Based on my own research. Films included only if they played theatrically. Corrections and additions are welcome (@ me). For comparison’s sake, here’s the 2017 edition.
Total wide releases (600+ theaters):
160
Sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, and franchises:
42
Based on novels, stories, legends, or video games:
33
Based on a true story (BOATS):
32
Wholly original, not based on anything:
50
Documentaries:
3: Fahrenheit 9/11; Death of a Nation; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Animated:
10
Christian wide releases:
Forever My Girl; Paul, Apostle of Christ; Samson; Unbroken: Path to Redemption; God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness
Wide releases with colons in their titles:
16
Wide releases directed by women:
10 (including one co-directed by a man)
Wide releases directed by Clint Eastwood:
2
Longest wide release title:
Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer
Shortest wide release title:
(tie) Tag, Kin
Longest wide release:
Avengers: Infinity War (149 minutes)
Shortest wide release:
(tie) Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero; Action Point (84 minutes)
Female titles:
Ava; Colette; Alanis; Barbara; Nancy; Mandy; Hannah; Josie; Lizzie; Nelly; Jane and Emma; Roxanne Roxanne; The Possession of Hannah Grace; The Vanishing of Sidney Hall; Anna and the Apocalypse; All About Nina; Elizabeth Harvest; Oh Lucy!; Killer Kate!; Claire’s Camera; Clara’s Ghost; Stella’s Last Weekend; Proud Mary; Mary Queen of Scots; Mary Poppins Returns; Mary Shelley; Mary and the Witch’s Flower; Forever My Girl; Girl in the Spider’s Web; Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again; The Nun; The Wife; Little Women; Widows; Damsel; Miss Dali; Miss Granny; Madame; Damsel
Male titles:
Early Man; First Man; Slender Man; BlackKklansman; Aquaman; Guilty Men; An Ordinary Man; Padman; Ant-Man and the Wasp; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; The Old Man & the Gun; Spinning Man; Welcome to the Men’s Group; What a Man Wants; White Boy Rick; The Wild Boys; Beautiful Boy; Boy Erased; Billy Boy; Billionaire Boys Club; Poor Boy; The Sisters Brothers; Winter Brothers; Brother of the Year; Brotherly Love; Brothers of the Wind; Peter Rabbit; Samson; Love, Simon; Sherlock Gnomes; Paul, Apostle of Christ; Uncle Drew; Christopher Robin; Ben Is Back; Ralph Breaks the Internet; Robin Hood; The House That Jack Built; A Kid Like Jake; Tyrel
Couples titles:
Mom and Dad; Frank and Ava; Ray Meets Helen; Sid & Aya: Not a Love Story; Us and Them; Bernard and Huey; Stan & Ollie; Holmes & Watson
Movies about dogs or dog-like things:
Dog Days; Isle of Dogs; Show Dogs; Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero; Alpha; A.X.L.
Movies that sound like they’re about animals but aren’t:
Black Panther; Red Sparrow; The Mule; Bumblebee; Bird Box; The Yellow Birds; Ant-Man and the Wasp; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; We the Animals; American Animals; Wildlife
Summer movies:
Summer of 84; Summer of 67; Summer 1993; Summer 03; Age of Summer; All Summers End; Hot Summer Nights; A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Nighttime movies:
Night School; Night Comes On; Game Night; The Strangers: Prey at Night; Midnight Sun; The Midnight Man; Midnighters; The Night Eats the World
Movies that tell you what not to do:
Leave No Trace; Don’t Go; Don’t Leave Home; Don’t Talk to Irene; Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot; Never Look Away
Movies that were trying to confuse us:
– Overboard; Overlord
– Incredibles 2; Indivisible; Insidious: The Last Key
– Unsane; Unbroken: Road to Redemption; Unfriended: Dark Web
– Boy Erased; Beautiful Boy; Beautifully Broken
– The Wild Boys; Wildlife; Wildling
Movies based on true stories that end with photos or film of the real people they’re about:
12 Strong; Winchester; The 15:17 to Paris; 7 Days in Entebbe; A Stupid and Futile Gesture; The Polka King; The Tale; American Animals; Padman; I Can Only Imagine; Adrift; Tag; BlackKklansman; Papillon; White Boy Rick (voice only); Boy Erased; Operation Finale; Jane and Emma; Instant Family; Bohemian Rhapsody; Green Book; On the Basis of Sex;Welcome to Marwen; Stan & Ollie; The Miracle Season
Movies whose titles are never referenced or explained within the movies themselves:
White Rabbit; Night Comes On; Fifty Shades Freed; Destroyer; Nobody’s Fool; Roma; Peppermint*
*The little girl orders peppermint ice cream before being killed, but it’s never mentioned again, and her dad got ice cream at the same time and was also killed but the movie isn’t named after the flavor he chose.
Movies about young people with superpowers:
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; The Darkest Minds; A Wrinkle in Time; Incredibles 2; The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Movies about real-life art thefts that were perpetrated by college-aged numbskulls rather than criminal masterminds:
American Animals; Museo
Movies about heists where the idea is to steal decommissioned cash from a federal building before it’s shredded:
Den of Thieves; The Hurricane Heist
Movies in which parking valets use their access to the private information in people’s cars to burglarize their homes:
Bad Samaritan; Death Wish
Movies in which people assume that they can get away with crimes because they’re part of a demographic that police tend to overlook:
Widows; Ocean’s Eight (they’re women); The Old Man and the Gun; The Mule (they’re old white guys)
Movies about girls going in search of their missing scientist fathers:
A Wrinkle in Time; Tomb Raider
Movies in which multiple random people are temporarily possessed by a wandering spirit:
Every Day; Truth or Dare
Movies with Lizzo’s “Good As Hell”:
Blockers; I Feel Pretty
Movies in which Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” plays while the girls head out to have fun:
Tully; Life of the Party
Movies in which people are held captive in highly secured homes with high-tech surveillance:
Bad Samaritan; Breaking In
Movies that begin with fleeting images of a horse in distress:
Thoroughbreds; Bad Samaritan; The Rider; The Sisters Brothers
Movies in which a main character’s mother has cognitive issues that require supervision:
On Chesil Beach; Hearts Beat Loud; What We Had
Movies about bros who like to prank each other, and a bear is involved:
Super Troopers 2; Action Point
Fact-based movies about aquatic misadventures:
Adrift; The Mercy; Chappaquiddick
Movies in which game night turns deadly:
Game Night; Unfriended: Dark Web
Movies in which characters play Cards Against Humanity:
Unfriended: Dark Web; Tales from the Hood 2
Movies that explicitly rip on the Green Lantern movie:
Deadpool 2; Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
Movies about racism in which freestyle rap plays a significant role:
Bodied; Blindspotting
Movies about racism where the plot hinges on a black man using his “white voice” on the phone:
Sorry to Bother You; BlackKklansman
Movies in which minorities worry they will be shot by police during a traffic stop or in which such a shooting occurs:
The Hate U Give; Widows; Blindspotting; The Mule; Monsters and Men; River Runs Red
Horror movies in which youths use someone else’s laptop and get into trouble by messaging with one of that person’s contacts:
Unfriended: Dark Web; Slender Man
Movies in which someone befriends a doglike creature that isn’t a dog:
Alpha (wolf); A.X.L. (robot dog); The Predator (alien space dog); Bumblebee (alien robot)
Movies in which a kid finds a potentially dangerous robot/weapon that becomes a sort of pet and defender while being chased by the military:
A.X.L.; Bumblebee; Kin
Horror movies in which a woman is stalked in a bathroom stall by a silent killer:
Halloween; Hell Fest; The Possession of Hannah Grace
Musicals whose title songs include the words “mama mia”:
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again; Bohemian Rhapsody
Movies featuring submarine rescues:
The Meg; Hunter Killer; Aquaman
Movies that reference the “Dark Web”:
Cam; Unfriended: Dark Web; Ralph Breaks the Internet
Movies in which school shootings are referenced or depicted:
Eighth Grade; Vox Lux
Movies with scenes at a support group of some kind:
Hereditary; Instant Family; Nobody’s Fool; Ben Is Back; Boy Erased; Beautiful Boy; The Miseducation of Cameron Post; A Star Is Born; Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot; Tag
Movies that take place on, or have plots driven by, the internet:
Cam; Ralph Breaks the Internet; Searching; Assassination Nation; Ready Player One; Unfriended: Dark Web
Movies with dead mothers:
Searching; Mary Poppins Returns; Eighth Grade; Leave No Trace; The Rider; Hereditary
Miserable biopics about miserable artists at the end of their miserable lives:
The Happy Prince (Oscar Wilde); At Eternity’s Gate (Vincent Van Gogh)
Movies in which the mating habits of seahorses are discussed:
Leave No Trace; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (not Aquaman, surprisingly)
Movies in which Michael B. Jordan fights the son of the man who killed his father:
Black Panther; Creed II
Movies in which Nicole Kidman is the mother of a statistically unusual son:
Boy Erased (son is gay); Aquaman (son is Aquaman)
Sequel/remakes that don’t add to the originals’ legacies but don’t detract from them either, in which Angela Lansbury has a brief appearance as a character who didn’t need to be in the movie at all and definitely didn’t need to be played by Angela Lansbury:
The Grinch; Mary Poppins Returns
Movies in which Ben Mendelsohn is the ruler of a dystopian society destroyed by income inequality:
Ready Player One; Robin Hood
Movies in which Henry Golding feels forced to choose between his mother and his female partner (and in which his partner dramatically gets a prized emerald ring from his mother — h/t @DanaSchwartzzz):
Crazy Rich Asians; A Simple Favor
Halloween movies in which Jack Black is a weird recluse responsible for magic-fueled mayhem in a small town:
The House with a Clock in Its Walls; Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween
Movies called Somebody & Somebody in which John C. Reilly plays the second Somebody:
Holmes & Watson; Stan & Ollie
Movies co-starring John C. Reilly that aren’t musicals but have one musical number co-written by Alan Menken:
Ralph Breaks the Internet; Holmes & Watson
Movies by first-time writer-directors that premiered at Sundance and were released by A24 in which one of the most terrifying scenes involves a girl squirming in the backseat of a car driven by a teenage boy:
Eighth Grade; Hereditary (h/t @jordanzadler)
Movies in which a family holds hands to say grace before a meal and a woman gives birth in a bathtub:
A Quiet Place; If Beale Street Could Talk (h/t/ @ThatAdamPalmer)
Movies written and directed by men named Drew that take place at stylized hotels in a distant time period, where violence erupts between some of the guests:
Hotel Artemis; Bad Times at the El Royale (h/t @TorYHarbin)
Movies in which a woman administers a desultory hand-job:
The Favourite; Destroyer
