The 100 Best Movies… Using Data!

Like many, I have great memories watching movies with my parents. I loved when they’d share their child-like excitement. I love getting swept up with a great film score. I love the stories told and connection to previous generations. My Dad still pokes me occasionally about a great movie I have to watch that just started on TCM – hopefully they can stick around for the next generation. Recently, my Dad shared a “top 100 movies” list he found asking our family to watch through the list with him – great list, but all American and a lot of westerns. He huffed “Well, make your own list”, so here it is.

Using data to generate Rankings

My biggest issue was that no top 100 list I could find included a breadth of American and International Cinema. As a starting point I took AFI’s top 100 and BBC’s 100 Foreign Films. I wanted to include user (IMDB) and critic (METACRITIC) feedback for a broader perspective and way to cross-compare. Lastly, I added all Best Picture winners for historic perspective; there’s plenty of weak winners but I think the perspective at the time the movies released is a good data point. I also didn’t want to just use IMDB or Metacritic because they often have gaps in data or old films with few reviews tend to place higher.

In total, there were 366 films ranked highly across sources included in the ranking, and I tried a few methodologies to create a composite score before settling on one that is fair and limited major issues. I was hoping to see a few movies that had high user/critic reviews but weren’t on either top 100 list and 5 made it in based on overwhelming reviews: “LOTR: Return of the King”, “Parasite”, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, “The Dark Knight”, and “Grave of the Fireflies”.

Anatomy of a Contender

The composite did get a good mix of International films, while the US film industry does generate a lot of history. Films released in the 50s-60s were over-indexed by almost double relative to the number of films released per year (source: IMDB), while the 90s-2010s were about half-represented. Most lists favor older classics which is I think the nature of viewing a film as a “classic” – 53-60% of each list were movies before 1970 with IMDB as the only outlier at 24%! I gave a slight bump to IMDB’s weighting which added 3 “modern” films, but most of the list was unchanged.

Who was Snubbed?

Tons of great movies. 1st runner-up is Raiders of the Lost Ark (#101, #66 on AFI 100), and WALL-E (#102) had great review scores but couldn’t squeeze in without an award or prior list inclusion. “King Kong”, “The Graduate”, “Snow White” and “The General” were each top 50 in AFI’s list but lower reviews knocked them out. “Farewell My Concubine”, “Jeanne Dielman”, “Panther Panchali” and “The 400 Blows” were similarly high on the BBC list.

Overall, I’m really happy with the results and excited to work through this back catalog of amazing films. There’s early dramas, modern classics, artistic films, blockbusters, animated movies and all of these movies were major contributors to film history.

Let me know what you think of the list, how many have you seen, which movies are your favorites, and what’re you surprised didn’t make it.

And the Winners Are…

Rk	Movie	Year	Score	AFI 100	BBC 100	Best Picture	IMDB	Meta
1	The Godfather	1972	178.9	2		1	9.2	100
2	Schindler’s List	1993	152.6	8		1	9	95
3	Casablanca	1942	138.1	3		1	8.5	100
4	Seven Samurai	1954	129.7		1	0	8.6	98
5	Lawrence of Arabia	1962	125.1	7		1	8.3	100
6	City Lights	1931	122.6	11		0	8.5	99
7	The Godfather Pt II	1974	121.1	32		0	9	90
8	12 Angry Men	1957	118.0	87		0	9	97
9	Citizen Kane	1941	117.3	1		0	8.3	100
10	Psycho	1960	116.5	14		0	8.5	97
11	Vertigo	1958	114.3	9		0	8.3	100
12	Singin’ in the Rain	1952	113.3	5		0	8.3	99
13	Gone with the Wind	1939	112.2	6		1	8.2	97
14	Rear Window	1954	111.3	48		0	8.5	100
15	Spirited Away	2001	111.2		37	0	8.6	96
16	Tokyo Story	1953	110.8		3	0	8.2	100
17	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	2001	107.8	50		0	8.8	92
18	Metropolis	1927	106.7		16	0	8.3	98
19	All About Eve	1950	106.4	28		1	8.2	98
20	Rashomon	1950	105.4		4	0	8.2	98
21	Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope	1977	105.2	13		0	8.6	90
22	Pulp Fiction	1994	104.6	94		0	8.9	95
23	Persona	1966	103.9		6	0	8.1	100
24	The Shawshank Redemption	1994	103.5	72		0	9.3	82
25	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003	102.8			1	9	94
26	Sunset Blvd.	1950	102.5	16		0	8.4	94
27	Shoah	1985	102.3		96	0	8.7	99
28	Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	1964	101.4	39		0	8.4	97
29	It’s a Wonderful Life	1946	100.0	20		0	8.6	89
30	Some Like It Hot	1959	98.7	22		0	8.2	98
31	Pan’s Labyrinth	2006	98.7		22	0	8.2	98
32	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	1975	98.4	33		1	8.7	84
33	The Passion of Joan of Arc	1928	98.3		23	0	8.2	98
34	A Separation	2011	97.3		21	0	8.3	95
35	Apocalypse Now	1979	97.2	30		0	8.4	94
36	Fanny and Alexander	1982	95.7		28	0	8.1	100
37	Double Indemnity	1944	94.3	29		0	8.3	95
38	8 1/2	1963	92.8		7	0	8	98
39	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	1948	92.7	38		0	8.2	98
40	North by Northwest	1959	92.1	55		0	8.3	98
41	Sansho the Bailiff	1954	90.6		61	0	8.4	96
42	Children of Paradise	1945	90.5		46	0	8.3	96
43	The Rules of the Game	1939	90.2		5	0	7.9	99
44	Modern Times	1936	90.0	78		0	8.5	96
45	The Battle of Algiers	1966	89.0		19	0	8.1	96
46	The Grapes of Wrath	1940	87.5	23		0	8.1	96
47	On the Waterfront	1954	86.5	19		1	8.1	91
48	Goodfellas	1990	86.3	92		0	8.7	92
49	Man with a Movie Camera	1929	86.1		73	0	8.4	96
50	Saving Private Ryan	1998	85.9	71		0	8.6	91
51	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	84.8	37		1	8.1	93
52	The Lives of Others	2006	84.4		31	0	8.4	89
53	La Dolce Vita	1960	84.1		10	0	8	95
54	Chinatown	1974	84.1	21		0	8.2	92
55	Forrest Gump	1994	83.1	76		1	8.8	82
56	The Apartment	1960	82.7	80		1	8.3	94
57	The Wizard of Oz	1939	82.4	10		0	8.1	92
58	The Silence of the Lambs	1991	82.3	74		1	8.6	86
59	Yi Yi	2000	81.8		25	0	8.1	94
60	The Maltese Falcon	1941	81.3	31		0	8	97
61	A Brighter Summer Day	1991	81.0		38	0	8.3	91
62	Raging Bull	1980	79.7	4		0	8.1	90
63	Parasite	2019	78.9			1	8.5	96
64	To Kill a Mockingbird	1962	78.3	25		0	8.3	88
65	Battleship Potemkin	1925	78.1		24	0	7.9	97
66	Taxi Driver	1976	77.4	52		0	8.2	94
67	Close-Up	1990	77.3		39	0	8.2	92
68	Annie Hall	1977	77.3	35		1	8	92
69	The Searchers	1956	75.1	12		0	7.9	94
70	Ran	1985	74.8		79	0	8.2	97
71	Late Spring	1949	74.6		53	0	8.2	93
72	Playtime	1967	74.0		33	0	7.8	99
73	Ugetsu	1953	73.9		68	0	8.2	95
74	2001: A Space Oddysey	1968	72.1	15		0	8.3	84
75	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	1966	71.2			0	8.8	90
76	Ikiru	1952	70.7		72	0	8.3	92
77	Toy Story	1995	70.6	99		0	8.3	96
78	In the Mood for Love	2000	70.3		9	0	8.1	87
79	The Bridge on the River Kwai	1957	70.2	36		1	8.1	87
80	Cinema Paradiso	1988	69.5		26	0	8.5	80
81	A Streetcar Named Desire	1951	69.5	47		0	7.9	97
82	4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days	2007	69.5		47	0	7.9	97
83	The Philadelphia Story	1940	68.1	44		0	7.9	96
84	The Dark Knight	2008	67.8			0	9	84
85	Bicycle Thieves	1948	67.0		2	0	8.3	#N/A
86	City of God	2002	66.8		42	0	8.6	79
87	It Happened One Night	1934	66.4	46		1	8.1	87
88	The Conformist	1970	65.7		77	0	7.9	100
89	E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial	1982	65.6	24		0	7.9	92
90	The Seventh Seal	1957	64.9		30	0	8.1	88
91	Rififi	1955	64.5		91	0	8.1	97
92	Au Hasard Balthazar	1966	64.3		52	0	7.8	98
93	Platoon	1986	63.9	86		1	8.1	92
94	Grave of the Fireflies	1988	63.9			0	8.5	94
95	Sunrise	1927	62.9	82		0	8.1	95
96	M	1931	62.8		13	0	8.3	#N/A
97	High Noon	1952	62.8	27		0	8	89
98	Intolerance	1916	62.2	49		0	7.7	99
99	Solaris	1972	61.5		57	0	8	93
100	The Deer Hunter	1978	61.3	53		1	8.1	86