British English vs. U.S. English - film vs. movie

I still go to “the pictures” myself! My local as a lad was the truly wondrous Gaumont State on Kilburn High Road - now sadly a bingo hall.

I prefer the word “film”, though, and have never knowingly uttered the word “movie” in my life - neither have I uttered the word “talkie”: this isn’t the 1890s, you know.

My mate Dave always uses the word “movie” but he was in the business (well, his job was to acquire the rights to films for a UK TV channel, which I suppose is near enough).

Movie or film in the UK is fine. Not fill-um though, that marks you as a North Englander and you don’t want that. (Just kidding, guys, I love people from the North Country.) :slight_smile:

Along those lines, do people nowadays use their phone’s video mode to “tape” someone? I don’t usually hear it called “filming”.

While “cinema”, “film” and “theatre” are certainly understood in the US, I never hear regular people actually using those terms. They go to the theater to see a movie, and watch movies on a TV or laptop. Many places where live plays are performed are called theatres, but movie theaters should not be spelled that way.

The “theatre” spelling is nonstandard in American English. It’s used in some proper names to give an ersatz sense of elegance to the establishment, because to many Americans, British English is viewed as higher class than American English. It’s not uncommon on both movie theaters and live performance theaters. The same thing is done with other words that are spelled differently in BrE vs. AmE. For example, in San Francisco there are two shopping malls called “North Point Centre” and “Westfield San Francisco Centre”, and an assisted living facility called “Bay Harbour Care Home”.

If it’s about Zombies, it’s a movie. If it’s about social injustice, it’s a film.

What about a movie about social injustice to zombies?

I have no problem calling anything made for the big screen a film, regardless of the medium. For my own part, I used to shoot home movies but now I make videos.

If it’s about zombies and there’s female nudity, it’s a flick.

Wikipedia uses “film” as the default.

I say “record” but I don’t know if I’m typical.

“Record” would be the correct term of art and I think a lot of people use it.

While not pertinent to which term is more used these days in England, “movie” is definitely of American origin(1908) and seldom used outside of US writing until many years later.

Which, if you think about it, is a bit odd because the construction seems more British than American. Thet seem to add the “ie” or “y” ending onto words more frequently than we do. I heard that on the telly.

Just to stir the pot, I would assume the existence of Netflix means the expression “going to the flicks” or “watching/seeing a flick” is not unknown in the US, as it is in the UK?

“Flick” is a well-known, though seldom-used, slang term for a movie here in the US.

Also known in the phrase “chick flick” and “skin flick.” I hear the former commonly enough here.

I only ever hear “recording” in the context of phone cameras.

When I was in 9th grade, we had to write a fairly lengthy paper on some sort of legitimate topic for an English class that would demonstrate the things we learned about composition that term. I chose to compare the screen and book versions of 3 of Michael Crichton’s novels. By doing so I was consigned to having to say “in the book” and “in the movie” or similar phrases quite a lot. One thing I decided to do to break up the monotony was to replace every other instance of the word “movie” with “film”.

I have a foot in the American documentary world. Some do say film probably because it seems more elevated, but you hear movie about equally IME.

“Shoot” seems to have become a common default term (in the US) for the capturing of moving images as neither tape nor film are used much any more.