Foreign language film titles

For anyone who edits actors and filmmakers articles, please comment and on whether there are exceptions: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Actors_and_Filmmakers#Foreign_language_film_titles Lapadite (talk) 09:12, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Help with an article?

Can someone help expand the article for Draft:Littlefinger? Long story short, this was up for a proposed deletion. I did some searching and found evidence to suggest that it's fairly notable in Latvia and the other countries where it was released. It's just that since it's an older film, it's harder to find coverage. Coverage in English is also a bit harder to come by since it doesn't seem to have ever been released in English.

I removed the PROD and put on the talk page that it appears to have won several awards. I also found where a restored copy of the film was made available by the National Film Centre of Latvia to celebrate the director's 85th birthday. They made a streaming version of the film available on their website, so that implies that they have a copy of this in their archives. That all gives off the strong impression that there is sourcing and is considered to be one of the director's more well thought of works. I added some sourcing but noted on the talk page that this needed someone fluent in one of the other languages to sift through them. I also linked to other language WPs that had far more extensive versions of the articles, some that appear to have more sourcing. The film was moved to the draftspace at some point after that and I can't help but feel like this was an attempt at a defacto deletion.

Can someone help me with this? The Latvian WikiProject is inactive, so I can't really post there. Cunard, can you help here any? ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:23, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Per the director's article, it also looks like the director's entire filmography is being archived at the Latvian Film Museum. I've moved this back live. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:33, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 May 3 § Ron Dyens

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 May 3 § Ron Dyens. Peaceray (talk) 21:05, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:24, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at NFILM about the notability of Cannes's competitive competitions

There's been a disagreement at an AfD over whether or not the competitive competitions at Cannes are notable enough to establish notability for a nomination, in specific Un Certain Regard. The current wording at NFILM for film festivals says that it is, there are some who are saying that nominations do not qualify and that being nominated to UCR is not notable in any way, shape, or form.

I've opened up a discussion about this - if this is determined to be non-notable then the wording at NFILM will need to be changed. This may in turn impact the notability of nominations for other film festivals. If a nomination for a competitive competition at Cannes cannot establish notability, then a nomination for other competitive competitions probably shouldn't either. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:29, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

The discussion can be found here. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:29, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Discrepancy between categories and lists of Czech films

This all started when I noticed there was the empty Category:1960s Czech films. This struck me as odd because there was an article List of Czech films of the 1960s with plenty of articles that could be in that category, or subcategories. I considered making individual year categories, but soon realized that the reason the category was empty was because the Category:Czech films is specifically for films from Czechia, and there is a separate Category:Czechoslovak films for pre-1993 films.

Thus I started working on making things more consistent: Removing "Czech" categories from pre-1993 films and adding Category:Czech-language films subcategories (where appropriate), as well as Category:Czechoslovak films subcategories—including year and genre-based ones.

However, I'm realizing now that the way the categories define Czech and Czechoslovak films is different from the way the related lists work. For example, Lists of Czech films defines its scope as "films made in the Czech lands from 1898 to the present."

I'm not sure how to proceed from here. My preference would be to follow the definitions provided by the categories, and modify the list articles to match. I figure it's easier to define a film by country of origin and by language than by region, though I'm not 100% sure that the majority of sources refer to country rather than region. I could make a formal proposal to rename and rephrase the list articles, but I'm not sure of the right venue, and I don't know how that works when there is a huge group of affected articles, so I thought I'd get some input from people who probably are more familiar with the standards for film categorization. dylansan (talk) 12:45, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I am unsure either. I ran into this issue when deciding what to do with Category:Czech novels by year. Οἶδα (talk) 11:37, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes Average of Rated Reviews

I saw this comment by Shawngets that Rotten Tomatoes has brought back the average rating and calls it "Average of Rated Reviews" with the note, "Only critic reviews with letter or numerical ratings are included in the average." So this is a bit messy because even scrolling through an example here, it seems like there are still quite a few reviews without such ratings present. I don't recall if RT determined an undisclosed score for every review, or we just assumed that? This seems to mean that we should not actually say (from the example) that, across all 282 reviews, the average rating was 6.60/10. Erik (talk | contrib) 15:02, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

If that is the case, the average rating is useless for encyclopedic purposes if it only represents a portion of the reviews. A number of critics/publications don't provide a rating. As it stands, including an average rating in articles is misleading. Even if RT states the ratio of reviews the average rating is based on, that will have little meaning for readers if not all reviews have a rating (e.g, "... based on 100 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10 based on 76 reviews"). Lapadite (talk) 15:48, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't see how it is useless or meaningless. The actual values don't seem to have changed from before this stat was hidden, so this is likely just as meaningful as it has always been (which, in my opinion, is more meaningful than the actual RT score). They have just reframed how it is presented, and we probably should too as Erik stated. - adamstom97 (talk) 16:13, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I thought that the average score was more meaningful too, but if they never did any underlying scoring for all reviews, it's been problematic all this time. Which I find ridiculous since I know sentiment analysis is a thing and likely easier now than ever before. I'm skeptical that reframing will happen, because that means added wording. Most RT write-ups lack that, for example obscuring from layperson readers that reviews are only ever categorized as positive or negative. Erik (talk | contrib) 16:25, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't agree that a more restrictive average rating is statistically or encyclopedically meaningless. The RT score itself is not representative of all reviews in existence, only the ones surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes. We assume it is a representative sample, at least of English-language speaking countries, and especially in the case of mainstream films. In the case of the average rating, RT would just be surveying those with an actual score—it is actually a "purer" representation of the ratings that are assigned by a review. There is no reason to assume that the average score would be any different for those that do not assign a score, in the event that they had done so. It just becomes a metric drawn from a subset of reviews, which is often the case for Metacritic too. Betty Logan (talk) 23:35, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Nardog brought up a past discussion below that I completely forgot about. It seems like, in addition to knowing (and me forgetting) about this issue before, the sentiment at that time was that the template was tweaked to have a distinct enough separation. But if RT is making that upfront clarification now, shouldn't we? Though we won't have a count either way of how many of the reviews were explicitly rated with something. Erik (talk | contrib) 15:33, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't have an issue in drawing this out a little more in the summaries; it seems like a straightforward thing to resolve: "Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 265 critics and judged 94% of the reviews to be positive, with an average normalised rating of 8/10 by those critics that had rated it." Or something to that effect. Betty Logan (talk) 22:23, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not really happy with the vagueness of wording like this. "By those critics who had rated it" leaves room for the possibility that the critics who used ratings tended to think more favorably of the film than critics who didn't use ratings, or that the number of critics who rated it is vastly disproprtionate to the total number of critics being factored into RT's conclusions. I'd be happier if it was clear how many of those 265 critics had rated it. "Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 265 critics and judged 94% of the reviews to be positive, with an average normalised rating of 8/10 by the five critics who rated it." DonIago (talk) 02:35, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this specificity. Lapadite (talk) 07:26, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree this would be better but it would require us to count how many of the reviews surveyed had a score. Counting per se is not OR so it might be okay policy-wise, but might be a practical challenge. (Also IIRC some reviews appear on the site but don't count toward the Tomatometer. If they don't count toward the average rating either, then we might not be able to get an accurate count at all.) Nardog (talk) 07:58, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

If it's a choice between saying it's based on some number of reviews but we have no idea how many, and not saying anything at all, I'd rather not say anything at all. The number seems potentially useless otherwise, as evidenced in my example. DonIago (talk) 00:02, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

might be a practical challenge

Indeed, and continuously so. It is impractical, unproductive, and problematic to expect editors to account for it in all applicable articles, regardless if it's a one time tally or on a continuous basis, which it inevitably will be since RT's review counts and scores are inherently dynamic and change over time, with its staff "always researching and highlighting reviews and essays from throughout movie history, often from overlooked or forgotten sources". Editors will just update the "average of rated reviews" (readily provided by RT) and not the number of rated reviews (not readily provided by RT), so whatever tally was previously added to Wikipedia will stay (not updated). We shouldn't even bother with that for the reason you mentioned. Οἶδα (talk) 11:16, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Not that fussed over the wording; we can use alternative phrasing such as "graded it" or "assigned a rating" etc, but I don't see how we are able quantify the number of raters unless I'm missing something.... Anyon know if there is a way to grab it from the source code? Betty Logan (talk) 11:29, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

What do you mean? The ratings appear alongside pull quotes on the list of reviews so we could just count them, assuming they're all factored into the average. Nardog (talk) 15:21, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Some films have several hundred reviews. And are they all factored into the rating? Betty Logan (talk) 04:03, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Why wouldn't they be? Nardog (talk) 04:29, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

What if certain reviews (such as those by Top Critics) are weighted differently? Ultimately, Rotten Tomatoes gives us an average rating based on a subset of graded reviews and that's all we really know. I don't believe we should go beyond that in our exposition. Betty Logan (talk) 05:02, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

AFAIK there's no such "weighting" and it's pretty easy to confirm how the number is derived. You can just take the scores in the list and average them (though letter grades can be tricky). I don't ultimately disagree that counting them and giving the number in the article might be a little too OR-ish though. Nardog (talk) 05:14, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

For transparency and accuracy, RT has a responsibility to state the number, or at least percentage, of critics that provided a rating. For that same purpose, so do we. Thats's why I think the average rating shouldn't be used unless the ratio of reviews it's based on is given by RT. If it is used, we should specify that RT's average rating is based on an unknown portion of the selected reviews. For all the notable films released in a year, it's extra work to have to look through often dozens of reviews and keep up with incoming ones, especially for high profile films. Lapadite (talk) 17:25, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

We usually have a headline figure; for example, RT surveyed 265 reviews for Casino Royale, and 34 of the first 50 provided a rating, so in this case the reviews provide a rating by an approximate ratio of 2:1. I can see why a very low number of reviews providing a rating might be a problem (and we probably shouldn't include one in those cases), but I don't see why it matters if the rating draws from 150 reviews or 200 reviews. Once you are sure you have enough reviews for the sample to be statistically sound then the significance of the sample size becomes less important. Statistics is usually more concerned with orders of magnitude i.e. 10, 100, 1000 etc. Betty Logan (talk) 04:40, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

That would be a sound argument for including the figure in a given article vs not. Nevertheless, still impractical to update. And resolved easily if RT would just do the job for us. I'm not sure why they felt the need to more effectively communicate what the average rating represents (rated reviews) but not display a simple count of said rated reviews. Οἶδα (talk) 11:34, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't recall if RT determined an undisclosed score for every review, or we just assumed that? RT never did that; it seems you just assumed that. And you discovered it last year. What they've brought back is exactly what they had, they're just now clearer about what it is. Nardog (talk) 01:34, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, I completely forgot about that! Thanks for reminding me. What do you think should be done here? Erik (talk | contrib) 15:18, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Lists of films

Regarding a recent set of moves of lists of films, I started a discussion here: Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists § Lists of films. Erik (talk | contrib) 20:52, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Vijay (actor)

There is an ongoing page move discussion regarding [the title of] Vijay (actor) at: Talk:Vijay (actor)#Requested move 4 May 2026. Vijay has been a popular Indian actor in Tamil cinema and is now a politician governing an Indian state. The proposed title hasn't been specified (certain propositions include C. Joseph Vijay [main proposal], Vijay, Vijay (politician), Joseph Vijay, C. J. Vijay, Thalapathy Vijay) with the argument that the current one is inadequate arguing that "actor" doesn't accurately reflect his occupation and notability anymore (cf. Arnold Schwarzenegger). Input from members of Wikiproject Film would be appreciated. Gotitbro (talk) 12:45, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

"ensemble cast"

I'm noticing this term in the leads of movie articles a lot recently, usually wikilinked. For example, from A House of Dynamite: It stars an ensemble cast including Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, and Jason Clarke.

Is there any criteria being applied here? I have a feeling editors are simply using the term whenever they feel the cast is large enough. And if that means "the film contains, like, five or more named actors", we may have a pretty low barrier to entry. Popcornfud (talk) 14:05, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

An ensemble cast should be something like Dazed and Confused, where everyone is the "star", not just a large cast.Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:22, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

The criterion that should be applied is that WP:Reliable sources call it an ensemble cast. TompaDompa (talk) 17:10, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

New WikiProject Film top icon template

Hello everyone. I have created a new user page top icon template for WP:Film Participants:

• {{WikiProject Film topicon}}

It can be placed on a user page as:

{{WikiProject Film topicon}}

The template adds a small WikiProject Film icon in the top-right corner of the user page, similar to other WikiProject/user top icons. Its documentation is at Template:WikiProject Film topicon, and it supports optional parameters such as height, width, sortkey, and nocat.

Comments, improvements, or objections are welcome. Umais🗣 06:25, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

What defines a franchise?

Dr. Gregory House's Missing Cane has been adding categories like Category:20th Television franchises to a large number of articles.

The one I saw was Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which is unambiguously not a franchise. But then there were franchise category additions like Fight Club, which was reverted; a Disney franchise cat on Template:Assassin's Creed; Category:The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I just reverted; the character Borat Sagdiyev; Roswell (TV series), and more. See Special:Contributions/Dr. Gregory House's Missing Cane.

Does this WikiProject have a definition for what articles that should go in franchise categories? (Pinging EducatedRedneck and Roxy the dog, who were involved in the Fight Club reverts.) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 17:17, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Responding to ping. Also relevant is Wikipedia:WikiProject Media franchises, though I found little guidance there as to what constitutes a franchise. This may be deliberate; my position is that unless a WP:RS describes something as being a franchise, we cannot say it is a franchise. To do otherwise is WP:OR. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:23, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Yup - Lost stick was doing OR in my case, and had the cheeky gall to come to my talk page and complain at me. Sheesh. - Walter Still not in the Epstein Files Ego 17:38, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

This is pretty much my take on it, when Missing Cane asked me why I would revert their (non edit summary) of adding this cat. Mike Allen 17:55, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't know how germane this is, but based on the literal name of the category, my initial assumption was that it was only intended to be applied to articles about franchises. I wouldn't have expected it to be applied to articles about specific entries in franchises. DonIago (talk) 02:59, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts. Based on the early returns here, I'm going to ask Dr. Gregory House's Missing Cane to please stop adding franchise categories to articles until we come to a consensus on which articles fall into which categories' scopes. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 03:11, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Quotes boxes for captions in film articles

The user name GreyElfGT has made some quote boxes in plot summaries in film articles that show captions of those films including K-19: The Widowmaker, The Return of the Musketeers and Miss Potter. Those quote boxes with those captions can cause some unneeded issues, including cramping up space in the plot summary as seen with the one on K-19 between the first part of the summary and the infobox on the desktop mode. BattleshipMan (talk) 17:15, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

I think @BattleshipMan meant this link instead for the Return of the Musketeers.

As I explained in our conversations, I typically only use Quoteboxes for Opening/Closing Scrolls, Captions & Narrations, as they seem to Sum Up the Filmmaker's intentions, and complement the Plot Summary's Setting (time/place) and the Circumstances under which the Characters and Plot develops. But if they're causing a Display/Formatting problem, I could use {{Blockquote}} instead of {{Quotebox}} but I like the latter better, as it provides more Parameters to control Width, Quote Align, Source Align, and Box Alignment, as well as Background Color, Borders, et al.

I'm open to suggestions and advice, with the goal of Article Improvement. ThanQ IA. ~<}:^> GreyElf (talk) 18:11, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

We'll see what anybody has to say about this. Quoteboxes on the plot summary can clutter issues in those sections in terms of formatting and such. BattleshipMan (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

This feels to me like it falls under "Avoid minutiae like dialogue, scene-by-scene breakdowns, individual jokes, or technical detail" in MOS:TVPLOT. - adamstom97 (talk) 18:46, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

To me, "minutiae like dialogue" is specific to dialogue between Characters within the Plot, not necessarily a Narration or Caption that introduces/finalizes the entire Film (or TV show), and I agree with the MOS on that point, as back-n-forth character dialog can be too {{Overly detailed}} and should be summarized down to essential plot elements, and even further, as per WP:STREAMLINE. However, Opening and/or Closing scrolls actually summarizes the Setting & Conclusion for the entire plot, somewhat like an Epilogue / Prologue would do, no? ~<}:^> GreyElf (talk) 01:26, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

But you are just directly copying a large block of text from the film, I don't see how that is much different from copying a large block of dialogue. The plot summary is meant to be a summary in our own words. I can see why it could be useful to do this in some cases outside of the plot summary, but in the examples linked above you would be better re-writing that text in your own words. - adamstom97 (talk) 09:37, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@Adamstom.97, yes, I see your point, and I think some of it (in general) comes down to a Judgement Call, but some other concerns could be addressed specifically. For instance, when I watch a film or TV show, if the opening/closing statements constitute "a large block of text ," I would refrain from including a Quotebox. But what quantifies as "large" ? 150 words? Probably. 50-75? Less likely, right? But whatever the agreed-upon limit is, if the quote serves to help Summarize the Plot which is "in your own words," then it compliments & contextualizes the Plot section for readers who have not seen it.

The Examples above are only that...a small sampling of what's already out there...and not just by me. I'm following others who have edited before me and have added quotes that have helped me, as a Reader (not an Editor), to learn about films/shows that I have not already seen.

These daze, I don't watch shows indiscriminately. Reading Articles helps me to determine if I'm even interested in watching something I haven't seen. A Quotebox that introduces a Plot helps me determine, Yay or Nay on proceeding to read/watch further. Direct quotes introduce the basic Premise of the show, whereas the Plot delves deeper into specifics, "in your own words." ~<}:^> GreyElf (talk) 22:00, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Putting a giant text block in a plot section is 100% overkill. That content either needs to be integrated into the plot or it's not essential. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:13, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I don't like "giant" blocks either...thus I prefer Quotebox over Blockquote, so that one can reduce width to say 25%, whereas Blockquote doesn't have that optional parameter (unless there's a way, of which I'm unaware, to reduce width/size/font through the style and/or class params? help me out on that point). ~<}:^> GreyElf (talk) 01:31, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I concur with others. Plot summaries only exist to complement the encyclopedic coverage of a topic, per WP:PLOT. To add quotes is to elevate the plot summary above its basic purpose of providing context for reading the rest of the article. In essence, we should not be trying to spruce up the plot summary. We need to follow MOS:QUOTE too, and that MOS says, "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea." That means we need secondary sources to show why a quotation is worthwhile to have, and it won't belong in the plot summary. For an example that works here, Fargo (1996 film) § Claims of factual basis has outside the plot summary a section about the opening text and contextualizes it. Erik (talk | contrib) 15:59, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Wow! @Erik ...haha...just Wow! I saw Fargo, and after reading "Claims of factual basis" I have to just say Wow...those Coens really know how to Flip-Flop & Flim-Flam, changing their stories to suit selves and prank the public. I can see your point, and agree with you. I can see where that particular Film would absolutely require 2ndary RS Verification/Qualification of the Film's Opening statements – but not, per se, for all other Films/TV Shows.

So perhaps the MOS language needs to spell that out a little more clearly/specifically to allow for flexibility to account for Local Consensus...that is to say, what's required for one film isn't necessarily required for another. When in doubt, discuss allowing Quoteboxes/Blockquotes on the Film's local Talk page. For instance, in the 1946 British fantasy romantic drama, A Matter of Life and Death (1946 film), the opening statement (45 "brief" words, amounting to only ~6% of 700 total/recommended words) reads:

This is a story of two Worlds. the one we know and another which exists only in the mind of a young airman whose life & imagination have been violently shaped by war. Any resemblance to any other world known or unknown is purely coincidental.

In this case, while it has "Brief quotations of copyrighted text..to...establish context" it does not require a 2ndary source to verify, as the film is clearly a Fantasy, not based on a "factual" case such as any real-life murder (as in Fargo). It establishes: context as a Time of War; the Place as "two Worlds;" the Protagonist as "a young airman;" and Reality/Fiction as "purely coincidental," while the Plot Section deals with Character/Plot Specifics (WWII May 1945, Britain, Squadron Leader Peter Carter, a Royal Air Force pilot...) "in your own words" (i.e., not copyrighted), and all of that is from the Primary Source, which does not require outside secondary verification. So then...

Is the Quotebox OK there? Does it disrupt Display/Formatting? I see your point about "not...trying to spruce up the plot summary," but even Hardbound/Printed Encyclopedias have Sidebars to illustrate its Prose...so why should the Electronic Medium prohibit the same techniques as the Printed Medium? ~<}:^> GreyElf (talk) 20:35, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I think I should also qualify to all concerned, and to @BattleshipMan specifically, I'm not the only one who has "made some quote boxes in plot summaries in film articles." I didn't originate this idea/practice. I had previously observed Quoteboxes introducing other films/shows, which gave me the idea in the first place. So, I suppose it's an important discussion for any/all Editors who are working on films/shows. ThanQ for your input. ~<}:^> GreyElf (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@GreyElfGT: Per MOS:PLOT, Wikipedia's articles about fictional topics must be written from an out-of-universe style. To me, that means we should generally not include prominent quoteboxes that intro readers in an in-universe way. Although I'd be open to occasional exceptions, e.g. perhaps the intro text to Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World would be worthy of such prominence due to its being memed, I can't see how MOS:PLOT wouldn't block most of them. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 02:27, 18 May 2026 (UTC)