Twenty years ago, there were all but a handful of scholarly studies published about the economics of the motion picture industry. Over the first decade of the new millennium, this changed dramatically and many studies began to appear in economics journals and those of cognate disciplines. The following, and most recent, decade has seen this trend continue and the literature on the “economics of movies” has well and truly matured. While economics and marketing disciplines still generate the most output, newer data‐orientated disciplines have increasingly turned their attention towards the industry and its abundance of rich and relatively accessible data. This survey endeavors to concisely but comprehensively review recent literature related to this eternally fascinating industry.

Does Hollywood dominate world cinema markets with American taste, culture, and values through the exportation of films produced mainly for its domestic (US and Canada) market? Or does Hollywood supply the films that world audiences demand and, because of the logistics of distribution, screen these films first in the domestic market prior to exhibition in foreign markets? In this article, the authors empirically analyzed the global market for motion pictures to provide statistical evidence that can speak to these questions. They examined data on nearly 2,000 films exhibited from 1997–2007, inclusive, in the United States and Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom—markets that today collectively account for over 75% of worldwide cinema box-office revenue. The empirical evidence provides support for the hypothesis that the supply of Hollywood films has accommodated global demand as the relative size of the U.S. domestic market has decreased. There is no evidence that box-office success in the United States creates a contagion that spreads to other film exhibition markets; however, box-office success in international markets appears to be less uncertain for films that have been successful in their U.S. releases.