Years ago, I remember using a little site called Flixter that let users rate movies, and thinking to myself that it would likely never take off. I mean, Internet Movie Database (IMDb) had a much larger sample of users to draw from, and it didn’t seem like Flixter would ever be able to catch up. Enter Facebook, and their open app api. It seemed like overnight every one of my facebook friends had their favorite movies listed and rated using the Flixter app. Overnight Flixter became a competitor in the online movie space. It also helps that they jumped on the iPhone app bandwagon very eary on and quickly became the go-to app for movie showtimes, ratings, and ticket purchasing.
So when I was sent a link from Mashable announcing that Flixter was going to acquire Rotten Tomatoes from the Fox-owned IGN Entertainment, I was surprised but not shocked. IGN will get minority equity stake in Flixster, and both sites will continue to operate as separate properties, although it is expected that we’ll start seeing data more integrated across the two.
Today I decided to compile the top 25 films of the decade, as voted by the users of the Internet Movie Database. While it is very easy to discount any of these lists (or any best of list in general), and while it might be easy for many of you to just write off the user ratings on IMDb as fanboy voting, it’s definitely the largest sampling of movie-going opinion that exists today.
# American Film Title (year) IMDb rating # of Votes # on Top 250 of all Time List
1. The Dark Knight (2008) 8.8 410,450 9
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 8.8 329,852 11
3. City of God (2002) 8.7 148,073 16
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 8.7 355,929 20
5. Avatar (2009) 8.6 69,101 24
Metacritic has released their list of the best and worst reviewed films of the decade. Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth sits in the #1 spot. I’ve included the top 10 after the jump, as well as a list I’ve compiled of the top 20 best reviewed films of the decade from Rotten Tomatoes. Man On Wire ranks in at #1, the only film with over 100 reviews to have 100% fresh rating.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon hasn’t even hit theaters yet, and as far as I can tell, hasn’t had many advance screenings, yet the sequel has already been voted on by over 1,700 users on the Internet Movie Database. While over 46% of users have given the film a 10 out of 10, more than 44% of users have given the movie a 1 out of 10. What’s the rating? 4.5. Of course it seems more like a turf war battle of the sexes than a real sample of user opinions.
The funniest thing about the rankings is the demographics behind the votes The average Male user rating is a 3.3, while the average female user rating is an 8.0. And while females under 18 rate the film a 8.7, the most popular demo is the “Twilight Mom”, females aged 30-44, which have given the film an average rating of a 9.9. Wow… Full graphs after the jump.
Posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
The Internet Movie Database have announced The Top Rated Films of the New Millennium, looking at the 15 films made since 2000 that IMDb users have rated as the best of the new millennium. Usually people are quick to write off the IMDb user ratings as fanboy controlled, but I was surprised to four foreign and three animated films on the list, films from Darren Aronofsky and Michel Gondry, in addition to the expected trilogy and comic book heros. Check out the full list after the jump.
Discuss: Forget the order of titles, as we could argue about that for a year… Which films shouldn’t have made it, and which films should be on the list, but aren’t?
Posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
The Internet Movie Database have announced the top 25 most searched movies of 2008, and the results aren’t as predictable as you would think. Yes, The Dark Knight, Twilight, and Harry Potter hold the top three spots (in that order) But what is the fourth most searched for film of 2008? Disney’s Tron sequel TR2N. Not bad for a film which exploded onto the scene in July with a surprise teaser trailer appearance at Comic Con. Another surprise is Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, which somehow is #5 on the list, higher than movies like Iron Man or Indiana Jones.
A lot of 2007 Award winners also make appearances on the list: No Country for Old Men at #8, Juno at #9, and There Will Be Blood at #12. I am surprised to see Cloverfield all the way down at #16. You would think the film would have generated a lot of searches, but now that I think of it — the movie hit theaters in mid January, and all the buzz happened in the second half of 2007. Upcoming geek film properties: Terminator Salvation (#17), Dragonball (#19), Star Trek #22 and Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen (#24) also make appearances.
The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather appear on the bottom of the list at #25 and #23 respectively. When The Dark Knight was first released, it hit #1 on IMDb’s user rated Top 250 movies of all time chart, and even caused a mini fanboy war which resulted in Dark Knight fans launching a campaign to downvote The Godfather to keep Dark Knight on top. I think a lot of the attention from The Dark Knight’s placement spilt over to the other two top films. Check out the full list below:
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
2. Twilight (2008)
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
4. TR2N (2011)
5. The Expendables (2010)
6. Iron Man (2008)
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
8. No Country for Old Men (2007)
9. Juno (2007)
10. Transformers (2007)
11. The Incredible Hulk (2008)
12. There Will Be Blood (2007)
13. Sex and the City (2008)
14. Into the Wild (2007)
15. Superbad (2008)
16. Cloverfield (2008)
17. Terminator Salvation (2009)
18. Wanted (2008)
19. Dragonball (2009)
20. Quantum of Solace (2008)
21. The Departed (2006)
22. Star Trek (2009)
23. The Godfather (1972)
24. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
25. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
For almost a decade, Toy Story 2 has sat as the best reviewed film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. But no longer, James Marsh’s documentary Man on Wire has surpassed the Pixar sequel to claim the title of the best reviewed movie of all time. I have yet to see this movie, but I just added it to my Netflix queue. Amazon has the DVD available for preorder for $18.99, out on December 9th. Check out the trailer below. And you can read Magnolia’s press release after the jump.
Today is the 18th Birthday of the Internet Movie Database. Some of you might be wondering how it is possible for IMDb to be 18 years old when the first web browser wasn’t available until 1991. For that we go to IMDb founder and managing director Col Needham to explain:
On this day in 1990 I published a series of scripts which made lists of credits (collected by a wonderful USENET group called “rec.arts.movies”) searchable. Though the naming was still four years off, the IMDb was, in essence, born. Suffice it to say, however, that since that time IMDb has become more than a list of searchable credits. On top of this bedrock of data we’ve recently added 6,000 full-length feature films and TV episodes which our users can watch for free. We have launched NewsDesk, (which allows news partners to add their news feeds to our site), individual pages for characters, plot synopses, FAQs, parental guides, and many, many more features. We now enjoy the patronage of over 57 million movie and TV lovers each month.
As inaccurate as it can be at times, I don’t know what I would do without IMDB.com. I can barely remember back to the days before I learned about the movie database. You would be forced to visit the local video rental store, or call your movie-trivia-obsessed friend (I think everyone use to have one of these guys) if you wanted to know who starred in a certain film from years past. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to report on the entertainment industry in the pre-IMDb days. I think we all take for granted the wonderful resource we now have at the tip of our fingertips (and I mean fingerprints, I’m on IMDb all the time on my iPhone). Congratulations to the entire IMDb team for the milestone.
Disaster Movie has been voted the worst movie of all time by the users of the Internet Movie Database. The film is currently getting a 1.3 out of 10 rating with 4,066 votes.
Earlier this year, Paris Hilton’s The Hottie and the Nottie hit the dreaded #1 spot after only one week of release (the film currently sits at #14). Unlike the Top 250, IMDb’s bottom 100 is always in flux, probably because the amount of votes is a much smaller sample. However, being voted one of the worst films of all time is not an easy achievement to accomplishment. The only other 2008 American film that currently places on IMDb’s bottom 100 is Larry the Cable Guy’s Witless Protection, #80 on the list.
After 24 days at the top, The Dark Knight has been dethroned at the #1 ranked movie on the Internet Movie Database’s top 250 films of all time list. The Christopher Nolan Batman sequel is now placed #3 on the list.
Interesting to note: The Shawshank Redemption comes out the victor in this contest of internet fandom. A couple weeks ago The Godfather fell to the #3 spot when, presumably, Dark Knight fans began voting down the Francis Ford Coppola gangster film. The result is that Shawshank now sits in the top position, and Godfather places second.
It’s also worth noting that all three films have a weighted 9.1 average user rating. Dark Knight still has more life theatrically and could easily rise or sink further on the list as more moviegoers see the film.
