Analyzing the moral nature of popular movie protagonists (from 1996 to 2020) over time based on plot and character summaries

In recent years research assumed that ever since the airing of The Sopranos, the amount of morally ambiguous characters (MACs) in popular media increased. But since there is little empirical evidence for this plausible but not proven claim, we conduct a content analysis investigating plot and character summaries of the 250 most popular movies which released between 1996 and 2020. We analyze the protagonists in terms of their moral nature, their character traits, and moral transgressions they commit. We aim to make statements about the prevalence, role, and position of MACs in movies over the past twenty five years. As theoretical background we include relevant aspects of the Model of Intuitive Morality and Exemplars (MIME) and the Affective Disposition Theory (ADT).