This is the Top 100 Movies in our database. Several years back, we came up with an idea to create a mathematical equation that would create a numerical score for each movie. The first thing we had to come up with were factors for the equation. So we thought….if we were producing a movie what would we like to see our movie accomplish. The first thing we would want, would be for the movie to be successful at the box office. Secondly, we would like the critics and movie goers to enjoy our movie. And finally we would like our movie to receive award recognition through Golden Globe® and Oscar® ceremonies. So let’s look at the breakdown of the variables in the equation.
1. Box office results. We figure that box office is the most important factor, so it received the highest percentage (30%) of the equation. The ceiling was $200 million in adjusted box office dollars. Any movie that crossed $200 million maxed out the points in the category.
2. Critics and audience reception. We felt that critical reception was the second most important factor so it received the second highest percentage 45%) of the equation. So where do I find critics/audience reception? We use at least 6 different sources: RottenTomatoes, IMDB, Yahoo Movies, Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Fandango. Put them all together and I get an average with 100% being the highest score possible.
3. Award Recognition. The final part of the equation is worth 25%. 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 7% goes to amount of Oscar® nominations and amount of Oscar® wins.
So far we have done Ultimate Movie Ranking Scores on 26,478 movies. Granted that is only a small percentage of films that were ever made but we have done all the big blockbusters and Oscar® winners. So the following table lists the current Top 100 movies that PERFORMED the best in ALL THREE CATEGORIES. In other words we are not saying these are the best movies just the ones that STATISTICALLY PERFORMED THE BEST.
Top 100 Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Top 100 Movies by co-stars of the movies
- Sort Top 100 Movies by director or directors of the movies
- Sort Top 100 Movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Top 100 Movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Top 100 movie received.
- Sort Top 100 Movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the sort and search buttons to make this table very interactive. For example if you want to see the 4 Marlon Brando movies to make the list…just type in Brando in the search box and up they pop.
| Rank | Movie (Year) | Star of Movie | Director of Movie | Domestic B.O. Adjusted (mils.) | Critic Audience Rating | Oscar Nom / Win | UMR Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Godfather (1972) | Marlon Brando & Al Pacino & James Caan | Francis Ford Coppola | $686.30 | 94.5% | 11 / 03 | 96.22 | |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) | Jack Nicholson | Milos Forman | $448.20 | 92.5% | 09 / 05 | 96.07 | |
| Lawrence of Arabia (1962) | Peter O''Toole & Anthony Quinn | David Lean | $482.00 | 91.5% | 10 / 07 | 96.00 | |
| Schindler's List (1993) | Liam Neeson & Steven Spielberg | Steven Spielberg | $195.60 | 94.3% | 12 / 07 | 95.85 | |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) | Orlando Bloom | Peter Jackson | $527.10 | 91.0% | 11 / 11 | 95.77 | |
| The Godfather: Part II (1974) | Al Pacino & Robert DeNiro & Robert Duvall | Francis Ford Coppola | $214.30 | 94.0% | 11 / 06 | 95.31 | |
| Casablanca (1942) | Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman | Michael Curtiz | $344.30 | 94.3% | 08 / 03 | 95.30 | |
| Gone with the Wind (1939) | Vivien Leigh & Clark Gable | Victor Fleming | $1758.30 | 90.0% | 13 / 08 | 95.30 | |
| The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) | Myrna Loy & William Wyler | William Wyler | $569.60 | 86.0% | 08 / 07 | 95.28 | |
| Ben-Hur (1959) | Charlton Heston | William Wyler | $852.00 | 88.7% | 12 / 11 | 94.67 | |
| On the Waterfront (1954) | Marlon Brando | Elia Kazan | $219.90 | 88.0% | 12 / 08 | 94.36 | |
| Rebecca (1940) | Laurence Olivier & Joan Fontaine | Alfred Hitchcock | $258.10 | 87.0% | 11 / 02 | 94.13 | |
| The Apartment (1960) | Jack Lemmon & Shirley MacLaine | Billy Wilder | $232.10 | 87.5% | 10 / 05 | 94.12 | |
| The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) | William Holden | David Lean | $473.40 | 88.0% | 08 / 07 | 93.56 | |
| It Happened One Night (1934) | Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert | Frank Capra | $190.70 | 91.0% | 05 / 05 | 92.33 | |
| Unforgiven (1992) | Clint Eastwood & Gene Hackman | Clint Eastwood | $205.50 | 89.5% | 09 / 04 | 92.19 | |
| My Fair Lady (1964) | Audrey Hepburn | George Cukor | $521.20 | 83.0% | 12 / 08 | 92.01 | |
| Patton (1970) | George C. Scottt | Francis Ford Coppola | $335.80 | 86.5% | 10 / 07 | 91.79 | |
| The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster | Jonathan Demme | $261.80 | 89.0% | 07 / 05 | 91.76 | |
| Gladiator (2000) | Russell Crowe | Ridley Scott | $293.60 | 82.0% | 12 / 05 | 91.70 | |
| The Sound of Music (1965) | Julie Andrews | Robert Wise | $1235.60 | 82.3% | 10 / 05 | 91.70 | |
| The French Connection (1971) | Gene Hackman & Roy Scheider | William Friedkin | $264.10 | 84.0% | 08 / 05 | 91.68 | |
| Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) | Harrison Ford | George Lucas | $1549.90 | 91.7% | 10 / 06 | 91.58 | |
| American Beauty (1999) | Kevin Spacey | Sam Mendes | $216.70 | 85.0% | 08 / 05 | 91.48 | |
| The Lost Weekend (1945) | Ray Milland | Billy Wilder | $234.60 | 85.5% | 07 / 04 | 91.38 | |
| How Green Was My Valley (1941) | Maureen O'Hara | John Ford | $291.40 | 81.5% | 10 / 05 | 91.30 | |
| Platoon (1986) | Charlie Sheen | Oliver Stone | $314.80 | 84.0% | 08 / 04 | 91.08 | |
| Mrs. Miniver (1942) | William Wyler | William Wyler | $344.70 | 81.0% | 12 / 06 | 91.07 | |
| Terms of Endearment (1983) | Jack Nicholson & Shirley MacLaine | James L. Brooks | $290.20 | 81.7% | 11 / 05 | 90.88 | |
| Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) | Dustin Hoffman & Meryl Streep | Robert Benton | $356.90 | 81.0% | 09 / 05 | 90.67 | |
| West Side Story (1961) | Natalie Wood | Robert Wise | $486.30 | 80.0% | 11 / 10 | 90.60 | |
| Rain Man (1988) | Dustin Hoffman & Tom Cruise | Barry Levinson | $354.50 | 84.0% | 08 / 04 | 90.58 | |
| A Man for All Seasons (1966) | Orson Welles | Fred Zinnemann | $244.30 | 81.5% | 08 / 06 | 90.50 | |
| Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) | Charles Laughton & Clark Gable | Frank Lloyd | $286.50 | 86.0% | 08 / 01 | 90.22 | |
| A Beautiful Mind (2001) | Russell Crowe & Ron Howard | Ron Howard | $254.80 | 82.7% | 08 / 04 | 89.95 | |
| Dances with Wolves (1990) | Kevin Costner | Kevin Costner | $367.10 | 80.0% | 12 / 07 | 89.93 | |
| Saving Private Ryan (1998) | Tom Hanks & Matt Damon & Steven Spielberg | Steven Spielberg | $389.20 | 88.0% | 11 / 05 | 89.86 | |
| Forrest Gump (1994) | Tom Hanks | Robert Zemeckis | $681.20 | 78.0% | 13 / 06 | 89.66 | |
| Going My Way (1944) | Bing Crosby | Leo McCarey | $552.40 | 77.0% | 10 / 07 | 89.19 | |
| Titanic (1997) | Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio & Ja | James Cameron & Steven Spielberg | $1103.40 | 77.0% | 14 / 11 | 89.19 | |
| The Sting (1973) | Robert Redford & Paul Newman & George Ro | George Roy Hill | $776.40 | 87.5% | 10 / 03 | 89.17 | |
| Rocky (1976) | Sylvester Stallone | John G. Avildsen | $478.20 | 79.3% | 10 / 03 | 89.09 | |
| Amadeus (1984) | F. Murray Abraham | Milos Forman | $173.50 | 86.5% | 11 / 08 | 88.85 | |
| Oliver! (1968) | Oliver Reed | Carol Reed | $308.90 | 76.0% | 11 / 05 | 88.72 | |
| Slumdog Millionaire (2008) | Dev Patel | Danny Boyle | $165.90 | 88.5% | 10 / 08 | 88.68 | |
| An American in Paris (1951) | Gene Kelly | Vincente Minnelli | $202.90 | 77.5% | 08 / 06 | 88.62 | |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) | Orlando Bloom | Peter Jackson | $467.60 | 90.0% | 13 / 04 | 88.33 | |
| Driving Miss Daisy (1989) | Morgan Freeman | Bruce Beresford | $226.30 | 76.5% | 09 / 04 | 87.96 | |
| Chicago (2002) | Richard Gere | Rob Marshall | $248.10 | 76.0% | 13 / 06 | 87.84 | |
| All About Eve (1950) | Bette Davis & Marilyn Monroe | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | $155.60 | 92.7% | 14 / 06 | 87.80 | |
| Toy Story 3 (2010) | Tom Hanks | Lee Unkrich | $443.40 | 91.7% | 05 / 02 | 87.78 | |
| All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) | Lew Ayres | Lewis Milestone | $194.50 | 84.5% | 04 / 02 | 87.66 | |
| From Here to Eternity (1953) | Burt Lancaster & Montgomery Clift | Fred Zinnemann | $519.40 | 81.5% | 13 / 08 | 87.55 | |
| Midnight Cowboy (1969) | Dustin Hoffman | John Schlesinger | $347.70 | 82.5% | 07 / 03 | 87.51 | |
| Apocalypse Now (1979) | Martin Sheen & Marlon Brando | Francis Ford Coppola | $335.50 | 92.3% | 08 / 02 | 87.43 | |
| Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) | James Stewart | Frank Capra | $289.00 | 91.0% | 11 / 01 | 87.37 | |
| Doctor Zhivago (1965) | Omar Sharif | David Lean | $1079.00 | 82.5% | 10 / 05 | 87.28 | |
| The Deer Hunter (1978) | Robert DeNiro & Christopher Walken & | Michael Cimino | $176.50 | 85.5% | 09 / 05 | 87.27 | |
| To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) | Gregory Peck & Robert Duvall | Robert Mulligan | $256.90 | 90.3% | 08 / 03 | 87.09 | |
| Inception (2010) | Leonardo DiCaprio & Michael Caine | Christopher Nolan | $312.60 | 88.5% | 08 / 04 | 86.83 | |
| Pulp Fiction (1994) | Bruce Willis & Samuel L. Jackson | Quentin Tarantino | $223.00 | 93.0% | 07 / 01 | 86.74 | |
| The Departed (2006) | Jack Nicholson & Leonardo DiCaprio | Martin Scorsese | $169.60 | 87.0% | 05 / 04 | 86.73 | |
| Annie Hall (1977) | Woody Allen & Christopher Walken | Woody Allen | $184.90 | 86.0% | 05 / 04 | 86.61 | |
| The Philadelphia Story (1940) | James Stewart & Katharine Hepburn | George Cukor | $215.10 | 91.0% | 06 / 02 | 86.37 | |
| E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) | Drew Barrymore | Steven Spielberg | $1220.60 | 82.7% | 09 / 04 | 86.35 | |
| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) | Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor | Mike Nichols | $214.60 | 84.5% | 13 / 05 | 86.34 | |
| Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) | Harrison Ford | Steven Spielberg | $770.70 | 91.3% | 08 / 04 | 86.28 | |
| Gentleman's Agreement (1947) | Gregory Peck & John Garfield | Elia Kazan | $240.20 | 75.0% | 08 / 03 | 86.25 | |
| In the Heat of the Night (1967) | Sidney Poitier & Warren Oates | Norman Jewison | $167.20 | 84.0% | 07 / 05 | 86.20 | |
| Ordinary People (1980) | Robert Redford | Robert Redford | $177.60 | 82.5% | 06 / 04 | 86.11 | |
| Wings (1928) | Gary Cooper | William A. Weldman | $314.10 | 81.0% | 02 / 02 | 86.07 | |
| Jaws (1975) | Roy Scheider | Steven Spielberg | $1114.40 | 91.5% | 04 / 03 | 86.03 | |
| A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) | Marlon Brando & Vivien Leigh | Elia Kazan | $231.20 | 85.0% | 12 / 04 | 85.98 | |
| Avatar (2009) | Zoe Saldana | James Cameron & Steven Spielberg | $842.70 | 82.3% | 09 / 03 | 85.60 | |
| Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) | Paul Newman & Robert Redford | George Roy Hill | $613.50 | 86.5% | 07 / 04 | 85.49 | |
| The Exorcist (1973) | Linda Blair | William Friedkin | $919.20 | 82.5% | 10 / 02 | 85.48 | |
| The Martian (2015) | Matt Damon & Jessica Chastain | Ridley Scott | $228.30 | 87.5% | 07 / 00 | 85.42 | |
| Cabaret (1972) | Liza Minnelli | Bob Fosse | $304.30 | 82.5% | 10 / 08 | 85.41 | |
| Around the World in 80 Days (1956) | Shirley MacLaine & David Niven | Michael Anderson | $561.90 | 70.5% | 08 / 05 | 85.34 | |
| Gravity (2013) | George Clooney & Sandra Bullock | Alfonso Cuarón | $284.20 | 82.0% | 10 / 07 | 85.17 | |
| The Last Picture Show (1971) | Jeff Bridges | Peter Bogdanovich | $203.00 | 87.5% | 08 / 02 | 85.15 | |
| The Grapes of Wrath (1940) | Henry Fonda & John Ford | John Ford | $215.10 | 87.5% | 07 / 02 | 85.12 | |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) | Orlando Bloom | Peter Jackson | $493.90 | 89.0% | 06 / 02 | 85.06 | |
| Tom Jones (1963) | Albert Finney | Tony Richardson | $478.10 | 69.5% | 10 / 04 | 85.06 | |
| The Lion in Winter (1968) | Peter O''Toole & Katharine Hepburn | Anthony Harvey | $184.00 | 88.0% | 07 / 03 | 84.98 | |
| Shakespeare in Lovie (1998) | Gwyneth Paltrow & Ben Affleck | John Madden | $180.30 | 76.0% | 13 / 07 | 84.88 | |
| Fiddler on the Roof (1971) | Topol | Norman Jewison | $414.90 | 81.5% | 08 / 03 | 84.80 | |
| Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) | James Cagney | Michael Curtiz | $392.00 | 84.5% | 08 / 03 | 84.71 | |
| Mary Poppins (1964) | Julie Andrews | Robert Stevenson | $887.80 | 81.0% | 13 / 05 | 84.70 | |
| On Golden Pond (1981) | Henry Fonda & Katharine Hepburn | Mark Rydell | $361.70 | 79.5% | 10 / 03 | 84.66 | |
| Giant (1956) | James Dean & Rock Hudson & Elizabeth Taylo | George Stevens | $481.70 | 86.0% | 10 / 01 | 84.65 | |
| Beauty and the Beast (1991) | Robbie Benson | Kirk Wise | $396.20 | 85.5% | 06 / 02 | 84.61 | |
| The Graduate (1967) | Dustin Hoffman | Mike Nichols | $767.90 | 84.5% | 07 / 01 | 84.61 | |
| The Great Dictator (1940) | Charles Chaplin | Charles Chaplin | $301.10 | 90.7% | 05 / 00 | 84.61 | |
| Gigi (1958) | Leslie Caron | Vincente Minnelli | $293.90 | 68.0% | 09 / 09 | 84.56 | |
| Apollo 13 (1995) | Tom Hanks | Ron Howard | $333.50 | 85.3% | 09 / 02 | 84.54 | |
| Bonnie and Clyde (1967) | Gene Hackman | Arthur Penn | $397.10 | 84.5% | 10 / 02 | 84.54 | |
| All the President's Men (1976) | Dustin Hoffman & Robert Redford | Alan J. Pakula | $359.80 | 83.5% | 08 / 04 | 84.47 | |
| The Wizard of Oz (1939) | Judy Garland | Victor Fleming | $225.40 | 86.5% | 06 / 02 | 84.26 | |
| Tootsie (1982) | Dustin Hoffman & Bill Murray | Sydney Pollack | $496.60 | 81.0% | 10 / 01 | 84.17 |
Our Top 100 Movie Snubs?
To make our Top 100 Movies list….a movie had to do well in three categories…box office glory, critical acclaim and award recognition. Let’s look at some movies that did do well in all three categories.1941’s Citizen Kane is considered one of the greatest films of all time. Citizen Kane got great reviews and picked up some major Oscar® nominations but was a flop at the box office. It’s poor showing at the box office puts Citizen Kane as the 898th best movie in our database.
1958’s Vertigo has great reviews….did below average for a Hitchcock movie at the box office and only picked up 2 minor Oscar® nominations…winning none…..that puts Vertigo in 877th place in our database. That is better than 20,000 movies in our database which is pretty good….just not good enough to crack the Top 250. If you want to see a movie page that gives these movies some love…check out our Top 100 Best Reviewed Movies.
Just making a boat load of money at the box office does not give you a spot in the Top 100. Let’s look at the biggest worldwide hit of 2014. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) made almost a quarter of a billion in North America and crossed the billion dollar mark in worldwide gross. Yet critics destroyed the movie and nobody older than 12 liked the movie. It’s critical rating is so low that it keeps Transformers: Age of Extinction from even cracking the Top 1000.
And finally let’s quickly look at the other end of our database. 26,478 movies ranked….some movie has to be at the bottom of the rankings. For awhile Nicolas Cage and his Deadfall (1993) movie held that honor. Well 2014 gave us a new worst ranked movie. Coming in with less 3 million in box office gross, some of the worst reviews of all time and the winner of the 2014 Razzie® Award as worst movie of the year….Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas. With a UMR Score of 5.56 Kirk’s movie is ranked as the 26,478th movie in my database.
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
wow, my fb friends will love this. I have seen some of the movies and loved them especially My fair lady, BenHur, Godfather, Sound of music which I love. Have you seen Stepford wives? and has the book ‘Hatchet’ been filmed? A great page indeed.
Hey Deepa Venkitesh….glad you have discovered my Top 100 list….as I continue to score movies….I keep waiting for a movie to crack the Top 100…but 8 months later and I have to find another movie.
My Fair Lady, Ben-Hur, The Godfather and Sound of Music are classics that achieved all a movie could achieve…box office glory, critical love and a boatload of awards.
I have seen both Stepford Wives….with the original easily being the better of the two. Thanks for the visit and the comment.
welcome sir. I will look over to see if you made one on the most popular ones. I mean like back to the future and teen wolf and other such films. Have a great day.
Hey Deepa Venkitesh……well the best of the movies you mentioned according to my movie score system is Back to the Future at #179…..thanks for the return visit.
Great job Cogerson! What an exhaustive article, it is really informative as it is entertaining. 🙂
Hey idigwebsites….thanks for the visit and the very nice compliment….glad you enjoyed my Top 250 movies.
This is amazing work. I am glad to see that Lord of the Rings is considered to be one of the top movies of all time.
Hey gautams1….thanks for the visit and the very nice comment. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy did very well on the list….#53, #52 and #5….and I think they will be there for a very long time.
nice pick.. some of the movies listed was also my favorite, surprisingly amazing. thanks for this page…nice work 🙂
Hey gautams1….thanks for the visit and the very nice comment. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy did very well on the list….#53, #52 and #5….and I think they will be there for a very long time.
Wow your two part page has become a single epic movie page, excellent work!
Good to see 7 of my favourite films in the top 10.
Odd one out is Best Years of Our Lives, shouldn’t that be in the bottom 10? 🙂
I’ve seen 86 of the 100 you’ve listed here.
It’s still disappointing seeing 2001, Star Wars, Raiders and Jaws rated below the likes of Driving Miss Daisy, Kramer vs Kramer and Terms of Endearment.
Voted Up and very interesting….
Hey Steve….you suggested many months ago that I should put both hubs together…..well I finally did….and I wish I would have listened to you when you first suggested it.
86% is pretty strong….I am at 99%…with only The Music Man escaping my clutches…lol. Sorry you do not agree with some of the rankings…but statistics do not lie….but then again…”There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”. thanks for checking out my newly remodeled page