Best and Worst Months for Movies

Peeples Poll: average after movie rating by month. Note: I limited the vertical axis between 77 and 85 to exaggerate the differences.

What month of the year has the best movies? I queried the RunPee app’s database for the Peeple’s Poll results and grouped them by month to find out. As you can see in the image above, the best month for movies is May… Sort of. The reason May has two bars associated with it is that the taller — gray — bar includes Averngers: Endgame, whereas the shorter — purple — bar excludes the results from that movie because it so single-handedly skews the results. When Endgame is excluded then the overall best month for movies is December.

Note: Avengers: Endgame has by far the highest rating and the most votes of any movie in the Peeple’s Poll database.

Does Expectation matter?

The RunPee app has a built-in Timer that will vibrate your phone 30 seconds before each “Peetime” in the movie. That means we can ask “peeple” what their expectation for a movie is before they see the movie and then when the movie is over we ask for their after-movie rating.

The graph above shows expectation and after-movie rating. I think it’s fairly remarkable that the two track each other so closely. Data excludes Avengers: Endgame

I would argue that a movie that far exceeds expectations might be more enjoyable than another movie that has a better after-movie rating, but only barely beats expectations. Ask yourself, what would you rather see: a B+ movie that you thought would be a C-, or an A movie that you thought would be a B+?

The graph above shows the difference between the after-movie rating and expectation. November performs the best vs expectation, but February comes in a close second. February does have the worst overall after-movie rating, but they’re not as bad as we expect them to be.

And then there’s the crazy dip in October. My SQL skills were not up to the task of figuring out what caused the October crash. Was it one or two popular movies that underperformed, or a bunch of movies that disappointed? My guess is, like Avengers: Endgame skews the results for May, there’s likely a movie in October that really disappointed a lot of users. Let’s see, what DCU movies have come out in October? That’s a good place to start. :-)

Why Terrible Movies Always Come Out In February

The RunPee app is the app that tells you the best time to run and pee during a movie without missing the best scenes. Visit RunPee.com to learn more.