Selected popular films and TV series include scenes that illustrate characters in analytic life dilemmas (see Saldaña, 2009, Qualitative Inquiry, 15(1), pp. 247-261). These conflicts are artistic metaphors, comparable to what the qualitative researcher encounters. View and reflect on relevant scenes from the titles below with peers to discuss how certain principles of qualitative inquiry are depicted and can transfer to your own work. Access imdb.com for more information.

Research Genres

• Case studies: The Final Cut, The Truman Show, 56 Up (and the entire Up series)
• Survey research: Kinsey
• Quantitative (and qualitative) research: π [Pi], A Beautiful Mind, The Big Bang Theory: The Friendship Algorithm
• Longitudinal research/change: The Truman Show, 56 Up, Half Nelson, Boyhood
• Action research: Dangerous Minds, Kindergarten Cop
• Life course research: The Final Cut, 56 Up
• Phenomenology: Silence of the Lambs
• Field experiments: Super Size Me, Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story
• Critical ethnography: Bowling for Columbine
• Mixed methods: Super Size Me, The Good Doctor: Point Three Percent
• Performance ethnography, ethnodrama: Twilight: Los Angeles, The Laramie Project, The Exonerated, United 93, Howl, The Stanford Prison Experiment

Research Methodology and Methods

• Epistemology, ontology, axiology: The Matrix, Inception, Source Code, Interstellar
• Positionality, standpoint, subjectivity, perspective, point of view: Rashômon
• Research design, conceptual frameworks: Super Size Me, Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story, The Big Bang Theory: The Herb Garden Germination
• Research ethics: The Truman Show, Krippendorf’s Tribe, Miss Evers’ Boys, Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story, The Stanford Prison Experiment
• Participant observation/fieldwork: The Truman Show, Gorillas in the Mist, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Kitchen Stories, WALL-E, Avatar, Arrival, Following (1998), Dark Mysterious Austria [available on YouTube]
• Interview techniques: Kinsey, 49 Up, The Laramie Project, The Guys, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, The Help, The Milagro Beanfield War
• Inductive, abductive, substructive, deductive, and retroductive reasoning: Memento, Fargo, π [Pi], Silence of the Lambs, A Beautiful Mind, Sherlock Holmes (2009), Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows
• Codes and categories: The Final Cut
• Diagramming and display: The Big Bang Theory: The Friendship Algorithm
• Photovoice: Born Into Brothels
• Triangulation: Minority Report
• Cause and effect, influences and affects: The Butterfly Effect, World War Z
• Correlation, interrelationship: An Inconvenient Truth, The Number 23
• Data analysis: A Beautiful Mind, Contact, The Final Cut, Silence of the Lambs, The Imitation Game
• Theory: Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story