Are 3D movies a fad?

Yes they are! But like many fads, this is a cyclical one which recurs, apparently, every 28 years. True, this post is not topical for this blog and would be much more at home on the information diet. But J and I watched Hugo in 3D this weekend, so naturally this question came up.

The source data are from Wikipedia as acknowledged in the figure, but I excluded the category of “post-1952 short films.” Just about 400 films remain. I was sort of expecting this result, but it still came out surprisingly clear. Just to clarify the horizontal axis labels: the 37 films represented in the bar above 1984 include those released in the years 1981-1984 inclusive.