When I started this goal, the list was pretty good; lots of classics. This goal has become less and less worth doing. Lately, the list is more about what brand new movies are crowd pleasers. Movies that have appeared on the list while I’ve been working on it include such cerebral offerings as Iron Man, The Transformers, and The Simpsons Movie. Not saying those films weren’t entertaining . . . but do they deserve to be among the top 250 best movies ever made? No way! There has also been a concerted effort by some people (who make multiple accounts and have way too much time on their hands) to manipulate the list to take off some movies that they personally don’t like and to elevate others. Older films get pushed off by these people and newer ones rise. Based on their choices of what to sink and what to elevate, these individuals are young, male, very into sci-fi/action, and dislike drama, romance, historical films, etc.

This list used to be solid. Now it’s about 50/50. Some of my favorite films still appear on the list, and some classics that absolutely deserve to be seen are here. The rest? Meh . . .

After looking at a list of the movies ranked 250-500 on IMDB, I’d even venture to say that those films are as a whole BETTER than the ones on 1-250, because the people that manipulate this stuff only care enough to push them off the list that is visible on the public website. (The 250-500 is only viewable by premium members who pay for imdbpro, although some of those people have put it up on Listsofbests.) So basically, some movies that deserve to be counted among the best of all time are sitting in the 250-500 area.

I say: to get a look at a lot of great movies, watch the top 500 films, exclude all the ones from the last 20 years so you’re not watching today’s flavor-of-the-moment crap and yesterday’s flavor-of-the-moment crap that hasn’t been down-rated enough to disappear yet or never will be because of a buncha nerds who sit there and rate their pet films a 10 and rate other movies 1.