Deceiver 1997
Buffalo '66 1998
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1963
Hard Boiled 1992
Star Wars 1977
Memento 2000
Goodfellas 1990
Arrested Development 2003
The Usual Suspects 1995
Back to the Future 1985
American Beauty 1999
Braveheart 1995
Saving Private Ryan 1998
12 Angry Men 1957
The Princess Bride 1987
Heat 1995
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels 1998
L.A. Confidential 1997
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi 1983
The Boondock Saints 1999
The Great Escape 1963
This Is Spinal Tap 1984
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000
Cool Hand Luke 1967
The Manchurian Candidate 1962
I find these to be great movies (plus Arrested Development which speaks for itself), and I wouldn’t expect anyone to consider them classics or high cinema. I just loved these movies enough to give them 10 stars that day. My list of 9 star movies is larger and it goes on from there until you get to 6 or 7 stars, then it’s a free for all.
Those I’ve rated 10:
- Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
- Bowling for Columbine (2002)
- Project Nim (2011)
- Gladiator (2000)
Obviously, I don’t rate many movies 10’s although I’ve seen and rated nearly 600 movies at IMDB.
There are very few films I’d award a 10 to, we’re talking near-perfect conception and execution here. Every scene has to move the story forward. These are the ones that spring to mind.
Amadeus.
True Grit (Coen brothers).
The Shawshank Redemption.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The Godfather.
Of these, I’d nominate the The Godfather as the best piece of film-making. It’s a perfectly realised tragedy, and needs to be viewed in that light. I didn’t quite get it when I thought it was a film about gangsters, it’s more about the dehumanisation of Michael Corleone. Vito is a humane monster, a far more rounded depiction of evil than we are used to seeing. Despite this, it’s probably just outside my personal top 20, there are worse films I enjoy more.
There are a many more films I could honestly award a 9.5.
-Once Upon a Time in America
-Winter Light (I’ve only picked one Bergman movie, but I could also say Through a Glass Darkly, Fanny and Alexander, Scenes from a Marriage, Hour of the Wolf, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Cries and Whispers, The Silence, The Magician, Virgin Spring, etc. etc. …)
-L’année dernière à Marienbad
-No Country for Old Men
-Two-Lane Blacktop
-Solaris (and Andrei Rublev and Stalker)
-The Tree of Life (and Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line)
-Shane
More, I think. And then there’s another class of movies I’ve given 10s for simply based on classlessness.
I’ve rated 66 films as tens. A few I might rate as 9 right now, but here is the list:
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003 Documentary)
Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993 Short Film)
Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave (1995 Short Film)
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
Resurrection (1980)
The Stunt Man (1980)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Duck Amuck (1953 Short Film)
What’s Opera, Doc? (1957 Short Film)
The Sandbaggers (1978 TV Series)
Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953 Short Film)
Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999 TV Movie)
One Froggy Evening (1955 Short Film)
La Strada (1954)
Harvey (1950)
The King and I (1956)
The Tailor of Panama (2001)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Scarface (1932)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Lone Star (1996)
Star Wars (1977)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Love Actually (2003)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Feed the Kitty (1952 Short Film)
Batman (1989)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Misfits (2009 TV Series)
Fargo (1996)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Psycho (1960)
Casablanca (1942)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Toy Story (1995)
Crash (2004)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Best Boy (1979 Documentary)
Magnolia (1999)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Rear Window (1954)
North by Northwest (1959)
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Chicago (2002)
Mulan (1998)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Apollo 13 (1995)
The Iron Giant (1999)
Brazil (1985)
The Music Man (1962)
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Three Kings (1999)
Chicken Run (2000)
Flushed Away (2006)
The Crunch Bird (1971 Short Film)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Yojimbo (1961)
Obviously, I’m a big fan of Nick Park and Chuck Jones. I’m surprised Playtime isn’t on the list, but I haven’t rewatched it since it came out.
I’ve only given five films a ‘perfect 10’:
Goodfellas
LOTR (ROTK)
Dr. Strangelove
2001
Once Upon a Time in America (long version only, of course)
Glad to see I’m not alone for some of these.
I’ve only rated 9 films. My only 10-stars:
Dr. Strangelove
A Man For All Seasons
Stan Freberg Commercials (videos that are part of the set “Tip of the Freberg”)
I had no idea you could rate movies on IMDB. How do you do it, and why do you do it?
Raging Bull
Patton
I’m a tough critic. Lot’s of 9s, very few 10s.
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Magnolia (1999)
I gave ‘Hobo With a Shotgun’ (2011) a 1 and ‘Barfly’ (1987) a 3, and have only rated 17 movies. Odd because I have watched hundreds.
Create an account first. I used my medium level email for this. Log in, find a movie, then rate it. “only votes from regular voters are considered.” I like that, it keeps the tweens from wreaking too much havoc.
Why? Well if there is any place on the entire internet to rate a movie, this is the place. This is where movie lovers go, much more so than other sites that have other audiences.
I’ve rated 6,642 titles on Netflix, mostly because rating can be done with a click on a page full of titles. IMDB requires I actually go to the movie page, then rate. Much slower, but more accurate I guess.
The Top 250 is a widely used standard for public opinion about movies. I certainly don’t see anything clearly wrong with the list. Everyone’s MMV.
I have very very few 1, 2 or 3 ratings because I usually know better than to watch such awful movies. I did watch “Hobo with a shotgun” though, for camp value.
What were you expecting from a title called “Hobo with a shotgun”? Some movies are meant to be bad enough that they become good in a way. I agree that “Hobo with a shotgun” was a poorly made movie, but if that’s your 1 star, then you have yet to see things that would likely be a -14 on your scale.
Raging Bull is my choice for best movie ever. The only other boxing movie that comes close is Cinderella Man. But Raging Bull takes you past the pinnacle and what he made of his life after.
My latest choice is The Good Life. Dark barely begins to describes it. Although sometimes light and lilting it’s a testament to " keep on keepin’ on." It’s the toenails you hurl up when you got nothing left.
I haven’t rated a movie on IMDb for a long time; some of the movies I rated, I don’t remember at all! (Phase IV, Elimination Dance, The Captive Heart)
Anyways, here’s my list of 10/10 movies:
The Adventures of Mark Twain
Raising Arizona
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Delicatessen
Anatomy of a Murder
Big Trouble in Little China
I can think of other movies I’d give 10/10 to, but that’s the odd assortment I ended up with.
I’ve rated almost all of the last 400 or so movies I’ve watched. I’m a tough rater so a movie has to be damn near perfect to get a 10. The only one of the last 400 to earn it was The Third Man. I count about 31 of the last 400 that I gave 9/10.
There are a few I saw before I started keeping track that I might give a 10, but I’d have to watch them again to be sure: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Empire Strikes Back, the first two Godfather movies, Vertigo, and Psycho.