Stephen Follows asks the question, “Which types of features films are called ‘films’, and which are called ‘movies’?”

His analysis reveals that audiences tend to call all films movies, with Action, Adventure and Sci-Fi genres the most likely to be “movies.”

Whereas, audiences only tend to call War, History and Biography genres “films,” with all others more likely to be “movies.”

His conclusion:

“We could say that the more fun a genre appears to be, the greater chance it has to be a movie.”

My take: no real surprise here; audiences want to be entertained. A good story, well told. Another consideration is that almost no-one actually films on film anymore.