In this methodological investigation, we examined the influence of cultural background on viewers’ interpretations of visual stimuli and verbs elicited by these materials. French and Mandarin native speakers’ interpretations of seventeen short movies, produced by French speakers, depicting various state-changing actions were collected by a 25-item cultural protocol. A slight difference in the familiarity rating of movies is found between French and Mandarin participants. We also found that Mandarin speakers used more general verbs when describing actions depicted by movies with low familiarity rating and children used more conventional forms with movies of higher familiarity. Hierarchical cluster analyses were conducted in selecting movies that were matched in action-interpretations by both language groups.