IMDB Top 250 Examination: 2012

Last year, I did an outright examination of the IMDB Top 250. I went through what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the list. I like to think I did a fine job of that and covered most of what I wanted to from that. Honestly, I only did that last year so that I could do one this year where I examine how the list has changed in this time.

Not much has changed on the list, all things considered. This surprised and pleased me because I thought this was a more fluid list that it has proved to be, which suggests a sort of reliability to it. While it still has a movie from every year going back until 1947, I think it's less than a year away from that falling off. The lone movie from 1970, Patton, for example, barely edges in at 250. Overall, I don't think something like that hurts the list, but it is a lot easier to defend when I had that 1947 stat.

Let's see how things break down.

Highest Additions

Dark Knight Rises (2012)	28
The Intouchables (2011)	75
The Avengers (2012)	101
Warrior (2011)	154
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)	175

I'll make this simple. None of these will stay this high. Only "The Dark Knight Rises" will even be in the top 100 by next year. This is a good thing though. These movies all have a "flavor of the month" appeal that gets weeded out in time.

Biggest Drops

	Last Year's Rank
Drive (2011)	101
Ikiru (1992)	150
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)	160
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)	175
Diabolique (1955)	177

I'd like to take the time to say "nailed-it" about Drive. It is a cool, slick movie that didn't have the wide appeal to last on the list. I saw no way to predict these other movies. At the same time, I had to look all of them up to know anything about them, so it's not like they are well known commodities.

Greatest Rises

	2011 Rank	2012 Rank	Rise
A Separation (2011)			+120
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)			+46
A Beautiful Mind (2001)			+39
The Lion King (1994)			+39
Stalker (1979)			+35

See what I mean about this list? The biggest riser was a foreign film. The cream always rises, so to speak. Then again, it is also a newer movie, so it will stabilize soon. This is a pretty inflated ranking for A Separation. As for the others, other than The Lion King, which had a successful 3-D re-release, I don't know how to explain the change. That's part of the fun of the list.

Largest Falls

	2011 Rank	2012 Rank	Fall
Harry Potter 8 (2011)			-81
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)			-51
Black Swan (2009)			-48
District 9 (2009)			-40
The Wrestler (2009)			-36

All movies from 2008 or later. Also, again, I was spot-on about Harry Potter 8 and Black Swan. Thankfully Slumdog and The Wrestler fell too because they are movie I very much didn't enjoy. I have nothing against District 9, although I don't understand the outpouring of love for it. And, really, I shouldn't take too much credit in these predictions, because there is a pretty reliable fuzzy science to it that any film buff can follow to this.

Direct Comparisons

All and all, as I said, the list was staggeringly consistent, if not the exact movies and rankings, the breakdown of when they were. Take this chart, for example: the breakdown of how many movies came from each decade and how it's changed from when I last looked at the list.

	2011 Count	2012 Count	Change
2010-Present	10	14	+4
2000-2009	59	54	-5
1990-1999	39	40	+1
1980-1989	29	30	+1
1970-1979	24	24	+2
1960-1969	24	25	+1
1950-1959	33	32	-1
1940-1949	17	16	-1
1930-1939	8	10	+2
1920-1929	7	5	-2

As you can see, it didn't change a lot. The thing I found most remarkable was when I took the average age of the movies on the list. In 2011, the average movie was 31.7 years old. In 2012, it got a little older, at 32.4 years. I may be beating a dead horse here, but that is pretty unheard of for a list compiled on the Internet. New technology does not result aging. Unless, that is, the list is a legitimate one.

Directors

The director list thinned out. At the top, thanks to The Dark Knight Rises, there is a clear top five now. Hitchcock is even pulling away at first getting a 10th movie into the list, which is pretty ridiculous, but reflects a large amount of reverence for him as a director.

Top 5

2012		2011
Hitchcock	10	Hitchcock	9
Kubrick	8	Kubrick	8
Miyazaki	6	Wilder	6
Nolan	6	Scorsese	6
Scorsese	6	Nolan, Speilberg, Kurosawa, Chaplin, Terantino, Miyazaki	5

A couple more stats to throw out there. Directors with 3+ movies on the list went down to 41.2% (from 47.2%) when I went through it this year, and directors with 2+ movies fell to 60.4% (from 68.8%). Those are both pretty steep given the sample size. You can credit this to better film diversity. I'll be curious to see how this changes next year though. Something tells me the numbers will go back up a little. This seems like a bigger ebb and flow stat compared to some others that could be pulled from the list.

What I've seen

I didn't do much to help my overall tally. Still 10 for 10 at the top. I've seen 39 of the top 50 versus 37 last year and 128 overall versus 121 last year. I blame my focus on seeing newer movies in this time, which arguably, will pay dividends over time. Immediately, it makes me seem lazy though. Granted, doing a statistical break down of movies doesn't help toward the perception that I need to get out and do more.

In Conclusion

I went and waxed poetic at the end of this last year. That's not happening again. Suffice it to say, I enjoy this list. Given my set of interests, going in, it's a fascinating topic to look at.

This year's goal was to examine the stability of the list and I think I can safely call it a consistent collection. The exact rankings have an arbitrary quality to them admittedly. The overall group is very much the same and the trending is pretty understandable.

The only question now is what new facet I will look at next year, and of course, when I will find that ever elusive "more valuable thing to waste all my time on".