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.

616 thoughts on “About

  1. Hi Cogerson, I had a technical problem which resulted in my last comment (on the historical popularity of movies) being shown as anonymous, but now you know where it comes from!

  2. Hi Cogerson, I have spent many hours surfing through your web site and think it contains a wealth of interesting information. It’s the only one I’ve seen that contains box office information for older movies beyond the top 10 or 20, and having the gross amounts adjusted to actual dollar value is a very useful tool to make comparisons across time. So thank you very much for that! I just want to point out however some limitations in placing too much importance on the box office success of movies in a best to worse ranking. How much money a movie makes upon its release in the cinema is a sign of its immediate popularity, but as you know, over time, many big hits become relatively forgotten while many films that were not hits (or even flopped) become more popular and appreciated. The “historical” popularity of a film is at least as significant (if not more) than its immediate success and this is something that is not accounted for in your ranking method. I realize of course it would be very difficult and more subjective to account for historical popularity, but the problem is when you don’t, many durably popular and acclaimed films get a lower score than films that have become relatively insignificant. There are many examples of this. It’s interesting for instance to do a yearly search under the IMDB for US movies in descending number of votes. Often, the ones near the top are not the ones that were successful at the box office and vice versa. For instance, in 1955, Robert Mitchum’s classic Night of the Hunter is the second film with most votes on IMDB, while his Not as a Stranger is #62. Yet, because of its immediate box office success, Not as a Stranger rates significantly higher on your site than Night of the Hunter! For 1957, 12 Angry Men is the highest voted film on IMDB, but it does worse on your ranking than Island in the Sun which was a big box office hit for that year. But how many people today know or remember Island in the Sun (#89 of 1957 US films on IMDB) as opposed to 12 Angry Men? So it’s a little weird sometimes to see many popular classics rating lower than films that are now less well known and appreciated – but as I said, it’s a limitation that should be considered , not a fundamental criticism. Perhaps, there’s a way to address this, but I can see that it would be a lot of work!

    1. Hey Phil….first of all….thanks for such nice words about our website…and thanks for such a detailed comment. You make some very good points. Way back in 2011 when we first started walking down this path our logic was box office grosses was the most important factor….and in our original calculations it was worth 45% of the equation. Well….after reading lots of comments….I slowly decided that I needed to reduce the importance of box office. Well around this time last year we decided to change our equation and lowered the box office percentage to 32% and move up the critic/audience rating to 44%….this has helped make the UMR Score better….currently we are about 90% done (yes it has taken almost a year to update these pages….but I did write about 160 new pages during that time)….so we have reduced the importance of box office.

      Still…box office is a huge part of a movie’s success or failure…..they were made after all…..to make money for the people that decided to make the movie. 12 Angry Men is a great movie….but coming in 91st place in 1957 is also important in the history of the movie….as great as the movie is…..the lack of box office had to put a bitter test in the mouth of Henry Fonda (he produced it). The end result is….you can sort these movies anyway you want….if you do not want to think about box office…then just sort the movies by critic/audience….in Fonda’s case…sort the movies that way….and 12 Angry Men moves from 19th place on the UMR rankings to first place on the review rankings. So that lets people know….it is considered a great movie….but it did not do much at the box office.

      Your comparison of Night of the Hunter and Not as a Stranger….is also a great example. You are right…Not As A Stranger is a forgotten film….even with 4 all-time greats in the movie….but it still made a ton of money…..while Night of the Hunter made so little money….it killed Laughton’s directing career. Once again….using the sort button…it tells the picture of how a movie did….Night of the Hunter…is Mitchum’s top rated movie according to critics and audiences….but his 71st biggest hit…..all important factors of that movie. Meanwhile Not As A Stranger is his 3rd biggest hit….yet his 51st rated movie according to critics and audiences….I think the second ranking explains why people have forgotten it.

      Finally….essentially the UMR score is the difference between this site and so many others….but we did set up the tables…so you can ignore our rankings…..and decide for yourself the most important factors in deciding the merits of a movie…..we are always looking ways to make it better….so we greatly appreciate the well thought out comment.

      1. Thank you for considering my comments, I appreciate your points – and the little trivia about Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton. Just to be clear, I don’t dispute box office numbers being included as an important factor in the ranking method. As you say, it differentiates this ranking systems from others. My point was more that there is also something such as the long-term success of a movie, which is different also than its critical success, although usually there seems to be a strong correlation between these two. Even if one thinks of “success” mainly in terms of money (which I don’t), I would bet that over the years, 12 Angry Men has made more money through its showings on TV, VHS and DVD sales than Island in the Sun. But of course, it would be a herculean task to try to quantify this and I’m not sure it’s even possible. The IMDB # of votes gives an indication of a film’s long-term popularity (I find IMDB more reliable than Rotten Tomatos and Yahoo), but overall it represents the choices of a relatively small number of people, many of whom happen to be particularly interested in movies. Keep up the good work 🙂

        1. Hey Phil….originally we toyed with a “cultural relevance” aspect to the equation….but in the end…it was too subjective….which is an element we have tried to eliminate from our formula. Granted we created the formula….so our subjective is in the equation…but when we plug in all the information….we can only guess which movies will be the top rated ones….it is only when we put all the movies together do we see which movies made the Top 10.

          We are trying to get this website dynamic…and when that happens we might tweak the format again….so I will add your suggestion in our “website idea notebook”.

          You are correct….12 Angry Men has probably done better over the years compared to others that did better at the box office in 1959….just currently (and probably never will be) there is not a way to get all of that information. We have the same problem with VOD movies….you know they are generating income…just that information is nowhere to be found.

          For our critic/audiene rating we use many different sources….IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Fandando, Yahoo, MetaCritic, Video Hound books, Leonard Maltin, Roger Ebert, Jason Jahns (my new favorite reviewer) and a few others…and put them all into a melting pot and get a rating.

          Thanks for today’s comments….that got my brain working…it is appreciated.

  3. HI STEVE

    1 I do not have your expertise in art work and so that you don’t think that I am being either pretentious or patronizing perhaps it’s time I explained my system for ranking your videos.

    2 I can’t consult expert opinion in the way that I think you and Bruce use the likes of Maltin in scoring the artistic merit of movies. However I have mentioned before on this site that my favourite tenor is John McCormack, and I have a CD of what are said to be the best of his recordings and in the sleeve notes the reviewer scores each of the recordings. Therefore when reviewing your videos I try to match each to the satisfaction given to me by a McCormack number and score the video accordingly. As the CD includes only “the best of” McCormack” the ratings in the sleeve notes are of course all pretty high so that if one of your videos disappoints me all I can do is give it the next lower number outside the CD ratings. That has rarely happened as I am a great posters fan.

    3 I hope I have clearly explained my ratings method to you but I suppose that it doesn’t matter what system one uses as long as distinctions can be made and anyway for me matching up the markings adds to the fun of watching your videos.

    1. Hi Bob, thanks for explaining your rating methods for my videos. As long as you’re happy with the posters and stills that’s good enough for me. I don’t always agree with my rankings either but that’s the way the numbers come up though I do occasionally give some movies a ‘helping hand’ up the charts if I’m disappointed with an unfairly low score, Midway and Earthquake come to mind. My videos, my rules. 🙂

      p.s. my upcoming video includes movies so obscure only IMDB has been able to rate them, Maltin and co have drawn a blank on these. But it’s the posters I’m interested in.

    2. Hey Bob….interesting way you rank Steve’s videos…thanks for the explaining the reasoning behind your thought process. Good to know it is all John McCormack’s fault…. 🙂

  4. Hey In The Shadows…..well….I took a deeper look at the new website…..they are off to a good start…though currently lots of their information is wrong……but I am still impressed….this could become a “must stop movie place” for movie lovers. Worth keeping an eye on them……heck…we now have some new ideas for this page. Thanks for sharing this information….greatly appreciated.

  5. Hey In the Shadows. Mmmmmm that is interesting. Looks like they have some good sponsors too. I will have to give it a really deep look.

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