Are movies getting more violent? A new study says yes

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A new study examining over a 100,000 films since 1970 suggests that movies are getting more violent.

Researchers from the University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, and The Ohio State University examined movie subtitles spanning five decades, from 1970 to 2020, to track how often characters used words related to murder and killing.

“Characters in non-crime movies are also talking more about killing and murdering today than they did 50 years ago. 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,” Brad Bushman, corresponding author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University, said in a statement.

The research the team calculated the percentage of “murderous verbs” – variations of words like “kill” and “murder” – compared to the total number of verbs used in movie dialogue.

“Our findings suggest that references to killing and murder in movie dialogue not only occur far more frequently than in real life, but are also increasing over time,” Babak Fotouhi, lead author of the study and adjunct assistant research professor in the College of Information at the University of Maryland, said.

“The evidence suggests that it is highly unlikely we’ve reached a tipping point,” Bushman said.

Decades of research have demonstrated that exposure to media violence can influence aggressive behavior and mental health in both adults and children.

This can manifest in various ways, from direct imitation of observed violent acts to a general desensitization toward violence and decreased empathy for others.

The findings align with previous research showing that gun violence in top movies has more than doubled since 1950, and more than tripled in PG-13 films since that rating was introduced in 1985.

What makes this new study particularly noteworthy is its massive scale – examining dialogue from more than 166,000 films provides a much more comprehensive picture than earlier studies that looked at smaller sample sizes.