Imagine unironically placing Return of the Jedi -- the Star Wars movie that everyone considers the worst of the original trilogy and the one everyone agrees is the moment when Lucas cashed out to sell toys over making a good story -- above Citizen Kane, the movie that tops basically every "Best Movies of All Time" lists. IMDB users are strange.
this is such a straight, white man list lol but it is interesting to think how the list would change if it could be filtered to "top rated films by women" or LGBT people etc
No people were excluded everybody is allowed to rate those movies.
But yea if you are gonna target specific demographics (instead of allowing everyone to rate) like 6 year old kids you would get a different list than 80 year old grandmothers.
Well there is a bit of an issue there, given I doubt children are well-represented on IMDB. Plus I imagine the demographics of IMDB are skewed towards Americans, and they have to be computer users, so that likely excludes certain age groups etc.
Most of this list is movies by, for, and about white American men. Even with the historical constraints on who gets to make movies and the kind of audiences most are made for, there's a whole world of excellent movies that aren't included here -- likely because they're considered chick flicks or are otherwise aimed at a demographic less represented by IMDB raters.
I get that theres some really stupid inclusions (Irishman) and some pretty glaring exclusions (Taxi Driver, Robert de Niro has a lot I guess), but overall this list isn't too bad. You disliking means you generally disagree with the tastes of the general population
how do you explain once upon a time in america? a movie in which most people have never heard of..i got it right mainly because i worked at a video store around the time when it was released on video
There is never going to be a method in which the rating system is unbiased, because rating movies is subjective. I find that this public voting system is the best method of rating movies, and is more accurate than other metrics like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. I also find it more accurate than individual reviews, because it accounts for the aggregate rating. The only clear disadvantage (outside of the sample size of 20,000 reviews) is the notable lack of Horror and Comedy movies, largely because there will be hordes of people who rate a movie on how scary/funny they think the movie is, rather than rating it based solely on the quality of the movie.
It depends what type of movie SHOULD be rewarded, shouldn't it? Do we want popcorn movies? Unartistic movies are beginning to garner more and more acclaim on things like IMDB, and I feel like that is directly related to how much effort the studios puts into manipulating those metrics. Personally, I usually find Meta Critic is a better indicator of the actual quality of the film whereas Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB seem to be manipulated by large studios. The popular vote, aside from manipulation, is flawed, too. I think almost anyone can agree that The Matrix is just NOT the 15th best movie of all time (circa 2021). It's an influential popcorn flick that's part of American culture... but it's not a masterpiece. Anyway, that is to say that IMDB seems to have shifted to a measure of just what gives people pleasure, rather than what they think has artistic merit. Transformers has a 7/10 on IDMB as of 2021... so... yeah. IMDB sucks.
Honestly from what I've seen IMDB tends to have more reasonable ratings than Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which will often be very skewed to one side, like tons of films will have 99% and then some have 5%
As a rabid hater yourself, are you mad that the people who have enjoyed these films outnumber you? I mean, pretty much every one of these movies were fantastic by almost any standard.
I actually think that, by and large, what happens on IMDb is the opposite of what you describe. In general, most of the ratings are absolutely spot-on. This is product of the "wisdom of crowds": the tendency to arrive at very close to the exact right answer when you average guesses from a very large number of people. But, sometimes, a film's large number of rabid haters (Titanic, Avatar), will bring down the average score much lower than it objectively ought to be. So it seems to me that the haters have more influence on IMDb than the fanboys do. Otherwise you might expect to see films like Twilight or Harry Potter or the Star Wars prequels near the top.
You also completely contradicted what you said above one year ago about us not being able to trust the ratings because most people would rate any film as average...
Could it be you haven't really thought through this analysis and are just leaving unbalanced knee-jerk comments? Because you saw some movies on the list that you didn't personally care for? hm....
I think the biggest problem of IMDB is that current movies are rated. If movies were allowed to be rated only one year after theatrical release, the voting might be very different.
That's why I think that you can rely much more on ratings of movies that came out before IMDB was online and popular. Some real classics managed to stay in the Top 250, but in general newer movies get the benefit of all the hype and media coverage around them. Sure, some people might rate them especially low, because of disappointment after too high expectations, but in general, you can see that new movies will enter with high rating and then slowly move down, though usually not enough.
Disproportionate to what? They make tons of superhero movies these days. If anything they're extremely underrepresented on the above list. Maybe you're just not aware that some of them are actually very good.
There are six comic book movies on this list. 6 out of 100. Or 6%.
In 2021, outside of China, 5 out of 10 of the 10 highest-grossing films worldwide were comic book movies. Or 50%. Only one of which was anywhere near good enough to make it on the above prestigious list... but it still fell just short.
They're extremely underrepresented. Also, the comic book movies that appear on the above list were, in addition to being rated very highly by thousands if not millions of IMDb user, also glowingly reviewed by film critics of all ages and genders. And every one of the 6 were thoroughly enjoyed by the 70-year-old grandmother that I often go to movies with (my mom). I know it hurts, but maybe try to open your mind just a little bit.
riight... all the teen boys out there just LOVE the Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, and 12 Angry Men. Contemplative and deliberate black & white courtroom dramas are just a cynical ploy to sell toys and lunch boxes.
Toys and lunchboxes? What remedial teenagers have you been you talking to? When I was a teenage boy all my friends and I unironically loved the Godfather, Shawshank and 12 Angry Men. Teenagers love things that make them feel more mature and sophisticated than they are.
If this list isn't a reflection of recency bias, I don't know what is. Two Spider Verse movies ranked above 2001, Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Strangelove? Just to cite a couple of possible candidates to make the point, Gone With the Wind (regardless of the problematic nature of the film) and The Best Years of Our Lives not even on the list versus Coco and Toy Story 3? All of these movies are indeed very good, but this is a "best" list not a comprehensive list of very good movies. Just my humble opinion.
There's always a couple brand new movies that make the list and then fall off - most likely because people try to manipulate the rankings for new movies to try to boost box office.
Other than that, no, there is not really a recency bias.
If anything I'd say there is a strong bias towards edgy, violent, male-focused content - especially from the 1990s. This likely reflects the type of person who was using the site early on.
Personally, I'd say Coco is a better movie than Dr. Strangelove.
What's more striking to me than the recency bias, which tends to correct itself over time, is the site's unfaltering worship of Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight Rises, probably his worst movie, sitting at 70 more than a decade since its release is genuinely insane to me.
I don't think The Dark Knight Rises is Nolan's worst movie or even that bad of a movie in general. I do think Batman Begins is better though. I would say Tenet is probably Nolan's worst, even though I somewhat enjoyed that movie too.
I've been seeing this movie pop up a lot too. It might be because it was remade recently into a movie called "Living" starring Bill Nighy and I guess some people also wanted to check out the original.
I am SO insanely proud of myself for getting WALL-E because of the Ben Burtt clue. He's the godfather of modern sound design, but I didn't know he worked on WALL-E, but considering it was animated, and not a ton of dialogue, the sound design is the star for the first half of the film. Made perfect sense.
Is there a reason that there's such a drop off of correct answers? Once you get past the top 10 answers it seems like people tend to forget the movies.
But yea if you are gonna target specific demographics (instead of allowing everyone to rate) like 6 year old kids you would get a different list than 80 year old grandmothers.
(Though they both might like "UP" ;) )
That's what you get when it's open public voting. Completely unbalanced, knee-jerk assessment.
I actually think that, by and large, what happens on IMDb is the opposite of what you describe. In general, most of the ratings are absolutely spot-on. This is product of the "wisdom of crowds": the tendency to arrive at very close to the exact right answer when you average guesses from a very large number of people. But, sometimes, a film's large number of rabid haters (Titanic, Avatar), will bring down the average score much lower than it objectively ought to be. So it seems to me that the haters have more influence on IMDb than the fanboys do. Otherwise you might expect to see films like Twilight or Harry Potter or the Star Wars prequels near the top.
Could it be you haven't really thought through this analysis and are just leaving unbalanced knee-jerk comments? Because you saw some movies on the list that you didn't personally care for? hm....
That's why I think that you can rely much more on ratings of movies that came out before IMDB was online and popular. Some real classics managed to stay in the Top 250, but in general newer movies get the benefit of all the hype and media coverage around them. Sure, some people might rate them especially low, because of disappointment after too high expectations, but in general, you can see that new movies will enter with high rating and then slowly move down, though usually not enough.
In 2021, outside of China, 5 out of 10 of the 10 highest-grossing films worldwide were comic book movies. Or 50%. Only one of which was anywhere near good enough to make it on the above prestigious list... but it still fell just short.
They're extremely underrepresented. Also, the comic book movies that appear on the above list were, in addition to being rated very highly by thousands if not millions of IMDb user, also glowingly reviewed by film critics of all ages and genders. And every one of the 6 were thoroughly enjoyed by the 70-year-old grandmother that I often go to movies with (my mom). I know it hurts, but maybe try to open your mind just a little bit.
Was that condescension really necessary?
I'm guessing that you are a) not Indian, and b) haven't visited the cinema since 1939.
If the latter guess is accurate, you should go again! Things have gotten a lot better since then!
Other than that, no, there is not really a recency bias.
If anything I'd say there is a strong bias towards edgy, violent, male-focused content - especially from the 1990s. This likely reflects the type of person who was using the site early on.
Personally, I'd say Coco is a better movie than Dr. Strangelove.