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.
Hello once again. Glad to see you are still at it. Has it been 7 years since we sent each other a bunch of comments? (I did so as ‘pythias’.) Wow.
I finally updated my little school project that I first completed in 2009. Updated through 2021. Not nearly as extensive as what you have done, of course, but we pretty much reach the same conclusions. It’s ‘obvious’ what the top 20 or so most successful/honored films are. Especially over the past 20 years, big box office versus academy award films are in two completely different groups so not much has changed recently.
All explained in my site below but briefly, I use:
1) Academy Awards (pct. won over the number that could have been won, with priority going to Best Picture winners)
2) Adjusted box office, using a hybrid of Box Office Mojo and now Box Office Report. (Previously I had used the Movie-Times, which no longer exists.)
3) Just a few polls that produce a reasonable hybrid result of critics+lay people, so it’s still AFI-1998, AFI-2007, and now, Timeout’s 2021 poll of actors, which is the most appropriate recent one I can find so far. Probably the least sound part of my study but I believe it’s still representative of films’ ‘staying power’. The poll of actors does include some recent, esoteric picks, but it generally treats older films well too. I truly doubt that many films over the past 20 years are critically considered to be among the best of all time. Like music, all the great stuff has already been produced.
Well, here it is again: https://www.personal.kent.edu/~pciccozz/Movies/mainpage.htm
Thanks for the work you do.
Oscar winner William Hurt has passed at 71.
From TV Insider
Actor William Hurt, who won an Oscar and was nominated for another three, has passed away at the age of 71.
“It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, beloved father and Oscar winning actor, on March 13, 2022, one week before his 72nd birthday,” his son, Will said, according to Deadline. “He died peacefully, among family, of natural causes. The family requests privacy at this time.”
Hurt won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1986 for his work as Luis Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was also nominated in the same category in 1987 for Children of a Lesser God and 1988 for Broadcast News (making for three consecutive nominations) and then again in 2006 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for A History of Violence.
His other film credits included playing Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Black Widow. He also starred in The King’s Daughter, The Last Full Measure, Lost in Space, Altered States, and The Good Shepherd.
Sad news Dan. I just read that he had passed away. Seems like only yesterday I was sneaking into Body Heat (because I was not old enough to see that one by myself). Good breakdown on his career. He has left behind lots of memorable movie roles. Rest in peace Mr. Hurt.
EXPRESS ON LINE 20 Dec 2021
It’s a Wonderful Life is now a staple Christmas film for families across the globe. However James Stewart, the film’s lead, almost quit acting before being cast as down-and-out businessman George.
The actor, who had found massive success a decade earlier, enlisted as a private in the Air Force after the US entered World War 2 in 1941 and attained several awards for his service while fighting in Europe.
When he returned to Hollywood, his experience in the war led him to believe the acting profession was “too frivolous” and he considered quitting, according to the daughter of Donna Reed, who played George’s wife in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Speaking to “Closer” last year, Mary Anne Reed said: “I don’t like to mention this but Capra and Jimmy Stewart had this whole success together before the war with Mr Smith Goes to Washington and all of that.
Everyone participated in the war effort, but especially those two and they were gone from Hollywood for four or five years. “There was a lot of insecurity on set, because Jimmy Stewart wasn’t sure if he wanted to act anymore. “He thought it was too frivolous after the world had been subjected to the horrors of a Great War but Lionel Barrymore and others talked him into continuing his career.”
HI STEVE: Thanks for extending Xmas wishes to all of the gang. It has been a great day for idols of mine on Christmas TV: Jimmy is popping up in It’s A Wonderful Life again; as I write Brando as the Godfather is dominating another channel; and for anyone with the rest of the day to spend in front of the TV there is wall-to-wall Duke on a 3rd channel from now until bedtime; and later this evening a Duke double bill on yet a 4th channel. ALL Big John’s westerns of course! Who said “less is more”?
Now just for a moment YOU turn away from watching that Santa guy with the blood-stained axe climbing down a chimney and consider item of trivia in my art 2 concerning a Christmas matter.
The Forties festive classic It’s a Wonderful Life celebrated its 75th anniversary on Mon 20 Dec 2021; and as you know it follows suicidal businessman George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart who meets a guardian angel named Clarence. The angel decides to show George what the world would have been like if he was not born, in a bid to make him appreciate his life.
Now, supposing Jimmy himself hadn’t been about after completing It’s a Wonderful Life. There would for example have no great Stewart/Anthony Mann collaborations on the likes of Bend of the River and The Man from Laramie; and Hitch would have had to make his Vertigo and Rear Window classics without the Great Jimmy.
Just as Clarence shows George Bailey how the world would have been a poorer place without him the item which I have reproduced in Part 2 from 20 Dec London Daily Express On-line gives us food for thought about what we would have missed had Jimmy not completed his great career which has him ranked No 3 on the AFI 50 Greatest Screen Legends of All Time male list.
[That presupposed of course that the Work Horse hasn’t once again tampered unilaterally with the AFI lists to get Myrna Loy onto them. You remember he took it upon himself to exclude Brando from them for that purpose some years ago].
Merry Christmas Bruce and family, and all the regulars at the UMR
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Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
Since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
It doesn’t show signs of stopping
And I brought some corn for popping
The lights are turned down low
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm
The fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbyin’
As long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
Merry Christmas Steve and the regulars on UMR. We have a white Christmas here in southern British Columbia. Have a safe and Happy New Year
Hey Flora… I am envious of you and your White Christmas… I was hoping for it….but it got warm very quickly here….and we ended up with a 70 degree Christmas day…..but we still had fun. Hope your holiday was a great one.
Thank you Steve….I hope you had a great Christmas. In my area….it was so far away from snow….we (WoC and myself) actually went on a walk through the woods in t-shirts.