Measure a movie's real cultural impact — not in inflated dollars, but in permanent human purchasing power.
The Labor-Gold Index plugin calculates inflation-adjusted box office revenue for every movie in your Jellyfin library using a median-income-to-gold purchasing power index anchored to 1920. Instead of asking "how much money did this film make," it asks: how much real human-labor-value did audiences exchange to see it?
Box office rankings are a lie. Not intentionally — they just measure nominal dollars, which makes every new release look like it outperforms the past. Avatar "beat" Gone with the Wind? Only if you ignore that a 1939 dollar represented fundamentally different purchasing power.
CPI adjustments help, but they're built on a government-managed basket of goods that gets substituted and re-weighted over time. The Labor-Gold Index takes a different approach:
G(t) = MedianIncome(t) ÷ GoldPrice(t)
For any year t, G(t) tells you how many ounces of gold a median household's income could buy. Gold is the anchor — a millennia-spanning store of value that no central bank can print. By converting box office dollars through this ratio, you get a number that means the same thing in 1920 as it does in 2024: how much real labor did people spend to watch this film?
- Automatic LG Calculation — Fetches box office data (via OMDB and/or TMDB APIs) and calculates LG-adjusted gross, budget, profit, and ROI for every movie in your library
- Tier Tagging — Automatically tags movies with LG tiers (Legendary, Monumental, Epic, Blockbuster, Hit, Success, Modest) for browsing and filtering
- Sortable Rankings — Optionally stores the LG score in the Critic Rating field so you can sort your entire library by real cultural impact using Jellyfin's built-in sort
- Overview Annotation — Optionally appends a 🪙 summary line to each movie's description showing LG-adjusted gross, budget, and ROI
- REST API — Query the LG index for any year, calculate arbitrary conversions, and pull ranked movie lists via the plugin's API endpoints
- Live Calculator — Built-in calculator on the plugin config page for ad-hoc conversions
- Scheduled Updates — Weekly background task recalculates the entire library (configurable)
- Historical Data 1900–2026 — Built-in gold price and median income datasets with linear interpolation for gap years
| Tier | LG-Adjusted Gross | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| 🏆 Legendary | $3B+ | Generational cultural event |
| ⭐ Monumental | $1B – $3B | Defined an era of filmmaking |
| 🎬 Epic | $500M – $1B | Massive cultural footprint |
| 🎥 Blockbuster | $100M – $500M | Major commercial force |
| 🎞️ Hit | $50M – $100M | Significant studio success |
| ✅ Success | $10M – $50M | Solid performer |
| 📽️ Modest | < $10M | Indie / limited release |
- Download the latest
Jellyfin.Plugin.LaborGoldIndex.dllfrom Releases - Place it in your Jellyfin plugin directory:
- Linux:
~/.local/share/jellyfin/plugins/LaborGoldIndex/ - Docker:
/config/plugins/LaborGoldIndex/ - Windows:
%APPDATA%\jellyfin\plugins\LaborGoldIndex\
- Linux:
- Restart Jellyfin
Requires .NET 9.0 SDK.
git clone https://github.com/Lodactio/labor-gold-index.git
cd labor-gold
git checkout master
dotnet publish -c ReleaseThe built DLL will be in bin/Release/net9.0/publish/. Copy Jellyfin.Plugin.LaborGoldIndex.dll to your plugin directory and restart Jellyfin.
After installing, go to Dashboard → Plugins → Labor-Gold Index in Jellyfin.
| Key | Required | Source |
|---|---|---|
| OMDB API Key | Recommended | Free at omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx (1,000 req/day) |
| TMDB API Key | Recommended | Free at themoviedb.org — provides worldwide gross + budgets |
At least one API key is needed for the plugin to fetch box office data. TMDB is recommended for the most complete data.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Base Year | 1920 | Anchor year for all calculations. 1920 recommended (pre-Bretton Woods distortion) |
| Add LG Tags | ✅ On | Adds tags like LG:Gross:$2,066M and LG:Tier:Monumental to movies |
| Tag Prefix | LG |
Prefix for generated tags |
| Use Critic Rating | ❌ Off | Stores LG score in Critic Rating field for sortability. |
| Append to Overview | ❌ Off | Adds a 🪙 summary line to movie descriptions |
All endpoints require authentication.
| Endpoint | Description |
|---|---|
GET /LaborGold/Calculate?nominalValue=X&year=Y&baseYear=Z |
Convert any dollar amount through the LG index |
GET /LaborGold/Index/{year} |
Get LG index data for a specific year (income, gold price, oz buyable, era) |
GET /LaborGold/Index |
Full historical index table |
GET /LaborGold/Rankings?limit=50 |
Movies in your library ranked by LG-adjusted gross |
GET /LaborGold/Calculate?nominalValue=2800000000&year=2019
{
"NominalValue": 2800000000,
"Year": 2019,
"BaseYear": 1920,
"GoldOzBuyableInYear": 49.37,
"GoldOzBuyableInBaseYear": 67.73,
"LaborGoldRatio": 0.729,
"AdjustedValue": 2041200000,
"Interpretation": "$2,800,000,000 in 2019 = $2,041,200,000 in 1920 labor-gold dollars"
}
The core formula is simple:
G(t) = MedianIncome(t) / GoldPrice(t)
G(t) = how many troy ounces of gold a median household could buy in year t.
To convert a nominal dollar value:
AdjustedValue = NominalValue × ( G(releaseYear) / G(baseYear) )
When G(t) / G(base) > 1.0, labor bought more gold that year than the base year — a dollar of box office represented more real purchasing power. When it's < 1.0, it represented less.
Gold isn't magic. It's just the most stable cross-era denominator we have. It can't be printed, its supply grows at ~1.5%/year, and it's been valued by every civilization for 5,000+ years. It's the closest thing to a universal constant in economics.
Because it represents what a typical person earns. GDP per capita and mean income are skewed by extreme wealth. The median tells you what the actual moviegoing public could afford.
- Gold Prices: World Gold Council, LBMA, Kitco historical data. Pre-1971 prices reflect the official U.S. government peg ($20.67 through 1933, $35.00 through 1971).
- Median Income: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of the United States, FRED. Pre-1950 figures are estimates based on BLS and NBER data.
- Box Office: OMDB API and/or TMDB API (user-provided keys).
- Jellyfin: 10.11.0+
- Framework: .NET 9.0
- Plugin Version: 1.0.0
See LICENSE.