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.
The Cogerson world is crazy busy these days. School is already almost a quarter done..as we have flown through 7 weeks already. WoC is teaching at a university as a part time activity. Doing lots of extra stuff for school…from building the stage for an Aladdin musical, making daily morning announcements (and always throwing in a movie reference), Fall Craft show assignments, Halloween Dance assignments, painting some message signs for outside the school. Not to mention teaching 6 different classes every school day. So…this was the long way of saying…sorry the daily posts are coming out so late and sorry for being delayed in responding to the comments. One day I will retire again…lol.
Happy birthday to actress Janis Page who turns 100 today (September 16, 2022). Her films are airing all day today on TCM. Great that she is still with us. Posted here as she does not have a UMR page.
WORK HORSE:
Part 2 of my post to you today has been marked spam. Your spammers don’t seem to like me: that keeps happening.
Anyway I have sent you a copy of the Part 2 by E mail.
HI O MIGHTY PANJANDRUM: Since you told me about your falling ill because of overwork I have been thinking about, and looking around for, some small way in which I might be able to help you
The article which I have copied to Part 2 of this post was written by a feature writer in the English Guardian newspaper and is in today’s edition. It is probably too late for it to be useful guidance to you for this year’s holidays but maybe it will benefit you next year.
I told you about the next-door neighbor that we had when I was growing up who was such a workaholic that he had 3 jobs 24/7and when he went on holiday he worked his passage to the holiday destination and back by tending bar on the ship that was taking him. He confessed to my father “Harry, there’s simply not enough hours in the day for me.”
Emma the writer in Part 2 was born in Cornwall England in 1975 but now lives in New York and she seems to think that this kind of overcrowding of the daily schedule is especially an American ‘disease’ and in fact I recall a work colleague of mine who was religious criticizing another colleague for overcrowding the to-do lists.
The complaining colleague said to me: “Ivan reminds me of one of our Church’s American brethren in the States who can’t rest for a second, and yet always seems to be looking over his shoulder in case our Lord will strike him down, not for something he’s done but for something he HASN’T done!”
Also I recall the 1991 Barbra Streisand/Nick Nolte film The Prince of Tides in which Nolte’s character Tom Wingo gets away from it all and in a voice-over tells the audience that to occupy himself he takes-up new habits like jogging – but Wingo adds “And I have developed the American habit of making to-do lists so that I won’t feel guilty about looking after myself!” This example is doubly appropriate as I am writing to YOU and Nolte’sTom Wingo in the plot is a teacher and football coach in South Carolina
Anyway I hope the contents of Part 2 will be of some use to you next year and that you’ll take more time out to enjoy yourself by for example re-reading Joel’s book or having fun counting-up yet again The Thin Woman’s grosses.
Meanwhile: happy 17th anniversary to our Moderator and his lady; and many happy returns to the Cogerson Birthday ‘Babes’. Indeed Brucie “Baby” you young whippersnapper [as George Gabby Hayes used to say] my own 50th anniversary come up this year!
Cogerson Tidbits –
Sunday, July 31st was SoC2’s 30th birthday
Tuesday August 2nd was GoC1’s 15th birthday
Wednesday August 3rd was WoC and Cogerson’s 17th anniversary
Thursday August 4th was SoC4’s 16th birthday
Congratulations to all of you
In the middle of all of these celebrations…..we finally got hit by the Co-Vid bug. First WoC, then DoC2, then Cogerson…..only Sam has escaped so far.
Take care of yourself.
Sorry to hear you are sick with covid. I had covid back in March. Get well soon.
And now Sam has Co-Vid….a perfect 4 for 4 for the people that live in this house.