I gathered over 500 reported standing ovations across five of the world’s biggest film festivals to see whether the length of applause tells us anything meaningful about a film’s future.

I studied the data behind 10,524 films and more than four million audience reviews to see whether conversations about woke-adjacent themes correlate with box office outcomes.

Last week in an article about how long your film needs to be to be accepted into film festivals, I mentioned in passing that a 90-second short film was eligible at nine out of ten film festivals I ...