Primary release date is a single date value based on all of the release dates we have added. As such, using it with the region filter would make it pretty useless. When using the region filter you should use the release_date filters.

With regards to limited vs. theatrical, this is a difference between the way movies often get released in theatres. A recent one that comes to mind was The Hateful Eight. There was a limited release they did a week before it opened up wide across the U.S./Canada. I would generally say just use both, &with_release_type=3|2.

Alright thanks!

So after switching to using release_date for all filters and sorting and using the constraints 2017-02-02 < x < 2017-03-02 I'm getting movies with release dates from 1995, any insight into that?

There must be some release dates with the release_type you specified added. Only way to fix that would be to fix the data.

Ah the movie showing up has two release dates October 10, 1995 and February 7, 2017, would removing the region query and just specifying with_original_language=en while using primary release date be a better option to find new movies then?

Primary release date will have other problems, like not showing movies that were released in Europe months ago, or vice versa if you were in Europe with U.S. releases.

Bad data, is bad data though. One of those dates isn't right, we should fix it there. What movie is this?

What if you don't need other country releases though? And oh okay, I thought when you said the only way to fix it was to fix the data I thought it was a done deal. Over the line is the movie in question though.

Ya, that 2017 release was bogus I believe. I deleted it. There will be bad data from time to time.

Okay yeah I switched back to region based discovery because it works better (when there isn't bad data), so can any user change movie data is that what happens?

so can any user change movie data is that what happens?

Yes, this is why we lock verified data but at this time, release dates don't have locks.

Thanks! Well that clears up all the confusion as to why my results were skewed.