Recent Reviews
The Cagneys
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
Something to Sing About (1937)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
A Lion Is In the Streets (1953)
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
Never Steal Anything Small (1959)
Shake Hands With the Devil (1959)
Saturday February 22, 2014
Revisiting the 2011 and 2012 Best Picture IMDb Rankings
Today's post, plus past conversations with Reed, made me look back at the 2011/2012 best picture nominees and their IMDb ratings to see how they‘ve changed over time. Were these films more appreciated now? Or did they seem ordinary once the buzz died down?
First, 2011:
2011 Best Picture Nominee | Feb. 2012 |
Jan. 2013 |
Feb. 2014 |
The Artist | 8.4 | 8.1 | 8.0 |
Hugo | 8.2 | 7.7 | 7.6 |
The Help | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.1 |
Midnight in Paris | 7.8 | 7.7 | 7.7 |
Moneyball | 7.7 | 7.6 | 7.6 |
The Descendants | 7.7 | 7.4 | 7.4 |
War Horse | 7.3 | 7.2 | 7.3 |
The Tree of Life | 7.1 | 6.8 | 6.7 |
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close | 6.4 | 6.8 | 6.9 |
The basic rule with IMDb ratings is that gravity matters; the numbers tend to go down. But some have managed to go up year to year. Which movies? “The Help,” “War Horse” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” which also happen to be, to me, the three worst movies on the list. Two years ago we started with the best pic nominees in the order you see. Now, “The Help,” of all movies, is No. 1, while “The Tree of Life,” of all movies, is last.
So it goes.
As for last year’s best pic noms? Gravity takes it toll, yes:
2012 Best Picture Nominees | 2013 IMDb |
2014 IMDb |
Diff. |
Django Unchained | 8.7 | 8.5 | -.2 |
Life of Pi | 8.3 | 8.1 | -.2 |
Silver Linings Playbook | 8.2 | 7.9 | -.3 |
Amour | 8.1 | 7.8 | -.3 |
Argo | 8.1 | 7.8 | -.3 |
Les Misérables | 8.0 | 7.7 | -.3 |
Lincoln | 8.0 | 7.5 | -.5 |
Zero Dark Thirty | 7.7 | 7.5 | -.2 |
Beasts of the Southern Wild | 7.5 | 7.3 | -.2 |
They all went down, “Lincoln”in particular. Their order remains the same, though. And I do think 2012 was a bad year for best picture nominees, so it's probably deserved. Of course “The Dark Knight” doesn't deserve to be rated the fourth-greatest movie of all time, but that's another discussion.
All down. Lincoln down with a bullet.