Movie Settings Database - A Retrospective
MovieSettingsDatabase.com has been shut down. Read below for a description of the project.
What was Movie Settings Database?
During 2021, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I had taken some time off from work with plans to travel a lot, but the pandemic made that impossible. I spent a lot of time sitting at home thinking about the different places I’d like to visit. I also watched a lot of movies and tv shows. I realized that I got really wrapped up in the atmosphere of a story, and when I was done I always wanted to know what else I could watch that would stay in the same general setting.
I was surprised to find that there’s not really a good source for movie settings information.
Around that same time, I got really into using the social film discovery website Letterboxd and started making lists of the movies I’ve seen, organized by their setting. I realized it was a lot of work researching the locations and time periods where the stories took place, but in the end it was really satisfying to have those lists to revisit.
But, I still didn’t have a way to find new movies and tv shows in a particular setting—so I started exploring ideas, and after a while ended up building a web app called Movie Settings Database.
Ultimately, it ended up being too much work to keep the site updated and I decided it wasn’t worth it to keep it running. Below are some screenshots of what some of the pages looked like.
