Statistics and curious facts about acting credits

Hi, everybody:

In order to offer help in a recent thread about some credits' attributes, I had to process the actors & actresses plain text files (as of 2 Oct 2015). Taking advantage of it, I would like to share with you some curious data about acting credits obtained during the analysis (e.g. haven't you ever wonder who is the actor with most credits on IMDB

?, or which film has the largest cast list?, or what do Hillary Clinton and Madonna have in common? Interrogante

):

A. LONGEST NAMES
(not counting spaces nor roman numerals)

Longest names:
      Actors:
            The Annointed Voices of Higher Ground Young Adult Choir of Higher Ground Always Abounding Assemblies Inc. (90 letters).
            The Men of Battle Company 2nd of the 503rd Infantry Regiment 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (80 letters).
            Johann Ludwig Karl Gustav Gregor Philipp King Friedrich August the Third of Saxony (70 letters).
      Actresses:
            Reyna Windsor Bunting Woodbury Cowling Chadbourne Her Royal Highness The Queen House (73 letters).
            Singing and Dancing Chorus of Seventy-Five Glorified Beauties (II) (54 letters).
            Elisabeth Sophie Prinzessin zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (50 letters).
Longest palindromic names:
Actor: Ritchie Eihctir and Renaldo Odlaner (14 letters).
Actress: Rachael Leahcar (14 letters).

B. MOST PROLIFIC NAMES
(here the word "title" refers to unique shows, i.e. if an actor has played roles in 21 episodes of a series, it counts as "21 credits" but only "1 title")

Any type of title: 25,336,119 credits in 1,002,289 titles
      Names with most credits:
            Any credits:
                  Actor: Alex Trebek (7,225 credits in 166 titles).
        -- [7,183 of them are self appearances in 135 titles].
        -- [8 of them are uncredited appearances in 7 titles].
                  Actress: Vanna White (6,188 credits in 68 titles).
        -- [6,175 of them are self appearances in 56 titles].
                        -- [3 of them are uncredited appearances in 3 titles].
            Excluding self credits:
                  Actor: Frank Welker (4,163 credits in 754 titles).
                -- [105 of them are uncredited appearances in 60 titles].
                  Actress: Helena Isabel (3,931 credits in 81 titles).
                    -- [2 of them are uncredited appearances in 1 title].
      Names with most titles:
            Any titles:
                  Actor: Tom Byron (I) (1,933 titles) [1,933 credits].
        -- [41 of them contain only self appearances (41 credits)].
                  Actress: Bess Flowers (880 titles) [880 credits].
            Excluding adult genre titles:
                  Actor: Mel Blanc (1,278 titles) [1,975 credits].
                  Actress: Bess Flowers (880 titles) [880 credits].
Films: 6,875,305 credits in 653,971 titles
      Names with most credits/titles:
            Actor: Mel Blanc (1,066 titles) [499 uncredited items].
            Actress: Bess Flowers (831 titles) [799 uncredited items].
      Names with most credits/titles excluding uncredited roles:
            Actor: Brahmanandam (986 titles).
            Actress: Helen (I) (488 titles).
Made for video (V): 1,062,518 credits in 129,453 titles
      Names with most credits/titles:
            Actor: Mark Wood (IV) (1,728 titles) [10 self / 24 uncredited items].
            Actress: Nina Hartley (571 titles) [39 self / 6 uncredited items].
      Names with most credits/titles excluding adult genre roles:
            Actor: Desmond Elliot (252 titles).
            Actress: Patience Ozokwor (317 titles).
Made for TV (TV): 1,349,431 credits in 103,017 titles
      Names with most credits/titles:
            Actor: Bob Hope (I) (302 titles) [285 self / 12 uncredited items].
            Actress: Whoopi Goldberg (225 titles) [197 self / 12 uncredited items].
      Names with most credits/titles excluding self roles:
            Actor: Jerry Lawler (195 titles) [1 uncredited item].
            Actress: Momiji Yamamura (107 titles) [no uncredited items].
Series: 15,961,575 credits in 1,758,156 episodes and 109,746 titles
      Names with most credits (series level credits + episode credits):
            Any credits:
                  Actor: Johnny Gilbert (I) (7,192 credits in 45 titles).
        -- [31 series level credits + 7,161 episode credits in 14 titles].
        -- [7,104 of them are self appearances in 14 titles].
        -- [5 of them are uncredited appearances in 4 titles].
                  Actress: Vanna White (6,161 credits in 41 titles).
        -- [0 series level credits + 6,161 episode credits in 41 titles].
        -- [6,153 of them are self appearances in 34 titles].
                        -- [2 of them are uncredited appearances in 2 titles].
            Excluding self credits:
                  Actor: Luís Esparteiro (3,805 credits in 47 titles).
        -- [7 series level credits + 3,798 episode credits in 42 titles].
        -- [1 of them is an uncredited appearance in 1 title].
                  Actress: Helena Isabel (3,902 credits in 52 titles).
        -- [16 series level credits + 3,886 episode credits in 38 titles].
                        -- [1 of them is an uncredited appearance in 1 title].
      Names with most titles:
            Any titles:
                  Actor: William Shatner (302 titles within 1,035 credits).
                        -- [20 series level credits + 1,015 episode credits].
        -- [477 of credits are self appearances in 174 titles].
                        -- [10 of credits are uncredited appearances in 9 titles].
                  Actress: Dolly Parton (274 titles within 987 credits).
                        -- [6 series level credits + 981 episode credits].
        -- [971 of credits are self appearances in 264 titles].
                        -- [5 of credits are uncredited appearances in 5 titles].
            Excluding self credits:
                  Actor: Frank Welker (294 titles within 3,703 credits).
                        -- [73 series level credits + 3,630 episode credits].
                        -- [1 of credits is an uncredited appearance in 1 title].
                  Actress: Tara Strong (182 titles within 1,945 credits).
                        -- [10 series level credits + 1,965 episode credits].
                        -- [none of the credits is an uncredited appearance].
Videogames (VG): 87,290 credits in 6,102 titles
      Names with most credits/titles:
            Actor: Steve Blum (IX) (330 titles).
            Actress: Lani Minella (227 titles).

C. NAMES WITH MOST ATTRIBUTES/SELF CREDITS

Names with most attributes:
      (as...):
            Actor: Tozé Martinho (2,075 credits).
            Actress: Grey Griffin (1,940 credits).
      (uncredited):
            Actor: Herman Hack (1,023 credits).
            Actress: Bess Flowers (855 credits).
      (voice):
            Actor: Frank Welker (4,012 credits).
            Actress: Ikue Ohtani (2,169 credits).
      (archive footage):
            Actor: Adolf Hitler (963 credits) .
            Actress: Hillary Clinton and Madonna (291 credits each).
      (credit only):
            Actor: Matthew Ashford (I) (1,456 credits).
            Actress: Gaby Milder (591 credits).
Names with most self credits:
Actor: Alex Trebek (7,183 credits).
Actress: Vanna White (6,175 credits).

D. LARGEST CAST LISTS

Film:
      Largest cast list: Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) (1,300 names).
            -- [1,250 uncredited names].
      Largest cast list excluding uncredited roles: 7 cajas (2012) (688 names).
Made for video (V):
      Largest cast list: The Stars of the Street: 50 Years, 50 Classic Characters (2010) (V) (277 names).
            -- [276 of them with attribute archive footage and 1 uncredited role].
      Largest cast list excluding archive footage and uncredited roles: Punk Rock Holocaust (2004) (V) (274 names).
Made for TV (TV):
      Largest cast list: The Oscars (2015) (TV) (426 names).
            -- [426 self credits, 59 with attribute archive footage and 9 uncredited roles].
      Largest cast list excluding self, archive footage and uncredited roles: London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isles of Wonder (2012) (TV) (252 names).
Series:
      As a whole (series level + episodes):
            Most unique names: "The Bill" (1984) (9,201 unique names in 44,389 credits).
            Most individual credits: "Morangos com Açúcar" (2003) (108,182 credits from 808 unique names). 1 out of 234 acting credits on belongs to this series!
      Series level: "General Hospital" (1963) (958 names).
      Single episode: "BBC Super League Show" (2007) {(#8.9)} (583 names).
Videogame (VG): Red Dead Redemption (2010) (VG) (584 names).

E. HIGHEST ORDER/POSITION NUMBERS
(this is wrong info that needs to be amended by someone who knows the correct position numbers)

Actor: James With in "Flatland" (2002) (#90004).
Actress: Marium Carvell in Tribulation (2000) (#33613).

F. MOST CHARACTER ROLES IN A SINGLE CREDIT

Film:
Actor: George O'Connor (X) in Transformers: The Movie, The Parody (2015) (25 characters).
Actress: Tress MacNeille in The Simpsons Movie (2007) (13 characters).
Made for video (V):
Actor: Trey Parker (I) in South Park: Imaginationland (2008) (V) (46 characters).
Actress: Tress MacNeille in Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008) (V) (13 characters).
Made for TV (TV):
Actor: Joe Hanson (I) in Viral Superstar (2007) (TV) (33 characters).
Actress: Kerstin Granlund in Träsmak (1985) (TV) (14 characters).
Series:
      Series level (not including subordinate episodes):
            Actor: Daniel Herzog (I) in "Les guignols de l'info" (1988) (47 characters).
            Actress: Sandrine Alexia in "Les guignols de l'info" (1988) (20 characters).
      Single episode:
            Actor: Mike Yarwood in "Heroes of Comedy" (1995) {Mike Yarwood (#6.1)} (48 characters).
            Actress: Kate O'Sullivan (I) in "2DTV" (2001) {(#4.5)}, "2DTV" (2001) {(#4.6)} and "2DTV" (2001) {(#5.1)} (27 characters).
Videogame (VG):
Actor: Michael Gough (II) in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) (VG) (108 characters).
Actress: Colleen Delany in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) (VG) and Shari Elliker in Fallout 3 (2008) (VG) (49 characters each).

(I'll let some rest to the computer now... poor SPSS has been calculating nonstop for hours...) Ordenador

TL;DR: IMDB

feeds our passion for cinema in many different ways... with numbers too!

Guitarra

Responses

bluesmansf

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9 years ago

The site had a 'prolific' list but it became pretty useless when tv episodes became titles. It, when canned was all tv show names who were in daily shows and maybe some porn stars. People wondering where John Wayne or others might land actually found no real movie stars. I always thought it was interesting and people ask the question "who is..." all the time.

Nice bunch of stats!

http://www.imdb.com/Prolific/actors

ACT_1

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6 years ago

HI! ljdoncel, Champion
anything New to add ? ?

Now there are ...
http://www.imdb.com/pressroom/stats/
Titles: 5,626,984 | Names: 9,572,880
.

ljdoncel

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Hi, ACT_1:

Due to the data contained in the new tsv files, many of the numbers that could be retrieved before, are no longer available. Fortunately, I can recalculate some of them, and even give some new info.

If you wish, I'll wait until the end of the year so I can download data as of 31 Dec 2018, and them give me some days to process them.

Happy holidays! Image: https://prod-content-care-community-cdn.sprinklr.com/26653d1b-7bb8-47bf-ac21-90f16f2e4b48/RackMultipart20181225365121mf1-b0ab1f22-ce31-41c0-9183-8e61c21ad0e0-2116338397.gif1545769600

Image: https://prod-content-care-community-cdn.sprinklr.com/26653d1b-7bb8-47bf-ac21-90f16f2e4b48/RackMultipart20181225365121mf1-b0ab1f22-ce31-41c0-9183-8e61c21ad0e0-2116338397.gif1545769600

6 years ago

ACT_1

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and you read this .... add some of Your comments ? ? I did ;-)

https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/imdb-data-now-easily-available-to-contributors
IMDb Data – Now easily available to contributors
Today (20 Dec 2018) we are pleased to announce
the IMDb datasets are easier to access
and now directly from imdb.com. Using the new interface, contributors can bulk-access subsets of IMDb title and name data for personal and non-commercial use. Each dataset file is in a gzipped, tab-separated-values (TSV) format.ll

To access the datasets and for more information you can go here:
https://contribute.imdb.com/czone

by Stewart, Official Rep

6 years ago

ACT_1

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4 years ago

ljdoncel

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Hi, ACT_1:

Titles ending with odd numbers are blank
This started years ago ??

Sure. As I pointed to you one year ago, this had been confirmed by former staff member Owen Rees in another thread (knowing you, it's strange that you don't keep track of that info

).

The image below shows you graphically the moment

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1843726RackMultipart20200710-42424-1k0mn2g-imdb_inlinegif1594405894

started to use even ttconsts only.

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1843725RackMultipart20200710-92530-ei4xu9-ttconsts_inlinepng1594405610

As of 09 Jul 2020, 6,964,909 titles are identified primarily* by 5,806,375 (83.4%) even ttconsts and 1,158,534 (16.6%) odd ttconsts.

*Some "unused" ttconsts actually redirect to a title.

Cheers!

4 years ago

jeorj_euler

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That participant is better known for tracking IMDb user accounts, but that was mostly back when the IMDb·Com message boards software was still operational.

— Jeorj Euler, an IMDb regular registrant

4 years ago

ACT_1

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4 years ago

bderoes

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4 years ago

Hi, ljdoncel.
Is there an automated way to search for people with 100+ feature film credits that are NOT silent films?
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls021379096/
For instance, William Boyd doesn't qualify with 141 feature film credits because 56 are silent.
I don't have access to any query software, so I guess I'm asking if it's a query that YOU could do.
Even if I could get a list of potential candidates, and research the silent films by hand, that would help.
Thanks in advance, but feel free to say no.

ljdoncel

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Hi, bderoes:

Is there an automated way to search for people with 100+ feature film credits that are NOT silent films?

Short (and sad) answer is no... AFAIK, you can't get such a list by using the forms at ATS or ANS. The only way of trying to search for people who meet those requirements is by parsing the datasets in plain text format. Theoretically, silent films should be readily identifiable just by looking at two variables: languages ("None") and sound mix ("Silent").

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1843765RackMultipart20200711-25900-1o0q8ji-imdb1_inlinejpg1594461840

So, can we use the datasets?

tsv files: Here's the second sad answer: the current text files made public by don't contain any of those two variables to filter out silent films; beyond a mere year range approach (before/after 1927), nothing more can be done.
list files: Former text files did contain both language and sound-mix info (besides much more different data than tsv files). However -misfortunes come in threes-, they're not (and will no longer be) updated since December 2017. Also, they lack the common and unique keys (ttconsts, nmconsts) to cross-reference their fields and values with those within the tsv files, so we can't "merge" them and take advantage of all the archives at once.

Even if I could get a list of potential candidates, and research the silent films by hand, that would help. Thanks in advance, but feel free to say no.

Evaluating choices... ...

... ... Done!

Despite the aforementioned faults, I'll post here a small analysis. A few premilinar comments:

You say you only want films, so I've excluded made-for-video titles (V), made-for-TV titles (TV), series, episodes and videogames.
You say you only want acting credits, so I've excluded (self), (archive footage) or (credit only) entries. On the other hand, you say nothing about uncredited performances, so I'll aggregate them into the final results.
You say you only want released titles, so I've excluded around 80,000 films which don't have a year listed yet (????).
When using the list files, only one of the two helping variables to separate silent films (language, sound-mix) is truly useful in the end, because unfortunately a very few titles from that period have the "None" language listed, as you can see below:

Conversely, sound-mix info seems to be well represented for that timeframe, with a high percentage of "Silent" films labeled as such.

Here are the results:

DATASET ANALYZED: TSV FILES

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1843787RackMultipart20200711-34686-c1iye3-key-yellow-peque_o_inlinepng1594491113

Files used:
                · name.filmography.tsv@05 Jul 2020
                · title.basics.tsv@07 Jul 2020

1,221,042 films out of 6,964,909 titles.

SILENT ERA (1874-1929): 138,720 titles (11.4%).

TRANSITION PERIOD (1930-1938): 27,214 titles (2.2%).

SOUND ERA (1939-2115): 1,055,108 titles (86.4%).

8,627,911 acting credits out of 142,796,275 name filmography credits.

65.9% actor (5,683,857 credits) vs 34.1% actress (2,944,054 credits).

SILENT ERA (1874-1929): 404,124 credits (4.7%) ~ 34.6% of them for actresses.
                 TRANSITION PERIOD (1930-1938): 286,141 credits (3.3%) ~ 28.1% for actresses.
                 SOUND ERA (1939-2115): 7,937,646 credits (92.0%) ~ 34.3% for actresses.

Definition of potential candidate (arbitrary):
"Person with more than 100 film credits when adding up their 100% sound era
film credits and 75% of transition period film credits"

There are 3,562 NAMES who meet this criteria.

First 500 names (sorted by total number of credits):
Full list:
Image format: https://imgur.com/a/dsGvlNz
CSV format: https://justpaste.it/2zkn6

DATASET ANALYZED: LIST FILES

Files used:
                · actors.list@22 Sep 2017
                · actresses.list@22 Dec 2017
                · movies.list@22 Dec 2017
                · sound-mix.list@22 Dec 2017
                · language.list@22 Dec 2017

1,067,875 films out of 4,697,740 titles.

SILENT SOUND MIX: 134,918 titles (12.6%).

UNAVAILABLE SOUND MIX (blank or unmatched field): 718,159 titles (67.3%).

NON-SILENT SOUND MIX: 214,798 titles (20.1%).

7,532,079 acting credits out of 25,716,233 cast credits.

66.2% actor (4,987,518 credits) vs 33.8% actress (2,544,561 credits).

SILENT SOUND MIX: 391,726 credits (5.2%) ~ 34.8% of them for actresses.
                 UNAVAILABLE SOUND MIX: 3,908,307 credits (51.9%) ~ 35.6% for actresses.
                 NON-SILENT SOUND MIX: 3,232,496 credits (42.9%) ~ 31.5% for actresses.

Definition of potential candidate (arbitrary):
"Person with more than 100 film credits when adding up their 100% non-silent
sound mix film credits and 95% of unavailable sound mix film credits"

There are 3,124 NAMES who meet this criteria.

First 500 names (sorted by total number of credits):
Full list:
Image format: https://imgur.com/a/deMyhYJ
CSV format: https://justpaste.it/3p6rr

Hope this is what you needed... Cheers!

4 years ago

bderoes

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This is awesome. I'll use the 2nd list.
I'm primarily interested in English-language film careers (although I've already made 2 exceptions for French women, which I may have to retract to make my rules have meaning), so I can see many names that I won't need to research. And your search didn't seem to restrict to feature films, because Mel Blanc doesn't have 100+. But having a base of 3k names to go through is very cool. THANK YOU!

It would have been really nice to have the nm## name constants for these folks, but this is good.
Now I'll do a little spreadsheet work to whittle things down. Yay.

4 years ago

dan_dassow

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ljdoncel,

To say that I am impressed would be a vast understatement.

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4 years ago

ljdoncel

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@Dan:
Thank you very much for your really kind words... as always...

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1843903RackMultipart20200713-78977-1whcdg3-birra_inlinegif1594651608

@bderoes:
Sorry, I missed the feature part of your question and included short films in the analysis (my fault...). I've updated the numbers below (I've used genres-list@22 Dec 2017 to filter out shorts, btw).

DATASET ANALYZED: TSV FILES

490,088 feature films / 6,259,872 acting credits (33.3%

SILENT ERA (1874-1929): 35,014 films / 228,953 credits (34.4%

TRANSITION PERIOD (1930-1938): 18,313 films / 258,891 credits (27.9%

SOUND ERA (1939-2115): 436,761 films / 5,772,028 credits (33.5%

).

There are 3,292 NAMES (2,785

/ 507

) who meet this criteria (270 fewer than before).

First 500 names (sorted by total number of credits):
Full list (CSV format): https://justpaste.it/5ltar

DATASET ANALYZED: LIST FILES

360,713 feature films / 5,125,496 acting credits (33.2%

SILENT SOUND MIX: 18,911 films / 144,215 credits (34.5%

UNAVAILABLE SOUND MIX: 217,444 films / 2,185,591 credits (36.1%

NON-SILENT SOUND MIX: 124,358 films / 2,795,690 credits (30.9%

).

There are 2,302 NAMES (2,042

/ 260

) who meet this criteria (822 fewer than before).

First 500 names (sorted by total number of credits):
Full list (CSV format): https://justpaste.it/425d5

4 years ago

dan_dassow

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ljdoncel and bderoes,

Somewhere in this wealth of interesting data, must be an interesting poll. If someone else or I develop a poll based on this information, I will make certain that you both are properly credited.

● FAQ: Key Threads - IMDb Poll FAQs Index

● FAQ: Summary Statistics and Poll Index

● BonaFideBoss' IMDbStats

● FAQ: Updating Threads After Poll Goes Live

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4 years ago

bderoes

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I've completed entering the names culled from ljdoncel's data mining.
I've realized many flaws with the data I've posted with each name; we'll see if I can resist revisiting the entire list.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls021379096/

4 years ago

ljdoncel

Statistics and curious facts about acting credits

bluesmansf

ACT_1

ljdoncel

ACT_1

ACT_1

ljdoncel

jeorj_euler

ACT_1

bderoes

ljdoncel

bderoes

dan_dassow

ljdoncel

dan_dassow

bderoes

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