UltimateMovieRankings (UMR) has been ranking movies since 2011. Movies are ranked by using a combination of box office grosses, reviews, and awards. So far we have ranked 36,000 movies, written over 8,500 pages, been viewed over 25 million times, won three website awards, and have received over 50,000 comments on our pages.
Our vital links: Site Index, Newest Pages & Request Hotline. The Trending Now Sidebar lists our most popular pages in the last 24 hours.
Our Site Index lets you see what movie subjects we have already written about. The index lists the movie subjects alphabetically. Subjects go from classic performers like Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin to the stars of the 1960s like Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman to today’s most popular stars like Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Chris Pratt.
We like ranking movies…and that is what this website is all about. And we are not talking about a Top Ten list…we are talking about ranking all the movies in somebody’s career from Best to Worst. The criteria used for the rankings is box office grosses, critic reviews, audience voting, and award recognition. Every day the amount of movies ranked by Ultimate Movie Rankings increases ….our tally is now over 25,000 movies. The number one ranked movie is The Godfather ….coming in last is Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas. Thankfully our pages have been well received. Recently we crossed the 15 million view mark and are now read in over 230 different countries.
How we got here.
Sometime in 2010, for the millionth time I was looking at Joel Hirschhorn’s book Rating The Movie Stars (1983) when I wondered had he updated his ratings lately? A quick internet check provided the sad news that Mr. Hirchhorn had passed away in 2005. About a month later, I thought I could update the ratings. I then came up with an idea to create a mathematical equation that would create a numerical score for each movie. The first thing I had to come up with were factors for the equation.
So I thought….if I were producing a movie, what would I like to see my movie accomplish. The first thing I would want would be for the movie to be successful at the box office. Secondly, I would like the critics and moviegoers to enjoy my movie. And finally, I would like my movie to receive award recognition through Golden Globe® and Oscar® ceremonies.
There are all kinds of ways to determine if you want to see or skip a movie. You can depend on your favorite critic. My favorites are the late great Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin. You might go to Rotten Tomatoes to get the consensus of all the critics. You might watch the viewer ratings at Yahoo Movies and IMDB. You might depend on which movies are doing the best at the box office. You might wait for the end of the year awards.
Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score takes all of these options and creates a mathematical equation that generates a score from 1 to 100. The higher the score the better the movie. A “good ” movie score = 60 or above. So anything above 60 should be a good movie to check out. This gives a good comparison number between centuries and now my wife and I can argue over the merits of her favorite, The Sound of Music and one of my favorites, Pulp Fiction using the same scoring criteria.
So far, I’ve generated scores for 36,000+ movies. With these scores, I’ve written 1,000+ web pages with a focus on actors/actresses and similar groups (Star Trek vs Star Wars, Top 100 Sports Movies are examples).
So let’s look at the breakdown of the variables in the equation.
1. Box office results. Receives the second-highest percentage (30%) of the equation. The ceiling was 200 million in adjusted for inflation dollars. Any movie that crossed 200 million maxed out the points in the category.
2. Critics and audience reception. Receives the highest percentage (46%) of the equation. So where do I find critics/audience reception? I use many different sources: RottenTomatoes, IMDb, MetaCritic, Yahoo Movies, Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, and Fandango. Put them all together and I get an average with 100% being the highest score possible. Sadly with the passing of my all-time favorite critic, Roger Ebert, I needed a new source….after much research…..our latest movie critic and taking Mr. Ebert’s spot is YouTube movie reviewer Chris Stuckmann.
3. Award Recognition. The final part of the equation is worth 24%. A movie gets points for Golden Globe® and Oscar® nominations and wins. The Golden Globes get 5% while the Oscars® get 13% of the equation. The last 6% goes to the amount of Oscar® nominations and the amount of Oscar® wins.
One way to see how the scores are calculated:
Top 200 Box Office Hits with Inflation + Top 100 Best Reviewed Movies + 88 Best Picture Oscar Winners = Top 100 UMR Score Movies
In January of 2011, we published our first Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score table on HubPages.com…we picked one of our favorite actors, Bruce Willis, to be the guinea pig. We have updated his page countless times over the years.
So…..was trying to add in a new “widget”……the arrow on the right is the result….not what we were looking for…..but this page was the very first UMR page…..if you click the arrow….you can see “in order” the UMR pages added to the website. I thought it was interesting….as this About page was the first page ever put together.
So Hurricane Florence gave me an unexpected day off…..but now I have to do some things around the house as we prepare for yet another hurricane. Lived on the East Coast most of my life…..seems the hurricane panic these days is much more severe than it was when I was growing up. Good news is I was able to catch up on lots of comments. Till later today …..nless (1) we lose power or (2) a mandatory evacuation makes us leave or (3) the cane sweeps us away.
Thanks for keeping us updated about your situation. I hope you and your family remain safe.
Hey Flora….the last two days have actually been super awesome weather wise….and no school. Might not have school till Monday. Now the predictions are it is going to miss us altogether. Thanks for the thoughts.
Hello everybody,
Before your amazed eyes, here is the latest article on the box office American 1927, very interesting year cinematographically.
Good reading.
http://www.boxofficestory.com/box-office-usa-1927-top-21-a-30-a148454868
Hey Laurent….good to hear from you. 1927? Awesome…..I have one more year to do….and we will have 50 straight years of Yearly Reviews…..1930 to 1979…..then I plan on doing some 1920s pages….and will be using these links for further research. As always…thanks for sharing this information.
Thinking about including a page that show the last 50 movies to be added into the database. Is this interesting or a waste of time?
MovieYear
The Games (1970)
Quartet (1981)
Nowhere To Go (1958)
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)
Lily In Love (1984)
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)
My Old Lady (2014)
FM (1978)
Renaldo and Clara (1978)
The Hidden Hand (1942)
Murder on the Waterfront (1943)
The Smiling Ghost (1941)
No Defense (1929)
Whiplash (1948)
The Big Punch (1948)
Shadow of a Woman (1946)
Her Kind of Man (1946)
Juliet Naked (2018)
Ya Veremos (2018)
Searching (2018)
Operation Finale (2018)
Kin (2018)
The Little Stranger (2018)
Human Highway (1982)
Alsino and the Condor (1982)
Last Resort (1996)
C.O.G. (2013)
Entertainment (2015)
Persecuted (2014)
The Werewolf of Washington (1973)
The Last Movie (1971)
The Arnelo Affair (1947)
Humor Me (2017)
Eraserhead (1977)
Skatetown U.S.A. (1979)
The Pack (1977)
Alice Sweet Alice (1976)
The Chicken Chronicles (1977)
The Choirboys (1977)
The Late Great Planet Earth (1977)
Thieves (1977)
The Land of the Minotaur (1976)
The Crater Lake Monster (1977)
Moonshine County Express (1976)
Cinderella (1977)
Mr. Billion (1977)
Starship Invasions (1977)
Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)
Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same (1976)
The Farmer (1977)
Hi Bruce,
I think that’s a great idea actually! Have no idea how much time it will eat up for you to do so, but if it’s manageable I certainly wouldn’t consider it a waste of time…or energy!
Hey Lupino…thanks for the feedback…..seems you might be the only person interested…..currently it is not “dynamic”…..and would require me to “manually” update…..but it does show what we are doing behind the scenes….the new Last 50 list.
MovieYear
Operation Secret (1952)….last movie added
Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero (2018)
Borg vs McEnroe (2018)
God Bless The Broken Road (2018)
Peppermint (2018)
The Nun (2018)
Billionaire Boy’s Club (2018)
Finding Your Feet (2018)
Thin Ice (2011)
Crossroads/The Novice (2006)
Simon (1980)
The Magician of Lublin (1979)
The Monitors (1969)…I had to add 5 movies to finish the Arkin page
The Games (1970)…the only Ryan O’Neal movie that got added
Quartet (1981)
Nowhere To Go (1958)
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)
Lily In Love (1984)
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)
My Old Lady (2014)….6 Maggie Smith movies had to be added
FM (1978)
Renaldo and Clara (1978)
The Hidden Hand (1942)
Murder on the Waterfront (1943)
The Smiling Ghost (1941)
No Defense (1929)
Whiplash (1948)
The Big Punch (1948)
Shadow of a Woman (1946)
Her Kind of Man (1946)
Juliet Naked (2018)
Ya Veremos (2018)
Searching (2018)
Operation Finale (2018)
Kin (2018)
The Little Stranger (2018)
Human Highway (1982)
Alsino and the Condor (1982)
Last Resort (1996)
C.O.G. (2013)
Entertainment (2015)
Persecuted (2014)
The Werewolf of Washington (1973)
The Last Movie (1971)
The Arnelo Affair (1947)
Humor Me (2017)
Eraserhead (1977)
Skatetown U.S.A. (1979)
The Pack (1977)
Alice Sweet Alice (1976)
Thank you Bruce!
Only recently watched Whiplash, and now I see here that you added it to the 1948 chart…still think this is a good idea!
Hey Lupino. I am thinking I am going to wait until WoC has the time to create a “dynamic” version of this page. She created this list in minutes…apparently it will take a couple of hours to make it “dynamic”. Yep this “Whiplash” is now on the 1948 page.
We are experiencing some issues….sorry if the website is not behaving correctly. Hoping things get fixed quickly.
Thanks for informing us