Between our October 6 and October 21 snapshots, four films saw their popularity score on The Movie Database (TMDb) rise by a factor of 8.5 to 9.8. The same period brought a hit, a flop, a streaming debut and a home-video release.
Their Rotten Tomatoes scores ran from 18% to 79%. The size of the jump barely noticed.
A note on the data: Incoming's daily snapshots have a gap between October 7 and October 20, so everything below compares two dates, October 6 and October 21. Scores that did not change between those dates were not refreshed in that window, so we left those titles out. The jumps below are ranked by multiple among titles that scored at least 15 on October 6.
The Four Biggest Jumps by Multiple
Here is what happened to each film's popularity score, with the event that fell inside our window:
- Hope: 42.4 to 385.9 (9.1 times). Na Hong-jin's film, distributed in the U.S. by Neon, was scheduled for digital release on October 13, according to Dread Central. It opened in U.S. theaters on September 9, per Wikipedia, and holds 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Sacrifice: 28.1 to 274.3 (9.8 times). Romain Gavras's film with Chris Evans and Anya Taylor-Joy began streaming on Netflix on October 16. Wikipedia lists it at 37% on Rotten Tomatoes from 49 reviews.
- Other Mommy: 37.8 to 321.9 (8.5 times). Rob Savage's Blumhouse horror film starring Jessica Chastain opened in theaters on October 9 to about $27.8 million, per Wikipedia. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is 18% and its CinemaScore is D+.
- The Social Reckoning: 21.6 to 184.0 (8.5 times). Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to The Social Network also opened on October 9, to about $5 million. It sits at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes.
A fifth film, Fall 2: Deadpoint, rose from 66.7 to 260.0 (3.9 times). Its digital release was scheduled for October 6, per Wikipedia.
A Hit and a Flop, Same Jump
The pairing that stands out is Other Mommy and The Social Reckoning. They opened the same weekend, and their scores rose by exactly the same factor.
Their box office stories could hardly differ. According to The Numbers' weekend chart, Other Mommy took third place on October 16–18 with $8.2 million and a domestic total of $44.7 million. Wikipedia lists a worldwide total of $80.9 million against a budget of $18 million to $19 million.
The Social Reckoning, in the same chart, ranked thirteenth that weekend with $1.4 million and $8.1 million domestically. Wikipedia reports a worldwide total of $14.3 million against a budget of $30 million to $42 million.
One film grossed more than four times its reported budget despite an 18% Rotten Tomatoes score. The other grossed less than half of its reported budget despite a 54%. TMDb's popularity score treated them the same.
What the Score Is Counting
This is not a mystery once you know what goes into it. According to TMDb's documentation, the score is built from same-day activity on the site (votes, page views, favorites, watchlist additions), plus the release date, total votes and the previous day's score.
An opening, a digital release and a Netflix premiere plausibly do the same thing to those inputs: they send a lot of people to look the film up on the same day. Whether they liked it is a separate question the score does not ask.
What Fell
Spikes also fade. Between the same two dates, several titles that jumped in early October lost ground, according to our snapshots:
- The Fix: 319.4 to 217.5
- Runner: 312.4 to 207.8
- Heart of the Beast: 138.8 to 91.9
- The Uprising: 177.7 to 98.0
- Coyote vs. Acme: 295.2 to 111.5
Each lost roughly a third to three-fifths of its score in two weeks. The pattern is the same shape as the jumps, in reverse: attention arrives with an event and drifts away once the event has passed.
Editorial Take: If you use a popularity or hype ranking to decide what is good, this fortnight is a warning. A film that critics disliked can top it, and so can one that audiences rejected at the box office. These scores are a fast, honest measure of what people are looking up. They are a bad measure of what people will love. We would rather say that plainly than dress it up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which films had the biggest popularity jumps between October 6 and October 21? In Incoming's snapshots, Sacrifice (9.8 times), Hope (9.1 times), Other Mommy (8.5 times) and The Social Reckoning (8.5 times). Fall 2: Deadpoint rose 3.9 times.
Does a high popularity score mean a film is good? No. In this group, Rotten Tomatoes scores ranged from 18% to 79%, with almost the same jump for each. The score reflects how many people looked a title up, not how they rated it.
What is TMDb's popularity score? A daily score on The Movie Database based on same-day votes, views, favorites and watchlist additions, plus release date, total votes and the previous day's score.
Why did Incoming skip some titles? Scores that did not change between our two snapshots were not refreshed in that window. Including them would have shown a false zero change.
Did Other Mommy make money? Its worldwide gross, about $80.9 million per Wikipedia and The Numbers as of October 20, is more than four times its reported $18 million to $19 million budget, which is usually a strong result. Studios do not publish profit, and marketing costs are not included in that budget, so we cannot say for certain.
How is Sacrifice doing? Our data shows interest rising sharply after its Netflix debut on October 16. We did not find reliable viewership numbers to say how many people watched it.
Popularity figures are Incoming's snapshots of TMDb's score on October 6 and October 21, 2026. Box office and review figures come from the sources linked above and can change. Tracking what arrives next across movies, TV, games, music and books at incoming.to.