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 10,500 pages, been viewed over 50 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.
So…..a very frustrating day here at UMR.
1. First of all….my website provider will not allow anymore “new pages”. This will last between 24 and 96 hours…..then they say they will have an answer for this issue. In the past….the answer has been to increase my monthly rate and move us up to their next “package” level of service. Not sure how many more times we can do this….as essentially this is a hobby….and if it gets too expensive…we might have to give it up.
2. Secondly…..lots of features that we have added…and mysteriously disappeared in the last 12 hours….hopefully….they will come back too….in the next 24 to 96 hours.
3. Google Analytics is not registering any views to the website. So for today….we have not been viewed a single time according to them. Which is amazing because when I checked this morning we had over 5,000 views….and now….0!
4. Our tables are gone….so the pages that are out there….do not have the movies. The tables are a pretty important part of our website.
Very frustrating.
Add in Spam attacking again….and you get a very lovely day.
How awful! How about raising money from your loyal posters? I’m sure many will contribute before this site has to be given up!!!!
Just a short post, before everything disappears again 🙁
Hey Lupino…things are better now. Most of the issues have been fixed….still waiting on why we can not write new pages or posts. Hopefully I am wrong about them trying to raise our “rent” again…..but as WoC said…..”You get so much enjoyment out of the website….it is well worth the expense.” Should find out tomorrow. Right now this is what we get when we try and post a new page or post…..any computer whizzes out there?……any help would be appreciated.
“ERROR 502 – BAD GATEWAY
Why am I seeing this page?
The server that your request has reached is acting as a gateway or proxy to fulfil the request made by your client.
Web Browser => Web Front-End => Web Back-End
This server (Web Front-End) received an invalid response from an upstream (Web Back-End) server it accessed to fulfil the request.
In most cases this will not mean that the upstream server is down, but rather that the upstream server and the gateway/proxy do not agree on the protocol for exchanging data.
This problem is most commonly caused when there is a problem with IP communications between the Web Front and Back-Ends. Before you attempt to resolve this problem you should clear your browser cache completely.
Our support staff will be happy to assist you in resolving this issue. Please contact our Live Support or reply to any Tickets you may have received from our technicians for further assistance.”
WoC (who is awesome with computers) is not sure what this means…..in my non-educated computer mind…..it sounds like we need a better and more expensive “Servor” that can handle our needs and traffic.
Sorry to hear about these problems Bruce, I hope they are fixable. I wish I knew someone who could help. Maybe you need a better more efficient and helpful website provider.
I’m so sorry to hear about the problems you are having with your provider. I just looked at some pages and they did have the tables. I hope you will not have to stop making new pages. This is your hobby, yes, but hopefully your rates won’t be increased. I consider this site and the people on it a big part of my life.
Hey Flora…..I was just blowing off some steam. I can’t imagine any real scenario that we would give up the website…..even if it gets real expensive to maintain….ultimately….this is still a pretty inexpensive hobby to maintain.
I was just beyond frustrated after dealing with my website provider for about a hour and the end result was (1) Call back in a couple of days….while we research the issue and (2) Every change we have made to the website was reset and the pages were sent back to the basic settings….goodbye to the dynamic tables….goodbye to the tracking numbers….goodbye to the comment editor….goodbye to the spam protectors…..goodbye to everything.
We just spent 5 hours getting the site back to where we were yesterday before the “issue” and the so called “help” from our website provider. Anyway most of the items are back (having a problem finding the comment editor)….except we still can not produce new pages or new posts.
Glad our website has an important part in your life……7 plus years…..that is alot of history for sure. Thanks for the uplifting comment….it is greatly appreciated.
Hey Steve…..yep Newman too. So Al, Paul and Sly. Did Bing get a nomination for The Bells of St. Mary’s. The sequel to Going My Way.
Bob, Thanks for these further insights and clarifying the connection between Stallone and the points you were making about the comparisons between the modern and classic eras. I get it now…I think 🙂
Good stuff.
“Where were we? Oh yes Stallone… I thought he was pretty good in those action movies and in the early Rocky movies – a better actor than Arnie” [Steve Lensman 9.53am post today]
“Boy, oh boy – there’s always one”.[Ed Begley Juror No 10 derisorily in 12 Angry Men 1957 at Henry Fonda initially being the odd man out].
Arnie was not an acting great but he brought a touch of humour and self-depreciation to his roles at times which was very refreshing
HI BRUCE
1 There’s a [to me] new movies stats site now on the net called Box Office Madness which claims to be “The Biggest Box Office Database in the world” or something like that and it has already done posts on some performers – eg Esther Williams, Laddie, Rock and my Doris
2 However I cannot reconcile its inflation adjusted figures with any ones or methods of which I am aware. For example it quotes a 2016 adjusted domestic gross of $261 million for Doris/Rock’s Pillow Talk whereas you give us $333 million and under CPI Pillow Talk’s gross is about $190 million. The gap is even greater for that duo’s Lover Come Back where your figure is $295 million and its is $191 million. Adjusting to the latest known ticket prices does not close those gaps
3 I looked up Mr Mumbles’ films on it and they wildly disagree with yours. Some films like Julius Caesar do far worse than yours but Godpop is credited with $873 million against your $707 million and the 1978 Superman gets $598 million against your $515. The bad news for him is that it does not credit him with Superman Returns – but I’m not going to start an argument with them about that !!!
4 You would probably be able to get the gist of it easier than any of the rest of us so if you have time to check it out I’d be very interested in your comments. Many thanks.
Hey Bob
1. What are you doing on another website….I felt a disturbance in the force….and now I know why….lol.
2. I started noticing Box Office Madness a couple of months ago…..as far as I have seen they do not explain how they get their box office grosses.
3. A few of pages were looking pretty close for awhile…..but they are now pretty far apart when looking at box office grosses.
4. I think the person running that website has access to years and years of Varitey magazines……and have been putting weekly numbers into their database. Which is cool…..but seems to only represent the big cities. At some point Variety started doing a Weekly Top Grosser list….but I think that was in the 1980s…..I do not remember when they started that practice.
5. When doing Google search results like….Myrna Loy Box Office….they are getting a decent search result…in that case…they are coming in 4th place….some place called UMR has the top two spots.
6. Another website that does not give Brando credit for Superman Returns…well thank goodness for that……or you would probably abandon us if it did….lol.
It will interesting to see what they do with their website in the future…..I wish them all the luck…..the more people looking at classic movie grosses the better for all of us classic movie box office treasure hunters.
1 Thanks for the detailed explanations/suggestions in your 11.43 pm post yesterday. Interesting that you were aware of Box Office Madness some months ago. I spotted the reference to it among a number of other headings on a Google page just 3 days ago.
2 I actually initially thought someone else was taking you to task about Moore nee Willis/Split and Ginny/Up in Arms! And indeed when I checked “Madness” out I discovered that with many of its figures it seemed to be engaging in equal “madness” to those 2 very rare rogue stat inclusions of yours and so had aptly named itself.
3 I am not sure I agree with you that the more of these sites that spring up the merrier. In 1981 the first video library opened in the massive East Belfast area where I live and you would have thought that the very first Star Wars or Jaws was being premiered there because there were long queues outside the shop and the owner later told me that when those at the back of the queues finally got in all the new releases had gone and the customers accepted anything left just so they could walk away with a video.
4 Ultimately for a while we had not just a proliferation of video libraries but virtually every supermarket and even most street corner shops had a small section that sold videos so that ultimately the mutual competition killed most of them off. The same thing happened during the home wine making craze of the early 1980s here. Home wine making kits were springing up at almost every commercial outlet.and that was ruining sensible competition.
5 Accordingly I think the proliferation of Box Office stats sites is doing no movie stats buff any favours because frankly Scarlet none of them is worth a d**n apart from your own – and Mojo for current movies. The others are all over the place in their inconsistency and/or incompleteness and often vagueness about their sources and methods and only confuse people [except for maybe Steve who probably ignores them anyway!]
6 Yours are therefore the only stats that I include in my own data base and whilst I think there is a “Gordon Gekko” style case for giving Mr. Mumbles some credit for SR I do not include that movie on my own Mumbles page as that would eschew comparisons with the box office performance of other stars who are strictly confined to Cogerson grosses in my database
7 However at the end of the 1936 Dodsworth Walter Houston snaps and finally leaves his long-loved but adulterous wife Ruth Chatterton and as Walt runs away from her into the arms of his newfound mistress Mary Astor he shouts back at Ruth “Love has to stop somewhere short of madness!” [That word again.]
8 And so it is with parity on my database – Mr Moore and Ginny [much as I continue to love her today] do NOT get credit for Split/Up in Arms respectively! [Sorry that you won’t sleep for the next few weeks!]
9 As you know rentals normally seem to be less than half a film’s gross but as Godpop and Superman 1978 were considered to be “special” films [what Mumbles flick wasn’t for a brief while back then?] apparently in the first few weeks in the major US cities at the highest prices those two movies were able to extract exception rental ratios of respectively 63.7% and 61.2%.
10 Accordingly if, as I saw one other site doing, Box Office Madness used flat average ratios that produced grosses equal to say 2.2% of the overall rental figure it follows that their grosses for the two films would be unrealistically high.
11 Your own figures are consistent with other adjusted and actual grosses I’ve seen for the 2 flicks but certainly I’m not going to argue with you about Supe 78’s figure. Indeed every night I go out into my garden and get down on my knees, close my eyes and raise my hands to the Heavens to give thanks that you’ve given poor ole Mr M credit for at least one Man of Steel outing!
12 Anyway as always great to have the opportunity to exchange views with you – and even throw a few custard pies at you!
Box Office Madness has a change to become a go to site. An explanation of how they get their numbers would be a great start. The way it is shown currently…..it looks like they took some previous posted numbers (I wonder where?) and moved them up or down a little to make them seem different than those previous posted numbers. If on the other hand they have some actual Variety numbers……(1) Where did they find them? and (2) What is their formula to get to adjusted gross? We do not hide the location of our sources….and they are generally available to everybody (if they are willing to fly to Los Angeles). Through the custard pies….I have a few of those myself…lol.
HI BRUCE
Agree with all in your latest post about the Madness site
Wow….we agree…..tag it and log it….lol.