The disturbing trend discovered in 166,534 movies over past 50 years

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Movies are getting deadlier – at least in terms of their dialogue. A new study analyzing over 160,000 English-language films has revealed a disturbing trend: characters are talking about murder and killing more frequently than ever before, even in movies that aren’t focused on crime.

Researchers from the University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, and The Ohio State University examined movie subtitles spanning five decades, from 1970 to 2020, to track how often characters used words related to murder and killing. What they found was a clear upward trajectory that mirrors previous findings about increasing visual violence in films.

“Characters in noncrime movies are also talking more about killing and murdering today than they did 50 years ago,” says Brad Bushman, corresponding author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University, in a statement. “Not as much as characters in crime movies, and the increase hasn’t been as steep. But it is still happening. We found increases in violence cross all genres.”

By applying sophisticated natural language processing techniques, the team calculated the percentage of “murderous verbs” – variations of words like “kill” and “murder” – compared to the total number of verbs used in movie dialogue. They deliberately took a conservative approach, excluding passive phrases like “he was killed,” negations such as “she didn’t kill,” and questions like “did he murder someone?” to focus solely on characters actively discussing committing violent acts.

“Our findings suggest that references to killing and murder in movie dialogue not only occur far more frequently than in real life but are also increasing over time,” explains Babak Fotouhi, lead author of the study and adjunct assistant research professor in the College of Information at the University of Maryland.

“We focused exclusively on murderous verbs in our analysis to establish a lower bound in our reporting,” notes Amir Tohidi, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. “Including less extreme forms of violence would result in a higher overall count of violence.”

Nearly 7% of all movies analyzed contained these murderous verbs in their dialogue. The findings demonstrate a steady increase in such language over time, particularly in crime-focused films. Male characters showed the strongest upward trend in violent dialogue, though female characters also demonstrated a significant increase in non-crime movies.

This rising tide of violent speech wasn’t confined to obvious genres like action or thriller films. Even movies not centered on crime showed a measurable uptick in murder-related dialogue over the 50-year period studied. This suggests that casual discussion of lethal violence has become more normalized across all types of movies, potentially contributing to what researchers call “mean world syndrome” – where heavy media consumption leads people to view the world as more dangerous and threatening than it actually is.

The findings align with previous research showing that gun violence in top movies has more than doubled since 1950, and more than tripled in PG-13 films since that rating was introduced in 1985. What makes this new study particularly noteworthy is its massive scale – examining dialogue from more than 166,000 films provides a much more comprehensive picture than earlier studies that looked at smaller samples.

Movie studios operate in an intensely competitive market where they must fight for audience attention. “Movies are trying to compete for the audience’s attention and research shows that violence is one of the elements that most effectively hooks audiences,” Fotouhi explains.

“The evidence suggests that it is highly unlikely we’ve reached a tipping point,” Bushman warns. Decades of research have demonstrated that exposure to media violence can influence aggressive behavior and mental health in both adults and children. This can manifest in various ways, from direct imitation of observed violent acts to a general desensitization toward violence and decreased empathy for others.

As content platforms continue to multiply and screen time increases, particularly among young people, these findings raise important questions about the cumulative impact of exposure to violent dialogue in entertainment media. The researchers emphasize that their results highlight the crucial need for promoting mindful consumption and media literacy, especially among vulnerable populations like children.