Methodology

Review sites tell you whether a film is good. Planeproof tells you what it needs from you.

One verdict

Verdict: Cinema: Recommended when a large picture or powerful sound matters most.
Verdict: Home: Recommended for a TV and a comfortable listening environment.
Verdict: Planeproof: A practical pick for a seatback screen or earbuds.

How ratings work

Fixed rules turn published picture, sound and editing information into a recommendation. Camera formats, image shape, bass ratings and shot timings contribute only to the properties they describe. The same inputs and scoring rules produce the same verdict.

Missing measurements remain unknown. Image shape alone can support a Home recommendation, but cannot prove clear dialogue or a glare-proof picture. A small limitation no longer automatically rules out Planeproof. Strong picture or sound demands still favor a cinema or home. Runtime, language, genre and 3D alone do not earn a rating. Films with no usable viewing evidence remain unrated.

What appears on the homepage

The homepage shows rated films released in the past two years. Films getting attention in TMDB’s weekly movie chart come first; popularity and recency help order the rest. Search finds rated movie titles from any year. Choosing a verdict, airline, genre or viewing reason includes rated films of every age. Airline filters use published catalog listings; availability can vary by flight. Unrated films keep their pages while we gather evidence.

This discovery ranking uses TMDB’s weekly trending signal. It does not change a film’s verdict. If the chart is more than a week old, we use popularity and recency until it is refreshed.

How a film gets tagged

A reason box is a factual, checkable claim about how a film was made, mixed or structured. It is separate from an inferred technical recommendation.
Anyone with the film, its credits and a decent meter can confirm or refute it. "Large-format capture", "long stretches near silence" and "reading required" are claims.
A reason box is never a vibe, the verdict restated, a quality judgment or a mood. "Immersive", "best in a cinema" and "excellent mixing" are none of them.
A technical recommendation can use measurements without adding a reason box. Film pages show the technical basis, its limits and any supported boxes. We do not add boxes to fill a quota or turn an inference into a measured fact.

The 25 reasons

The closed vocabulary, v1. A film can only be described with these, which is what makes them countable and filterable. Every label links from a film page straight to the films that share it.

Picture

Shot with IMAX film cameras: Principal photography used IMAX 15/70 cameras for at least one full sequence.
Large-format capture: Captured on 65mm or 70mm film stock, or on a digital sensor of equivalent area.
Filmed for IMAX: Shot on IMAX-certified digital cameras or framed so the image opens to a taller ratio in IMAX venues.
Graded near black: Long stretches sit close to black, so ambient light or screen glare erases picture information.
Action at the edges of the frame: Story information is placed away from center, so a small screen physically hides it.
Detail is the content: The subject is texture, grain, or layered small elements that resolve only at scale.
Bright, glare-proof image: High-key, evenly lit, holds up under 500 nits and cabin glare.
Framed for the center: Faces and key action sit center-frame in close or medium shot; nothing is lost small.

Sound

Low end below soundbar range: Content under about 40 Hz carries dramatic weight; a soundbar or TV reproduces none of it.
Sound placed behind you: The mix puts story information in the surround or height channels, not just the front.
Whisper-to-blast range: The gap between quietest and loudest passages is large enough that one volume setting cannot serve both.
Long stretches near silence: Minutes at a time sit near the noise floor, so room noise competes with the film.
Dialogue sits under the mix: Lines are deliberately buried under score or effects and are lost on small speakers.
Dialogue carries the film: The dialogue track is the load-bearing one and is mixed clear of everything else.
Survives earbuds and cabin noise: Nothing essential lives below the noise floor of a plane at cruise.
The score does the plotting: Music, not dialogue, tracks the story beats.
A soundbar covers it: The mix asks for range and clarity, not theatrical low end or surround placement.

Attention

Scenes run unbroken: Tension is built by shot duration; a pause or a look away discharges it.
Detail you cannot miss: Plot-critical information is stated once, in passing.
Reading required: Substantial dialogue is subtitled, so eyes cannot leave the screen.
Survives a pause: Episodic or self-recapping structure; stopping and resuming costs nothing.
Works with half your attention: Follows fine while you do something else.

Context

Presentation is part of the work: Format, scale, or release was authored for a cinema, so a home viewing is a different object.
Needs a dark room: Ambient light, not screen size, is the thing that breaks it.
Needs a quiet room: Room noise, not speaker quality, is the thing that breaks it.

Where the evidence comes from

Some of these claims are already published somewhere. Film format lists, a language database. We read those sources and print what they say under the box they speak to, with a link, so you can check it against us. We read a handful of others too, listed nowhere here because their terms do not let us republish what they say; those move an editor and never reach this page. We never process the films themselves.

The sources

Wikipedia, List of IMAX films: Which films were shot with IMAX cameras, which were shot on IMAX-certified digital cameras, and which were only enlarged to IMAX after the fact. Boxes: Shot with IMAX film cameras, Filmed for IMAX.
Wikipedia, List of 70 mm films: Which films were captured on 65mm or 70mm stock, and under which process. The list deliberately excludes 35mm blow-ups. Boxes: Large-format capture.
Wikipedia, List of films with high frame rates: Which films were made to be projected above the standard 24 frames per second. Boxes: Presentation is part of the work.
Wikidata: Original language, aspect ratio, runtime and credits. Aspect ratio is context for how a film is staged; on its own it never supports a box. Boxes: Reading required, Action at the edges of the frame.
TMDB: The original language a film was made in, and its runtime. Where Wikidata lists several languages or the runtime of an extended cut, this is the one that matches the release most people see. Boxes: Reading required.

What a source may do

A claim needs support. Published facts can establish a matching property. Qualitative claims need a sourced assessment. A camera format, wide aspect ratio or genre does not establish every viewing demand.
Not every source counts the same. The format lists and the language databases may both support a box and contradict one. The frame-rate lists may support a box, and may contradict one only when at least two independent sources agree. Everything else may only ever support.
We only cite what we may cite. A source belongs on the list above when its license lets us reuse the facts we take from it, with credit. The rest we still read, and they still move an editor, but they are never named on a page, never printed under a box and never counted in the source line under a verdict. These boxes are the ones that reach us that way and so carry no line you can follow: Low end below soundbar range, Dialogue carries the film, A soundbar covers it, Scenes run unbroken, Detail you cannot miss.
Absence proves nothing. None of these lists claims to be complete, so a film missing from one is not evidence against the box.
Unresolved claims stay unresolved. Rejected facts are excluded and missing facts stay unknown. Conflicting claims favor a Home recommendation. Existing catalogue assessments retain their provenance rather than becoming newly measured facts.
Measurements we do not have. loudness range, near-silence share, average picture level, black-frame share, center-channel share. Our accepted sources do not provide these measurements for each film. These boxes can retain an earlier editorial assessment, but technical proxies do not establish them: Whisper-to-blast range, Long stretches near silence, Graded near black, Bright, glare-proof image, Dialogue sits under the mix, Sound placed behind you.

Credit where it is due

Film format, 3D and frame-rate data from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0: List of IMAX films, List of 70 mm films, List of films with high frame rates.
Language, aspect-ratio and credit data from Wikidata, released under CC0.
This website uses TMDB and the TMDB APIs but is not endorsed, certified, or otherwise approved by TMDB.
Streaming availability on film pages is provided by JustWatch, through the TMDB API.
Poster artwork is sourced from IMDb and TMDB and loaded directly from their image servers. Each film page links to its poster's source. Poster artwork belongs to its respective rights holders; the data licenses above do not apply to it.

What we do not claim

This is not a quality rating. A verdict says where a film works, never whether it is any good. A great film can be Planeproof and a mediocre one can be Cinema.
We use published evidence. We gather technical measurements and production facts rather than analyzing copies of the films. The rules turn that evidence into viewing recommendations. Literal reason boxes require support for the property they describe. A manual viewing test is not required for every recommendation.
These are viewing recommendations. The rules reflect judgments about viewing conditions, not laboratory measurements of enjoyment. Community votes let you challenge the verdict and individual reason boxes.

Why this beats genre intuition

The verdict is not a blockbuster detector. A whisper-quiet drama can demand a cinema because its sound design is the film; a famous action movie can be honestly fine on a laptop. The interesting entries are the counterintuitive ones – filter by verdict on the home page to find them.

Edited by Salvatore Amoroso, Zurich.