018 at 12:58 AM, Joel M said:

I assume hipsters have already done a 180 on the Room since it's become so popular and will become even more because of the Franco movie. Troll 2 is next.

and for the reason above, The Room will stand strong for very long. 

 

also not sure what you mean about Troll 2, that movie already has plenty of fans.