Stephen Follows is a film industry analyst who uses data to explain how the film business really works. Since 2010 he has published more than 600 research articles at stephenfollows.com, answering the questions producers, financiers and filmmakers argue about with evidence rather than opinion. How many films make their money back? Who really votes for the Oscars? Which country's films swear the most?

In 2026 he launched The Film Data Scientist on YouTube, which brings the same approach to fun, interesting and downright strange movie questions. He is also the author of How to Crowdfund Your Film, built from research into more than 50,000 campaigns.

Since 2023 Stephen has been the consultant behind the movie records in the annual Guinness World Records book, devising new records, checking claims and writing the entries.

Away from the public research, he advises major Hollywood studios, investment banks, investors and public bodies, as well as producers and production companies deciding which films to make and how to sell them. His charts have ended up in a global bank's own investor presentations. The work is confidential, which is why no client is named here.

He speaks at festivals and industry events including Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Zurich and Toronto, and at institutions such as the BFI and the Norwegian Film Institute. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and on BBC Radio 4.

For ten years, from 2015 to 2025, Stephen chaired the board of Central Film School in London, steering it through regulatory approval and a move to a new campus. Before that he spent six years as a trustee of Reclaim The Frame, the film charity championing filmmakers of marginalised genders.

He has taught at the National Film and Television School, Met Film School and NYU, where his classes have spanned the Stern business school, Tisch and the innovation programme. He has also run courses for the BFI, the BBC and the British Council.

In 2002 he founded Catsnake, a story agency that helps charities raise money through film and storytelling. Its clients include UNICEF, WWF, Amnesty International, the RSPB and Great Ormond Street Hospital. It was named Best Creative Partner to the Legacy Sector at the Smee & Ford Legacy Giving Awards in both 2024 and 2025, and in 2026 it expanded into America, with offices in London, Cleveland and New York.

Before the data, he was a producer, making more than 100 short films and two features. One of the shorts, A Love Story… In Milk, has been watched more than 1.5 million times and used by the UN as a case study.