What's the "Best" Month for New Movies and Music? A Statistical Analysis
www.statsignificant.com

... In 1992, The Silence of the Lambs swept the Academy Awards' most prestigious categories, winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress. Somehow, a movie about a well-educated cannibal who speaks in riddles became a commercial smash and a critical darling. The Silence of the Lambs is one of just three films to have acheived the "Big Four" Oscar sweep. It's also the only Best Picture winner in the past seven decades to have been released in January.

If that last sentence reads like a typo, I promise it isn't. In 100 years of this glorified popularity contest, January"a month with a perfectly normal number of days"has been bizarrely underrepresented.

In fact, anyone who follows the movie release calendar knows that January has its own nickname within the film industry: Dump-uary. Traditionally, movies perceived as having lesser theatrical appeal are unceremoniously "dumped" into the first few weeks of the year, a convenient way for studios to unload low-confidence bets from their balance sheets. ...