The covers of many titles often present additional information or prefixes such as actor, director or studio names that are not part of the actual movie title. In most cases, these should should not be included.
Some film titles do include a name such as a studio, director, writer or author as part of the movie’s registered title. This can be for legal obligations, to differentiate from similar titled movies, and other reasons. In those cases where the registered title includes the prefix or name and it is given on the cover (even if in a different font) it should be included in the Local Title field, and in the Original Title if the prefix is part of the full title was registered in the country of origin.
Please note IMDB list their titles under an arbitrary display title and while the complete titles can sometimes be found listed in the titles AKA section it is not always given.
When dealing with box sets however, which may not have registered titles, names are often acceptable, so titles such as "John Wayne Westerns Collection" should be entered the same as it appears on the cover.
Here are a few ways to determine the correct title to use:
- The credits block and copyright notice on the back cover includes the full title as found on the front cover. If the title is enclosed within quotations marks, take note of whether the prefix is inside or outside of the quotation marks.
- The registered title can usually be found via the web site of your country's film ratings organization, such as filmratings.com for the USA or bbfc.co.uk for the UK.
Example 1: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Looking at the credits block on the back cover of the DVD released in the USA,
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is written as
"Tim Burton's Corpse Bride", and
Tim Burton's is inside the quotation marks. The full title
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is also provided in the copyright notice. The US movie ratings web site also lists the title as
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.
Title as it appears on the front cover: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Local Title: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Original Title: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Example 2: John Carpenter's The Thing
Looking at the credits block on the back cover of the Blu-ray released in the USA,
John Carpenter's The Thing is written as
John Carpenter's "The Thing", and
John Carpenter's is outside the quotation marks. The US movie ratings web site also does
not include
John Carpenter's in the title. The copyright notice does not list the title at all.
Title as it appears on the front cover: John Carpenter's The Thing
Local Title: The Thing
Original Title: The Thing