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'Film bluffs' fib about favourite movies
By This is London 13.04.07
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Britain is a nation of "film bluffs" with many people lying about the films they have seen and their favourite titles in a bid to appear more intellectual, according to a new survey.
The poll, for social networking site myfilms.com, found one in 10 people in Britain lies to pretend they have seen a film while keeping their real, more uncool, favourites under wraps.
Gallery: Films people lie about seeing and secretly love
Film bluffs are most likely to lie about seeing Schindler's List, The Da Vinci Code, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now and will hide their fondness for Dirty Dancing or Ghost, the survey found.
It revealed that men are the biggest liars about their film knowledge and are 17% more likely than women to be deceptive about what they have been watching.
Men are also twice as likely to "film-drop" - bring up films they have seen in conversation - to show off, with The Shawshank Redemption the favourite title to mention.
Bond film Casino Royale, Green Mile, Lord Of The Rings and The Godfather are the other top films to name-drop while chatting, according to the poll.
Topping the "shame chart" of films people love but prefer not to admit to having in their collection was The Sound Of Music, followed by Ghost, Dirty Dancing, Love Actually and Harry Potter films.
The level of deception appears inspired by the fact almost a quarter of people (23%) judge people on what films they like, rising to 37% among 18 to 24-year-olds.
Some 40% of young Britons openly criticise people about their film tastes and 39% admit to having had a heated argument about a film being good or not, the survey found.
Creator of myfilms.com, Tom Beaumont-Griffin said: "Films are so much a part of our everyday conversation that it's no great surprise that we tend to bluff about what films we've seen to keep up with our colleagues, friends and family.
"The fact that we judge people on their film tastes is testament that films play such an important part in our lives on a daily basis.
"More and more people are conversing over the variety of films they have seen - not just the big summer blockbusters but more quirky and offbeat films - to demonstrate their cultural prowess."
The survey was conducted by YouGov, which interviewed a representative sample of 2,489 British people in February this year.
Myfilms.com is a social network dedicated to film, supported by the UK film council and funded through the National Lottery.
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