Pulling Rank

IMDb ranks the top 15 feature films of 2007

8.3 – No Country for Old Men (2007)
8.3 – There Will Be Blood (2007)
8.3 – Into the Wild (2007)
8.2 – Bourne Ultimatum, The (2007)
8.2 – Ratatouille (2007)
8.0 – Juno (2007)
8.0 – 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
8.0 – Stardust (2007)
8.0 – American Gangster (2007)
8.0 – Grindhouse (2007)
8.0 – Hot Fuzz (2007)
7.9 – Control (2007)
7.9 – Gone Baby Gone (2007)
7.9 – Zodiac (2007/I)
7.9 – Atonement (2007)

Check out the top 15 titles of 2008 after the cut.

IMDb ranks the top 15 feature films of 2008 (so far)

9.0 – Dark Knight, The (2008)
8.9 – Wrestler, The (2008)
8.7 РWALL·E (2008)
8.5 – Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
8.4 – Milk (2008)
8.3 – Gran Torino (2008)
8.1 – Frost/Nixon (2008)
8.1 – Hunger (2008/I)
8.1 – Changeling (2008)
8.1 – In Bruges (2008)
8.0 – Iron Man (2008)
7.9 – Che: Part One, L’Argentin (2008)
7.9 – Doubt (2008)
7.9 – Taken (2008/I)
7.9 – Synecdoche, New York (2008) ‘
7.9 – Visitor, The (2007/I)

ok, you’ll think I played around with these lists to make them show what I wanted to see, but you can double-check for yourselves. Here are the full listings for 2007 and 2008. All I did to to arrive at the lists above was remove the video game titles, series television, documentaries, and foreign language films.

Although the year’s top documentaries and foreign language films correspond closely to the Oscar nominees, that’s not what we’re looking at here. We only want to distill the year’s top ranked feature films down to a compact list of movies best positioned for Best Picture.

Last year, being among the top half-dozen highest rated movies meant a 50-50 chance of nomination for Best Picture. Pretty good odds. (Some people would argue that the top 5 IMDb titles would’ve made a better set of nominees that the 5 AMPAS chose. Those people can be my friends.)

Remember, a handful of titles haven’t been rated yet. Benjamin Button is certain to land in the Top 10. The Reader currently has a score of 8.0, but only 303 votes, so it’s position is in limbo. Revolutionary Road has an excellent shot at a landing on the list with a high score. (American Beauty tied for 1st place in 1999 with The Matrix and Fight Club. All three have scores of 8.6)

It’s also likely we’ll see the very high scores of some movies recently released begin to slip in a week or two. People who rush to see certain kinds of movies in the first week of release tend to give that movie a higher rating than audiences who see it in the weeks to follow.

Overall popular appeal to the masses is tough to quantify, but IMDb has so much raw data it’s hard to resist crunching the numbers. It’s just another piece of the puzzle, and no guarantee of anything. But safe to say it’s a lot better to be among the top half-dozen titles on IMDb than it is to be left out of the Top 15 altogether. In fact, score lower than 7.5-7.9 on IMDb and your Best Picture dreams are pretty much over.