I analysed fifteen years of Oscar nominees to see whether the most-mentioned contenders in the trades tend to go on to win.

I crunched the numbers on 8,190 movies to discover which types stay profitable even when the critics are unkind.

Last week, I got pulled into a conversation with some friends about Donnie Darko. The debate quickly turned to whether the film’s hard-to-follow narrative held it back or whether that was part of its ...