An alternative Top 250: the “favoritest” movies relative to era
This is an alternative to the standard IMDb Top 250 list, using the same IMDb rating data (via the weekly FTP data files) in a different way.
I've taken the number of high IMDb votes (ratings 8–10) for each film, and multiplied by a factor based on the number of "typical" votes for movies from the half-decade of that film's release. This tends to weight older films more based on the fewer votes being cast for their movie peers, and serves to highlight movies that are disproportionately watched and loved from their era.
The result is a list of 250 populist greats (the era-adjusted most favorite films according to IMDb voters, or what I'm calling the "favoritest") that stand out in viewership and esteem among titles from the same time period.
King Kong (1933)
Adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady ...
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Singin' in the Rain (1952)
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult trans...
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Apocalypse Now (1979)
At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever...
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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
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Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance representative is seduced by a dissatisfied housewife into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of ...
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Sunset Boulevard (1950)
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
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The Third Man (1949)
In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to ...
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Some Like It Hot (1959)
In Prohibition-era Chicago, musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob hit, and flee the state in an all-female band disguised as Josephine and Da...
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Rebecca (1940)
Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who d...
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Ben-Hur (1959)
In ancient Judea, a Jewish aristocrat opposing Roman occupation of his homeland reunites with his childhood friend, now a Roman commander — s...
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The Graduate (1967)
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
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Rocky (1976)
Rocky Balboa is a Philadelphia club fighter who seems to be going nowhere. But when a stroke of fate puts him in the ring with a world heavyw...
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To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on t...
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Rope (1948)
Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled ...
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