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Please check both sentences and let me know what exactly difference is between both sentences.

It (a movie) does not get released

Or

It (a movie) does not release.

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  • both are same in the context of moving not being released. However, I'd prefer the former one as movie does not release itself!
    – Maulik V
    Mar 13, 2014 at 7:22
  • Thanks. Let me ask you one more thing "The movie could be released on time" so it means that 'be' is working here as 'get' worked in the last sentence so 'be' is here because a movie does not get released automatically. it is a non-living thing and it needs help to get released. Could you also tell me when we use 'be + past participle'.
    – user62015
    Mar 14, 2014 at 5:38

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Maulik has given you a good start. What you need to think about are the practical difference between the two options. The clear difference is "get". So what does "get + past participle" give us?

Well, firstly, movies don't release themselves! But I think you knew that. So our second option is not great, as we can't use "release" as an action of the movie itself. For this to work we would need a verb that can be something that a movie does.

If a movie doesn't suck.

Moving on to "get", in your first sentence; this sentence is perfect - it sounds natural and is entirely self-explanatory. "Get" is an extremely flexible verb with many uses and meanings. Its function in this case is to externalise the action. That is, we are saying that the action "occurred" without explaining how, and more importantly by who. This is a form of the passive/causative, which is a vital tool in English.

We use "get + past participle" to externalise an action where the "agent" (who did it) is unknown, unimportant, or self-explanatory. Here are a couple of other examples:

When a book gets published, it is a nervy time for the author...

If you get arrested, it's important to know your rights...

In the event that you want to explain who performed this "externalised action", you can do so by simply using "by":

If a movie doesn't get released by a movie company, it's likely due to...

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  • Thanks. Let me ask you one more thing "The movie could be released on time" so it means that 'be' is working here as 'get' worked in the last sentence so 'be' is here because a movie does not get released automatically. it is a non-living thing and it needs help to get released. Could you also tell me when we use 'be + past participle'.
    – user62015
    Mar 14, 2014 at 5:39
  • "Be + past participle" is very similar in this use. It is called the Passive Voice and is used in the same situations as "get" explained in my answer. (When we don't know/it's not important who did it). The difference between "be" and "get" is quite subtle, but "get" externalises action to a greater extent than "be" (You could ask this as a question). Read up a bit more on it if you need, and ask here if you have doubts.
    – JMB
    Mar 14, 2014 at 10:38

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