And now...the rankings!

[dethwing]

Using the method of:
[(CvB)(BvA)]/50 = CvA

And assuming 50.00% for Shawshank, these are official rankings.

(50.00) Shawshank Redemption
(48.44) LotR: Two Towers
(44.44) LotR: Return of the King
(43.78) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
(41.59) Inidana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(41.48) Terminator 2: Judgement Day
(40.84) LotR: Fellowship of the Ring
(40.43) Star Wars IV
(40.00) Star Wars V
(39.84) Fight Club
All 3 LotR's make top 10, as well as 2 Star Wars, and both Indiana Jones.

(39.77) Blade Runner
(39.76) The Incredibles
(38.75) Alien
(38.11) The Matrix
(36.39) Back to the Fure 1
(36.41) Monty PYthon: Life of Brian
(36.38) Wizard of Oz
(36.15) Lion King
(35.01) American History X
(32.97) Godfather 2
(32.92) Memento
(32.69) The Great Escape
(32.67) Finding Nemo
(32.43) Groundhog Day
(31.76) Battle Royal
(30.73) Silence of the Lambs
(29.73) Ocean's Eleven
(29.19) The Sting
(29.17) Men in Black
(29.11) 12 Angry Men
(29.11) The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
(28.22) Amelie
(28.07) This is Spinal Tap
(27.51) Donnie Darko
(27.49) Jurassic Park
(26.32) Glory
(25.41) Se7en
(24.85) North by Northwest
(24.85) Ferris Beuller's Day Off
(24.58) Terminator 1
(24.52) Fifth Element
(24.52) Citizen Kane
(23.88) Monsters, Inc.
(23.23) Star Wars VI
(23.15) The Shining
(22.76) Monty Python: Holy Grail
(22.28) Pulp Fiction
(21.62) Resvoir Dogs
(21.53) Godfather 1
(19.99) Forest Gump
(19.91) Uden...
(19.46) Sixth Sense
(19.06) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(17.76) Aladin
(16.94) Kill Kill, vol 1
(16.58) Die Hard
(16.18) Princess Bride
(15.55) The Usual Suspects
(12.98) Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
(12.44) Toy Story
(9.29) American Beauty
(8.63) Hero
(7.88) Boondock Saints
(6.80) Lost in Translation

I can't believe that Godfather 2 > Godfather 1, and Life of Brian > Holy Grail.
Just weird.

[Dragon Phoenix]

Life of Brian > Holy Grail sums up my feelings about these two movies though.

[Samadhi]

I hear that "Robots" is being advertised as "More incredible than The Incredibles"

I guess it should be #1

[Courk]

Can you explain the math?

[dethwing]

Well I didn't develop it. I "took" it from www.sc2k4.com, which is a site that does rankings and stuff for the gamefaqs contests.

Basically, the idea is to try to determine what every entry "would" have gotten against the champion. For Shawshank Redemption and the 6 movies it directly faced, this is simple. Simply take the percentage they got vs the champ.

For everyone else, assume transativity of preferances. As we saw in the 3rd place match, this doesn't always hold, but it's really the best we can do. Then it all boils down to multiply percents and dividing by 50 (the upper limit).

[casinopete]

dethwing, I haven't yet thanked you for running the tournament, but I do so now. The format made me ponder what a favorite movie really is, and the head-to-head format proved to be the first acceptable means I've had for ordering my own favorites. I was a little bit shocked to find Heathers and T2 float up into my top 10 as I shuffled my list (they began in the mid-20's area). Also, despite being somewhat bewildering, it was pretty fun.

Other than LotR inflation (and the travesty that was the American Beauty match ), I am surprizingly satisfied with these rankings. My own top ten of the 64 movies that made it into the tourney would have been:

1) (11) Blade Runner
2) (14) The Matrix
3) (10) Fight Club
4) (61?!?!?!?) American Beauty
5) (01) The Shawshank Redemption
6) (06) Terminator II: Judgement Day
7) (37) Se7en
8) (05) Raiders of the Lost Ark
9) (09) Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
10) (54) Aladdin

So you can see it didn't treat me too badly overall.

[mith]

I'm still watching movies off the list that I haven't seen (or haven't seen in one sitting)... so far this month, I've gone through Donnie Darko, Reservoir Dogs, Fight Club, Shawshank, and North by Northwest. American History X is up next.

[Agamemnon]

You'll never guess!
When Zesty visits next month, she's bringing the 'Udenrigskorrespondenten' DVD with her.
I'll let you all know what it's like

[The Master]

Wow! I am stunned by this list. I thought IMDb couldn't get any worse. I was wrong. I really don't mean for this to be insulting so don't take it that way, but I am a bit disappointed in this lackluster list of the "best".
I went through the list and found:
6/50 are non-american (3/50 are in a language other than English)
11/50 were made before 1980 (21/50 were made before 1985)
10/Top 10 are American Films made within the last ten years
You are telling that out of all of cinema history most of the great movies are American movies that came out after I was born? And what are movies like The Fifth Element, Men in Black, The Lion King, Die Hard, Groundhog Day, Terminator 2, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ocean’s 11, Sixth Sense, Forrest Gump, Glory even doing on the original list? Most of these are fun (with the exception of a few which are pretty bad), but they are lousy examples of fine cinema. Hardly any of these are more than cheesy, mainstream blockbusters that are not even exemplary among their genre, let alone the entirety of film. I guess if you guys were trying to make a list of 50 OK popular movies, then you did pretty well. If you were trying to make a list of the 50 best movies, I would call this project a total failure.
_________________
"napalm is nature's toothpaste"

[mith]

Yeah, I think you're entirely missing the point... the nominations were people's favorite movies. Not the best examples of "fine cinema" (which is subjective anyway). Considering that many of the people participating are American and young, it's not that surprising that you get a list including lots of recent "fun" movies. This isn't a project to determine a list of the best cinema ever, this is just something fun to see which movies are more liked among GLers.

[extro...]

[Guest]

[extro...]

I'm pretty sure his point was that there were so few non-American films.

[The Master]

[Antrax]

I thought mith did a good number on your point, so I hadn't bothered posting, but since you seem to still be on to it, read his post again and pretend it says "Antrax" where it says "mith".
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Guest]

[The Master]

I guess I did miss the point. I could have sworn I read in the nominations thread to list the best movies or your favourite movies. First of all great cinema and favourite movies go hand in hand. Of course some fun stuff will be in a favourite list, but it should not be dominated by trivial, blase fluff. As a favourite list, it disappoints me with its lack of diversity and interest. I understand that people don't have the time or inclination to watch a bunch of movies (as a college dropout as myself does), but I was just expecting more from the you guys.
_________________
"napalm is nature's toothpaste"

[mith]

[The Master]

I understand opinions and realize that people will not agree on movies. It is certainly not impossible though to evaluate a movie's "fluff factor". Movies like The Fifth Element, Men in Black, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Ocean's 11 Ferris Bueller, The Sixth Sense are fun pointless movies with no real purpose other than to waste away a couple hours in amusement. I own most of the movies on the list, so you can see I don't not enjoy these movies. I just do not think they belong on a list of the best movies.
My picks would have been:
And Now My Love
Ashes of Time
Band of Outsiders
Barry Lyndon
Before the Revolution
Blade Runner
Breathless
Buffalo '66
Careful
Chinese Roulette
The Devil, Probably
La Dolce Vita
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Homicide
In the Mood for Love
Inferno
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Memento
Metropolitan
Oldboy
Requiem for a Dream
Shoot the Piano Player
The Trial
Tokyo Drifter
The Third Man
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe
_________________
"napalm is nature's toothpaste"

[extro...]

[Antrax]

Ocean's 11 is fun and pointless? One of my film buff friends is going to love hearing that.
Kudos on watching Oldboy, though. I could've used you back there.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[extro...]

[Courk]

<-- was all for The Great Escape.

[The Master]

I would love to hear the reasons for Ocean's 11's greater worth. To me it seemed like a fun heist movie. I must have missed something. Please enlighten me and I will watch it again. We have it around somewhere I think. For me Soderbergh has been not doing to well lately with his last great movie being The Limey. Traffic was quite good. Everything after that has been pretty ho hum in my opinion. I even skipped out on the latest Wong Kar-wai because I heard Soderbergh's and Antonioni's sections were really bad. And nothing comes close to Schizopolis, which is my favourite of his.
_________________
"napalm is nature's toothpaste"

[Courk]

I think extro was saying that O11's point was to be fun. It accomplished that goal, and thus was not pointless.

[The Master]

[Antrax]

It's a bit over my head, but apparently there's all sorts of layers in the movie. If you're really interested, I could ask him.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[extro...]

[The Master]

Yes. For me pointless does not mean it did what it set out to do, but that it has something more ineteresting than a bunch fouys goofing around for a couple hours and end up stealing stuff. It can be artistic or thematic or whatever, but movies with a "point" have things to say and use the medium of film to express it.
_________________
"napalm is nature's toothpaste"

[zorT Kitty]

O11. Are we talking original or remake? I haven't seen the original, but I saw the new version on a plane. That automatically makes it pointless... I don't think they show deep movies on airplanes.

I put it in the same category with James Bond movies and Mission Impossible; fun, exciting, and action-packed. They don't require an awful amount of thought.

I will agree with The Master here and say that many of what I consider to be "great" movies didn't even make it into the tournament. Many of them are older, and I consider them great because they've stood the test of time. They're seen less frequently, however, so winning the majority of a vote is nearly impossible.

And then there are those people like me who can barely sit still long enough to post more than three words. You should see us when we sit in front of a movie that doesn't have extreme violence and flashy special effects.


Made you look.

If you didn't make it through that rambling, I'll sum it up. Old movies aren't seen very often. They wouldn't get enough votes here to win. People nowadays can't sit still long enough for many of them either. But its still a shame they didn't have a higher showing here.

[Antrax]

The original is a fun, pointless movie. The remake is supposedly very clever.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[The Master]

[Courk]

I've seen both O11's... I'll agree with Ant.

I also want to hear what Ant's friend had to say.

[extro...]

I've seen O11 many times. It must be too clever for me. I completely missed the clever. And I think I was looking for it too.

Unless the whole idea of the con they pulled is what some would call clever, but I thought it was pretty standard con stuff (comparable to, let's say, The Sting, and I'm sure many other con movies I've seen, though I can't recall off hand).

[Antrax]

I think it's the sort of clever that involves obscure references through camera angles, filters, etc. Again, over my head.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Courk]

I did think it was clever, although it was the first movie like that I had seen. I haven't seen very many heist movies.

[The Master]

I'll pull it out again and see if I agree. Right now I am with extro on this one. Seems pretty run of the mill to me.
_________________
"napalm is nature's toothpaste"

[Courk]

See, it's not run-of-the-mill to me because I haven't seen many movies like that. To me it seemed rather original.

[The Master]

[Courk]

I will, then.