About

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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.

The book that got me thinking.
The book that got me thinking.

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.

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629 thoughts on “About

  1. My eyesight is of course not what it once was even with glasses but I have just had my own computer upgraded and can now see more clearly than I previously could the organisation and layouts of the various sites that I visit -politics/music/movies/sport etc; and one of the things that has immediately struck me is how well-presented the Cogerson site is in comparison with even other commendable sites

    It would be hard to find elsewhere such an exceptionally comprehensive and diverse wealth of great information for movie Buffs as that which is provided on this site. The myriad of information is perfectly indexed; and once one gets to the item that one has indexed the information is very easy to follow and assimilate as well as being excellently cross-referenced through a colored links system.

    Undoubtedly in my view this site as it sits a great credit to ‘Mr and Mrs Work Horse’ and anyone else involved with it. As Steve Lensman would say “Voted Up” – or in the words of a Batman movie title where films are concerned “Cogerson Forever!”

      1. HI LENS

        “Who?” was 1974 mystery thriller starring the young Elliot Gould. It should be right up your street as IMDB classifies it as a si- fi movie.

  2. May 29-31, 2020 Box Office

    I think The Wretched has been # 1 for 5 weeks and it’s in 75 cinemas, coming close to a million dollars.

    Rank LW Release Gross %± LW Theaters Change Average Total Gross Weeks Distributor
    1 1 The Wretched $175,637 -18.80% 75 16 $2,341 $835,397 5 IFC Films
    2 – We Summon the Darkness $26,112 – 6 – $4,352 $60,794 2 Saban Films
    3 – Strike $1,412 – 1 – $1,412 $10,443 10 Indican Pictures
    4 3 The Trip to Greece $258 -76.80% 3 – $86 $1,623 2 IFC Films
    5 2 How to Build a Girl $131 -88.60% 3 – $43 $68,988 4 IFC Films
    6 4 True History of the Kelly Gang $41 -87.30% 1 -1 $41 $33,385 6 IFC Films

  3. So my college dumped one more test on me to take to finalize my teacher’s license. It was supposed to be easy….I took it yesterday…..and I bombed it miserably. After clearing so many hurdles, it is so frustrating to fall on the final hurdle. So why I am sharing this news…other than to show how dumb I am? I am re-taking the test tomorrow…..so today….I will be studying. So the next new page will be out Friday. And I will be absent from the website for the next couple of days. Hope all is going well for everybody.

    1. If first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
      You will do do it, no problem.

      Going off to play golf today. Yippeee

      Thx

      Mike

    2. Sorry to hear you have to take the test again. Thanks for sharing this information. Take care

    3. Cogerson, may God’s peace be with you. it helps me to ask God to take away any fears i have , it helps me be and do my best. you and yours are in my thoughts and prayers

      i recall starting my 3rd year of medical school. they said if a student’s name was not called for their rotations attendance then they had to repeat the second year. my name was not called. i wept and prayed for an hour during the lecture. finally, thanking God, i then went to the registrar to enroll for a repeat second year. the secretary knew me and had personally confirmed my passing, she double checked and i did not have to repeat the second year. through this momentary setback God blessed me with humility, compassion, and gratitude. be blessed my friend.

  4. The # 1 film was The Wretched which made $65,908 at 12 cinemas this weekend. No names of consequence in it.

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