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.
Just looked up our Top 50 view getters on UMR….at least I thought it was interesting
1 UMR Index 1,590,661 views
2 UMR Home Page 1,367,968
3 Yearly Reviews 951,095
4 Top 100 Stars 667,946
5 Pixar Vs Dreamworks 660,011
6 Marvel Vs DC 605,839
7 Top 1960s Stars 579,497
8 Top Ticket Sellers 520,018
9 Top 1950s Stars 500,464
10 Bette Davis 366,696
11 John Wayne 352,609
12 Elvis Presley 345,328
13 Forum 333,766
14 Black Hawk Down 248,230
15 Top 1980s Stars 245,000
16 Newest Pages 241,366
17 Bruce Willis 228,020
18 Steve McQueen 223,620
19 Top 1970s Stars 200,296
20 $100 Million Hits 188,566
21 Cary Grant 181,779
22 Joan Crawford 180,016
23 Disney Animated 178,465
24 Abbott & Costello 171,749
25 Top Sports Movies 165,401
26 About 159,878
27 Marilyn Monroe 147,241
28 Requests 145,868
29 Kurt Russell 140,932
30 Top Stars 1930s 139,286
31 World War 2 Movie Marathon 139,223
32 Humphrey Bogart 136,411
33 Alfred Hitchcock 135,365
34 1946 Movies 132,470
35 Spielberg/Cameron 126,092
36 1939 Movies 125,725
37 James Stewart 124,949
38 Top Stars 1940s 113,977
39 Clint Eastwood 113,950
40 Burt Reynolds 110,104
41 Gregory Peck 107,889
42 Sylvester Stallone 107,604
43 Tom Hanks 106,513
44 Audie Murphy 102,722
45 Doris Day 102,020
46 OK Coral 99,017
47 Michael Caine 98,427
48 AFI Top 100 96,879
49 Top Stars 1990s 95,436
50 Both Marvel & DC 92,004
And another school year comes to an end. This was the most time consuming year ever. I have picked so many tasks at school (morning announcements, billboards, STEM Club, Broadcast Club, 7 classes per day, No Planning Bell). UMR suffered the most as time for the website dwindled. But the 99% of the students were awesome. And I had a good time. This was my fourth year teaching Technology…. cleared some hurdles and next year I am off some big lists (observations, daily lesson plans ..still have to do them…but no longer posted and reviewed daily). In other words…let the summer begin!
YEA Cogerson, happy father’s day my friend. you and yours are in my thoughts and prayers. happy fathers day to all UMR readers. YEA UMR.
Hey bob cox. Thanks for the Father’s Day wishes. Hope you are doing well as I know this was your first Father’s Day without your dad. I am shocked it was my 11th without my dad. Good to hear from you.
HI BOB COX
THIS father would like to thank your for your kind Father’s Day wishes. YOU have certainly a high profile among our more thoughtful viewers.
Incidentally our big supermarkets over here in Northern ireland were selling droves of Father’s Day cards sporting numerous images of Brando’s face in a variety of scenes from The Godfather.
One set of cards suggested in hyperbole that Don Corleone was “The GREATEST father of them all!” No argument from me there!
Anyway Robert Cox I hope you are keeping well and I always look out for your posts.
Also one dollar in TODAY’s economy has according to the US Bureau of Labour Stats only 1/17th of the purchasing power that a dollar had in 1930 the first full year of the talkies. It therefore occurs to me that the monetary value today of actual grosses generated long ago might well be lost on, in particular, younger contemporary viewers.
Accordingly it is most helpful that ALL of Bruce’s box office figures have been adjusted for ticket inflation so that historical like-with-like box-office performance comparisons can be made between stars and between movies in all generations over the decades. Within that context I don’t think it unreasonable to dub Bruce A Man for All Seasons if i may pinch the title of the 1966 classic movie starring Paul Schofield.
In conclusion, although they are individually highly informative and each is very helpful and enjoyable even as a free-standing read, I would recommend that for maximum benefit a reader/viewer who hasn’t already done so should ideally invest in all 3 books especially as they are all at affordable prices and are bargains well-worth the money spent.
That’s because I can genuinely say without hyperbole that in my eyes this site and Bruce’s 3 major books are landmark creations among outlets for movie lovers who want hard statistical data and a large feast of other kinds of facts about films; and not just frivolous gossip about for example how gorgeous Myrna Loy’s latest hat is or doesn’t heartthrob matinee-idol Royal Dano have the most-sexy eyes!
For good measure I think that the covers of the 3 books are classy and attractive and will look well on any book-shelf. Therefore buy, read, enjoy – and display!
Hey Bob. Thanks for the great review of my third book. I was actually thinking about you. As I was putting together my new John Marley page, I was watching the Randolph Scott movie Ten Wanted Men which also stars Jocelyn Brando. I actually looked her up on IMDb, maybe it is time to give her an UMR page as well. As for the books….I am working on the fourth one. That one will feature about 400 plus classic actors…..all ranked….and showing the Top 25 movies for each person. Hope all is going well…and once again thanks for all the great comments on the new book.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for the feedback.
I always though that Jocelyn looked like Marlon in drag. I gather that her career suffered a bit from her incurring the disfavour of The Senator from Wisconsin and his un-American Activities Committee but her little brother did pur her in 2 of his movies: 1966’s The Chase and 1963’s The Ugly Virginian.
I see that your reply to me brought out the Dan in you: you’ve mentioniedin the same passage Jocelyn Brando and John Marley who was of course in 1972’s The Godfather.
Dan himself could of course take the linkage further by relating it to the heading of my 3 main posts to you : Marley’s character was the one who was the victim of the notorious horiffic Horse’s Head scene in Godpop which was an example of Don Corleone making people “an offer they can’t refuse”.
I look forward to Cogerson the 4th.
The Bob, great comment. thanks.
HI BOB
Thanks for the ‘applause’.
You should acquire the 3 books if you hven’t already done so.
I am sure that you as a movie buff would find them both highly informative and most enjoyable.
Book 3 is most certainly of the same high standard as Books 1 and 2 and in fact Book 3 further diversifies matters: whereas the first 2 books are primarily focused on the stars and their careers Book 3 is a direct in-depth look at the stats relating to the movies themselves.
Actually I have read that as a rule of thumb the modern movies marketplace holds the star responsible for generating in today’s currency the first $15-20 million of a movie’s gross -ie for “opening” the film with audiences – after which positive word-of-mouth is usually essential to carry the movie into the hit sphere. Hence the crucial importance of an appealing film.
If that were not so then it follows that most of the films that say Clark Gable made at his box office peak would probably have attracted roughly the same size of audiences; whereas 1938’s Test Pilot made money for MGM and 1937’s Parnell which drew less than half of Test Pilot’s audiences lost money for the same studio.
Being a modest chap I rarely take it upon myself to ‘review’ other people’s work. If occasionally I depart from that practice and am pleased with the result I might fantasise that I am for example The New Joel – provided that is that I can up my game some more: HIRSCH is a very hard act to follow.
I had to work hard to acquire a copy of the 3rd major Cogerson book. First I wrote to The Work Horse personally a couple of times last year to enquire about its progress but he never replied. “He looked through me as if I were a leafless tree.” – ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy written 1874.
But then a few weeks ago when I finally saw Book 3 helpfully flagged-up on this site I quickly ordered a copy but the suppliers told me that nowadays they didn’t deliver to Northern Ireland where I live; something to do with Brexit I’m told – nice one STEVE!!!
So I had to ask my son who lives in London, England which IS on the delivery list to get a copy for me and send it over, which of course took time.
Anyway all that effort on my part has proven to be well-worthwhile because there is simply NOT in the public domain to the best of my knowledge many, if any, other outlets which today provide as a combination from a single source [ie the Cogerson source] the comprehensive, consistent, reliable and far-reaching coverage of box office stats, movie review ratings and other information about films that we are given on this site and in Bruce’s 3 books.