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Film vs. movie

A large number of article titles have the word "(film)" rather than "(movie)" in them. This is something that needs to be mentioned in this article. Jay 13:48, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Pasting this in from a discussion on another talk page.

It would appear that the convention in the English version of Wikipedia is to list artistic works (films in particular) under the English-language title, rather than under the title under which the film was produced, as is done on IMDB. Is that correct?

Not necessarily. It depends on how well it's known. I know we have an article at Life is Beautiful because that's how it's known to English speakers, but we also have Les Misérables. It depends on how it's known.
Known where? The US, English-speaking countries, worldwide, or some other criterion?

The discussion was going nowhere. Hence made the mention of "film" in the page. Jay 10:13, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

English film names or original titles?

I think this should be discussed, and once is settled, mentioned in the naming conventions page. Either way, a redirect of the other one should be made.

My vote goes to naming the movie with its original name, like on IMDB.

Examples of original title naming: Ringu (vs The Ring) Abre los ojos (vs Open your eyes) Amores perros (vs Love's a Bitch).

Examples of english dubbed title naming: Solaris (vs Solyaris) Three Colors: Blue (vs Trois couleurs: Bleu) Seven Samurai (vs Shichinin no samurai) (there are more for sure).

xDCDx 14:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the general rule for using the name most commonly used by English speakers should apply most of the time. So both Amores perros and Seven Samurai would be preferred. This has been discussed a bit at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (foreign languages), and I have just written a bit about the use of foreign language titles at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles). I'd love some feedback. How does this get decided? --Samuel Wantman 10:59, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I go for English-language release titles. If there is more than one (in the case of Amores perros), choose one. If there are none, pick the original edition. If there is only one, pick that one. WhisperToMe 23:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Samuel Wantman's right about the naming conventions, and they surely apply here. Using an English translation of, for example, La Cage aux Folles, Pather Panchali, or Ikiru would be confusing and odd for most readers, as would be Shichinin no samurai or Solyaris. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Films do not divide neatly into "those best known by their untranslated titles" ("Amores Perros") and "those best known by their translated titles" ("Seven Samurai"). Where does "Ai No Corrida" ("In the Realm of the Senses") fall on this scale?
I would do the same as IMDB and use original titles. It doesn't cause a problem with making films harder to find, because of redirects; I look for "Three Colours: Blue" and get redirected to a page titled "Trois couleurs: Bleu" but which says "Three Colours: Blue" prominently in the first paragraph. IMDB does this because a film may have several titles - perhaps even different ones for a UK and US release - so it looks for a single "most canonical" title for the page about the film, and that has to be an original language title.
Interestingly, though, IMDB always uses Roman script rather than, say, Cyrillic or Kanji. I am not sure what the right thing to do here is; I am inclined to think that Roman script is the right choice; this is an English-language encyclopaedia, and Solyaris has a good chance of being recognisable to an English speaker in a way Солярис doesn't. — ciphergoth 11:25, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

"Movie" is a bad choice

I object to making Title (movie) the standard for Wikipedia's disambiguating titles for motion pictures. "Movie" as a word is an Americanism, used primarily in North America (and to some extent Australia, I am told), but not commonly used elsewhere, such as in Britain. By making this the standard for Wikipedia, it inserts a U.S.-centric bias that is unnecessary.

The other options seem to be film, cinema and motion picture (Any I am missing?) - and all seem to be in use on various pages.

Personally, I prefer to use "motion picture" when disambiguating an example of this art form. It is descriptive, technical, widely-used and internationally understood. On the downside, it's not as short as the other options.

"Film" is the shortest option, and currently the title of the meta article about the art form, but the word is becoming archaic as motion pictures move into the digital age.

"Cinema" has the advantage of being short, but it isn't commonly used in the U.S. to refer to individual motion pictures.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "cinema" is ever used in any variant of the English language to refer to an individual motion picture (e.g. "I watched a really great cinema last night"; "'The Godfather' is one of the most popular cinemas of all time"). In the UK a "cinema" is a venue in which a motion picture is shown, i.e. a movie theatre. ("Last night I went to the cinema to see a film.") AdorableRuffian 23:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As it stands, we have disambiguating titles using all of the above on Wikipedia. There obviously isn't any consensus on this issue, even though a policy has been set. Kevyn 02:12, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm with Kevyn on this one. 'Movie' sounds... childish, if you will. It's a word you might see in a popular magazine, but any self-respecting publication would use 'film'. (I'm a U.S. resident, btw). --Smack 04:46, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I would also vote for "film" --Samuel Wantman 10:33, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
While I would personally prefer 'film', I don't understand how 'movie' would constitute a USA bias; if that were true, wouldn't the term 'film' then constitute an anti-USA bias? As you suggest, it is used in USA, Canada, and somewhat in Australia, so it isn't necessarily "US-centric". Rather, 'film' could be said to hold a "pro-UK" bias. --Taiichi 21:31, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
"Film" does indeed constitute a "pro-UK" (or anti-US) bias. Is Wikipedia run like the island in Lord of the Flies? Why can't the same principle that guides spelling guide this choice? --Cultural Freedom talk 13:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Cultural Freedom, there is further dicussion on this down the page a bit. IMO, (film) is better (movie), since there is one fewer character. I less keystroke to make.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 18:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Somehow, apparently the fact that many movies are not shot on and are not ever transferred to film was never mentioned...? Are SOV features typically referred to as films? Шизомби 05:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not the actual photographic film that is referred to, rather the transferred meaning of a motion picture. This should be pretty apparent. I can't see how 'movie' has a broader scope than 'film'. Let's keep to the topic anyway - personally I prefer 'film'. Bjost 00:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Handling of special movie titles

The above movie titles aren't yet covered in the naming conventions here. The question is - should the main article be at the title used to match the adverstisement/marketing of the movies, or should Wikipedia establish a standard to use a regular format which readers might expect? In any case, we should address this on the conventions page, so people can have something to refer to.

My opinion is that, in the case of the above three, it would be unreasonable to expect a reader or an editor to intuitively type in these titles. -- Netoholic @ 17:59, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Agreed. All three of the above films have common names by which the general English-speaking public knows them, and these, rather than the typographical accidents of the movie's original title, should be used instead. I want to type in Solaris (movie), not Солярис. I want to type in Prince (artist) and not that dratted symbol. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:37, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The standard we've had for oh so many movies is to make the actual, official title (or as close as possible to it subject to Wikipedia naming constraints) the article, and all the common names given to it redirects. For example, I posit that Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back/Empire Strikes Back is an example of an existing convention (the former is the actual page, the latter a redirect). -- Kaszeta 17:22, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would seem reasonable to me to have the articles on pages with the appropriate typography, for neatness of presentation. Good use of redirects would make this attractive and unproblematic. --April Arcus 16:17, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, except of course that there are certain titles Wikipedia can't represent for technical reasons, and for those we look for the next-nearest thing. — ciphergoth 20:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Requested move to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films)

I was under the impression that a consensus had already been reached to call the media "films". That seems to be the drift in the discussion above. Also, a while ago the template name for stubs got changed from ""movie" to "film", and just this week Category:Movie stubs got renamed Category:Film stubs and Category:Cinema got renamed Category:Film. Most of the articles are called "film", the main article on the topic is called film. So I didn't think I was being very bold when I started renaming stubs from "Title (movie)" to "Title (film)". But I've been asked to stop, and this page is referenced, so I'm asking for a decision to be made.

When possible, I think most of the articles should use the same naming convention, and "movies" is the wrong term. It is an Americanism. Film seems to be an acceptable word for speakers of English all over the world. It also seems to be the word most used in Film articles. It certainly doesn't make sense to have a category and template using "film" and have the article names use "movie". I'd also like to rename the categories called "Cinema in Foo" to "Film in Foo", but I can bring that up at WP:CFD. If I'm off base here. Please let me know. -- Samuel Wantman 05:39, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So let's vote:

Shall we rename this page Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films) and re-edit it accordingly?

  • Rename -- Samuel Wantman 05:39, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • No vote. The word movie is universally understood and as yet I see no particular need to move. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:00, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename I'm not worried about its being an Americanism, but it does have a rather nursery-slang/journalistic feel to it, which many Americans aren't keen on either — at least, not in a reference work like this. (On the other hand, I see no reason to change "Cinema in Foo" to "Film in Foo".) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:00, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • The "Foo films" categories seem to be numerous and well-populated, so why not stick with them? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 21:09 (UTC)
  • Rename Seeing that everything else has moved, this seems to make sense. -- Kaszeta 28 June 2005 13:12 (UTC)
  • Oppose Up until recently one could argue that the medium was film, but now that movies are going digital I think it is a better term; in the same way as the British VDU is better acronym than American CRT now that CRTs are on the way out. The still picture preceded the movies which proceded the talkies, so the word movie is not new, and is in use in Britain eg the BBC's Talking Movies programme Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 21:51 (UTC)
  • Support. Broader: all movies are films; not all films are movies. –Hajor 2 July 2005 05:55 (UTC)
  • Rename FearÉIREANN(talk) 2 July 2005 14:35 (UTC) Agree with Hajor's point. I think Philip's argument is irrelevant. FearÉIREANN(talk) 2 July 2005 14:35 (UTC)
  • Rename Don't feel strongly either way, but mildly inclined toward "film" as the more professional term, and in light of the recent drift in Category names etc; we should try to be consistent. — Catherine\talk 01:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. I'll let others "re-edit accordingly". violet/riga (t) 11:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Which 90s Hollywood movie is it in where one of the characters dismisses Europeans as making "films" [(as opposed to commercial movies)]? Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 21:55 (UTC)

  • I see PBS's point (in his vote), but the technicalities of the medium don't dictate the name (we still talk about albums, even though recordings aren't kept in large albums, as 78s were). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 1 July 2005 22:00 (UTC)

If people don't want to go to the ballpark, how are you gonna stop them? Cryptonymius 07:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Disputed

I added the disputed tag because this is a major change, and the vote was not posted at Wikipedia:Naming Conventions. Mackerm 06:11, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Isn't there a better tag? The factual content of this page surely isn't the issue. Also, Wikipedia:Naming conventions isn't for posting notices about votes; which page did you mean? It was publicised at Wikipedia:Requested moves ([1]). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:09, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

This is one of the major reasons polls are evil. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

What is? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:02, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
You end up with seven people voting and then acting as if the vote actually represents something meaningful. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:36, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with voting; if the seven people had simply given their views and reached consensus, how would that be an improvement? The move was publicised, and only seven people noticed or could be bothered to comment; that's how it works. What's your alternative? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:04, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Consensus can change through discussion, the final results of a meaningful poll cannot. One must hold a new poll and start over. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:51, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

The rational thing to do would be to stick some sort of a mini-disputed tag in the line in Wikipedia:Naming Conventions which is disputed, with a link to the correct discussion page. That's the only way I see it could get proper publicity. Maybe something in Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes . I'll have to think about it a bit. Mackerm 01:38, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Suggested change

How about just using the form Title (1234) alone, as people will be familiar with from IMDB and many other film-related writing? That will make the titles of all film articles uniform, and avoid the film/movie argument. – Smyth\talk 22:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Just 1234 (the year) is not enough information. The article could be about a film, a book, a magazine, a musical... SpNeo 08:52, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

But films are conventionally written that way, much more so than films, books, musicals or any other media that might share the same name. – Smyth\talk 10:24, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

That's not a convention with which I'm familiar. It's often used in film listings, for example — but then it's often used in book listings, album listsings, etc., as well. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:36, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. – Smyth\talk 16:12, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

A ridiculous move

I heavily oppose the new naming convention ("film" instead of "movie" in the title), which has been arrived at under the guise of a democratic poll. Giving thousands of contributors a fortnight at the beginning of the holiday season without publicizing such a major change properly and then wait for seven (seven!) people to cast their vote is beyond good or evil. I'm sorry if I have been the cause of more work reverting, in a few cases, "film" to "movie", but I had no idea that that ridiculous move had even been proposed. As I already stated, it will mean many many hours of unnecessary and unpaid work for those who tend to stick to, and carry out, the rules laid down by a few. I myself certainly won't take part in the pointless project of renaming what must be thousands of film titles.

I'd like to add that I usually do prefer British to American English, but in this case, renaming a movie "film" so that all references to it become redirects (with quite some double redirects thrown in for the sake of total confusion) will be the responsibility of those—whoever they are—who ruled that seven individuals are enough to decide on that matter. Good luck to you all. <KF> 10:39, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

  1. The move was correctly advertised (and it's not clear to me what "the holiday season" means here. I've not noticed any diminution of editing at certain times). Where do you think that it should have been but wasn't?
  2. Moves are made on the basis of consensus among those people who discuss it. I've no doubt that you're annoyed that you missed it, but that's going to be true of hundreds of people at various VfDs, RfCs, CfRs, etc.
  3. "Film" isn't British English as opposed to U.S. English "movie"; "film" is used in all varieties of English. "Movie" might be more common in (parts of) the U.S., but that's another matter. "Movie" is also the term preferred by journalists, but that shouldn't affect our usage (in fact it's a good enough reason for being suspicious of it, in my opinion, but that's by the by).
  4. No-one's asking you to be involved in renaming. I doubt that there's going to be a concerted renaming exercise; people will do it as and when they come across a case. As there was already considerable inconsistency of usage, that won't be a problem.
  5. I can't follow your last paragraph, I'm afraid. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:43, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
My own (admittedly America-centric) impression is that "movie" has a fairly informal, colloquial flavor, while "film" sounds a bit stuck-up and pompous; one goes to a "movie" on a Friday night to be entertained, while one writes pseudo-intellectual, jargon-encrusted critiques of a "film" for an academic journal. I'm not sure if there exists a truly neutral term for the medium. *Dan* 15:10, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
That is localised, I think. It's certainly not the case here, nor in most other English-speaking countries so far as I can tell; "film" is the ordinary, everyday, colloquial term. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:27, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • shrug* decisions have to be made somehow. The justification given seems sensible. I agree with Mel Etitis — ciphergoth 15:36, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
The move makes a lot of sense. 'Film' and 'movie' are correct expressions in both British and American English. 'Film' however is the more formal term, which is why it should be used to disambiguate. Nobbie 12:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

disambiguation of films by "nationality/language"

I frown upon this. The only cases where an extra disambiguation convention would be needed would be rare ones where more than one notable film of the same title is released the same year. Rather than explore the potentially difficult question of what defines the nationality of a film, I would suggest:

  • If a film named Foo is released next year, it goes under "Foo (film)" for the time being.
  • If two films named Foo are released in 2007, the existing "Foo (film)" gets moved to "Foo (2006 film)", and the new articles are created at "Foo (Tarantino film)" and "Foo (Bertolucci film)", assuming of course that neither director has a previous film of the same title.

Then we'll never have to argue over which sovereign nation a film, by an Italian director, but set in France and starring American actors speaking Esperanto, actually "belongs to".

— FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 04:35, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the frown. Are there many cases of this? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

to my knowledge, no, but the final paragraph Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films) states: 

If two films in different languages have the same name they can be disambiguated
on their language name. E.g., add (French film), or if necessary (1972 French film),
to the title.

and I think this suggestion should be removed per the reasons I stated. — FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 02:54, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree too, so I remove. If anything in this vein would still be necessary I'd propose something like this:

If two different films of the same year have the same title, they are further disambiguated by the director's name, like this: Salome (Strauss 1923 film) IMDb and Salome (Bryant 1923 film) IMDb

Note that the "by nationality" wouldn't work for the films in the example, while both were released in the USA.
Nonetheless, the example is quirky: actually the Bryant film was released as Salomé in the USA, and has a wikipedia article at Salomé (1923 film) (the other film is Salome throughout, so could be at Salome (1923 film), which is now a redirect to the "Salomé" 1923 film).
I don't think, however, the Strauss film would get a separate wikipedia article in the forseeable future, while much less notorious than the Bryant film.
In a funny way, however, the example of these two films shows that disambiguating by director *exclusively* (that is without mentioning *year* and "film") wouldn't work: Salome (Strauss), would of course need to redirect to Salome (opera) - note that also filmic versions of the Strauss opera exist, so Salome (Strauss film) might be misunderstood as, for example, Salome (1974 film) IMDb: "Undoubtedly the finest film performance of the Strauss Opera".
All in all, unless someone comes up with a better example than the two 1923 Salome/Salomé films, I wouldn't mention the "additional disambiguation by director" in the guideline yet. --Francis Schonken 12:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions for foreign films

I originally posted this in the Wikiproject and got almost nil response even after a plea for response. I would like to see the project page updated with whatever consensus is arrived at here. Thanks! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 18:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

My apologies if this has been dealt with earlier, but is there a convention for naming foreign films? I've seen both where the title is the original release name in the country of origin (L'homme du train), and where it is the English release title (Manon of the Springs). Most articles are good in that they provide redirects for the English release title and the foreign title but it is strange to see a title (Le Salaire de la Peur) with an release poster in English. There needs to be some consistency either way, though I personally favor the English release title in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). See Category:Films by country for examples of both, though French films seems to have the most movies with original release name. If there isn't a policy then a straw poll should be done to see which is prefered. Whatever is decided should also go into the naming conventions policy. Thanks --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 16:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I hate to be a pest, but am I going to get any response on this?! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
FWIW, I'd vote for using English for the article's title, with a redirect from the original-language title. And if there's no image of the original-language poster available, I think the English poster should be used only if the film has been translated and re-released in English. Don't know if this makes sense, but it's my $.02. Cheers, Her Pegship 15:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
My vote is for the English title. We're also having a similar discussion about this on a book page, about whether the article title should be "Polish Biographical Dictionary" or "Polski Slownik Biograficzny": Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary#RfC: Request for Comment. I came to this page to see if there was a consensus on film names, but it looks like things are even more confusing for movies. Elonka 01:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
IMHO the original title is preferable if it it's fairly well known and not totally incomprehensible to an English speaker. E.g. "Les Miserables" and "Fucking Åmål" are comprehensible. There's some discussion about this on latter one's talk page. Coffee2theorems 19:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Documentaries

I changed several (movie) to (film) in Richard Gere's filmography. However, I found a documentary called Reporters from 1981, and this link redirects to journalist. I was unable to find any naming convention on documentaries, so I renamed the link Reporters (film). But I was wondering if it should be Reporters (documentary) instead. Tskoge 10:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Multiple similarly-titled films in the same year

I was trying to dab Rain in Ellen Muth's filmography to a 2001 film, but Rain (film) was not the one I was looking for, and was also made in 2001. So I did Rain (<director> film) instead. It's still a red link. Suggestions? --Christopherlin 04:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Television movies

There is an ongoing discussion about how television movies should be named. The main contention is that whether TV movies should be handled separately and be titled Movie name (TV movie) or treated under the film naming convention. Please leave comments at the original discussion. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 19:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Splitting an article into book and film articles

Over at Talk:From Hell there is currently a discussion about whether the film belongs in its own article. I was looking for a guideline on that topic, but I haven't been able to find one. This seems like a good place to ask-- is there a guideline? Lord Bodak 18:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Well it's no official suggestion, but my own unofficial guideline is to split if both articles are not stubs as a result. YMMV though, because everyone's definition of stub is different but I think it is a good rule of thumb. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 23:21, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I also think it is a good idea to split the entries if either the film or the book had it's own unique cultural contribution, whether or not the result would be a stub. Academy Award (and Palme d'Or and Goldene Baer etc.) winners absolutely should have their own page, but that shouldn't be the only criterium. For example, the score from Fahrenheit 451 (film) influenced the Beatles, completely independant of the book.

Ionesco 17:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

film series questions

Is there an agreed upon convention for naming film series articles? I mean, should it be X (film series), X (series), X series, X film series, or something entirely different? Also, when creating articles relating to film series, should the article for the first title in the series be expanded to include information about the whole series (and then the individual titles spun out if it grows too large), or should individual articles for individual films in the series be created from the start from the start? Any help would be appreciated. --Myles Long 23:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Anybody have any thoughts on Myles' comments? Шизомби 23:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Why not put it to a vote? Lady Aleena 04:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Vote

Sign where you agree...

  1. Question 1: How should we title film series articles?
    1. X (film series)
    2. X (series)
    3. X film series
    4. X series
  2. Question 2: Should the article of the first film in the series also be the series article?
    • Yes

Comments

I am leaning towards X (film series), but only if we've decided that shot on video (SOV) features are also to be called films, despite not being on film? Шизомби 23:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I would go with that. I would include anything shot digitally. The big thing now is that some films in the future might not even be on real film, just its digital alternative.
-- Lady Aleena talk/contribs 10:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I am working on something that is related to this. So, the sooner that a decision can be made, the better, or should I just be bold and make a decision on my own. :)
-- Lady Aleena talk/contribs 15:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I've become overly cautious in my [not so old] age...but I'd let it wait until the end of the week, in case someone disagrees and wants to pick on us for jumping the gun. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
As Inigo Mantoya said in The Princess Bride - "I hate waiting"
-- Lady Aleena talk/contribs 05:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Question 2 - I'm not sure if the question as stated is the same as the one Myles Long or I had in mind. There are some articles like Leprechaun (film) which are about the first film and are also about the series and sequels since articles for those haven't been created yet. With Return of the Living Dead, there's articles for the first three films and a Return of the Living Dead which also covers the 4th and 5th sequels which do not have articles. If an article about the first film in a series should only be about that one film, then for e.g. Leprechaun, stubs would need to be created for the sequels and the sequel info taken out), or it should be split into Leprechaun (film) and Leprechaun (film series). Or to pick a series which has no articles, Witchcraft. When work begins on that, should it start with the creation of Witchcraft (film) or Witchcraft (film series)? Шизомби 00:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Question 2 is to indicate that if there aren't any articles, or only an article about 1 film in the series, should that article also cover the entire series until such time as other films are added. I think. IMO, articles about a film should only be about the film, not the entire series.
-- Lady Aleena talk/contribs 06:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks like we have a winner for Question 1. Should I write it up and put it on the project page?
&#151;Lady Aleena talk/contribs 11:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

My take is - yes, for Question 1. As for Question 2 - each individual film should have its own article per Lady Aleena, even if it's a stub. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 15:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Two films, same name, same year! What to do?

This seems to be a HUGE oversight of the naming conventions. What to do if there are two films with the same name, in the same year? For example, there were two films called Aladdin released in 1992; one by Disney and one by GoodTimes Animation. Here's the IMDB page for the 2nd one: [2]. Maybe we can do something similar to what IMDB does ("Film title (1992 film/I)", "Film title (1992 film/II)". Are there any objections to this? If there aren't, I'll start doing this myself. I'm not too hopefull about getting a reply, since this same question was asked on this very board earlier and nobody answered. So I'll do this myself if nobody replies within a few days. Esn 14:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

My thought would be "Aladdin (1992 Disney film)" and "Aladdin (1992 GoodTimes film)", but that's just my opinion. Lord Bodak 14:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Are they both USA?
&#151;Lady Aleena talk/contribs 15:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, they're both American films. The article in question was first named Aladdin (1992 film II) and then moved by someone to Aladdin (Golden Films film). I myself preffer the first title, because what happens if Golden Films makes ANOTHER Aladdin film on another year? Sure, it's not likely but something like that could conceivably happen - the first option prevents anything like that from being a problem.
But anyway... I think that there should really be something about this in the main article. Esn 22:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Great, I just ran into exactly the same problem here. Two Hong Kong films produced in the same year, and both with the same English name: [3] (directed by Cheng Wai Man) and [4] (directed by Leung Wang Fat). The Chinese names are different however, but I doubt we have a norm of including their local-language names to differentiate films? Any possible solutions here?--Huaiwei 14:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I would just name it Violent Cop (film) and make sure the otheruses tags are set up clearly at the top of all three Violent Cop articles. Doctor Sunshine talk 19:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Now why did I not think of that? ;) Thanks for the tip!--Huaiwei 11:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Film series

Does the convention ban the use of other names - such as trilogy ? -- Beardo 00:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Determining the official title of a film

I was looking around for an answer to this question, and instead found a number of conflicting discussions, so I thought I'd ask here and see if the guidelines could be clarified on this point. Mainly, I'm wondering by what criteria we determine the "official" name of a film when it is inconsistantly represented in various sources. I see there's been discussion of "Clerks." above, and over at that article, the consensus has been roughly in favor of keeping the period at the end of the title in order to represent the film's official name. In that example, the film's title card uses "Clerks.", the movie poster uses "cLeRKs", and the film's original script appears to use "Clerks", which is what I've seen the film most commonly called in reviews and other outside sources. Is there a way we can add to this guideline to be more clear on what the most official source is? The MoS for trademarks states that we should avoid using unconventional capitalization or typography in the names of products and corporations. I see where that's different from film, but films do also seem to skate the line between artistic work and product, and often onscreen representation of titles seem to fall under the umbrella of "graphic logos", especially titles which are in all caps. It seems like the whole thing could use some clarification. -- (Lee)Bailey(talk) 23:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed above at #English film names or original titles? and #Naming conventions for foreign films, but with no clear result. My own observation is that if we use IMDb's article title (if English) or its primary English title (if not), we meet the general WP guidelines of "the most commonly-known name in the English-speaking world" and "sourced information", especially as IMDb is almost certainly the best-known global source for film information (Alexa ranking "34" as of this post). Thus, we have Clerks. (with punctuation) instead of Clerks (without). But like anything else on Wikipedia, this is hardly a rigid rule. We also currently have The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies instead of IMDb's The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, with trailing punctuation. With Wikipedia, as with life, we must learn to live with ambiguity and unresolved disagreements — and for much the same reason. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Pre-disambiguation of film titles

The current wording of the guideline has been construed to mean that articles about films should have the (film) suffix if there is another topic of the same name, even if that topic does not have an article on Wikipedia:

Where a film or book title is unique or virtually unique, let the title of the article be the same as the title of the film. But where it is the same as a subject in science, a novel, or whatever, unless the film title is far and away the most common accepted meaning of the word or phrase, title the film article like this: Film Title (film).

In most of Wikipedia, that is not the common practice. It is not necessary to "pre-disambiguate", to pre-emptively add the suffix in case another article of the same name may be created in the future. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Moving articles and adding the suffix, when and if it becomes necessary is not difficult.

I therefore propose the following changes:

Where a film or book title is unique or virtually unique When there is no risk of ambiguity or confusion with an existing Wikipedia article, let the title of the article be the same as the title of the film. But where it is the same as a subject in science, a novel, or whatever, unless the film is far and away the most common accepted meaning of the word or phrase the primary topic for that name, title the film article like this: Film Title (film).

Thoughts? -Anþony 23:05, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

This is currently being hotly debated in another topic area ... a discussion to which you are a party, I see; see Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
True, I am a party to the mediation and I have been an active participant in the debate. I believe strongly pre-disambiguation goes against WP:DAB, so I have advocated a similar position both here and there. However, the primary focus in the WP:TV-NC mediation is what kind of exceptions to the guideline should be allowed. This guideline is not listed as an article involved in the mediation and the mediation will not decide the issue of pre-disambiguation in general.
WP:TV-NC is inline with the language I have proposed here and even those disputing the guideline are not proposing to change it significantly. In my view, the guidelines really have nothing to do with each other except that they should both comply with WP:DAB. Barring an escalation to ArbCom and a very broad decision affecting all of Wikipedia, the results of that dispute will probably not affect this guideline at all. –  Anþony  talk  04:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
After several weeks, no one has really come up with a reason not to include the language, so I've gone ahead with my changes. I don't really think it's controversial in that it just defers to the standard set by WP:DAB rather than implying tougher criteria for films to be primary topics. –  Anþony  talk  22:53, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a similar discussion going on at Talk:the Wicker Man. I think that where an original film is the original work of art and other uses mere derivitives (and quite a poor one in this case) then the original deserves primary topic disambiguation. Jooler 09:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the original wording, simply because I've experienced several times what an absolute, utter pain in the ass it can be to fix all the links to an article if it was created on the name of something else which should receive primary consideration. "Moving articles and adding the suffix, when and if it becomes necessary is not difficult"? Maybe you've been lucky - I've had cases where I had to manually go through over a hundred links (in one case it was several hundred, and I simply gave up). I think that if there's a good reason to believe that there will eventually be an article other than that given film at a certain name, the qualifier should be added. For example, if a search for your film title on IMDB results in several films, several of which seem to be well-known (judging by the number of people who rated them), perhaps even more well-known than yours, then you would be fair to assume that they will eventually have articles on wikipedia. It is then your duty to avoid misleading people (many of whom will likely search for that title expecting to find something else) and save someone in the future the extra work by adding the suffix and prefferably creating the disambiguation page yourself, even if those films don't yet have articles. This has nothing to do with crystal-ballism, and everything to do with presenting accurate information to the reader as well as encouraging others to create those articles. Of course, some common sense has to be used here - it can be appropriate sometimes to just mention the other meanings in the same article rather than create a separate disambiguation page at the original name (if the derivate work such as a film is far more well-known than the book that it is based upon, ie. Hedgehog in the Fog). Esn 00:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably repeating some that has already been said, but go with the film's name without the disambig (eg (film) or (1994 film), etc) if that article with that name doesn't already exist. I recall creating an article for a film and found out a bit later that there was at least 2 other films with that same name (one of which I was creating). So I simply moved the original page from Film Title to Film Title (year film), fixed all the redirects (very important!) and changed the original page to a disambig page. Hope that helps. Lugnuts (talk) 12:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Foreign-language films

In case anyone's wondering, this stemmed from a discussion here, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films#Naming conventions, and it looks like it was already covered at the top of this page. Doctor Sunshine 22:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

With respect, a guideline is required to be "authorized by consensus", and I see no such consensus in the above (or any other) discussion on this matter. While I don't necessarily disagree with what you've written, there are certainly others who seem to prefer a similar system to IMDb, and in any case it still leaves a grey area of films where both the native and English name could equally be seen as being the most common. This guideline should be moved here for proper debate. PC78 23:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
It isn't anything new, it's a combination of existing policies, WP:NC(CN) and WP:UE. Plus, it's been discussed on this page, at least four times at the film project page, I've discussed any number of times – including with you – and it's doubtlessly been discussed countless times by other users. It's here to be referenced concisely. Since I know what you're referring to, and have discussed it with you seemingly endless, I can tell you that this sort of thing is rare enough that it can be dealt with on a case by case basis. Please do some research and if you can prove that the film title Kairo is used more or as often as Pulse by English-language readers, please present your evidence in the appropriate spot. Namely Talk:Pulse (2001 film). Doctor Sunshine 00:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Discussed, yes, but as I said with no clear consensus. And please don't tell me what I'm referring to; that's one example, yes, but there are certainly others and I was quite clearly speaking generally. Don't try and turn my above concern into something it isn't. PC78 00:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
In addition, you say this sort of thing is rare, but I don't see how you can say such a thing with any kind of authority. You yourself are currently engaged in at least two debates regarding this issue over at Requested Moves, where your moves/requests have been strongly contested. This alone should tell you that the issue is not so straightforward as you would like to think. PC78 10:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
This is still not dealing with one core issue: Films can have several English titles. It is not neutral to favour US title over the UK title, or the other way round. This is the case on Talk:Tirez sur le pianiste, where UK title is different from the North American one. Many mainstream films have at least two-three different titles and, for example, many 70's-80's Italian genre films have been released with half a dozen English names. The original title can work as a compromise. Prolog 07:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
This is exactly the sort of thing I've been arguing elsewhere. If there's any doubt over which title should be used, then personally I think we should show a preference for the original title. Others may disagree, but that's my two cents. PC78 10:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Just because there are several translations in use doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't one which is more overwhelmingly in use than the others. The most common title should be used, regardless of whether it's the original language or not. Girolamo Savonarola 11:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Not what I'm saying. I certainly don't dispute that we should use the common title of a film, but at least sometimes it's not always clear which the common title is. PC78 11:04, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
The rationale is pretty clear about why the more common title should be used. I understand your desire to use the original language in every case but it's to the detriment of the article being most easily found, and recognized. NPOV would only be broken if it was said that the English title is overall better than the native title, which would be silly and no one is implying that. It's common practice to list something first, give it more space, etc., if it's more common, that does not break NPOV. If a film has multiply English titles there's no harm in listing them too when appropriate but there's always a more common title. Doctor Sunshine 17:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
There is often no way to determine which English title is more common, if for example, the US uses X and the UK uses Y. Surely we can't favour the US one just because it usually gets more Google hits. Prolog 23:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
No one said Wikipedia was perfect. Google, Rotten Tomatoes, amazon.com, these are the best tools we have. If you can find a better way, we're all ears. Doctor Sunshine 01:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Determining the most common title by using only US-based websites is not a good idea for neutrality reasons. If this was the American Wikipedia, then it would work and there wouldn't be any problem. Prolog 02:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, how about this proposal: If the foreign title is not well-known in the English-speaking world, there are several English-language titles, and it is not clear that one of them is overwhelmingly more well-known than the others, the earliest English-language title should be used. Esn 23:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds good. It's pretty clear and leaves less room for personal judgment, and the release dates can usually be found on several sources. Prolog 00:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
That would just creates an unnecessary loophole where the more common title might not be used. We've already got a working policy to settle disputes, namely voting. Doctor Sunshine 19:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, so let's say an American film was released theatrically under a certain title. Then, after a while, it was released on one of those dollar-DVDs under a different title and sold a lot of copies at Wal-Mart - more people bought a DVD at Wal-Mart than saw it in theatres. Since its title on the cheapie DVD is now more well-known than the theatrical title, would you prefer that that be the title of the article? Esn 21:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely, yes. The more common title. Things change all the time. Would you rather Star Wars drop the Episode bit? My vote's we just trust in democracy for now. Doctor Sunshine 22:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
How do you define "most common"? Most common historically? Used in the most English-speaking countries (US vs. England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales vs. Canada vs. Australia etc.)? Most Google hits? Most Yahoo hits? It's not encyclopedic to switch titles after every trend. Prolog 02:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to be jumping in so late, but there is a long standing consensus about matters like this. Common practice is to use the "most commonly used name" or in other words, the name that would be most recognizable to speakers of English. The most common name might be in another language, as several foreign films are. If there is more than one common name, and there is disagreement which one is more common, the common practice is to leave which ever one already exists and create a redirect from the other. This is similar to the problems that arise related to spelling differences between the UK and US. The reason for this practice, is that it helps maintain civility, and so we don't spend endless hours arguing about such things. If two names are closely just as common it really doesn't matter which one is used and which one becomes a redirect. Does this help? -- Samuel Wantman 04:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it would help if I could see some evidence for such a consensus - are there any links I could follow?
Anyway, here's a slightly modified proposal: If it is unclear which English-language name the film is more commonly known by, the earliest one should be given priority. Unless the later name is now the official one (as in the case of "Star Wars" vs. "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). Esn 04:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Those are only two possible situations of many. For example often a foreign film will be seen under it's foreign name, then later a crudely translated title, then again under a professional or just alternate translation. Usually the best title will catch on but often it can get muddy. For example, one of the two debates that helped start this was Shoot the Piano Player. I prefer that title as it's most commonly used (by my research) and captures the pulpy feel of the American novel it was based on. Prolog prefers Tirez sur le pianiste, the original French title, or Shoot the Pianist, which is used (along with the Shoot the Piano Player) in the UK. (The other debate is over the Japanese Pulse or Kairo.) The existing guideline is the result of practical application over the past however many years and simply rewriting the rules would be an ordeal, not to mention how many people actually read them? To address Prolog's comment, it's not unencyclopedic to contain the most up to date information. This type of thing crops up only rarely (often decades apart) on films usually of low or moderate popularity or cult appeal. Doctor Sunshine 23:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Here are citations for previous consensus: WP:NC(CN) and WP:UE (previously cited above) for the use of English, and there is WP:ENGVAR which says "If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article." It goe on to say, "Finally, in the event of conflicts on this issue, please remember that if the use of your preferred version of English seems like a matter of great national pride to you, the differences are actually relatively minor when you consider the many users who are not native English speakers at all and yet make significant contributions to the English-language Wikipedia, or how small the differences between national varieties are compared with other languages. There are many more productive and enjoyable ways to participate than worrying and fighting about which version of English to use on any particular page." This is pretty much what I was saying above. --Samuel Wantman 02:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Esn, Prolog, if you're still there, I stumbled across something pertinent. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. Shame we didn't find this weeks ago. Doctor Sunshine 21:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Foreign language titles revisited

I have just rewritten the section on foreign language film titles, which was rather vague and unclear. I haven't changed the guidelines, but I hope I have clarified what was only implied before. Feel free to rework and/or discuss what I've done.

  • I've stressed the need to put both native and English titles in bold.
  • I've stressed that the native title should be used if there is no single English language title commonly used
  • I've stressed that 'commonly used titles' means the titles under which the film is released theatrically or on video (this is the only way to avoid POV on this issue, I think)

Cop 633 14:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Two concerns, we don't seem to have consensus on putting bracketed native language titles in bold, it's almost never done for Asian and Slavic languages and only hit and miss everywhere else. I'd suggest that for non-latin charactered titles this is because it's clear this is an alternate title and bolding can make the information unintelligible and/or confusing. For the rest, I haven't been bolding them because, really, Film (Language: Fïlm) is just as clear as Film (Language: Fïlm) and is consistent with the Japanese, Chinese, Russian titling, etc.
Second, a huge number of foreign films have alternate titles, even within the same country, and defaulting to the a less common native title because there's choices contravenes the rationale here and amounts to a politically correct compromise. We have a style guideline, WP:ENGVAR, with applicable points (assessing regional ties, failing that, selecting a title common to all, failing that, following the first contributor) if the title comes to a debate. I'm going to use a ridiculous example but, resorting to Shichinin no samurai because we can't agree wheither to slap a The in front of Seven Samurai doesn't do anyone any good. (Better examples would come from the America vs. the UK type deals, already rampant through Wikipedia.)
It may not hurt to run this by the film project. Your third emphasis is a great addition and the rest of your clarifications I wholeheartedly endorse. Doctor Sunshine talk 21:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I will run it by the Wikiproject.

  • Bolding: the Manual of Style seems to indicate that bolding should be used for variant titles as well as for the main article title. I agree that this seems to be avoided for non-Latin alphabets, presumably because it can make them read badly; perhaps we could add a note about that in the guidelines.
  • You raise a good point about variant English titles. I personally have no issue with settling on the US title in such disputes, simply because the population of the US is higher, making it the 'commonest title', but I suspect some Wikipedians would be less easygoing.

Cop 633 21:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I think that's a good idea regarding the bolding. And from personal experience, yes, you're right on count number two. That's why I like the diplomatic tone of ENGVAR, it allows for a case by case basis but offers suggestions for for stalemates. Doctor Sunshine talk 00:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

On formatting: without having gone through all the discussions and guideline details, I have been bolding titles in the following way: Title (Lang. Title). In the beginning I had also been bolding non-latin characters, where given (chinese etc), but then I decided against it and bold only the latin interpretation of the foreign title. If I see additional aka titles bolded, I remove to simple italic.

I'm working on a Manual of Style for Portugal at the minute, and I have been giving this some though. my suggestion is simple: if the film was released and re-titled in english, use the english title, otherwise use the original one. for foreign titles, my suggestion is: Original title of the film (en:Translation of the title) if the translation makes sense. Other wise Original title of the film (Lit:Nonsense translation of the title - ultra-short explanation). Which is the same way I suggest for when foreign words are to be introduced and kept in an article Galf 21:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization in titles

Another problem has appeared in relation to the capitalization of foreign titles. There have been some discussions and disagreements about it in user talk pages. I am not sure I can sum it all up very clearly, so I will bring it up here and call the involved editors to fill-in the details. In most French, Italian, Spanish titles, we capitalize the first word and all the rest remains lowercase. In German, of course this is a mistake, so there we captalize nouns. User Luigibob and E.S.Blofeld have been discussing about Argentine films and deem it correct to capitalize as we do in English titles. I am also in agreement, but I know that this means we would have to apply it to more languages, to stay consistent and I also know this involves a lot of work. This issue needs to be discussed so that a wider consensus is reached. Hoverfish Talk 08:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not able to comment about French and Italian, but practice in Spanish is to capitalise only the first letter of a title and proper nouns, so English-style capitalisation in Spanish titles is simply wrong. I think if we're going to allow titles in non-English languages (which we clearly must, as not all texts have a ready English-language equivalent) then those titles should be written according to the orthographic conventions of that language. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, in this case, Spanish titles would have to be lowercase, like IMDb has it. In WP France/Naming conventions they also suggest the same rule. However, if Luigibob can provide us some indication that Argentine films, unlike other Spanish-language countries, have every word capitalized in film titles, I would agree on some flexibility. I will drop a word in some WPs to drop us a line, if they don't have it stated in their naming conventions. Hoverfish Talk 20:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No, Argentina doesn't differ from any other Spanish-speaking country in this regard. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 00:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite. In Portuguese the stanadard is to capitalize everything, except connective words "Recordações da Casa Amarela" would be the correct title. This applies to any work title in the portuguese language.Galf 21:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Standard in Swedish is to capitalise only the first letter (unless of course the title is in English or contains proper nouns), but I don't think Swedish movies are a big problem, a large majority of them have an English title as well (judging by a Category:Swedish films). – Elisson • T • C • 22:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Same in Italy: only the first letter. Although there are a few exceptions. --Εξαίρετος (msg) 22:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In Spanish titles are sometimes capitalized, but the norm is to put them as anz normal sentence with only the first letter capitalized, as well as anz names in it. --Mariano(t/c) 15:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nick Boalch. When dealing with non-English languages, titles in those languages should be written according to the orthographic conventions of that language. Also, I can confirm that what Galf stated regarding the Portuguese convention for titles is true. Hope that helps.--Saoshyant talk / contribs (please join WP:Portugal or WP:SPOKEN) 01:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to be late in this confab. In one sense the argument can be considered moot since many foreign films should be retitled in their Englisn name. See: WP:UE. It should be remembered that this is an English encyclopedia and that "the convention in the Spanish language is that only the first word in a title and proper nouns are capitalised" is meaningless in an English encyclopedia. We should keep the proper English conventions uniform: Portuguese, English, Argentine, whatever. I have edited most, if not all, the "New Argentine Cinema" films to arguably B status. And I've found the film reviews in my work, most (if not all) state the names of the films in English or if in Spanish with caps as is the norm in English. This includes the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and others. I should have changed the names to English then but that is another story.

Also, I did not appreciate the recent wide name change of films with the bold understanding that the editor had policy under his/her belt. Clearly not, since we are on this page.

As for IMDb: they are so international, they do not have an ecyclopedia mind-set. They might do it because it might cross well with their other language IMDb's. They are not and never should be a barometer of what is wise in an encyclopedia; the New York Times, yes, IMDb, no.

Finally, I am Latino and can appreciate the cultural differences. I add accents, tildes, and such on the actors, titles, and such when I edit. At this point we are dealing with titles and I've stated my case. More due in due course, needless to say. Best. Luigibob 06:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a very good point. Where native titles are used I'd been going by the IMDb system too but have noticed that it's not used in professional written media. Likely to save their editors some hassle as it'd be construed as an error by much of their general readership and seem unprofessional. Really, if a foreign language title is more common there will be a common capitalization style as well which, by current policy, should be what we're using and that seems to be the standard English system. However, a guideline may be useful. Wikipedia seems to take unkindly to unusual stylizations (some of the time), such as Health (should be HealtH) and Izo (should be IZO), in favour of uniformity. I agree something should be added to the policy but we'll need consensus first. Perhaps a list of pros and cons will help. Please feel free to add points. Doctor Sunshine talk 01:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Le Système Anglais de Capitalisation Le Système indigène de capitalisation
Pros Cons Pros Cons
Professional, won't be mistaken for a mistake Honours original language style, keeps purists happy Will require individual language guides in policy, probable instruction creep
Easy for editors to follow, requires no specialized knowledge

You are combining here the capitalization in foreign titles with using the English version. I don't think we are arguing between the two. We have to make it clear that when a foreign film is known under one distinct name in the Englisg-speaking world, we should use its English name. However there are cases where the foreign name is most well known (or the only known title), cases where the British and/or Australian translated title differ significantly from the American translation (so to avoid confusion, the foreign title may be used) and cases where a foreign film hardly ever made it to the English-language world. In these cases (and we should make sure to limit foreign titles to such cases only) we still have to deal with capitalization. So here we should rather be making clear HOW to capitalize. Please, check the List of French films, which I am compiling lately. The titles are given as in the articles, so the inconsistency in capitalizing and the need to make a big and carefully selective cleanup as for which titles should be turned to English and which not, is quite obvious. Hoverfish Talk 06:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

My intention wasn't to combine the issues, hopefully I've made the table more clear now. I'm leaning towards the English language method. And I agree we need a mass title clean up. Excellent work on the French list by the way. I thought those lists tables might have too much information but it looks really classy. Doctor Sunshine talk 05:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Luigibob, you argue that '"the convention in the Spanish language is that only the first word in a title and proper nouns are capitalised" is meaningless in an English encyclopedia. We should keep the proper English conventions uniform'. I would contest this: if we're going to have an article named for a foreign-language title, as should happen occasionally (Mein Kampf is an obvious example of a work much better known by its source-language title, for instance), then we should make sure we get the capitalisation right according to the conventions of that language. In fact, actually you contradict yourself: you say that you 'add accents, tildes, and such on the actors, titles, and such' when editing and these diacritics are hardly in line with normal 'English conventions', since the English orthographic system doesn't use them. Congratulations for working to get spelling right, but I would suggest that we need to get capitalisation right too. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 10:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"Film" vs "movie"

In light of recent comments about the use of this term, can we please put something on the naming conventions page about it? I have referred people to this talk page, but if it were on the Naming conventions (films) page, it would carry more weight. Cheers, Her Pegship (tis herself) 18:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

English-speaking world

After a discussion about the naming of Indian films, I have added the following paragraph:

Note: in the following paragraphs, the phrase 'the English-speaking world' refers to countries in which the majority of the population speaks English as their first language; it thus includes the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as several smaller countries. It does not include countries such as India in which English is a common second language, but in which films are rarely produced in English.

Please debate this if it is deemed controversial. Cop 663 17:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Prepositions five letters or longer within film titles

Please see my comment at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization). --Mathew5000 21:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Possessives

I hate possessive titles (e.g "John Doe's Film", "John Doe Presents Film", etc.) and I propose a guideline against them.. They don't seem right to me at all. Many films are promoted this way, but some people seem to latch on to them as being the "full, offical titles". This seems wrong. I personally think the possessive part is merely a tagline that gets accidently mixed into being the title at times.

Some articles currently using possessive titles (either in the lead or namespace):

I'm sure there are plenty more, but it's a tricky thing to search for. I usually just stumble upon them. On the flip side, if people want to make the possessiveness part of the full title then there's a lot of articles that need adjusting. So, thoughts?--SeizureDog 15:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

General naming conventions go with the most common title, which is why we have The Anatomy of Melancholy, for example, instead of The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Historically, Opened and Cut up. I tend to agree with you, but on the other hand, the Burton and Shakespeare examples you linked above were redirects which went to article names I believe are the most common form of title. And Wes Craven's New Nightmare is the most common form, not New Nightmare. Girolamo Savonarola 17:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Renaming of trilogies

I don't believe it is necessary to rename articles about films that are collectively known as trilogies to a less useful (in my opinion), more ambiguous, parenthetical (film series) title. The naming convention, discussed and voted upon above, might work fine for some larger film series, but for the works conceived as trilogies and named as such by their creators, the name changes, just for the sake of Wikipedia conventions, is inaccurate. — WiseKwai 12:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem with numerating those articles is that the series could be announced as a trilogy years in advance only to have the last film fall through. The article which was named with "trilogy" would then be a misnomer since the series only has two films. The opposite could also happen. Some studio executive wants to get back a certain demographic and latches onto a series of three films that was "finished" 15 years ago. Well, the executive necromances the series back to life by force of will and the poor writer/director/etc who never wanted to see a fourth film now has this thing added to the series without any input from the creator of the series. That series is now four films so is no longer a trilogy. Also, even if the box of films says trilogy on it, doesn't mean that the next box won't have tetralogy/quadrilogy on it. The box after that could have pentalogy on it. The numeration could even be capitalized. That doesn't mean anything really. If some studio wanted to resurrect a trilogy from the 1960s and bring the grandchildren of the original characters and tack that film onto the 1960s series, they can do that.
For example: The Alien series was sold in a box that said Quadrilogy (misnomer) and look at what happened. It is now a pentalogy with the addition of Alien vs. Predator and has the possibility of becoming a hexology if a sequel is made for Alien vs. Predator. Night of the Living Dead fell into public domain, so now there are several sequels on different branches and it would be hard to numerate that mess, so just calling the article Living Dead (film series) gives no numeration and since series is both singular and plural that one article can handle all of the series that spun off from Night of the Living Dead.
Just some things to think about when naming an article about a series of films. A series of numerated films is never set in stone. - LA @ 13:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
No, nothing is sacred when it comes to the studios, and their desire to make money. But until they make their fourth, fifth or 13th film, I believe that the correct, accurate names of the articles about the film trilogies should stand, for the most part. You've taken the time to propose the renaming of a dozen or so articles. And, I've taken the time to individually state the reasons why I'm opposed. The chips will fall where they may. — WiseKwai 13:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Part of the problem with "trilogy" is just the fact it is tied to "three". Particularly recent film series have a habit of being "added to" (see. Die Hard, Indiana Jones etc). The only "loss" of precision is the 3 aspect which is itself a problem. If we then use the same form for all series we would need to call them "trilogies" "quadrilogies", "quin what evers" etc. This is confusing and unnecessary. An example of the problems in literature are "Hitchicker's trilogy" named so by the publishers but is an in joke and confusing. Here we need cinsistency or we get lost, the text can give the "advertised" names. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:16, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Please, check image backlinks after page moves

On several occasions now, I've received a bot notice that an image of a film poster is about to be deleted because of a fair-use violation. Everything is in order with the fair-use rationale, except that the backlink to the image is no longer valid because the film article's title was change to bring it in line with the naming convention. So I ask, please, after an article has been moved, please take the time to check and make sure the image backlinks have been changed. Thanks! — WiseKwai 08:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Enforcement

A lot of articles about film series doesn't follow this convention, for example the FA-class article Superman film series, should we enforce this convention? (I.e. rename articles to follow this convention) --MrStalker (talk) 18:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Be bold and do it. I looked at the mess which is the Superman series and shudder. It now seems to be two different series of films that start with the same first film. The alternate cut of Superman II seems to create a completely seperate series. So, name the article Superman (film series) and have fun. - LA @ 06:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Year in the title, film festivals and foreign release dates

Does film festival releases and non-English release dates decide the year for the film title? Such as Bug (2006 film), which was recently moved from Bug (2007 film). It was released in France at a filmfest in 2006, and an American filmfest in 2006, then to theaters in France and the US and other, in 2007. (IMDB names it Bug (2006)). So if it is correct to name it 2006 on wikipedia too, how does it work: Is it titled 2006 because of the French film festival release date? Or is it because of the US film festival release date? Does one as a rule check for film festival releases, as the main official release date? Bib (talk) 02:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Film series -- franchise?

I think we should make note of naming conventions when it isn't just a film series involved. For example, Friday the 13th is easily recognized by the films, but it has a lot of other media tied to it that isn't necessarily based on the films. There have been several lines of novels that were not based on the films, though Jason was a recurring element. There was a television series that had nothing to do with the films, but was created out of the idea of what Friday the 13th symbolized.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

For the record, this is an issue springing out of Jc37 (talk · contribs) constantly moving The Matrix (franchise) to The Matrix (series). The article doesn't just cover the films, and I fear "series" as a word presents an inherent bias to a film order. The Animatrix, the comics and Path of Neo present their own unique sequence or canon (in the case of the last) outside the film trilogy, Enter the Matrix and The Matrix Online. Alientraveller (talk) 22:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Any thoughts on this from others?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I my edits are all that's standing in the way (since no one else appears to have noticed, or to care about this issue), let's move this forward.
I think that "series" and "franchise" are different terms, meaning different things.
A "film series" is merely that, a "series" of several films.
A "franchise" is a collection of works from several media (not just film) which goes beyond just the film series.
So that said, I'll boldly add further disambiguation guidelines for franchise. And that should hopefully resolve this. - jc37 19:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
If those are your criteria, then I fail to understand why you were moving The Matrix from franchise to series, given that there are comics, video games, etc. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
That wasn't my criteria. In the past, I was mostly just following the naming conventions here.
However, since then, more discussion has occurred, and we now even have a Wikipedia:WikiProject Media franchises. So I think it's fair to say that "now", we should update the naming convention here. Do you disagree? - jc37 20:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I forgot all about this discussion. I agree with that basic definition of "series" and "franchise", and is why I've moved multiple pages to "franchise" in the past (even though we didn't have a specific statement devoted to it). I disagree with using "film franchise", as it first denotes that the franchise started in film, or that the film aspect of the franchise is the most important aspect. Many comic book spin-outs from films don't have any direct relation to the films, other than characters. Some take on a life of their own after the fact (like Alien vs. Predator, which was around years before those movies came out, as they were an evolution of the general comic line that was already being produced). I prefer to say just "(franchise)".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Fitna

Should the film Fitna be titled Fitna instead of Fitna (film)???? I'm sure that most people had never heard of the word Fitna before the film. StaticGull  Talk  12:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Italics for films etc

Maybe this has been discussed and settled long ago but I have a question: If, as this guideline says, "Film titles, like the titles of books and other works of art, are always italicized", why are article titles seemingly exempt from this? The effect off the exemption is to create an enormous amount of (I would contend, unecessary) work piping in the italics every time a link is made. I came across this in cleaning dab pages but it must occur all over wikipedia and not just for films. Abtract (talk) 15:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you mean - could you try explaining your point in different words? Or show an example? Cop 663 (talk) 16:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure, thanks for asking. See Zero (disambiguation), which happens to be the last dab page I edited. It contains links to several films, books etc each one of which has been 'piped' so that the italics required by this naming convention are included. So Zero (Dragon Ball) becomes Zero (Dragon Ball) ( I know it's not a film but the same priciples apply). As you can see, this more than doubles the number of keystrokes needed for every similar link. All this piping could be avoided if the article title was Zero (''Dragon Ball'') but that never seems to happen, why? Abtract (talk) 16:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Are you asking why the article titles don't include built-in italics? That's a software issue, well beyond our purview. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles about filmmaking

Per consensus at WT:FILM#Renaming of filming terms, I've added a section to explain how to disambiguate articles about filmmaking. Hope this is agreeable to all. Feel free to revise the wording or formatting to be more appropriate. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:28, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguating film titles

At present, the naming convention suggests that films of the same title be automatically disambiguated; no provision is made for "primary use". Should this always be the case, though? I ask the question in reference to a move request made for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film), where a user has suggested moving it to The Day the Earth Stood Still on the grounds that the original is more noteworthy than the remake. Personally I have no real opinion on the matter, but I think it's something worthy of discussion, if only to provide greater clarity on the issue. PC78 (talk) 18:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If it is overwhelmingly so, then there's no reason why it couldn't be, in accordance with the site-wide disambiguation guidelines. That being said, this is often a subjective judgement - is Hitchcock's Spellbound more important than the recent documentary? Is Best Picture-winner Crash more noteworthy than Cronenberg's earlier film of the same name? In this specific case, I think that the large-scale, big-budget upcoming release - combined with the fading of the original from much of the public's consciousness - gives it sufficient notability to demand an equal footing with the influential original film. I can also see a benefit to always disambiguating, though: it will make the various dabbed articles more visible to editors, and thus probably increase the overall page views of all of the articles in a disambiguation. More eyes is a good thing, I would hazard to say. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Problems with film series titling guideline

import from Talk:Batman (film series)
Shouldn't this article be titled "Batman film series" instead of using the parentheses? Parentheses are for a descriptor when more than one subject is referred to by the same name. It's uncommon to refer to the film series as simply "Batman", isn't it? People say "Batman movies", and the encyclopedic version would be "Batman film series". -- AvatarMN (talk) 22:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Not per WP:NCF. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:37, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
WP:NCF reads For articles on a series of films, the title of the article should be "Series name (film series)." That works for something like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, where the series name is present in every title, and the film's individual title appears after a colon. Film series like Batman's and the X-Men's not only don't use colons, but you can't even always find "Batman" or "X-Men" in the title at all. Therefor, who says what the "series name" is, for application to this WP naming convention? I don't think you will commonly hear anyone say simply "Batman" to refer to the films collectively. -- AvatarMN (talk) 22:49, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

end import
Doesn't this guideline brush up against not only breaking the guideline WP:Common_name, but also WP:No_original_research by applying a series name when there isn't one in the titles? In addition, it's a misnomer in some cases, including Batman, when the so-called "series" actually consists of one standalone and two series. I think we should consider changing the guideline to "Common series name films or film series". -- AvatarMN (talk) 23:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

That article about all of the Batman related film series is correctly named. It is not the title of the series, but the name of the subject of the various series, hence Batman (film series) just like Batman (comics). LA @ 00:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Plus naming it like that allows for the use of the Pipe trick. LA @ 00:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
The guideline reads "series name (film series)", not "series subject (film series)". If nothing else, the guideline needs to be amended to include this option? -- AvatarMN (talk) 00:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay, we'll change it to series name/subject. Good for you? :) LA @ 08:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that covers it. If the guideline reads that it can be named for a series subject, then that eliminates the concerns over violating original research or common name guidelines by making up a name for the series. -- AvatarMN (talk) 08:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

About about

"Conventions: Each word in a film title takes an initial capital, except for articles ("a", "an", "the"), the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters (e.g., "on", "from", "and", "with", "about"), "

Uh... doesn't "about" have five letters?Heqwm2 (talk) 17:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Trilogies not an exception?

I've restored the wording that allows trilogies as an exception, since its removal has not been discussed here. If this is practise is being challenged, then we're going to have to reconsider the contents of Category:Film trilogies, as well as others such as The Hobbit film duology. PC78 (talk) 16:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The word duology or trilogy in an article title about a film series limits the article and should not be allowed under any circumstance. It also really really really makes it hard to make templates, use the pipe trick, etc. I would not want to have to look up the hundreds of film series out there if I were making a template for them. I don't even think redirects should be allowed from a (film series) article to a numerated one. Those words should only be used as descriptors in the articles themselves, easily removed when a studio orders yet the eighth installment in a "trilogy." The cat mentioned should be deleted as there is a list already in place for them, and there are no other similar cats for the other film series by how many films are in them. Also, all the articles with the word trilogy in should be renamed post haste to get rid of that blasted word. I tried once, but cruft prevailed in that instance. The worst was at the Lord of the Rings. The book series is a pentalogy, not a trilogy, so the film series could be a pentalogy one day as well. Let's get the articles named with something generic and allow for growth instead of clinging to the word trilogy as if it were sacred.
And I am sorry for the tone of this, but this is a long standing issue that always bothers me when it pops up. LA @ 03:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
In what way does use of the word trilogy or duology "limit the article"? In what way is it "hard to make templates" or "use the pipe trick"? When (if) a film series ceases to be a trilogy, then the article can simply be renamed. I'm not sure I see the problem. The Vengeance Trilogy (for example) is routinely refered to by that name – there is no suitable alternative. We're not in the buisness of inventing names for things. PC78 (talk) 15:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
I think it depends on the film series itself. Theoretically, there are only 3 Lord of the Rings books, and thus it would be understandable to say "Lord of the Rings trilogy" (though personally, I think "Lord of the Ring (film series)" works just as well). With The Hobbit, that's more of their choice to do 2 movies, and since it's only a single book to start with they could easily do more if they so choosed. Personally, I don't think there needs to be a "Hobbit duology" page anyway. What exactly on there cannot be covered on The Hobbit (2010 film)? If they are making one large movie and splitting it up, then it should just be The Hobbit. If they are making two separate movies (with two separate stories), then they should have two separate pages. Notice how Kill Bill doesn't have two separate pages, nor is it called "Kill Bill duology".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:28, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
PC78, the words duology and trilogy are finite in this situation. A duology is 2, and a trilogy is 3. There is no room in the article for any subsequent entries to the series.
The pipe trick is a great thing. If a film series is named with (film series), and all I want to show up is just the subject name, all I would have to type is [[Subject (film series)|]] instead of [[Subject film series|Subject]]. Also, it would make finding articles about film series a lot easier. All I would need to know is the subject, then type Subject (film series) in the search box. So, if I wanted to find the article on the Children of the Corn, (there isn't one, btw) I would type Children of the Corn (film series) in the search box. However, if the series article had the numerated name, I would be lost. Most wouldn't know to search for Children of the Corn heptalogy. Also, what happens if the series got another entry? It would have to be renamed to Children of the Corn octology. After that, Children of the Corn ennealogy then Children of the Corn decology.
So, since we don't have crystal balls and can't know if a series is really complete, I say stick with the generic name by the series name or series subject. LA @ 09:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm fully aware of what trilogy and duology mean; the words may indeed be finite, but they can simply be changed when (more likely if) they no longer apply; I don't know why you see this as such a great hardship. No, we don't have crystal balls, so just as we don't know if a film series is really complete, we also don't know that it isn't. But many film series are pre-planned as trilogies these days.
I actually didn't know about the pipe trick (you really do learn something new each day), but that's hardly a reason in itself; on the contrary, it might be preferable to have a non-disambiguated article title. Nobody is seriously suggesting that we use heptalogy, octology etc., so your argument there seems rather fallacious – the guideline specifically states "trilogy" as the exception. As Bignole suggests above, this is probably something that should be determined on a case by case basis. PC78 (talk) 10:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
One other thing, I don't want to have to spend 5 minutes looking for a film series article if it doesn't exist. I am on dial-up so all Wiki pages load extremely slow. Having to search for just the right title is a nightmare. If I want to read about the Spider-Man film series, I will put Spider-Man (film series) in the box; if I want to read about the Anne of Green Gables film series, I will put Anne of Green Gables (film series) in the box; if I want to read about the Hot Shots film series, I will put Hot Shots (film series) in the box. That way they are all named the same so that they can be found the same way. Also, making templates which deal with film series would be a lot easier if all I had to type was {{#ifexist:{{{subject}}} (film series)|display some code|display some other code}} To use it, all editors would have to do is know the subject and not have to search for what the film series article is named. The more alike the names are, the better for everyone. LA @ 02:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I don't necessarily think that we should be using the word "trilogy" in article titles, I'm just not sold on your reasons why we shouldn't. We certainly shouldn't be (re)naming articles because it's conveniant for piping links or creating hypothetical templates. Not everyone is going to search for articles the same way as you; we have redirects for a reason, you know. ;) I agree with most of what Bignole said above, that "Lord of the Rings (film series)" works just as well as "Lord of the Rings film trilogy" (or whatever), but it's not going to work in every case. It's going to require a measure of common sense. PC78 (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Televison films disambiguation

Frequently in the news media a distinction is made between a made for television movie and films. Made for television films are often failed pilots, or films shot with a restricted visual format for television (probably less so now with HDTV). It would be helpful if this there could be a section on how such films are usually named on Wikipedia. For example at the moment there are two articles The Incident (film) and The Incident (TV movie) as it is probably less informative to name them "The Incident (1967 film)" and The incident (1990 film)" than to stick with the current names. However if they are usually named by (year film) for disambiguation, then specific mention of that in this guideline would also be useful as guidance. --PBS (talk) 14:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It would probably be useful if there was also a suggestion of what to do if a film is made to go direct-to-video and needs disambiguation. If it is normal to simply use (year film) or some other naming convention --PBS (talk) 14:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:NC-TV, television movies are disambiguated as (film). No reason to treat direct-to-video films any differently, either. I agree that it may be worthwhile adding some clarification here, though. PC78 (talk) 16:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I think clarification will help, too. Should we say so in the lead section, or will it be better under "Between films of the same name" (where we can say to use (XXXX TV film) if necessary)? —Erik (talk • contrib) 16:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of maybe slotting something like this between "From other topics" and "Between films of the same name":

Between types of film

When disambiguation is necessary, all films should be treated equally. No distinction is usually made between different types of film, e.g. animated films, silent films, short films, independent films, television movies, direct-to-video films, etc. If there are no other films of the same name, the title of the article should be Film Title (film). For example:

Not sure if I'm entirely happy with that, though; it might fit in better if the whole section was given a bit of a reshuffle. I'll have another look at it tommorrow, unless anyone else comes up with something in the meantime. PC78 (talk) 23:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguating by release year

Currently, WP:NCF says, "When disambiguating films of the same name, add the year of original release as indicated by IMDb." Relying on IMDb is problematic because the website marks the release year based on the first film festival release. I believe that this is misleading because festival screenings are not sufficiently wide enough; they more serve as stepping stones toward an actual theatrical release. It can also be misleading. For example, for the film 300, it is identified as a 2006 film because it screened at a film festival in December 2006 before being commercially released in March 2007. Publications have perceived 300 as a 2007 film, contrary to how IMDb marks it. Yet another issue, the reason why I bring this here, is that The Fall (2006 film) should be a 2008 film. It crept through a few film festivals in 2006 and 2007, but it ultimately became released in 2008. I suggest re-wording the WP:NCF sentence to say, "...add the year of the film's initial limited or wide release." Thoughts? —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Certainly the reference to IMDb should be struck from this page. I'm a bit fuzzy on festival screenings and how they apply both here and with regards to Future-Class assessments, though. What about films that have screened at festivals but haven't yet (and might not) receive a public release? PC78 (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Films that have only screened at film festivals to date are considered future films. I have not really followed up with any films that screened at a festival but never had a public release. (BTW, "public release" sounds like better phrasing... perhaps "initial public release (limited or wide)"?) —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
A film can't stay as a future film forever though, there has to be some kind of cut off point if a public release is not forthcoming. I guess it's something that applies more to indie or short films. The only example I have handy is Sa-kwa, a film which screened at festivals in 2005 but then got shelved and eventually looked like it would never get released. Even a few months ago I had the article categorised as an "unreleased film", before it got an out-of-the-blue theatrical release towards the end of last year. The question of whether or not we use festival release dates is certainly something which I feel needs some kind of discussion. In the meantime, I'm going to remove that mention of IMDb; pros and cons of the site aside, there's no reason at all why we shouldn't reference other sources for dates. PC78 (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that films that never have a public release are rare cases. My suggestion: "When disambiguating films of the same name, add the year of its public release, whether limited or wide. In rare cases when films do not screen outside of film festivals, the year of its first festival screening can instead be added." Any tweaking we need? —Erik (talk • contrib) 21:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
It sounds good to me, I'd maybe shorten it to: "When disambiguating films of the same name, use the year of its first public release. Where a film does not screen outside of film festivals, use the year of its first festival screening." I think this retains the full meaning of your version despite the omissions. Do you think we should add something to the first sentence (of either version) to cover future films? After that, I suppose the only situation that the guideline doesn't cover is a film that did not have a public release or a festival release, yet is still notable in some way, and shares a title with another film. Though that would be so rare an occurrence that I think we can safely deal with those on a case-by-case basis (e.g. Broken (Nine Inch Nails film)—though I think this should perhaps use the year of production). Steve T • C 22:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that Broken (Nine Inch Nails film) can be moved to Broken (1993 film). We can describe the 1993 film and the 2007 film on the disambiguation page. For covering future films, we could encourage the year as verified by a reliable source. If there is no such reliable source, we can point to IMDb as a placeholder and request a move later. See Talk:The Wrestler (2008 film)#Release year, for example. Is that what you were thinking, Steve? —Erik (talk • contrib) 22:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, something like that. Though on a second look at the proposed wording above, I think year of intended release is already covered by "use the year of its first public release"—it doesn't specify past or future. If no intended release date is listed by a more reliable source, IMDb or equivalent will have to do. It shouldn't come up too often that it causes a problem. (Agree about the Broken pagemove btw; as I say, this is going to be so rare an occurrence we can deal with those as they come up). Steve T • C 22:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
This guideline needs to clarify whether "public release" includes film festivals unless the film in question only premiered at a film festival. Saying "public release" is just too confusing as it can be interpreted as a film festival.Copana2002 (talk) 04:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

capitalisation

What about cases like sex, lies, and videotape? --Espoo (talk) 23:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:MOSTM Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Should we add "Each word in a film title takes an initial capital, even if the official title does not... This does not apply to non-English titles." to the beginning? --Espoo (talk) 11:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
What's your reasoning? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 16:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the lead should refer to WP:MOSTM for such cases. I don't see need to do any more. PC78 (talk) 16:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Original vs DVD titles

When a theatrically released film is retitled for DVD release, which is the correct name for its article: the original theatrical title, or the DVD title? The specific example I have in mind is The Miracle Match, an article using the DVD title of a film originally released as The Game of Their Lives. My instinct is that the article should be at the original title--disambiguated to (2005 film) as there is a 2002 film with the same title. But I didn't find any guidance in the naming conventions.--ShelfSkewed Talk 06:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

List of awards and nominations received by (Actor/Film)

Through discussion at FLC, there seems to be a precident for naming award lists in the form above. This is as part of a standardisation across musician and television series awards following previous discussion and more recent discussion. After I moved a list today Diaa abdelmoneim has requested that I let you all know so that this can be noted in the relevent place. Many thanks, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 18:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Use (director) or (film) or (filmmaking)

Hi,
A disambiguation is needed for the same name of two persons. One is a filmdirector. What is to be used:

Jean van de Velde (director) is appropriate. "(film)" would only be used for individual films, such as to disambiguate Fight Club (film) from Fight Club. "(filmmaking)" is used for "general concepts related to film technology, terminology, and industry". Hope that helps! —Erik (talk • contrib) 07:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, it helps (confirmed as understood it), thanx. The link will be blue within a minute from now. -DePiep (talk) 09:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Tall Tale

Hmmm...Since Tall tale exists as a type of story; shouldn't the movie be called Tall Tale (film) instead of the current Tall Tale.... -- Mjquin_id (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the word "duology"

Please see and respond at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Regarding_the_word_.22duology.22. Dcoetzee 05:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Film titles with punctuation

Recently, there were two films whose titles ended with punctuation, and their Wikipedia articles used the same punctuation. Discussion took place to move the articles to titles without the punctuation (Adaptation. → Adaptation (film) and Good Night, and Good Luck. → Good Night, and Good Luck), both with the caveat of mentioning the particular formatting in the lead sentence. These films aren't the only ones to use punctuation and special characters, so I am wondering if WP:NCF needs a section about how to handle such titles. Here are some other tricky examples:

Is there any kind of general criteria we can put forth, applying MOS:TM and other guidelines? —Erik (talk • contrib) 19:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think there needs to be some recognition of the fact that promotional orthography essentially is no different from the MOSTM. And at the end of the day, the general NC rules need to apply - most references use When Harry Met Sally, not When Harry Met Sally...; Crocodile Dundee, not "Crocodile" Dundee; etc. There may be some notable exceptions, but I can't think of these offhand. Most of this, in my view, extends from a faulty assumption of precision as our overriding principle of the NCs, and this would be demonstrably incorrect. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not clear what you mean by the last sentence. Are you saying that guidelines are not needed? —Erik (talk • contrib) 20:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Possibly not needed...between the general NC's title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article and avoid over-precision, alongside more or less all of MOSTM (specifically, Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official" and Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words, as well as Do not use the ™ and ® symbols, or similar, in either article text or citations, unless unavoidably necessary for context). I'm not saying that we shouldn't rehash this, though - having a central place to figure out how to title your film article is easier than asking people to read two more guidelines. I'm just saying that we don't need to invent or justify anything new here - the existing guidelines already support us, so let's summarize and link to them. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to link to MOS:TM. Would you say [{WP:COMMONNAME]] applies, too? —Erik (talk • contrib) 20:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I wish Wikipedia would use the proper names of things rather than reproduce common erroneous names. "Promotional orthography" one could perhaps ignore (posters, videoboxes, etc.); IMDb's policy [5] is to use as the main title the title as it appears onscreen in the movie, at least insofar as it can be rendered in standard text. Punctuation, accents, certain foreign alphabetical characters, unusual capitalization are reproduced. Symbols are not: I Heart Huckabees, Pi. Colors, specific fonts, etc. are not. That strikes me as fairly sensible. Шизомби (talk) 20:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME needs to be considered, though. For titles like Adaptation. and Good Night, and Good Luck., the punctuation is nearly always dropped when discussed in secondary sources. Same with WALL-E and When Harry Met Sally, though I am less sure about (500) Days of Summer. Ebert said in his review, "The movie’s poster insists the title is '(500) Days of Summer.' Led by Variety, every single film critic whose review I could find has simply ignored that punctuation. Good for them." (Though I've found a few reviews that use "(500)"). —Erik (talk • contrib) 20:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, I wish it were easier to investigate the history of a policy, so one could determine why so manifestly stupid an idea was adopted. An encyclopedia should be concerned with accuracy not perpetuating common errors. Sigh. At least COMMONNAME allows for other naming conventions to give a different indication. We can see to it that the film naming convention, if nothing else on Wikipedia, does it right. Шизомби (talk) 22:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Why do you say that COMMONNAME perpetuates common errors? It's commonplace for the popular names (in terms of ease of writing) to be used for articles, and the lead sentence identifies the full form. (This is widespread with BLP articles.) The films whose titles are in question have common names which are much easier to reiterate throughout the article body. We're not warping the title to be more misleading; we're going the other direction, to simplify such usage. The lead sentence is where the formatting can be identified (such as Seven (film) or Alien 3), and the article can continue with usage of the more convenient common name. Not sure why we cannot accomplish it this way. —Erik (talk • contrib) 14:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Re-opening the trilogy debate

from above Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(films)#Trilogies_not_an_exception.3F

I think the word "trilogy" is overused. It seems to be employed any time a film series reaches three: Spy Kids and Scream are examples of film franchises that just happen to have reached three, rather than to be an bona fide "trilogy", like say Lord of the Rings. In fact it is debatable whether The Matrix is a trilogy as the second and third films were only made due to the success of the first film. For these reasons I think that trilogy should be avoided except in extreme cases where there is no debate. Generally, any film trilogy would count as a film series, but not every film series (with three films) is a trilogy. Therefore think the wording needs to be strengthened to discourage the use of "trilogy", whilst still allowing it in exceptional circumstances. This of course leaves a separate case for thematic film "trilogies" which do not form series, which given the looseness of their nature are often called different things by different people, and are sometimes disputed. For example, Ingmar Bergman's so called "faith trilogy", which has been described by critics and marketed as such but not confirmed as a "trilogy" by the director. I guess these have to be named trilogies, but we should be very careful that these are properly referenced. Rob Sinden (talk) 09:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Primary film topic

There is an effort be several editors ot move film DABbed only with (film) to (year film) if there are other films of the same title, regardless of whether those films could be considered the primary topic within the film subjecy. Films moved recently include Stagecoach (1939 film) (previously at Stagecoach (film), and Independence Day (film), moved to Independence Day (1996 film) twice, the second time while a move discussion was underway. In most cases, the original title appears to be for ther more common/popular film, with the toehrs added later. This is an indication that the original is a primary topic within Films, and it is usually the title most readers would search for.

These moves have been made on the basis that there is no such thing as a DABbed primary topic (or a "secondary" topic), and that the film guidelines do not allow for Foo (film) if [[Foo (year film) exists for another film. The guidelines need to be clarified one way or the other. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 22:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If all films involved are being disambiguated, then there is no primary topic. Simply put, "Stagecoach (film)" or "Independence Day (film)" by their very disambiguated nature are not primary topics; "Stagecoach" and "Independence Day" are the primary topics. If a non-film topic is a primary topic, then film(s) are disambiguated from that with "film" in parentheses, and if there is more than one film, they are disambiguated from each other with "<release year>". There is no additional hierarchy. Erik (talk) 22:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
That's only one view. If that is the accepted view of the project, then that need to be made clear in the guidelines. Note that there was no consensus to move Independence Day (film) to Independence Day (1996 film). I am considering challenging the moves of the other films, but I want the guideliens themselves clarified first. - BilCat (talk) 23:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Erik. Claiming any one film is the "primary topic" is incorrect. The primary topic is Stagecoach or Independence Day, etc. The rest are all films, and giving any one (film) instead of (xxxx film) gives undue weight to a single film, and lacks NPOV. There is no "primary topic" of Independence Day (film) - they are all films, being disambiguated from the one primary topic, Independence Day. Disambiguations are not new primary topics. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
You've all been very helpful. Please change your guidelines to state that explicitly, and end all doubt on the issue. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 23:24, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to get more viewpoints in before we update accordingly. A notification was placed at WT:FILM. In the meantime, I revised the "From other topics" section. (Not part of this discussion, but it needed an update.) Erik (talk) 18:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Except for common-sense exceptions, I'm in favor of putting the year in both articles if there is more than one film of the same title. Otherwise we get into some NPOV issues. the Day the Earth Stood Still example illustrates this-- There will be strong, opposing opinions over which is the "Main" film. Putting the year in both, and the disambig page prevents this. Also, I'm opposed to using "foo" in any way, shape or form. Dekkappai (talk) 20:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I only used it because BilCat did! :) Erik (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Makes my skin crawl! Dekkappai (talk) 21:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is about the primary topic in relation to films that are already disambiguated; please continue that discussion to its conclusion. I wanted to start a related discussion. I recently rewrote the "From other topics" section and was wondering, what if the only topics in the debate are film-related? If one film is the primary topic over the others, then does it not get disambiguated at all? Or does it get disambiguated but gets the primary redirect? For example, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a disambiguation page linking to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film). The 2008 film is just over twice as popular as the 1951 film, so this setup seems to work per this section. This scenario seems to come up with films and their remakes. If the original film is far more popular than the remake, then it is the primary topic. The way our titling is set up, it seems proper to disambiguate anyway. It is odd to have "Foo" being the title of the original film that is the primary topic and to have "Foo (film)" or "Foo (<year> film)" for the disambiguated topic. The same issue exists if the remake is the primary topic and lacks disambiguation. Would it be reasonable to turn to redirects for the solution? "Foo" can redirect to "Foo (<year1> film)" with a hatnote pointing to "Foo (<year2> film)". What do others think? Erik (talk) 19:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is a relevant example I just found. The Crazies is a 1973 film, and there is a remake whose article is at The Crazies (2010 film). Judging from page views, people go through the 1973 film's article to get to the 2010 film's article. As I said above, redirects appear to be the solution. People are looking for the article about the 2010 film, so we apply the principle of least astonishment. We move The Crazies to The Crazies (1973 film) then redirect The Crazies to The Crazies (2010 film) with a hatnote there pointing to The Crazies (1973 film). Some time after the 2010 film and its home video come out, traffic will likely drop. At this point, we could make The Crazies a disambiguation page listing both, like The Day the Earth Stood Still does. Thoughts? Erik (talk) 19:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Italian movie titles chaos

There's a number of Italian films the titles of which have not been translated when shown abroad. Yet some of our articles use the English capitalization for the Italian title. Example: I Vitelloni. Others don't, for example La terra trema, L'avventura, La notte. Then, we have films using the Italian title and the correct capitalization, yet in the article the wrong capitalization: La strada. In this context, please have a look at those recent changes: [6], [7], [8]. There's a third group using the English title, and then the original Italian title in the lead, yet the latter with a wrong capitalization: White Nights (1957 film) (which ought to be Le notti bianche, not Le Notti Bianche). Or the other way round, with the article using the original Italian title with the correct capitalization, and the English title in the lead: Milano trema—La polizia vuole giustizia. Furthermore, there are articles using the correct Italian spelling, and simply noting the English title (or titles, in case different ones were used for the US and the UK) in the lead: Cronaca di un amore. I must say, this is quite some chaos, and not very useful for our readers. Therefore, I'd suggest when using or mentioning the original Italian title also the correct capitalization should be applied. Then changes like this one would not be necessary, as they more or less enhance the chaos. I know that some Italian titles have been or are mentioned in English language sources with their Italian title, albeit with a wrong capitalization. In my view, there's no necessity to continue those errors, as something like an English version of a foreign language simply doesn't exist. Either we use the original, or we don't, period. I've also shifted through our various guidelines, and I have not detected a single one that would contradict my point of view. In any case we should avoid to prolong this chaotic situation. I think our friends from the opera section have found a viable way how to tackle this problem: See this and this. The correct capitalization of Italian movie titles could be easily researched by using respective Italian sources or Italian wikipedia articles. Wrong capitalizations used in English sources should be avoided, as they reflect an error, not a fact. Arguments, anyone? --Catgut (talk) 08:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm interested in this subject as well. When a foreign language title is used, why are we using a foreign language capitalization convention? To me it makes more sense to use our convention on all titles in all languages. In other words, La Strada. The title is not lower case in the film titles, so what is the reason to import a convention we don't adopt? Thanks. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Normally when we bring in a foreign word we don't alter our own capitalization conventions. We use English language style but italicize the foreign word. For example, a German word in English text doesn't follow German language style (unless it's enclosed in quotes). Is there a reason to treat movie titles differently? I'm unaware of any but I'm open to a good argument. --Ring Cinema (talk) 04:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
also: If one strictly follows the naming conventions as written there is no exception or difference in the capitalization of foreign language film titles called for. All titles get the same treatment. --Ring Cinema (talk) 04:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for answering, although I'd hoped for a bigger participation. My main concern is the chaos, i. e. different rules for different articles. Then, why should a film's original title be changed by using another language's capitalization? I just don't get it. And it's not necessary. Today we have a lot of credible, serious sources allowing us to use the correct capitalization, whether it's English, German, French or Italian. --Catgut (talk) 00:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree about keeping the capitalization consistent for foreign-language films' titles. What about an example like Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, though? Why is this example different from the others? Let's hammer something out so we can update the naming conventions accordingly. Erik (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Right. I think it would be even easier for us to find a solution than for the people from the opera departed, cited by me in my original comment. Foreign films released in an English language country often get an English title, for example The White Ribbon or The Motorcycle Diaries. So that's fine, and in those cases we just have to mention the original title, hopefully in a correct manner supported by credible sources, in the article itself and in possible redirects, if necessary. Now let's take foreign films released in English language countries with their original titles, albeit with changes in the capitalization. It would be nearly impossible for us to find out whether those changes were made deliberately, or maybe results of errors, or out of necessities (some languages, German for example, have signs that do not exist in English; the original title of The White Ribbon is Das weiße Band, and as there's no ß in English, it would be reproduced as Das weisse Band). In the latter case, I'd argue that the "English" title could be considered the original title, yet with changes for practical reasons. So for those cases we have to find a consensus: Do we absolutely stick to the original title, or do we opt for the "original", adapted title (probably with a different capitalization, with missing accents, like with French movies)? Another question concerns DVD releases of foreign movies: Sometimes those films had originally been released in English speaking countries using their original titles, and later a new English title was created for the DVD versions. In this case I'd favor the original release title, as DVD editions, especially as several smaller DVD labels more or less invented new titles, sometimes even for the same movie, thus enhancing the disorder. --Catgut (talk) 01:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I agree for the most part. The problem of non-English characters for a film released with its original title (Cyrillic alphabet, anyone?) could be occasionally vexing, although if we adopt the convention of transliteration for those cases it would be workable. It's hard to foresee every case or exception (and I feel we're straining to do so), which for me is one more reason to simply use English language style as far as that takes us, with the given title in there, too. However, that leaves a question: is the capitalization part of the title? To wit: if the translated title is used as the main title and the original title used a different convention, does our style (English language capitalization) trump the original? I think we're best to stick to our style in all cases, but I recognize opinions may differ. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
For clarity, let me repeat where we might have a difference of opinion. The question is whether or not capitalization is part of a title. I notice for example in the opening credits to La Strada that the title is rendered 'LA STRADA'. Okay, that's not an option, right? Secondly, we know that capitalization conventions vary between publications or countries that seem to speak the same language, yet I don't think anyone would argue that the original title is altered by using the correct convention for that use. That leads to the conclusion that style is not part of the title. We confirm that conclusion when we italicize foreign titles, something which surely is not part of the original. If that is true, it's not an alteration of a title to conform it to a style. Therefore, we should feel free to use our style on foreign titles, including capitalization conventions. But again I am sure someone will take issue with this at least in part. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

(I'm replacing an entire off-page discussion posted here with a link to that discussion instead.) The discussion to move La Strada concluded and can be seen here. Erik (talk | contribs) 15:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation of redlinked movies

Should a movie title be disambiguated with the year even if the other movies of the same name don't have articles at Wikipedia? Weigh in on a specific case at Talk:Cop Out (2010 film). — AjaxSmack 07:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

It has been proposed that Independence Day (film) be renamed and moved to Independence Day (1996 film). Opinions are needed here. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 02:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Year necessary for disambiguation?

The section WP:NCF#Between films of the same name says to use the year of release. This makes sense as a policy in general, but surely this is not always the only way to disambiguate. Specifically, A (Kannada film) is a film in the Kannada language (and is the only one of that title). Renaming it A (1998 film) is not possible, because there is also a 1998 Japanese film. It has been recently moved to "A (1998 Indian film)", but I submit that this is unnecessary, because those who are looking for the article are not likely to remember the year, while they know it's in Kannada. The old title is also simpler and better serves the readers, and this naming convention gets in the way. I'm not proposing changing the convention (though adding a note on alternatives in case of multiple films of the same name and same year would help), just making sure that I can move it back. Shreevatsa (talk) 20:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

The convention makes more sense and should be followed. It is properly disambiguated (1998 India film) and the other (1998 Japan film). Its language is not a useful disambig and not a correct identifier. What happens if someone else makes a film titled A in the Kannada language? With the guidelines given, it keeps the issue from continuing to be an on-going one. No one will ever make another 1998 India film named A (unless they invent time travel, at which point Wikipedia isn't likely to still be around :-P ) So it should remain at A (1998 Indian film). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
"What if someone makes another film…" is a ridiculous argument which would lead to every film article having a year in its title; see the discussion at Talk:Independence Day (film) linked above. The title of the page — what users see in big bold letters at the top — has a function beyond merely disambiguation pages, and I suspect users who frequent this page don't think of that, pursuing mere consistency for no compelling reason. I think the title ought to be the simplest thing that uniquely identifies the page. Can you explain your statement "Its language is not a useful disambig and not a correct identifier" without reference to this page (WP:NCF) itself? As I explained above, I find it a perfectly useful disambig (more useful than year and country), and a sufficiently correct identifier. Shreevatsa (talk) 22:11, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
The year is used to add a disambig between two existing like named films, so that there are no future issues between them. Please follow the current, consensus backed naming guidelines. I see absolutely no reason at all to go against those to just use the language when the existing guidelines already clearly spell out how to handle the situation. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, that is not an answer. To repeat what I said, "no future issues" is too hypothetical to be a serious argument (there isn't likely to be another film with the same name). I'm pointing out that the existing guidelines spell out something not ideal, and saying "see the existing guidelines" despite my request not to use self-reference is not helpful. [User:Shreevatsa|Shreevatsa]] (talk) 22:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Please give an actual valid reason to disambig by language rather than year and country like all other films. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for being finally willing to discuss the actual guideline. I have given several (overlapping) reasons:
  • Readers looking for the article are not likely to remember the year, but very likely to know the language.
  • Simpler, more familiar title better serves the readers: users see the title in big bold letters at the top, and it's best to keep it simple and familiar
  • The year is entirely unnecessary (except for the "what if" argument, which we can deal with if it ever arises).
  • The article was created at that title, and there's no compelling reason to move.
You have given several reasons, none of which I find convincing:
  • "Its language is not a useful disambig and not a correct identifier." FALSE
  • Because the guideline says so. This is known as begging the question, or a circular argument.
  • To be like all other films. This is mostly an artefact of the previous, and I'm not at all sure why it should be like all other films.
We must remember that the extra things we add within brackets are unfortunate compromises and should be kept minimal. If we are going to use hypothetical arguments: what if two films of the same name are released in two Indian languages? (This is likely, as remakes are common.) Do you propose "Foouniquename (2011 Indian Kannada film)" and "Foouniquename (2011 Indian Tamil film)" rather than the perfectly sufficient "Foouniquename (Kannada film)" and "Foouniquename (Tamil film)"? (I won't even mention dropping "film" when it's not necessary.) Finally, see the main page on naming conventions, which in its section WP:PRECISION says "over-precision should be avoided". Guess which is the correct alternative between "United States Apollo program (1961–1975)" and "Apollo program", or between "Queen (London, England rock band)" and "Queen (band)". To make a constructive suggestion: I'm proposing that the guideline say that, when there are multiple films with the same name and year (so simply adding year will not do), editors use common sense and pick some other disambiguation, such as adding even more details besides the year. Shreevatsa (talk) 22:54, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Ping? This discussion died out without reaching a conclusion. I know that these guidelines are not rules and it really doesn't matter what this page says, since the case is rare, the existing rule is good enough, and individual articles can always go against it by common sense, but adding a few words would help avoid wasted time on episodes like the one that started this thread. I've edited the policy page boldly for now. If there is no objection, ignore this thread. Shreevatsa (talk) 06:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

As overprecision could be subjective, if you give a guideline like this, you'll find that editors will find an excuse not to put the year. In order to avoid these arguments, and as you say, the case will be rare, I'm reverting I'm afraid.
Also - another thought. Say you had Blah blah blah (film) and needed to disambiguate with:
Blah blah blah (1989 film)
Blah blah blah (1989 Indian film)
Blah blah blah (1989 animated Indian film)
and you thought that Blah blah blah (1989 animated Indian film) was overprecision so you reduce it to Blah blah blah (animated Indian film), and then there was also a 1922 animated Indian film, but the only film of that title that year, you could end up with:
Blah blah blah (animated Indian film)
Blah blah blah (1922 film)
which would then mean you could just as easily be talking about the 1922 film in the first instance, thus giving the ambiguity that you were trying to avoid in the first place. Best not to have the guideline giving the option. Rob Sinden (talk) 10:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
As an alternative, disambiguation could be accomplished by naming the director of the film in question, since usually directors don't repeat their titles -- and even more rarely in the same year. Country of origin can itself be ambiguous, it seems, and language can be mixed within the same movie. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
By the guidelines, there's no reason not to put a director's name, if ever it came to that. You could potentially have two live action films of the same title, year and country of origin, so to disambiguate by year and then director would seem sensible to me. But in my opinion, the year should always stay. i.e. Film Title (2007 DIRECTOR film). It has been known for directors to remake their own films... Rob Sinden (talk) 15:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
you'll find that editors will find an excuse not to put the year — that was exactly the point of adding it! :-) (I am disturbed by the terminology of "find an excuse" and "guideline giving the option", as if these are laws, but I guess that malaise is widespread here.) I really don't know what the solution is, to prevent people from misapplying these guidelines where they do not improve on existing titles. The page already has some good ideas under WP:NCF#Rationale (albeit inside a section on foreign-language films) — "We want to maximize the likelihood of being listed in external search engines"; "We want to maximize the incidence that people [..] guess correctly", etc. These are all good arguments, additional to the ones I gave above, for not including the year unless necessary — hardly anyone remembers or searches for years of films. (Even for the non-rare cases I'd argue years should be avoided, but it's a consistent and simple rule to follow, and the result is usually shortest with year than some other description, so that's ok.) Shreevatsa (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Okay - point taken re your first comment. Poor choice of words on my part. What I really meant was, that without the guideline to always include the year if disambiguation is necessary, then the article titles could become messy and imprecise. The system as it is seems fine... Rob Sinden (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
For search engine visibility, director's name is good. The year is essential, though, in any event. It's a rigid index. Hitchcock remade one of his own films (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 34 and 56), so a case like that is a challenge for disambiguation, in part because we want to impart the knowledge that there is a remake to know about. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation by release year

The guidance on this, i.e. "When disambiguating films of the same name, add the year of its first public release (this excludes film festival screenings). Where a film does not screen outside of film festivals, use the year of its first festival screening," was agreed by only four editors last year at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films)/Archive 1#Disambiguating by release year. I think we should revisit that decision. The first public screening, be it at a film festival or a cinema screen, really determines what year the film was released in. Excluding film festivals leads to perverse situations, e.g. when a film is already notable on its release at a festival, we have to rename it later when it has a cinematic release. A film might have been shown at film festivals a few years before finally getting a cinematic release. Fences&Windows 23:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

There are problems with both. The issue came up with The Hurt Locker which should be technically considered a 2008 film if we went by showings, but it is considered a 2009 film, not just by us but by external sources as well. BOVINEBOY2008 23:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree that film festival years should take precedence if they are earlier since they count as the "first public release". Some external sources may count The Hurt Locker as a 2009 film but it isn't a universal view. The NY Times have it down for 2008 [9] and so do Allmovie [10], as do the IMDB, so I am sure there are others. It just seems bizarre to have it down for 2009 when there are members of the public who will have seen it in vefore then. Betty Logan (talk) 23:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
(EC) I think in general, the guideline was well intentioned, as many third-party reliable sources use the same method for calling a film a XXXX year film. However, there are times where it is appropriate to just WP:IAR if most third-party sources are using the festival screening. Perhaps a better phrasing might be, "When disambiguating films of the same name, add the year of its first public screening or release as determined by third-party sources. This will usually be the year it is first publicly screened or released to home video, however for films screened at film festivals, it might also be the year it was first screened. In cases where sources conflict, use what the majority of sources use or the earliest verifiable year." -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:49, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
The problem with using a majority is that it will probably favor the general release date, and in the case of foreign films search engines will show a bias towards the release date in English speaking countries. A vague disambiguation rule is like oxygen for edit wars. I think there should be concrete criteria for deciding the year, whether its the general release year of the earliest public release year. We may as well get a few more opinions and then make a firm decision. Betty Logan (talk) 00:17, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
It depends on if a film's release in a film festival qualifies as its real year of release. While it may be true on a technical level, film festivals are inaccessible by most people. With The Hurt Locker, it screened at various film festivals in 2008, but today, it is considered one of the best films of 2009, as seen here. The difference between film festivals and public release is circulation. Film audiences barely hear about films at film festivals unless they are truly showstoppers; they really get to be aware of a film through circulation and actual public coverage. For database-related purposes, such as at Allmovie (which New York Times draws upon) and IMDb, the technical answer for the film's release year is the first screening of any sort. For Wikipedia articles, though, where we provide content about the nature of a film's release, we should consider more flexibility. Another example where this dilemma applies is 300, where it was in a December 2006 film festival but really is acknowledged as a 2007 film starting with its March 2007 circulation. Erik (talk | contribs) 02:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
There is a database maintained by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that lists the release dates of films. Since this is simply for disambiguation, we could consult their database at http://www.oscars.org/research-preservation/resources-databases/mpc.html and click on the Motion Picture Credits. I did a search on "300" and it gave me this:
300 — 2007
PINOCCHIO 3000 — 2006
MR. 3000 — 2004
3000 MILES TO GRACELAND — 2001
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: The Movie — 1996
THE 300 YEAR WEEKEND — 1971
THE 300 SPARTANS — 1962
For this purpose I think it could be fine. It's an authority, it's verifiable, it's available. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
The problem with using the Academy database is that they use the year of the US release. Something like From Russia With Love is credited as a 1964 film but was released in 1963 in the UK. Also, you've got the problem of what happens if a film wins at Sundance or Cannes or Venice or wherever but isn't released until the following year. For the sake of argument, if a film is entered into competition at Venice this year and an editor writes an article about it and the title needs to be disambiguated do we call it Film title (2011 film)? It would be a bit bizarre to say the least. Betty Logan (talk) 04:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
"For the sake of argument"? I can think of something crazy, but let's disambiguate. The Academy uses the year the film is eligible for their awards, which is far from meaningless to the industry. Since the purpose is disambiguation, we want something without ambiguity, something that can be consulted that is not OR, is reliable and won't change. The Academy has good rules for determining a film's release. Why make it hard? --Ring Cinema (talk) 05:10, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
These are situations that can arise so they need to be considered. The question of how to disambiguate film articles when the film does not go on general release until the following year is a legitimate concern, and needs to be addressed. We might as well sort it out here before the problem arises on film articles. War and Peace is credited as a 1968 film by the Academy simply because it has 1968 US release but it was released in 1965 in its home country. Are you seriously suggesting we have a disambiguation year of 1968 even though it had been on release for three years by then? Betty Logan (talk) 06:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Betty, good points. I understand that you want to reflect a film's actual release year according to a standard of correctness. I take no issue with that, but as we know there's frequently not a fact of the matter that is not ambiguous. For that reason, an outside source that offers a stationary target has advantages. But your thinking seems spot on, so go for it. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:38, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Good discussion by all. This has come up on The Fall (2008 film) where the previous reasoning of "we should disambiguate to its general release rather than its actual one" has been applied. This films copyright is 2006 (and that is stated in the first line of the article - this makes the article title and opening info contradict each other) and it was screened in film festivals that year. The situation for this specific film is further exacerbated by the fact that there is now a documentary film also called The Fall that was produced and released in 2008. I would say that we should defer to the copyright and/or initial release date rather then an arbitrary date that will always be open to debate. Thanks to all for their input. MarnetteD | Talk 19:50, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
Disambiguation by director's name could be used in conjunction with the film's year for the rare cases where copyright years match. --Ring Cinema (talk) 20:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
Disambiguation by nationality is also possible; there was consensus to have Black Rain (American film) and Black Rain (Japanese film). Will depend on the nature of both films titled The Fall. Genre is another possibility, though I have no idea how to describe Singh's film... Erik (talk | contribs) 22:18, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
A film's nationality is also frequently ambiguous. For disambiguation, we should prefer unambiguous criteria. Commonly a film's nationality derives from the director (e.g., Fellini films are Italian no matter where shot, who produced or financed, etc). --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:58, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

As it stands now the nationality comes from the film's production compnay, but with many films being co-productions by production companies all over the world (Oliver Stone's Alexander for example was principally produced by a German and American production companies, but UK, Italian, Dutch and French companies were also involved) the idea of the film having a nationality has become an outdated sensibility beyond the old studio system. Films are made by several multi-national corporations these days whose nationality is ambiguous itself: Sony owns Columbia, NewsCorp owns Fox. I also don't think you can just use the director's nationality because it's a copyrighted work made by lots of people. It's opening up an even bigger can of worms so I think disambiguation should stick to using dates, whichever date is used. The copyright date would be unambiguous, but sometimes films are copyrighted a year before they are released in any form - Walkabout (film) for example was copyrighted in 1970, but had festival screenings and a general release in 1971. Does anyone consider it anything other than a 1971 film? Betty Logan (talk) 04:18, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe what we should have is a "get there first" clause. The reality is, something like The Hurt Locker can be regarded as a 2008 or 2009 film since they are both notable "release dates" for a film. The best course of action might be what we do with British/American English where we adopt "first usage". If someone came along in 2008 and dismabiguated The Hurt Locker as a 2008 film then let it stand. If someone came along and disambiguated it as 2009 then let that stand also. There are legitimate arguments for both dates, and ultimately disambiguation doesn't have to be encyclopedic, it just has to be clear. We can always redirect the alternative date. So my suggestion is we go off first usage, where the date is either the first festival release date or the first general release date. Betty Logan (talk) 04:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The disambiguation extension is covered in WP:PRECISION. Unless there is a reason to include the year and/or the "nationality" of the film in the disambiguation extension, don't do it. There will often be a need to include the year as the same tile is used for more than one movie, but how often are two films produced in the same year with the same name in two different countries? -- PBS (talk) 11:51, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't copyright year unambiguously settle the issue? I'm not sure I see a standing objection to that. 2- I wasn't suggesting we use the director's nationality to disambiguate, but that the director's name is a less ambiguous index than nationality. But only if copyright year is ambiguous. --Ring Cinema (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Italics vs double quotation marks for film titles

Per MOS:TITLE, the titles of short films (as with all other short works) should be placed inside double quotation marks, not italicised. AFAIK we don't currently do this for short films; certainly {{Infobox film}} doesn't allow for anything other than an italicised title. Is this something we need to look at? PC78 (talk) 22:53, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent points. This guideline is about the article title, though, not how it is styled in the body itself. It may be worth putting a "Short films" section in MOS:FILM to explain the style to use and whatever other steps that would help. Were you thinking of Hotel Chevalier? I noticed that it used italics and just got promoted to Featured Article status. For fixing the infobox, should we include a parameter to de-italicize the titles? Then maybe have a bot add the parameter to films in Category:Short films and related categories? Maybe fix the opening sentence too. It can detect the only set of words with five marks bookended on each side. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:41, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I think I was after MOS:FILM rather than this page -- I can move this discussion there if you don't mind. Actually it was something that just occured to me while looking at MOS:TITLE for something else. A |short=yes parameter for the infobox would be easy to do. PC78 (talk) 23:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
No need to move it. We could just make a quick edit request at the template talk page to automatically add quotation marks, and once it goes through, just be bold and add "Short films" guidelines pointing to MOS:TITLE and the new infobox implementation. Then maybe find someone who can proliferate the new parameter by bot. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:55, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, I've gone and raised the issue over at MOS:FILM anyway. It's a change that would affect quite a few articles, so it wouldn't hurt to have a bit more input, especially if it means making changes or additions to the guideline as well. PC78 (talk) 11:44, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Requesting Opinions

I've started a discussion at Talk: Wes Craven's New Nightmare#Title regarding the page name. Please come provide your opinions.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Precision

Following this discussion, perhaps it would be an idea for the guideline to make note of WP:PRECISION with regard to disambiguating page titles? PC78 (talk) 17:01, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

I think it might be wise to note WP:PRIMARYTOPIC in the "Between films of the same name" section, as it appears some people are ignoring it and making unneeded disambig pages between two films. (e.g. The Day the Earth Stood Still). Harry Blue5 (talk) 13:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the example you just gave is exactly where there should be disambiguation - both are high profile movies, and The Day the Earth Stood Still (film) could equally apply to either movie, so there is not a clear primary topic here. Interestingly, the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC page that you mention specifically cites Solaris (1972 film) in one of its examples - a similar case to the one you mention. Rob Sinden (talk) 13:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
You're right, my bad. But I still think that it should that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should be mentioned. Harry Blue5 (talk) 13:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Strangely enough, this topic (and this film, among others) is discussed above. Rob Sinden (talk) 14:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
I think that the naming conventions here need to explicitly note that one film might be the primary topic for an ambiguous title, even if there are other films with the title. Then only the non-primary-topic films need to be disambiguated using the (YYYY film) format (whether the primary topic is a film or some other topic, such as Stagecoach), and the primary topic would be placed or left at the base name. For example, there's The Ladykillers/The Ladykillers (2004 film) and Miracle on 34th Street/Miracle on 34th Street (1994 film) as examples of this practice. If tomorrow someone announced a remake of On the Waterfront, for instance, I would not want to see the current primary topic bumped to On the Waterfront (1954 film) just because. The discussions in the move requests for Talk:The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film)/Archive 1#Requested move August 2008, Talk:The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film)/Archive 1#Requested move, and Talk:The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film)/Archive 1#Move seem to assume that any ambiguity in film titles must result in all titles for those films being disambiguated. (I noted too that there are still cases in the wild that use "(film)" for the supposed primary film: The Postman Always Rings Twice (film) vs. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 film).) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree with what you say here, which pretty much goes along with what Erik says in the earlier discussion. However, there could be some debate as to which is the primary topic, especially when the remake starts to come close to the popularity of or in some cases overshadows the original (as per The Day the Earth Stood Still or The Crazies above), but the logic is sound. I guess in these cases common sense will prevail and the necessary disambiguations will be made. In any case, on this basis, The Postman Always Rings Twice (film) needs to be moved. Rob Sinden (talk) 15:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
I was actually considering updating these guidelines to talk about the primary topic a little more. I think Harry makes a good point about The Day the Earth Stood Still. While the 2008 film's article is more popular than the 1951 film's, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says that an exception can be made for topics of educational value. I think in the scope of film, it has high "educational value", which can make it an exception. In other cases like The Crazies films, though, there's no real contender when neither article is much more trafficked than the other. Erik (talk | contribs) 17:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Article traffic and Google Web searches are two of the tools in the toolbox. Things like Google Book searches and Google Scholar searches are also in the toolbox, and they point to the educational value of the 1951 film. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Capitalizing conjunctions

The article states that each word in the title takes an initial capital, except "...coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters". It then gives several examples, including "about", which is not capitalized. Although I have no reliable sources, the word "about" appears to contain exactly five letters, not fewer, and should therefore be capitalized. Is this a fencepost error, and if so, what is the correct rule? Cwelgo (talk) 22:10, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, that edit was made in 2007 for reasons not described in the edit summary. It's simple math that 5 is not less than 5 so "about" does not belong on this list. Nearly all existing articles capitalize the A in About for films, songs, television episodes, books, etc. Not capitalizing the A sets Wikipedia against the "official" capitalization of essentially every film that uses "About" in its title. - Dravecky (talk) 00:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment

There is a discussion about what the proper name for the page should be for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. The poster says "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge", but the actual film says "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge". There is also another suggestion of just making it "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2" Please see the discussion at Talk:A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge#Move?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:08, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

"Just Go with It"

Do we really have to call this article Just Go with It instead of Just Go With It? Does anyone else think that looks quite weird? Theoldsparkle (talk) 23:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Why wouldn't we? "with" is a short preposition and is lowercased. BOVINEBOY2008 23:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
He's right; see MOS:CAPS#Composition titles: "The first letter in the other words is also capitalized, except for... prepositions (of, to, in, for, on, with)..." I know it looks weird, though! :) Erik (talk | contribs) 00:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Shouldn't the official title of the film take precedence over the style guideline which is stressed that such guideline "will have occasional exceptions"? —Mike Allen 02:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes we have made exceptions to oddities in titles before as with BASEketball. But we usually check multiple things like the poster, the opening and/or closing credits, the official website for the film if there is one, etc. before proceeding. Off the top of my head the one that we didn't follow through with is Lindsay Anderson's film if... (If...) but - my understanding is - that is because wikisoftware won't allow and article to begin with a lower case letter. MarnetteD | Talk 03:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that BASEketball is the kind of occasional exception we'd have. It's just that the title Just Go with It has a selection of words that doesn't give it a good flow. There's usually a aesthetic-seeming "dip" in letter case (e.g., Gone with the Wind), but here, we have two-letter words in title case that punctuate. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia convention vs. official capitalisation

What do we do when the official capitalisation differs from our conventions? See Bahrain: Shouting in the dark and its talk page for a recent example. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I have participated in discussions on capitalization conventions for foreign films and it seems that the consensus in those cases developed around the idea that we should use our conventions instead of importing outside conventions. On WP, our style is WP. In the above example, 'dark' should be upper case per MOS:CT. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:59, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Filmographies that are entirely composed of foreign-language films

I am working on transwikiing a bunch of articles from the German Wikipedia on Nazi-era producers and actors. Each of these articles has a filmography with a list of German films with German titles. Some examples are de:Otto Lehmann (Filmproduktionsleiter), de:Albert Florath, de:Peter Paul Brauer and de:Eugen Klöpfer. I noticed that the English Wikipedia article on Veit Harlan has a filmography with only the German-language titles of the films without any English translation. That seems to violate the guideline presented on this page. Most of the films mentioned in the filmographies that I want to bring over are not known to English-language speakers except a few that are known as their German titles. It seems to me that the appropriate approach would be to present the German language title first and then follow it up with the English title in parentheses.

Any thoughts on whether that is the appropriate thing to do here?

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 19:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation of TV films

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Disambiguation between feature films and TV films regarding the disambiguation of television films; Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) advocate making a distinction between TV films and feature films, but the reasons and the criteria for when to do this are not clear. The naming conventions for television films ideally need to be reconciled with the naming conventions for films, so any opinions on this would be welcome. Betty Logan (talk) 17:59, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Movie vs Book

Because of Miracle on 34th Street (1947 novel), which I had remebered reading but which was not mentioned in the project page, I don't think "Miracle on 34th Street" is a good example. I came here to get guidance, but the example that was supposed to guide me left out an important aspect, i.e., the existence of the 1947 novel on which the 1947 film was based.

My question is really, what do you do if there are movie and book versions of the same story? Or, anyway, movie(s) and book(s) with the same title, but different years or same years?

Is it, use the year without 'book' or 'film' whenever possible? Or do we just go ahead and say '1947 film' and '1995 film' even though there was only one "Miracle on 34th Street" in 1995? --Uncle Ed (talk) 03:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

If no one can answer this, I'm planning to move the 1947 movie to Miracle on 34th Street (1947 film); and the book stub I made today to Miracle on 34th Street (novel). This way, the book will be "primary" and hence need no year; each film will have a year and the word 'film'. Is this going by the convention? --Uncle Ed (talk) 03:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think our solution at WP:NCC might be adapted to be helpful in this case. YMMV, of course : ) - jc37 00:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed at WP:RM: Bande à part (film) → Band of Outsiders

A discussion [and ultimate vote] of interest to participants is taking place at Talk:Bande à part (film).—Roman Spinner (talk) 07:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

RFC – WP title decision practice

Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Titles of Indian film articles

Closing this per the call on ANI. The conclusion is to continue following the advice in WP:COMMONNAME: the article's name should be the name mostly commonly used in English sources. If it is the original Indian name, use that. Redirect all other titles.--v/r - TP 18:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hello All!
The Naming Convention for films calls for naming the foreign-language i.e. non-English films by the title "under which it has been released in cinemas or on video in the English-speaking world". Many Indian editors have come across problems with titles of films basically released in various Indian languages. The films are also released or screened at International Festivals in English for non-Indian audiences. But these English titles are not common in India, amongst the audiences of the film's language and also other Indian-languages. Hence the guideline saying "release in English-speaking world" doesnt seem right. At the end, the common name should be the one to be used as title of the article. By default it should be the Indian title unless the film is widely "known", not just released, by English title outside India. A general agreement to this can be found at the discussion held at Indian cinema task force. However, a discussion at this forum was also found necessary to gather wider views and lesser opposition if and when implemented. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:36, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it not possible that the usual principle applies? The convention doesn't call for the use of an English title when the foreign language title is the form by which the film is known to the greater number of English speakers. Rather, it calls for the title by which the film is known to English speakers. So, for example, a French film released under its French title for most English speakers is named here by its French title even when it has been released to some English markets under a translated title. The case with Indian films seems like the usual application of the same principle. Is there some way in which these cases differ? --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
The problem in most of the examples is that the film is known to non-Indian audience by it's English title. However, the doubt we have is whether the number of non-Indian audience is more or less than Indian audience. Most of these films are old and were screened in some French/Italian festivals under English titles. Hence you will find their reviews and articles on internet referring to their English title. I am not sure if you are aware with the general problem of Indian articles. Web-based information about indian topics is mostly available which is credited to non-Indian authors. So it is very likely that English titles are used in it. But that doesnt make these titles common looking at the whole spectrum of readers of these articles. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
See, I keep it simple. What we can basically do is create a redirect. However, I will stick to a fact that the article must be named as per the Indian title. In the very first lien of the lead section, we can add that the film was named xyz in the English world. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 18:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Ofcourse redirects will always be present and both names will be mentioned in the very first line. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Karthik. The article must be named after the original title and a redirect must be enabled from the English title as well. —Vensatry (Ping me) 20:01, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

AK's proposal makes a lot of sense. The Indian film industry overwhelmingly uses the Indian title transliterated into English in its advertising and English language publications and most films have only a token release with an alternative English title outside India. Art films tend to be the exception but English language publications like The New York Times are increasingly using the original Indian title rather than a translated one even for films that have previously been released under an English title (cf. this though it is admittedly not a review). I suspect that google rankings will benefit (since English sources in India use the transliterated title and the English only titles tend to be obscure) and, clearly, with redirects from the English title, misspellings etc. are not an issue. --regentspark (comment) 21:34, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Are the films released in English in India? Otherwise I can't see what makes Indian films different from the rest of the world. Most films are best known in their home countries. Smetanahue (talk) 21:48, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
No, but they are usually released in America/UK etc. (English speaking countries) with their native language title, not with English titles. Sometimes they are shown at film festivals with an English title, or relased on video with an English title, but this is the minority of cases. Usually it is native language only. Also most English sources come from India and use the Indian title as well. It is hard to find any sources that use an English title. Some titles even mix Hindi and English words. These are some reasons why we want to be able to use the native language for the primary titles. BollyJeff || talk 22:03, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't see this as a new case if the assumption is that India is an English-speaking country (and I do). The release of the film in India it seems is the title by which it is known to most English speakers -- they just happen to be in India. The English language title is not widely known. So, yes, use the original title and redirect from the English language title to the original title. --Ring Cinema (talk) 05:13, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
Only if some Indian film is very popular and well-known to the English speaking world with an English title (I can't think of any), it makes any sense to have the Wiki article with that English title. Most of the films English titles are just for the use of 1-2 festival screening outside of India. Practically not many identify the film with its translated title, whereas many in the native location will identify the film with its original title. Most of the items the translated titles sound very alien and gives no value to the users. So my strong recommendation is to have the original Indian language title as the article name and re-directs from the English titles, where necessary.
Anish Viswa 05:41, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
  • There is no need to make any exceptions for Indian films, WP:COMMONNAME can be applied in the same way. That guideline states: Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. Essentially, what this means is that it is irrelevant if 100 million English speaking Indians know the film by the Indian name, the title we use is the one that is most frequently used in English language reliable sources. A quick look at the article references should determine this, but if it's still not clear then go with google hits for the terms. Betty Logan (talk) 06:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

But the millions of English speakers in India will know the film by the title used in India, I assume. The English language sources in India would refer to the film by its Indian title, presumably. So those readers matter very much. Still, it's no exception to the rule. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME does not talk about the number of English speakers ... it talks about the number of English language sources... ie we are supposed to use what the subject is commonly called in sources that are written in the English language.
It is important to realize that we can not take a one size fits all approach here, each title must be looked at as a unique situation ... When it comes to "foreign film" titles, English language sources are very inconsistent. For example: The french film Mon Oncle is usually referred to in English language sources by its french name (ie it is not translated as "My Uncle"). On the other hand, the french film "Les Vacances de M. Hulot" is routinely semi-translated in English sources as: Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" (but is not fully translated to "Mister Hulot's Holiday"). As I said... inconsistent.
To get us back to the case of Indian films, in each case we should look to see how the film is most commonly referred to in sources that are written in the English Language (including both those published in India, and those published for a non-Indian market). Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for making that distinction. Still, ceteris paribus, sources in India are most likely to cover Indian films with non-English titles and much of the coverage will appear in India's English language sources using the original title. --Ring Cinema (talk) 18:20, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, and to reiterate, most English language sources writing about Indian films (most of those being from India) do refer to the films by their non-English titles. I think we are in agreement now. BollyJeff || talk 01:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
It will be helpful is any Wiki Admin make a conclusion on this subject, so that if the decision is in favour of the opinions on the editors here, we can start working on the article titles and give the conclusion here as reference for others who may revert citing the old guideline.
Anish Viswa 01:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
There is no change, though. This is not an exception to the rule. It is a normal application of the existing guideline. --Ring Cinema (talk) 02:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Can we have a decision on the article titles for these two articles on two Malayalam films - A Dog's Day and A Story That Begins at the End. These are now using its translated titles, which were used solely for the purpose of 1-2 festival screenings and are not popular names. These are not well known films to the western world with their translated titles and the film lovers in Kerala identify these films with their original Malayalam titles only.
Anish Viswa 01:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Can any of the admins conclude this discussion? Thanks. - VivvtTalk 22:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Can we have a conclusion and tell how the films discussed here should be named in their articles ?
Anish Viswa 01:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
We could stick with what we seem to already have and just use the English title as the name and put the foreign title in the first sentence of the lead. This is, after all, English Wikipedia. --Nouniquenames (talk) 16:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Four months later! There is a style guide on this. In general, the title of the article should conform to the most widely used title of the film by English speakers. My understanding, without checking, is that if, e.g., a film is released in India, widely distributed and reviewed under its Malay title, then receives a smaller release under a translated title, the article title should be the Malay title. The case might be more complicated if the film was distributed worldwide with its English title. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

IMDB title

Hi! While reading the convention carefully for the above topic i came across something else that also requires change. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(films)#Rationale says "It should also be noted that the IMDb always lists films by their original-language title regardless of how common the translated titles are....". The fact is that IMDb does not "always" list film by their original title. Few examples:

IMDb Title Original language title Original language IMDB link
The Temple Deool Marathi http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085783/
The Well Vihir Marathi http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1515210/
Death Sentence Mrityudand Hindi http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119720/
The Smell Gandha Marathi http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587676/
The Web of the Witch Makdee Hindi http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0341455/
Eternity Anaahat Marathi http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371536/
Perhaps they made a mistake on these titles and will correct it according to their usual practices. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:14, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Could be! -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:52, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Still, if there are counter-examples we should probably change "always" to "usually". Betty Logan (talk) 19:33, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
IMDb policy also changed a year or so ago. This is a quote from their Help pages: "We recently modified the way titles are displayed on the site. Users will now by default see titles listed in the language used for release in their country (i.e. US-based users will see films listed under the title used for the North American release, while users browsing the site from France will see titles as they appeared on the French release of those movies etc.) If you are registered on IMDb.com and you prefer to see original titles, or the title in any other language/country of release by default, you can set your user preferences accordingly." Lampernist (talk) 09:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
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