Directors consensus: great movies - results (1 Viewer)

[MartinTeller]

George: I suggest using a fixed-width font like Courier if you want things to line up neatly.



Rank. Film.................appreciation consensus

1.... Rear Window...............100........97

2.... Psycho....................100........97

3.... Citizen Kane..............100........94

4.... Notorious.................100........74

5.... Das Boot..................100........69

6.... 12 Angry Men..............100........66

7.... M.........................100........57

8.... Double Indemnity..........100........51

9.... To Be or Not To Be (1942).100........34

10... Gunga Din.................100........21

11... Sons of the Desert........100........14

 

[george kaplan]

Martin, Thank You! I will try that!

 

[Steeve Bergeron]

Interesting stuff, George!

 

[george kaplan]

I forgot earlier, when I was talking about how poorly comedies did, I wanted to ask the voters about this. To me there seems to be a bias of sorts against comedies. There are some (like me), for whom comedies can easily be just as great as dramas. But for others, there seems to be the idea that a film has to be 'serious' to be great. A great drama is obviously great, but a great comedy probably isn't. Now I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. And it's true that every single voter voted for at least one comedy. But it's also true that a lot of voters voted only for one comedy and against all the others. It seems to me, that these voters hold comedies to a much higher standard than dramas when evaluating greatness. Any responses (especially from those who voted for very few comedies)?

 

[george kaplan]

I already posted the top end of the appreciation index, now it's time for the bottom. All of these movies were considered great by less than 30% of the voters who had seen them.
Rank…. Film……………………….................. appreciation..consensus
210.. The Return of the Jedi...............29..........29
211.. Forrest Gump.........................29..........29
212.. Logan's Run..........................29..........18
213.. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory..28..........26
214.. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.............28..........26
215.. Victor/Victoria......................27..........11
216.. Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade.....23..........22
217.. What's Up Doc?.......................20...........9
218.. The Killer...........................20...........8
219.. Predator.............................16..........15
220.. Wag the Dog...........................3...........3

 

[Gabe D]

I'd be interested in seeing a list based only on abstentions. Was there a movie everybody has seen?
Also, george, do you see any interesting patterns? For instance, imagine that every person who said Return of the Jedi was great also said that Forrest Gump was great and said that The Graduate was not great. Any unexpected consistency among voters?
I'd also like to know which decades did best.
And, of course I'm also interested in any numbers related to voters' ages.

 

[george kaplan]

And, of course I'm also interested in any numbers related to voters' ages.

I haven't yet run any analyses per se, but was just about to give some simple descriptions of the voters, including age.

There were 39 voters, of whom 34 voted for every film. The rest of my description of the voters will be for the 34.

Not too suprising around here - 100% male (at least all have names that I'd assume are male)

Ages range from 16 to 43. The average age was 28.62.

How did the voters vary in terms of their tolerance for great movies?

Well, the percent of thumbs down (not a great movie) ranged from 4% to 37% with an average of 23%.

Dome gave the least number of thumbs down, Jay E gave the most.

The percent of thumbs up ranged from 16% to 75% with an average of 47%. Andrew Sch gave the fewest thumbs up, Gabe D the most.

Finally on abstains, abstention rates ranged from 2% to 79% with an average of 31%. Jay E abstained the least.

If anyone wants to know any of their statistics, just ask, and if you don't want it publicly aired, ask me to send it to you via private message.

 

[Ike]

George,

When you get finished with this one, you think you may run one for albums? I'd be interested to see this sort of thing for music.

 

[Jay E]

Finally on abstains, abstention rates ranged from 2% to 79% with an average of 31%. Jay E abstained the least.

That's from years of working as a video store buyer & manager.
Great analysis George. Looking at the top 50, I don't see a single film there that I would disagree with. I think that we have pretty good taste here at the forum!

 

[george kaplan]

Our third index is the abstention index. Basically, how many people abstained. First off, are there any films that everyone has seen. Yes, five of them.

FILM........................CONSENSUS
2001: A Space Odyssey......... 88.89
Jaws..........................77.14
Saving Private Ryan...........55.88
Terminator 2: Judgment Day....34.29
Ferris Beuller's Day Off......31.43

Note that in this case consensus=appreciation since there were no abstenstions. Also, notice that being seen a lot doesn't equate into high levels of being viewed as great.
58 films were seen by at least 90% of the voters.

FILM.............................ABSTAIN RATE
Star Wars............................ 2.70
Rear Window..........................2.78
The Godfather........................ 2.78
The Godfather, Part 2................2.78
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade.....2.78
Psycho...............................2.86
North by Northwest................... 2.86
The Wizard of Oz.....................2.86
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest......2.86
Raiders of the Lost Ark.............. 2.86
Snow White And the Seven Dwarfs......2.86
The Empire Strikes Back.............. 2.86
Back To the Future...................2.86
The Return of the Jedi...............2.86
Forrest Gump.........................2.86
Apocalypse Now.......................2.94
Fargo................................2.94
Pulp Fiction.........................2.94
Platoon..............................2.94
Se7en................................2.94
Die Hard.............................5.41
Citizen Kane......................... 5.71
Dr. Strangelove......................5.71
Goodfellas........................... 5.71
Casablanca........................... 5.71
Taxi Driver..........................5.71
Blazing Saddles......................5.71
The Princess Bride...................5.71
Silence of the Lambs.................5.71
The Terminator.......................5.71
Schindler's List.....................5.88
Fight Club........................... 5.88
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory..5.88
Spartacus............................8.33
Toy Story............................8.33
Rocky................................8.33
Beauty & the Beast (1991)............8.33
Chinatown............................8.57
Lawrence of Arabia................... 8.57
L.A. Confidential....................8.57
Monty Python & the Holy Grail........8.57
Dumbo................................8.57
Close Encounters of the Third Kind...8.57
Planet of the Apes (1968)............8.57
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid.....8.57
E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial.......... 8.57
National Lampoon's Vacation..........8.57
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.............8.57
The Shawshank Redemption.............8.82
Braveheart...........................8.82
Aliens...............................8.82
Heat.................................8.82
Predator.............................8.82
Of course there's also the films that hardly anyone had seen. The following were all seen by less than 30% of the voters:

FILM........................ABSTAIN RATE
Top Hat........................71.43
Pillow Talk....................72.22
Sherlock Jr....................73.53
Ikiru..........................73.53
Children of Paradise...........76.47
A Woman Under the influence.... 76.47
Greed..........................77.14
Meet Me in St. Louis........... 77.78
Gunga Din......................79.41
Sunrise........................79.41
One, Two, Three................79.41
The Court Jester...............80.56
Open City......................82.35
Sons of the Desert.............85.71
Some of these are surprising, others aren't. I will just say that I am particularly appalled by the abstain rates on Top Hat, Pillow Talk and the Court Jester. :frowning:

 

[Jack Briggs]

"First of all, I spelled consensus incorrectly in the title, but, then again, no one noticed."

Well, it was the first thing I noticed. See the title now.

Anyway, interesting results and impressive results here.

 

[Gabe D]

....gave the fewest thumbs up, Gabe D the most.

Indeed I was liberal with the term "great." The last thing I did before pressing "Submit Reply" was reconsider any thumbs downs. Out of 220 movies, I bet I probably deleted about 30 thumbs downs at the last second.

Still, I won't deny that I love a lot of movies. (That's what made the "list your 100 favorite movies" topic so difficult. I had to cut a couple hundred of my favorite movies! Ouch!)

 

[Nick Sievers]

Well done George, you have put a lot of effort into this and i'm glad I participated. Looking forward to more stats now .

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Dome gave the least number of thumbs down

Really? Wow.....
Goes to show I've got miles to go before I obtain highly discriminating tastes. My love for movies is a lot like my love of food. Of course, I fail to make the connection between loving movies and being 30 pounds overweight.

 

[george kaplan]

OK, the final index is called the predicted consensus index. The idea is this. We're all in a room and we raise our hands if we think a movie is great. Some who don't raise their hands think the film isn't great, but others haven't seen it. Now, we screen the film for everyone and have a new vote. Now since everyone has seen it, there won't be any abstains. The predicted consensus attempts to use our data to estimate or predict what would happen if there were no abstentions. I won't bore you with the statistical details, but it has to do with taking the lower bound of a conservative(p-hat=.5) version of a 95% confidence interval, and then adding an appropriate constant. Don't worry if that doesn't make sense. Just enjoy the results. The following all would be predicted to have 90% or more consensus:

RANK..FILM.........................PREDICTED
1...Rear Window.......................100
2...Psycho............................100
3...Citizen Kane......................100
4...Notorious..........................97
5...The Godfather......................97
5...The Godfather, Part 2..............97
7...Das Boot...........................97
8...Dr. Strangelove....................96
9...12 Angry Men.......................96
10..Vertigo............................96
10..Bridge on the River Kwai...........96
12..To Kill a Mockingbird..............95
13..Star Wars..........................95
14..M..................................95
15..Rebecca............................94
15..The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.....94
17..North by Northwest.................94
18..The Third Man......................93
19..Double Indemnity...................93
20..Goodfellas.........................93
21..Chinatown..........................93
22..Ben-Hur (1959).....................93
23..Touch of Evil......................92
24..The Wizard of Oz...................91
25..Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.......90
26..Apocalypse Now.....................90
27..Casablanca.........................90
28..The Gold Rush (1925)...............90
28..The Lady Vanishes..................90
Note that a number of films have moved around. Although NxNW has a higher consensus than Vertigo, Vertigo has a higher predicted consensus than NxNW.
Some other big changes:

PREDICTED RANK...CONSENSUS RANK...FILM
......4...............29........Notorious
......7...............38........Das Boot
......9...............43........12 Angry Men
.....14...............60........M
.....15...............29........Rebecca
.....15...............29........The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
.....18...............35........The Third Man
.....19...............83........Double Indemnity
.....23...............43........Touch of Evil
.....24...............10........The Wizard of Oz
.....25...............58........Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
.....26...............12........Apocalypse Now
.....27...............13........Casablanca
.....31................9........2001: A Space Odyssey
.....37...............52........The Apartment
.....42...............21........Schindler's List
.....42...............22........Lawrence of Arabia
.....44...............25........Patton
.....48...............17........One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
.....48...............17........Raiders of the Lost Ark
.....48...............17........Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs
.....76...............25........Jaws
Which is better the consensus index or the predicted consensus index? You'll have to make that call, although I must say there's something appealing about an index that puts the Apartment ahead of Lawrence of Arabia, right Rob?
Finally, the bottom of the predicted consensus (all predicted to be less than 30%):

RANK..FILM................................PREDICTED
207...The Return of the Jedi.................29
207...Forrest Gump...........................29
209...American History X.....................28
210...Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory....27
210...Who Framed Roger Rabbit?...............27
212...Lonesome Dove..........................26
213...Pillow Talk............................26
214...Logan's Run............................24
215...Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade.......23
216...Victor/Victoria........................18
217...Predator...............................15
218...What's Up Doc?.........................11
219...The Killer.............................11
220...Wag the Dog.............................2

 

[SteveGon]

Interesting results. I think I prefer the predicted rank as ol' Harry Lime fared better therein.
Kudos to ya, George, for all the time and effort you put into it!

 

[David Dennison]

Great work George! I've really enjoyed reading all the results.

 

[george kaplan]

Here are some results based on age.

Essentially, the primary difference in age seems to that younger voters are more likely to have considered as great newer movies, and older voters have a higher opinion of older movies.

Now, be careful with this, because a lot of young voters gave thumbs up to a lot of older movies and vice versa.

However, if you take the average age of the voters that gave a movie thumbs up, the following movies are the only one with an average age less than 25:

Wag the Dog (1997)

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

The Return of the Jedi (1983)

Predator (1987)

Se7en (1995)

Ferris Beuller's Day Off (1986)

Groundhog Day (1993)

Fight Club (1999)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Back To the Future (1985)

The following were the only ones with an average age over 32:

From Russia With Love (1963)

Lost Horizon (1937)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Modern Times (1936)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Frankenstein (1931)

Stalag 17 (1953)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

To Have & Have Not (1944)

The Dirty Dozen (1967)

The Bank Dick (1940)

The Court Jester (1956)

The Caine Mutiny (1954)

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Sons of the Desert (1933)

Top Hat (1935)

Of course, these are just averages. 2 of these films were given thumbs up by a 16 year old. Only Top Hat had no thumbs up from anyone under 35. And five of the 10 youngest averages had votes from 39 year olds. Only Wag the Dog had no thumbs up from anyone older than 18.

So, it's a general trend, but with lots of variability. Lots of films, old and new, had thumbs up from voters the whole gamut of ages (in this sample), from 16 to 43. As a matter of fact, there were 90 such movies, from M (1931) to Fellowship of the Ring (2002).

 

[Jeff_A]

When this thread has run its course, I wonder if we could request that it be archived? There is quite a bit of data here that we may refer back to and I would hate to see it ever disappear.

 

[george kaplan]

Another age factor is, not surprisingly, the abstention rate. This isn't a knock on younger voters, they haven't had as much opportunity to see as many movies, it'd be surprising if it wasn't like this.

Average number of abstentions for all voters: 67 (out of 220)

Avg. abstains for those under 20: 105

Avg. abstains for those 39 and up: 24

As a matter of fact the person 39 and up with the most abstains still had fewer than the person under 20 with the least.

Breaking up age into two groups, we get the following avg. abstains:

16-29: 80

30-43: 54