Audio Description Project
Audio Description Project
This page explains how and why we associate studio names with the movie and series titles in our listings on this website, the meaning and accuracy of years we associate with titles, and how we select the rating and genre to list for each title.
As the volume of titles we handle (currently over 11K) increased, we ran into problems properly identifying individual videos just by their title and type (movie or series), so we began adding years. Doing so allowed users to readily distinguish between the 1950 version of Cinderella and the 2015 one, for example. Robin Hood became a problem with its five different versions, so adding years helped there, too, but we also added studio names just to be clear. Then in 2023 we found that some titles are identical by specifying only title, type, and year, because different studios used the same name in the same year! (See, for example, the title Alone on Prime Video.) And to top it all off, we found that streaming services were making lots of errors in the film year they were sending us. Our definition of year is the year the film was first released commercially in the USA. This excludes film festivals and foreign releases. We have undergone a massive project of researching correct years to list for films and are overriding what services send us where necessary for the purpose of consistency.
Everything we talk about on this page is geared towards consistency and making the site easier for visitors to find what they want. In the future, we will list all titles from a database, rather than use individual service data, so there will be fewer discrepancies.
Sadly, not all the services we list send us studio names to associate with titles, or they send us current licensee names or production company names. For example, Disney bought Fox's movie assets in 2019, so one company sends us the name Disney as the studio for pre-2020 Fox films. Another sends us wild names that need conversion.
So how do we determine what studio to list? Our definition of studio is the studio that most people would associate with a video because it typically is the first thing anyone sees as the film opens. For example, "stars glide in from the sky and form a circle around a mountain: Paramount". Technically, that studio is the distributor, and that is the term we generally use internally. In reality, when a studio is through with the production of a film, they may hire a third party to handle the actual distribution. For example, one of those companies was Buena Vista, a Disney subsidiary which handled all of Disney's film distributions from 1953 to 2007. Their role was distribution and marketing of a finished product, but you would most likely rather identify the film with Disney, which is what we typically do. In 2020 another distribution company was formed to handle Universal and Warner Bros releases: Studio Distribution Services (SDS). Their name does not appear in the movies themselves, however, so we research the correct studio name. You should also note that different studio names may appear for the original theatrical release, DVD release, and streaming service release. We try to use the theatrical release name where possible.
It is our practice to try to avoid listing distribution-only companies (like SDS), and we try to ferret out the name that appears at the start of a film. When it comes to streaming services, however, they may purchase the rights to a film (rather than produce it) and call it their own. Those films are called Originals, like a Netflix Original. Things get confusing when two streaming services offer the same film which one company calls "Original." In some cases, they are fine crediting the "original" company, but in other cases not so much. So we sometimes maintain the name of an underlying studio for use when one company's Original is licensed by another.
We understand that most people don't care what studio released a film: you just care about the film! However, some studios are what's called "niche" studios and have their followers. So fans of horror films may love Shudder (although they rarely include audio description); and people who like G-rated sentimental films may like Hallmark; while cinema buffs may want to find out what A24 is showing; and parents of young kids will trust Disney for appropriate viewing. So for some folks, for some films, distribution studio matters.
Getting down to how we actually list studio names, we take some shortcuts. For the well known studios like the former 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios Home Entertainment, we cut down the titles as much as we can. We think you understand Fox, Universal, Disney, DreamWorks, etc., without spelling out their full legal names. For lesser known studios, we carry a longer name, like Highland Film Group or MarVista Entertainment. And just to cover this, while many sites say Warner Bros., we just say Warner Bros without the period.
Prior to 1968, movies were "rated" by a system known as the Hays Code, which was essentially a set of "moral guidelines." In 1934, motion picture studios agreed to allow the code to determine whether or not their film could be shown in a US movie theater. The rating term was "Approved." Unlike today's MPA (Motion Picture Association) codes (PG, R, etc.), "Approved" did not imply a suitable age for viewing; therefore, unless a film was resubmitted for MPA rating and still carries an "Approved" rating, we have to list these films (like "A Night at the Opera" and "A Patch of Blue") as "Not Rated." But from a practical point of view, if we list a film with a year prior to 1968 and a rating of "Not Rated," you can most likely assume it is suitable for children. If it is not animated, you may wish to determine that for yourself though.
In 1997, Television Parental Guidelines went into effect. While similar to MPA ratings in nature, they all begin with the letters "TV-" like "TV-Y" or "TV-MA." All the streaming services use these ratings for titles they create (typically known as "Originals") which are not shown in movie theaters and subject to MPA ratings. However, they do their own rating (according to guidelines and subject to review by a Monitoring Board). We use these ratings as delivered or as found on IMDb. Occasionally IMDb differs from what the provider sends us, and we struggle with that!
Amazon, however, decided to develop its own rating system (7+, 13+, etc.) for Prime Video and currently sends us their ratings for titles, even if the title has an MPA rating and even if they list that MPA rating online. For convenience to you, our users, we override these ratings with MPA ratings whenever we have the MPA rating in our database of titles. It will take a long time to populate our database will all these MPA ratings, so you see quite a mix in our Prime Video listing today.
Sometimes studios release a second version of a rated film with additional scenes or altered language. They typically add the word "Unrated" to the title. We try to track these as separate titles, but you should be aware that occasionally we will be listing a rated film when the DVD, for example, is the Unrated version.
Rating overrides: We try to store the correct rating for a film in our database. If a studio sends us a title and calls it Not Rated and we have a rating in our database, we will override that Not Rated in our listing. However, the reverse is not true. If studio sends us a rating for a film we list as Not Rated internally, we use the studio's rating, leaving them responsible for the accuracy of the rating.
Now how about genres? Initially we tried to consolidate to 9 genres per service to fit across the screen as navigation links; but when this became impractical, we introduced a button to display all a service's titles by genre, and let the number increase as necessary, though still doing some consolidation. A simple example of consolidation is using the genre Kids & Family, converting any of the following to it: Kids, Family, Children, Children's Television. We do this consolidation to make it easier for you to find all films of a certain genre easily, without knowing all the variations possible.
The current website limits services to only one genre per film or series. We realize this is limiting, and we are working on expanding this later in 2024, probably to 3.
Here is a chart (perpetually under review) showing you all the genres we display and what consolidates into those names (typical variations the services send us). Comments welcome!
| GENRE NAME WE USE | Additional Genres found in vendor spreadsheets |
| Action & Adventure | Action Adventure Action/Adventure Action and Adventure Action-Adventure Spy/Espionage |
| Adult Animation [See Note below] |
[will calculate if necessary for R & TV-MA Animation] |
| Animation | Animated Cartoons [Note: currently we don't display this as a genre, but rather as a characteristic; we plan to convert to a genre in the future] |
| Anime | |
| Classics | Film Noir |
| Comedy | Comedy-Drama Comedy Animation Sitcom |
| Crime | Mystery |
| Disability | This is never sent to us; we add it manually to indicate a film |
| Documentary | Documentaries Docuseries |
| Drama | Soap Operas |
| Food & Home | Cooking & Food |
| Game Show | Game Shows Game Show/Competition |
| Genre Not Specified | n/a |
| Holiday | [this is rarely sent to us as a genre, but we are adding it manually for future use] |
| Horror | Horror and Suspense |
| Independent | Art House |
| International | Korean [It is unclear at this point whether we keep International] |
| Kids & Family | Kids Family Children Children's Cinema Childrens Television Children & Family Family Cinema |
| LGBTQ | LGBTQ+ LGBT Gay & Lesbian |
| Lifestyle & Culture | Lifestyle Travel |
| Music | Music Video Music Videos and Concerts Music Concert Footage Music Documentaries Concert Concert Film |
| Musical | |
| News | News Shows News and Information News Magazine Entertainment News |
| Reality TV | Reality-TV Reality Reality Competition Competition |
| Romance | Romantic Comedy |
| Sci-Fi & Fantasy | Science Fiction Sci-Fi Fantasy Sci-Fi/Fantasy Paranormal Supernatural Time Travel |
| Science & Nature | Animals & Nature Nature Nature and Wildlife |
| Short | Short Films |
| Special Interest | |
| Sports | Olympics Soccer WWE |
| Stand-up | Standup [This is rarely sent to us as a genre, but we try to use it instead of Comedy when the film is a comedian's stand-up routine] |
| Super Hero | Superhero Super-Hero Super Heroes Superheroes |
| Thriller | Suspense |
| TV Variety | Talk Show Entertainment Variety Award Shows & Events |
| War | Military & War |
| Western | |
| Young Adult | Coming of Age Teen Young adult audience |
If you have any feedback about how we use year, studio, ratings, and genre, feel free to contact webmaster Fred via the link at the bottom of this page.
- First published Jan 30, 2024; Last Updated August 14, 2024
