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+-- 1. Display all available tables in the Sakila database.
+
+USE sakila;
+SHOW TABLES;
+
+
+-- 2. Retrieve all the data from the tables actor, film and customer.
+SELECT * FROM actor;
+SELECT * FROM film;
+SELECT * FROM customer;
+
+
+-- 3. Retrieve the following columns from their respective tables:
+-- 3.1 Titles of all films from the film table
+SELECT title FROM film;
+
+-- 3.2 List of languages used in films, with the column aliased as language from the language table
+SELECT name AS language FROM language;
+
+-- 3.3 List of first names of all employees from the staff table
+SELECT first_name FROM staff;
+
+
+-- 4. Retrieve unique release years.
+SELECT DISTINCT release_year FROM film;
+
+
+-- 5. Counting records for database insights:
+-- 5.1 Determine the number of stores that the company has.
+SELECT COUNT(*) FROM store;
+
+-- 5.2 Determine the number of employees that the company has.
+SELECT COUNT(*) FROM staff;
+
+-- 5.3 Determine how many films are available for rent and how many have been rented.
+SELECT COUNT(*) FROM inventory; # the ones available for rent
+SELECT COUNT(*) FROM rental;  #the ones that have been rented
+
+-- 5.4 Determine the number of distinct last names of the actors in the database.
+SELECT DISTINCT last_name FROM actor; # only the names of distinct last names
+SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT last_name) FROM actor;  # number of distinct last names
+
+
+-- 6. Retrieve the 10 longest films.
+SELECT * FROM film
+ORDER BY length DESC
+LIMIT 10;
+
+
+-- 7. Use filtering techniques in order to:
+-- 7.1 Retrieve all actors with the first name "SCARLETT".
+SELECT * FROM actor
+WHERE first_name = 'SCARLETT';
+
+-- 7.2 Retrieve all movies that have ARMAGEDDON in their title and have a duration longer than 100 minutes.
+SELECT * FROM film 
+WHERE title LIKE '%ARMAGEDDON%' AND length > 100;
+
+-- 7.3 Determine the number of films that include Behind the Scenes content
+SELECT COUNT(*) FROM film
+WHERE special_features LIKE '%Behind the Scenes%';