2015 Movies, by the Numbers
It’s late December. You know where to go if you want one of those “best movies of 2015” lists, but what if you're looking for cold, hard facts about the year in cinema? The data, the statistics, and the trends that will help you lord over uninformed friends and family? Here, we boil 2015 releases down to their most essential, random components for your trivia enjoyment.
Total number of wide releases: 152
Total number of wide-release sequels, prequels, and spinoffs: 27
Wide-release reboots: 3
Wide-release remakes: 3
Wide releases based on TV shows: 5
Wide releases featuring Liam Neeson: 4
Longest wide release:The Hateful Eight (182 minutes)
Shortest wide release: Grandma (79 minutes)
Longest title for a wide release: (tie) The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water; Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
Shortest title for a wide release: (four-way tie) Pan, Max, Spy, Joy
Movies named after men (specific): Ted 2, Creed, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Magic Mike XXL,
Max, Pan, Steve Jobs, Mr. Holmes, Mortdecai, Victor Frankenstein, Z for Zachariah, Hitchcock/Truffaut, James White, Saving Mr. Wu, Mr. X, Trumbo, Danny Collins, Macbeth, David and Goliath
Movies named after men (non-specific): The Perfect Guy, The Boy Next Door, Seventh Son, The Gunman, Man from Reno, Irrational Man, Deli Man
Movies named after women (specific): Cinderella, Ricki and the Flash, Amy, He Named Me Malala, Jem and the Holograms, Iris, Carol, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Effie Gray, Gemma Bovery, Madame Bovary, Maggie, Serena, Lila & Eve, Eva, The Age of Adaline
Movies named after women (non-specific):Grandma, Suffragette, Sisters, Mistress America, Woman in Gold, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, The Second Mother, The Danish Girl
Movies about abstract nouns: Joy, Youth, Truth, Love, Love & Mercy, Ardor, Home, Vacation, Focus, Spring
Movies that could have swapped titles with one another: Run All Night, Hot Pursuit, No Escape, It Follows
Movies that could have swapped titles with one another, part 2:Sinister 2, Insidious: Chapter 3
Movies that could have swapped titles with one another, part 3: Hitman: Agent 47, The Assassin, Assassination, The Gunman, Sicario (Spanish for "hitman")
Movies about trainwrecks named Amy: Trainwreck, Amy
Angry movies: Furious 7, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hateful Eight
Movies that teach you to count: Fantastic Four, 5 Flights Up, Seventh Son, The Hateful Eight, The 33, Child 44, 45 Years, Hitman: Agent 47, Fifty Shades of Grey, '71, 99 Homes
Dark movies: Black Mass, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, Black or White, Blackhat, Black Sea
Nighttime movies: Run All Night, The Night Before, The Overnight, Goodnight Mommy, I'll See You in My Dreams
Maritime movies: Black Sea, By the Sea, In the Heart of the Sea
American movies: American Ultra, Mistress America, My All-American
Movies that begin with a married couple's sexytimes being interrupted by their child: The Overnight, Knock Knock
Movies in which a dog dies: The Lazarus Effect, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Age of Adaline, Pod, Chappie, Crimson Peak, The Gunman
R-rated comedies with brief cameos by singers playing themselves: Get Hard (John Mayer), Spy (50 Cent), The Night Before (Miley Cyrus)
R-rated comedies with cameos by both Liam Neeson and Tom Brady: Entourage, Ted 2
Movies in which a straight man's face gets uncomfortably close to another man's penis: Unfinished Business, Get Hard, The Overnight, The Hateful Eight
Movies in which a character's large penis is the subject of much attention: Magic Mike XXL, The Overnight, Vacation
Movies in which a stalker-ish male suitor gifts his book-loving beloved a first-edition novel: The Boy Next Door, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Age of Adaline
Movies in which Mike Birbiglia shows up for a scene early on, tricking you into thinking the movie's going to be really funny: Adult Beginners, Hot Pursuit
Movies in which the Golden Gate Bridge is wrecked: San Andreas, Terminator: Genisys
Movies in which someone is said to look like Gollum: Ted 2, Trainwreck
Movies about twins: Sinister 2, Goodnight Mommy, Legend
Movies in which the only narrative reason for the leading man to be ex-military is to explain his excellent fighting and weapons-handling skills: Jurassic World, Self/Less
Movies in which a day-long drive to New York is stretched into an overnight trip for narratively unnecessary and logistically implausible reasons: Ted 2, Paper Towns
Movies in which men drive cars across post-apocalyptic desert wastelands and are occasionally rescued by women: Mad Max: Fury Road, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
Movies in which humans are pestered by bears: A Walk in the Woods, Once I Was a Beehive, The Revenant, Paddington
Movies in which humans are pestered by dinosaurs: Jurassic World, The Good Dinosaur
Movies with Paul Giamatti as a sketchy manager of a musical act: Love and Mercy, Straight Outta Compton
Movies with Jeff Daniels as a weaselly authority figure: Steve Jobs, The Martian
Movies with Jennifer Lawrence as a woman with good aim and a catatonic mother: Joy, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
Movies in which there’s gunfire during a rap concert: Chi-Raq, Straight Outta Compton
Movies that begin with the main female character's face in bandages, leaving some question over whether she looks the same as she used to: Phoenix, Goodnight Mommy
Movies about the months-long, multinational efforts to rescue people trapped somewhere isolated: The Martian, The 33
Movies in which someone uses an old-fashioned typewriter in an unusual place:Trumbo (bathtub), Goosebumps (Ferris wheel)
Fact-based films that end with footage of the real people they're about: Straight Outta Compton, The 33, Pawn Sacrifice, Suffragette, My All-American
Movies in which there's an announcement that something will take place in "Hall H," presumably as a reference to San Diego Comic-Con: Victor Frankenstein, Minions
Movies in which someone climbs inside a dead animal: The Revenant (horse), In the Heart of the Sea (whale)
Movies in which a man desperate to survive catches a fish with his bare hands and takes a bite out of it while it's still alive:The Revenant, In the Heart of the Sea
Movies in which either Skype or FaceTime plays an important role:The Visit, Unfriended, Unfinished Business, Sisters
Movies in which someone pretends Skype/FaceTime froze in order to end the call: Sisters, Unfinished Business
Movies with climactic rock-climbing scenes: Sisters, Point Break
Movies (that feature Christina Applegate) in which a man's unstylish choice of rental car is played for laughs:Vacation, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
Movies that are the seventh entries in their franchises:Furious 7, Creed, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Movie that sounds like it is but isn't: Seventh Son
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Eric D. Snider is a film critic and journalist who likes to count things. Follow him: @EricDSnider.