Is either date more correct than the other?

Personally, I haven't ever really thought so which is why both variations exist in our database. The proper way to solve this is to support multiple release dates per country but at this time we don't.

Typically though, you are right, TMDb has a history of using more theatrical releases than anything else.

I am not sure about other countries as I added only polish movies, but from what I saw this difference comes mainly from other sites supporting production date eg Filmweb.pl and TMDb supporting only per contry release date. In Poland there have been many cases where certain movie have been released years after they where finished due to censorhip and I believe there is no easy way to set the production date in TDMb. Having that sais IMHO more important is the production date and that needs to be represented in the database somehow. Correct me if I am wrong but I do not believe it is easilly done ATM so for now as the trick I add "United States" country for production date on the mentioned polish movies, but that I see only as the work around.

I tend to agree about using the production date or perhaps the very first time it is released (usually at a festival of sorts). I would prefer the first time it is in wide release somewhere, but the issue there is entering a new film. I enter many from the films that will be playing at the Toronto Film Festival, often world premieres, and I have to use that date because I have no idea if and when the film will be released wide. In my opinion it is much better for a film to stick to a year rather than keep changing, and the only date that will never change is the world premiere. Of course TMDB could include types of releases (World Premiere, Festival, LImited, Wide) but then it gets tricky for people entering new films, having to update or add each of these releases. I think World Premiere is the way to go.

I'm for the world premiere aswell. The best option would be allowing "Types" for release dates like lise mentioned above. You added this option for trailers aswell (trailer, clip etc.).

+1 for the world premiere

currently i am marking the very first release as the primary one but that does not work very well.

would be nice to have a ticket for this in the backlog.

IMHO. The release date should be when the movie is open for public viewing by the film maker. If that is a film festival, DVD/Blu-ray, VOD or pay tv, internet, Free air TV, or with an old school theatrical distribution, The date John Q Public can see it legally in that country should be the release date. Some films might never get to wide distribution in theaters and still be considered successful. I think that is the logic behind why Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB use first public showing as the year of release.

As an example in my country. the movie "Charlie Zone" won several awards in 2011 and again in 2012. I think it should be (2011). The date on TMDb is it's first Limited theatrical opening of March 1st 2013. Maybe it should be June 4th when its available on DVD/Blu-ray is the wide release. Either way the definition of "release date or year of the movie" is not consistent on this site and makes the information on this site appear inaccurate.

We need a rule or guideline set that we can use to improve the credibility of the database.

I agree with Avront. While I don't think this is a huge problem, it's still annoying and we could all benefit from some consistency.

The way films are released and distributed has been changing quickly over the last few years and that should, in my opinion, be reflected in how we add release dates on this site.

I also agree with Avront. Additional to countries we should be able to use film festivals etc. as release locations like you can do on imdb.

I completely agree with Avront and partially agree with nordicstyle. In my opinion we should use the day of the first public viewing as release date. Additionally we should have an further field "release type" (or something similar) next the release contry and release date. This new field should state how the movie was published. "release type" may then have values like "theatre", the name of the film festival, the name of a website who firstly provided a stream (legally of course),...

This has been really quite lately. Is there any update on this?

I have the same case for the 300 Movie.

It was first released on a festival and the following year on the Cinemas.

The main year is the one of the festival as it's the first public proyection (even if it's for a limited amount of persons)

Personally, I find it ridiculous that a movie that just opened this weekend (You're Next) has a date of two years ago because it had one screening at a festival. A festival is not a release. If you want to use the limited release date over the wide, that's fine with me, but it should be the release date of the country of origin that stands as the year it was released.

This should be closed since the rule is to use the first public availability date - no festivals etc.

Yes, this rule was implemented quite a while ago, back in 2013 after this thread was brought up: https://www.themoviedb.org/documentation/editing/movies

Cheers.

I just want to add that it is fine to use a festival release date until there is an actual real release date. Now it can be closed! :)