For a competitive film buff, the only pleasure greater than chatting about a favourite work with friends is discovering that they have not seen it.

Enter the “film bluff”. One in ten Britons now lies about the films they have seen, to appear more cultured and intellectual, according to research carried out for the social networking site myfilms.com.

The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Schindler’s List are three of the films many people pretend to have seen and loved, when the embarrassing truth is that they much prefer Ghost, Dirty Dancingand The Sound of Music.

A survey of 2,489 Britons revealed that men are the most dishonest about film, being 17 per cent more likely than women to massage the guilty secrets of their viewing habits.

Men are also twice as likely to “film-drop” — bring up films they have seen — in order to show off, with The Shawshank Redemption the favourite title to mention. Casino Royale, The Green Mile, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Godfather are the other favoured names to drop into the conversation, according to the poll.

Almost a quarter of those questioned (23 per cent) judge people on what films they like, rising to 37 per cent among 18 to 24-year-olds.

Some 40 per cent of young Britons openly criticise people about their film tastes and 39 per cent admit to having had a heated argument about a film being good or not.

Tom Beaumont-Griffin, the creator of myfilms.com, said: “Films are so much a part of our everyday conversation that it’s no great surprise that we tend to bluff about what films we’ve seen to keep up with our colleagues, friends and family.

“The fact that we judge people on their film tastes is testament that films play such an important part in our lives on a daily basis.

“More and more people are conversing over the variety of films they have seen — not just the big summer blockbusters, but more quirky and offbeat films — to demonstrate their cultural prowess.”

The survey was conducted by YouGov, which interviewed a representative sample of 2,489 people in February.

The films we wish we’d seen and the ones we did

Top five films to lie about seeing

1 Schindler’s List
2 The Da Vinci Code
3 The Godfather
4 Apocalypse Now
5 Gone with the Wind

Top five films people like but dislike admitting to

1 The Sound Of Music
2 Ghost
3 Dirty Dancing
4 Love Actually
5 Harry Potter

Top five “film-drops”

1 The Shawshank Redemption
2 The Green Mile
3 The Lord Of The Rings
4 The Godfather
5 Casino Royale

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