When looking over IMDB Top 250 movies, do you generally agree with it? Which movied do you think the voters are furthest off the mark with?
My biggest gripe, The Iron Giant isn’t on the list, but Shrek is on the list? 152, but still it is on the list!
Well, a lot of the movies on the list are great. Others are good, but not so good that they deserve their ranking. I mean, Star Wars as the eighth greatest movie of all time? Give me a break. Also, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the list is based on user votes, so the rankings change all the time. Not long after The Two Towers was released, it made number one. Now, I really like the Lord of the Rings movies, but I don’t think any of them rank as the best movie ever (and certainly not The Two Towers).
You should also take a look at their bottom 100 list. Same thing there. I mean, there are some movies that they’ve ranked as the worst of all time that aren’t all that bad. Gigli, for instance, was number two or three at one time, and while I haven’t seen it, everyone I know who has has said that it’s really not as horrible as it was made out to be.
I don’t think it’s supposed to be a definitive list, just a fun activity to keep people coming back to imdb. (This thread shows that it works, btw.) I agree with MidnightRadio, there’s some good ones on there, alongside some nonsensical ones. It’s a good list to go to for ideas.
Can’t say I agree with much of it, but will certainly allow for the subjectivity of movie tastes to fairly dictate most of the spots. Well, with the exception of the Lord of the Rings & Star Wars movies: those lofty positions wreak of overszealous nerdy ballot stuffers.
But I do appreciate that my favorite movie of 2004, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which didn’t even get nominated for Best Picture, is the highest on the list of any movie from last year. Thank God somebody knows how to vote – and I don’t mean the Academy.
IMDB only use regular voters to determine their top films list, not every vote.
Recently released films will tend to have an inflated rating, because most people only go to see it at the cinema if they like the look of it in the first place. When shown to a wider audience on TV the average rating will go down. This is especially true of genre films.
Revenge of the Sith is currently rated at 7.9, Attack of the Clones at 7.0 and The Phantom Menace at 6.4. I predict their ratings will drop over the next few years. RotS will probably end up with a decent rating, but I can’t see AotC finishing much higher than TPM.
I have a problem with any Top X Number anything list. They are sort of fun to look at, maybe even question what group(s) contributed to them, but I don’t put any real stock in any of them. That goes for AFI, Ebert, any other critic, or whomever. The Book Of Lists (any of several editions) has many such lists and they all disagree in some ways. That helps me make my point, I think.
I even have trouble making my own “Top x-number” list of anything. Memory prevents my listing all candidates to start with, and changing tastes prevent me from a rigorous ranking of them. There are newer items that rise pretty high and older items that drop off the list.
There’s even an old thread I started that dealt with those Golden Oldies that now seem stupid.
The main bone I have to pick with the IMDB list(s) is that the voting members do seem to be in a much younger age group than my cohort, and I suspect my cohort (geezers) would make radical changes to the IMDB list(s).
That’s why we have salt and pepper.
I’m convinced that taxing oneself over lists like this, and this list in particular, is an exercise in sadomasochism. “Shawshank” at #2? The three LOTR in the Top 13? “Silence of the Lambs” at #30? It is to laugh, bitterly… Any internet-driven poll will skew young and tech-adept, as well as towards American, middlebrow, recent-vintage, and blockbuster fare. But then again, my litmus test for the list was “Withnail & I,” so YMMV.
I don’t feel any need to “agree” with a list like this one. I like a lot of movies that aren’t on the list, and I dislike some movies that are on the list. I can’t imagine that any list of best or favorite movies will be in complete accord with my tastes. This is a highly subjective thing, like a list of favorite foods. I don’t feel annoyance or surprise if peanut butter is ranked higher than kippered herring.
I think for what it is, it does a pretty good job. Most of the best movies are SOMEWHERE on the list.
(And FWIW, Iron Giant used to be on the list. I was once trying to see all the Top 250 and I watched IG as a result.)
It’s such a good movie and I can’t believe it’s not on the top 250. Good to know it once was.
I wish they could put the Lord of the Rings together as one movie. It was really shot that way, and just distributed in three parts. If you could do that, I’d say the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a whole should rank in the top 5 of the all-time best movies. It’s a spectacular achievement.
Any poll will favor newer movies, and it’s a miracle that The Godfather is #1. Overall, though, they’re all pretty good films.
Just wanted to point out that Batman Begins is currently rated #83 on the top 250. That’s higher than Metropolis or Ben Hur. And it was just released today. 
I think that pretty much summarizes the viability of the imdb top 250. I do plan to see Batman Begins, it looks like a great movie, but geez…
I think the thing to remember is that this isn’t a poll of how many people feel X Movie is in their Top 10 or 100 or 250. This is simply polling what people think of the movies, independent of other films. Thus, in compiling the Top 10, the list will be much friendlier to movies that most people tend to like, as opposed to movies that are edgier, more challenging, more controversial, or more appealing in a limited (niche, cult, etc.) sense. If you polled everyone who voted, I’d wager very few would have listed Shawshank as their 2nd film ever, but most would’ve voted that the film was in the Good-Very Good range, with relatively few detractors. In this sense, that’s all you need to get near the top.
I think all 250 films are in the correct order of greatness.
Seriously? I don’t like the Shawshank Redemption, and even though I liked the LOTR movies they’re still ranked too high. There are plenty of good movies on the list, overall…
It seems like a lot of science-fiction and fantasy movies made the list.
Yeah… that’s definitely a reflection of the fact that it’s a Web site list. Ever seen the Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century as chosen by online readers?
Fight Club is 37, and Clockwork Orange is 64?
doesn’t seem right to me.
its weighted to heavily towards new stuff, cuz thats what more of the voters have seen
[hijack]That is the coolest SMDB handle I’ve seen so far! Especially in the context of this thread [/hijack]