So THAT's Why TV And Movie Credits Use Roman Numerals

We’ve recently shared at HuffPost UK what the stars surrounding the mountain in the Paramount logo may actually mean, as well as why TV shows and movies so rarely show known brand names. 

But there’s another movie mystery at the other end of your favourite films, too.

If you look closely after the credits have rolled, you’ll see that the copyright credit is often written in Roman numerals, rather than the regular Arabic numerals we’re all used to. 

That’s not a copyright thing ― books, for instance, usually use regular numbers.

So, why does that change once a story gets on screen? 

Well, part of it has to do with mystery

The “deception theory” of Roman numeral credits suggests that TV and movie studios simply don’t want you to know when their piece of media was first released. 

The BBC, for instance, uses the technique. “The convention is not to spell out what year something was made,” the broadcaster wrote on their online news site.

Using Roman numerals means you have to spend a lot of time working out what the date is (or, in the adorable case of this grandmother, Google searching the letters as politely as possible).

That way, you couldn’t tell the age of repeats or older content.

ABC’s 33 WYTV says there’s also the “why change?” theory ― in other words, TV shows and movies have used Roman numerals for their copyright credits for so long that it just feels pointless to change it. 

They also suggest that it could have something to do with physical film ― back in the day, numbers could fade into unreadable forms on physical tape, but Roman numerals held their shape better over time. 

Either way, people don’t love it

Researching the reason for the numerals resulted in my seeing many, many disgruntled forum users who hate the quirk.

One Mumsnet member wrote, “it can be frustrating to wait for the credits to roll, only to find that the date appears as a row of Roman numerals which often flash by too quickly to convert them into Arabic (‘ordinary’) numerals.” 

A Guardian reader reckoned the technique is used because “most of the audience (unlike Guardian readers of course) will be unable to read them and so will not realise that the film is so old”. 

“I’d bet my non-existent house that most people in the UK can definitely NOT read Roman numerals,” a Digital Spy forum member opined. 

Whatever the reason, though, I sort of agree with another Digital Spy forum user ― “it looks cool,” they commented.