Top Thousand Movies

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

About a year ago I started entering movies into a spreadsheet with various information about them (year, run time) as well as ratings from critics and audiences at RottenTomatoes, MetaCritic, Amazon, and IMDb.

I created a formula for scoring the movies based on those ratings according to criteria that make sense to me. The ratings at some sites are bunched more closely together than at others, so I converted them all into standard deviations from each site's mean. I give more weight to ratings scores than to up-or-down votes, and more weight to audience scores than to critics' scores. The main Rotten Tomatoes score that people commonly cite is the percentage of positive up-or-down votes by critics, which I believe is the most overrated metric, and I give it the least weight.

I give more weight to movies that have a larger number of reviews since (a) it's easy to get 100% favorability on five reviews, and (b) more reviews generally means more social relevance, which counts for something in its own right. I slightly downgrade movies for being foreign, or for being documentaries, or for being animated, because in my view those movies tend to be slightly overrated by critics and audience members who think they should like such movies more than they really do. (I do not double-count the downgrade for movies that fit into more than one of those categories.)

I didn't have a clear reason for doing this. I just started because I was curious about how various classic movies stacked up against each other when different types of ratings (critics vs. audiences) were taken into account. Then I started looking at various "top N movies of all time" lists and adding whatever was there, then adding based on whatever I could think of ("let's check out all of John Wayne's movies," etc.). It became about a twenty-minutes-a-day habit -- searching for movies and adding them if they seemed promising. At this point I've got 1,084 (edit: now 1,685) movies in my database. I'm pretty confident that I'm not missing many (if at all) that should legitimately be in the top 300 or so. I don't think I'm missing many that should be in the top 500. Beyond around 600, I'm still missing a bunch -- probably at least 100. So the movies numbered 900 and beyond are probably not really in the true top 1000; they are waiting to be displaced.

Here's my list.

Right now, it's just a bare-bones list. Eventually, I'll include more info in a sortable table and make it more interactive.

In any case, I'm posting them here because (a) why not?, and (b) if you think I'm missing a movie, please post it in this thread and I'll add it to my spreadsheet and update the list. (I might already have it in my spreadsheet outside the top thousand, but either way, I'll let you know how it scores.) Feel free to argue about how the order is all wrong. Obviously, liking versus disliking a movie is subjective; and choosing how much weight to give one category of scores over another category (e.g., critics on MetaCritic versus audiences at IMDB) is also subjective. I think the formula I'm using has generally produced reasonable results, but I'm open to contrary arguments.

[AcerFC 4,781]

Dont you know that you are supposed to start at 1000 and count down to 1

How can we mock you if the list is already done. That is no fun

[Gally 4,690]

After comparing this ranking with the results of the movie draft it turns out Team GallStein actually finished first.

[B Maverick 2,255]

That is a lot of freaking movies.  And yet UHF is missing and it is a parody masterpiece.  Its no Airplane, but still....

 

Seriously though, ineresting list.  With lists like this you often either get recency bias or the exact opposite trying not to "overrate" more recent works.  This seems to be fairly balanced.  Interesting that the Lord of the Rings movies come out this way:

21. The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers (2002)
24. The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
65. The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King (2003)

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

28 minutes ago, B Maverick said:

That is a lot of freaking movies.  And yet UHF is missing and it is a parody masterpiece.  Its no Airplane, but still....

I'm a big Weird Al fan and I liked UHF. I just added it to my spreadsheet and it came in at #997, so it's at least temporarily in the top thousand. It's a good example of a movie that audiences liked much better than critics did.

[B Maverick 2,255]

Just now, Maurile Tremblay said:

I'm a big Weird Al fan and I liked UHF. I just added it to my spreadsheet and it came in at #997, so it's at least temporarily in the top thousand. It's a good example of a movie that audiences liked much better than critics did.

 wow That's a lot higher then I expected. Critics hated it but it does have a following.  Thanks for throwing that in there, i was really just trying to pick a movie that had no business being there, but was one I liked.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

45 minutes ago, B Maverick said:

Interesting that the Lord of the Rings movies come out this way:

21. The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers (2002)
24. The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
65. The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King (2003)

If I add up the scores of franchises -- just counting their best movies -- I get this list (based on average score):

1. The Godfather (just the first two)
2. Alien (just the first two)
3. The Lord of the Rings (all three)
4. Star Wars (just the first three released)
5. The Dark Knight (BB, DK, DKR)
6. Marvel (Iron Man, Avengers, Winter Soldier, Guardians, Civil War, Infinity War, Endgame)
7. Toy Story (all four)
8. The Terminator (just the first two)
9. Before Sunrise (all three)
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (just the first three)
11. The Bourne Identity (just the first three)
12. Three Colours (all three)
13. Mission Impossible (just the most recent three)
14. Harry Potter (all eight)
15. The Hunger Games (all three)

Maybe to be fair to The Dark Knight, I should drop out Batman Begins. But dropping the first of a trilogy seems weirder than dropping the last, as with The Godfather. (With Marvel, I chose seven that seemed essential. And with Mission Impossible, I don't know, maybe I should have included all six.)

[B Maverick 2,255]

19 minutes ago, Maurile Tremblay said:

If I add up the scores of franchises -- just counting their best movies -- I get this list (based on average score):

1. The Godfather (just the first two)
2. Alien (just the first two)
3. The Lord of the Rings (all three)
4. Star Wars (just the first three released)
5. The Dark Knight (BB, DK, DKR)
6. Marvel (Iron Man, Avengers, Winter Soldier, Guardians, Civil War, Infinity War, Endgame)
7. Toy Story (all four)
8. The Terminator (just the first two)
9. Before Sunrise (all three)
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (just the first three)
11. The Bourne Identity (just the first three)
12. Three Colours (all three)
13. Mission Impossible (just the most recent three)
14. Harry Potter (all eight)
15. The Hunger Games (all three)

Maybe to be fair to The Dark Knight, I should drop out Batman Begins. But dropping the first of a trilogy seems weirder than dropping the last, as with The Godfather. (With Marvel, I chose seven that seemed essential. And with Mission Impossible, I don't know, maybe I should have included all six.)

What no Fast and the Furious? 

I'd be curious to see how it changes if you included all the movies of a franchise.  

But I guess you would have to be clear on what to include in any given "franchise" though.

Batman you have a couple different ways to go, the Nolan trilogy or include all the movies (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney)
Does Star Wars include Solo and Rogue One or just Eps I-IX?
Does Terminator include only Cameron made (i think thats 1,2 and the latest) or do all of them count?

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

28 minutes ago, B Maverick said:

What no Fast and the Furious? 

Ooh, I think UHF is going to get knocked off the list. (ETA: Confirmed.)

The first four in the Furious franchise are outside the top thousand movies, but I think five, six, and seven will be in.

[B Maverick 2,255]

22 minutes ago, Maurile Tremblay said:

Ooh, I think UHF is going to get knocked off the list. (ETA: Confirmed.)

The first four in the Furious franchise are outside the top thousand movies, but I think five, six, and seven will be in.

Damn, was hoping to keep UHF there a bit longer.

Only up to 7? Not F8?  Or Hobbes and Shaw?

I laugh, but I admit I have seen all except 3.  And each one gets bigger and more unrealistic then the last and I keep watching. They are perfect for a Saturday afternoon when you just need someone on tv and may actually nap.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

1 minute ago, B Maverick said:

Only up to 7? Not F8?  Or Hobbes and Shaw?

Hobbes and Shaw is in as well. I didn't see an 8 (even though a 9 is set for release next year), but if 8 = F8 = "F8 of the Furious" = "Fate of the Furious," that's in too. The list at the link is updated.

[Don Quixote 4,713]

I think some more silents could have made the list.... Passion of Joan of Arc, Sunrise, Potemkin, come to mind.

[Don Quixote 4,713]

3 hours ago, Gally said:

After comparing this ranking with the results of the movie draft it turns out Team GallStein actually finished first.

MT does seem to share my view of Cecil B. DeMille, none on there as far as I can tell. 🦗 

[Bracie Smathers 3,588]

3 hours ago, Maurile Tremblay said:

if you think I'm missing a movie, please post it in this thread and I'll add it to my spreadsheet and update the list. (I might already have it in my spreadsheet outside the top thousand, but either way, I'll let you know how it scores.)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

19 minutes ago, Bracie Smathers said:

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Good one. Top 400.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

54 minutes ago, Don Quixote said:

I think some more silents could have made the list.... Passion of Joan of Arc, Sunrise, Potemkin, come to mind.

These are all good. I'll add them later. Movies from the 1920s are often excluded from MetaCritic, which makes my process harder.

[Bracie Smathers 3,588]

The Mission

Salvador (1986)

Kingpin (1996)

Amélie (2001)  - found this one didn't see this one 👉  Moonstruck (1987)

Not sure I saw this one either:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9XNFpRdhg - found this but didn't see this one 👉  Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Edited November 21, 2020 by Bracie Smathers

[Mr. Mojo 1,298]

This is the first list I've seen where there is only 1 in the top 100 that I dislike (Fight Club).

I was amazed how many of my favorites are on the list.

[BroncoFreak_2K3 2,534]

1 hour ago, Bracie Smathers said:

The Mission

Salvador (1986)

Kingpin (1996)

Amélie (2001)

Not sure I saw this one either:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9XNFpRdhg

No Kingpin? C’mon

[jhib 1,980]

I'm curious to hear how Toy Story 4 ended up at 49 while the original Toy Story sits at 140.

The 1st was great. The 2nd was really good, too. The 3rd was a good movie until the perfect ending made it great.  The 4th never should have even happened (see #3's perfect ending), and wasn't anything special.  Besides my personal opinion, though, I was under the impression that #4 was generally considered the weakest. 

 

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

59 minutes ago, jhib said:

I'm curious to hear how Toy Story 4 ended up at 49 while the original Toy Story sits at 140.

The 1st was great. The 2nd was really good, too. The 3rd was a good movie until the perfect ending made it great.  The 4th never should have even happened (see #3's perfect ending), and wasn't anything special.  Besides my personal opinion, though, I was under the impression that #4 was generally considered the weakest. 

From left to right: (a) RottenTomatoes critics favorability, (b) RottenTamatoes audience favorability, (c) RottenTomatoes all-critics rating, (d) RottenTomatoes top-critics rating, (e) RottenTomatoes audience ratings, (f) MetaCritic critic rating, (g) MetaCritic audience rating, (h) Amazon audience rating, (i) IMDB audience rating.

               a /  b /   c  /   d   /  e  /  f /  g  /  h  /  i
Toy Story 3:  98 / 89 / 8.87 / 8.65 / 4.37 / 92 / 8.9 / 4.7 / 8.3
Toy Story 4:  97 / 94 / 8.34 / 8.37 / 4.60 / 84 / 8.0 / 4.7 / 7.8
Toy Story:   100 / 92 / 9.01 / 8.77 / 3.75 / 95 / 9.0 / 4.8 / 8.3
Toy Story 2: 100 / 86 / 8.67 / 8.24 / 4.17 / 88 / 8.8 / 4.8 / 7.9

The biggest difference was with RottenTomatoes audience ratings. There's a lot of ground between 4.60 and 3.75.

[Ilov80s 29,112]

Interesting. Seems heavily weighted for newer movies- I assume that’s from the role number of reviews plays?

[Ilov80s 29,112]

A few missing from a quick search that could qualify 

Sullivan's Travels

A Night at the Opera

Top Hat

Cabaret

Z

Passion of Joan of Arc

[Nick Vermeil 3,223]

Any list that puts Moulin Rouge ahead of Road Warrior is immediately suspect. 
 

That aside, I want to party with you Maurile. 

[Long Ball Larry 14,283]

How did Ford vs Ferrari get so high on this list?

[AAABatteries 24,372]

8 hours ago, jhib said:

I'm curious to hear how Toy Story 4 ended up at 49 while the original Toy Story sits at 140.

The 1st was great. The 2nd was really good, too. The 3rd was a good movie until the perfect ending made it great.  The 4th never should have even happened (see #3's perfect ending), and wasn't anything special.  Besides my personal opinion, though, I was under the impression that #4 was generally considered the weakest. 

 

Yep - I was just going to post about this.  The order of those four is suspect.  But #4 should definitely be last.

[AAABatteries 24,372]

1. The Godfather (1972)

@hagmania

 

[Ilov80s 29,112]

8 hours ago, Long Ball Larry said:

How did Ford vs Ferrari get so high on this list?

And Temple Grandin. 

[Hastur 362]

I put this in an excel sheet and separated the 3 main categories(Ranking, Name of Movie, Year).  

2019 and 2020 seems to dominate(about 10% of total list). Interesting just to me perhaps.

[hagmania 8,790]

9 hours ago, AAABatteries said:

1. The Godfather (1972)

@hagmania

 

8. Spirited Away

 

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

23 hours ago, Don Quixote said:

I think some more silents could have made the list.... Passion of Joan of Arc, Sunrise, Potemkin, come to mind.

Good calls. These are added.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

23 hours ago, Don Quixote said:

MT does seem to share my view of Cecil B. DeMille, none on there as far as I can tell. 🦗 

Does Sunset Blvd count? I do probably need to add The Ten Commandments (1956).

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

23 hours ago, Bracie Smathers said:

The Mission

Salvador (1986)

Kingpin (1996)

Amélie (2001)  - found this one didn't see this one 👉  Moonstruck (1987)

Not sure I saw this one either:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9XNFpRdhg - found this but didn't see this one 👉  Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

The Mission, Salvador, Moonstruck, and Fiddler on the Roof are adds.

Kingpin missed the cut.

I added the accent to Amélie in case that's how people are ctrl+Fing for it.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

19 hours ago, Ilov80s said:

A few missing from a quick search that could qualify 

Sullivan's Travels

A Night at the Opera

Top Hat

Cabaret

Z

Passion of Joan of Arc

All good adds (though DQ beat you to the punch on Passion of Joan of Arc).

[Hastur 362]

I really want Spaceballs to be on here, but I can sort of understand that it isn't.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

On 11/20/2020 at 7:25 PM, Maurile Tremblay said:

On 11/20/2020 at 6:38 PM, jhib said:

I'm curious to hear how Toy Story 4 ended up at 49 while the original Toy Story sits at 140.

The 1st was great. The 2nd was really good, too. The 3rd was a good movie until the perfect ending made it great.  The 4th never should have even happened (see #3's perfect ending), and wasn't anything special.  Besides my personal opinion, though, I was under the impression that #4 was generally considered the weakest. 

From left to right: (a) RottenTomatoes critics favorability, (b) RottenTamatoes audience favorability, (c) RottenTomatoes all-critics rating, (d) RottenTomatoes top-critics rating, (e) RottenTomatoes audience ratings, (f) MetaCritic critic rating, (g) MetaCritic audience rating, (h) Amazon audience rating, (i) IMDB audience rating.

               a /  b /   c  /   d   /  e  /  f /  g  /  h  /  i
Toy Story 3:  98 / 89 / 8.87 / 8.65 / 4.37 / 92 / 8.9 / 4.7 / 8.3
Toy Story 4:  97 / 94 / 8.34 / 8.37 / 4.60 / 84 / 8.0 / 4.7 / 7.8
Toy Story:   100 / 92 / 9.01 / 8.77 / 3.75 / 95 / 9.0 / 4.8 / 8.3
Toy Story 2: 100 / 86 / 8.67 / 8.24 / 4.17 / 88 / 8.8 / 4.8 / 7.9

The biggest difference was with RottenTomatoes audience ratings. There's a lot of ground between 4.60 and 3.75.

Actually, I'm starting to think that the 3.75 audience rating at RottenTomatoes is a typo or other data-entry error. It's really out of place.

In my spreadsheet, there are 6 movies with a score of 3.75. Toy Story is ranked 142 (even with that score) while the other five have an average ranking of 934. (We're talking Bend it like Beckham.) Something is really off there.

Toy Story's audience favorability score at RottenTomatoes is 92. There are 63 movies in my spreadsheet with an RT audience favorability score of 92, and their average audience rating is 4.32. If I give Toy Story an RT audience rating of 4.32, its overall ranking jumps up to #50 overall, basically tied with Toy Story 4. (And that's just because Toy Story 4 has five times as many reviews, otherwise Toy Story would be higher.)

I'm going to treat the 3.75 as if it were a 4.32.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

18 minutes ago, Hastur said:

I really want Spaceballs to be on here, but I can sort of understand that it isn't.

Another example of a movie liked by audiences much more than critics. Comes in at #945 at the moment.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

Movies liked better by audiences than by critics:

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Boondock Saints
3. Fight Club
4. The Green Mile
5. Leon: the Professional
6. Life is Beautiful
7. American History X
8. Se7en
9. Remember the Titans
10. Snatch
11. Like Stars on Earth
12. Rising Phoenix
13. The Intouchables
14. Cinema Paradiso
15. The Thing
16. Scarface
17. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
18. The Prestige
19. The Empire Strikes Back
20. The Godfather

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

Movies liked better by critics than by audiences:

1. Goodbye to Language
2. Spring Breakers
3. Manakamana
4. Relic
5. The Assassin
6. Love & Friendship
7. Kajillionaire
8. Uncut Gems
9. Under the Skin
10. The Vast of Night
11. Captain Marvel
12. 7500
13. The Congress
14. Somewhere
15. Yes, God, Yes
16. Tony Manero
17. Margaret
18. Annihilation
19. The Tree of Life
20. Wendy and Lucy

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

Top movies as judged by critics:

1. Citizen Kane
2. Tokyo Story
3. Sherlock Jr.
4. Casablanca
5. Shadow of a Doubt
6. Boyhood
7. Rear Window
8. Stagecoach
9. Lawrence of Arabia
10. Parasite
11. Singin' in the Rain
12. Grave of the Fireflies
13. The Godfather, Part II
14. The Godfather
15. Notorious
16. All About Eve
17. The Third Man
18. Battleship Potemkin
19. Metropolis
20. The Wizard of Oz

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

Top movies as judged by audiences:

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Godfather
3. 12 Angry Men
4. The Godfather, Part II
5. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
6. The Empire Strikes Back
7. It's a Wonderful Life
8. Schindler's List
9. Pulp Fiction
10. Goodfellas
11. Spirited Away
12. Wolfwalkers
13. Fight Club
14. Cinema Paradiso
15. The Dark Knight
16. Grave of the Fireflies
17. Rising Phoenix
18. Hara-Kiri
19. Seven Samurai
20. Casablanca

[Corporation 1,079]

This is awesome.  I'm going to start checking out some of the ones I haven't seen. From the top, the first would be Parasite.

[trader jake 1,379]

19 hours ago, Maurile Tremblay said:

Movies liked better by audiences than by critics:

1. The Shawshank Redemption
 

This seems to check out here on FBGs.  That movie was very good, but some FBGs talk about it here in a way that feels undeserved.

19 hours ago, Maurile Tremblay said:

Top movies as judged by audiences:

1. The Shawshank Redemption

Come at me @Andy Dufresne 😉

[trader jake 1,379]

On 11/20/2020 at 9:32 PM, Ilov80s said:

Interesting. Seems heavily weighted for newer movies- I assume that’s from the role number of reviews plays?

Agreed.  It appears to be a systemic problem throwing off the entire database.

On 11/21/2020 at 11:03 AM, Hastur said:

I put this in an excel sheet and separated the 3 main categories(Ranking, Name of Movie, Year).  

2019 and 2020 seems to dominate(about 10% of total list). Interesting just to me perhaps.

@Maurile Tremblay  Any chance you reconfigure the weighting of the review totals?

Specifically, is there a way to calculate an average number of reviews for a film in a particular year and compare that baseline number vs the total number of reviews listed for a specific film to generate your metric?  If that's too difficult to calculate easily, maybe create a sliding scale that weighs the number of reviews slightly less as a film's release date approaches the current year?

Overall, great list.  Appreciate the work that went into it.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

54 minutes ago, trader jake said:

Specifically, is there a way to calculate an average number of reviews for a film in a particular year and compare that baseline number vs the total number of reviews listed for a specific film to generate your metric?

This is a good idea. I'll play around with it when I have time (not today).

All the formulas are easily adjustable in my spreadsheet. Someday I plan to do up a javascript thingy to make it customizable on the webpage so you can give whatever weights you want to the different factors. But that's something I might never get around to.

[Mr. Mojo 1,298]

Most significant omission that I noted - To Kill A Mockingbird

(Maybe it's in there and I missed it when going through the list)

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

2 hours ago, Mr. Mojo said:

Most significant omission that I noted - To Kill A Mockingbird

(Maybe it's in there and I missed it when going through the list)

No. 120.

[Mr. Mojo 1,298]

2 hours ago, Maurile Tremblay said:

No. 120.

Doh , I figured that I must have missed it. 

[mr. furley 12,224]

 

[Maurile Tremblay 22,247]

I've updated the list quite a bit. Movies that barely crept into the top 1000 when I first posted are now outside the top 1200.

If I don't cheat by manually downgrading or removing it, there's a new movie at the top of the list: Collective, a recent Romanian documentary, is the only movie with 100% approval by both critics and audience members at RottenTomatoes. It has 78 reviews by critics at RottenTomatoes, which is a decent number.

Despite the decent number of reviews by critics, however, it has very few reviews by audience members. Only 5 at RottenTomatoes, 4 on MetaCritic, 7 on Amazon. Maybe they are all in the director's immediate family, because it gets basically perfect scores across the board on those sites. At IMDb, meanwhile, it has 1,643 audience reviews and scores only an 8.4 out of 10, good for a 30-way tie for 54th-83rd place on that site. Still fantastic, but not like the other sites.

By my formula, it comes out at #1 overall. It's a really weird quirk that it has a dozen times as many reviews by critics as by audience members at RT. My spreadsheet doesn't handle that quirk appropriately. In any case, I intend to watch it soon because it has me pretty intrigued about its quality. If you like Romanian documentaries, I'm sure you'll love Collective. The question is whether it belongs in the same breath as The Godfather.

For now, I'm going to manually downgrade it to #42.