The Art of Placing One Film Ahead of Another

When I was first invited to guest blog for Rankography movies, I wasn’t sure exactly what to write about.  So I went over to the website and browsed around for a little while, hoping to find something interesting that I could discuss.  Thirty minutes later I had looked at many lists of movies and had created two of my own. 

Let’s face it: ranking movies is fun!  The critics get to rank their favorites at the end of every year.  They all publish their top ten lists – although most of them look more like a Guide to This Year’s Oscar Contenders than a list of their actual preferences.  Here in the world of online film fanatics and movie bloggers, we’re not afraid to throw a “Watchmen” or a “Star Trek” onto our lists. 

The critics also place all their choices on a single Top Ten List.  How can you rank “Precious” next to “The Hangover” and not feel weird?  They’re different in every way imaginable.  Likewise, should you really be comparing animated films like “Up” with documentaries like “The Cove”?  Films with different styles and tones deserve different lists. 

At Rankography, we don’t just choose our favorite films, we categorize them for better comparisons.  So put “Precious” in Tearjerkers, put “The Hangover” in Funny Movies, and so forth.  There are all sorts of categories, from the broad (Animated Films) to the more specifics (Oscar Best Picture Winners) to the very specifics (rank the Rocky movies).

After you select your favorites in any particular category, you can compare them with the lists of others.  For example, I was glad to see that someone else thinks that “Blood Diamond” is Leonardo DiCaprio’s best film.  But in the Comic Book category, why did someone rank the average “Iron Man 2” ahead of its superior predecessor?  Of course, who am I to criticize?  I put Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” on my list of favorite WWII movies.

There are many benefits to being a part of this community.  We can suggest to the world our favorite films, and in turn view countless recommendations from others.  We can see which members’ tastes in movies best match ours, possibly forming connections and perhaps even friendships.  We can also use the collective wisdom of the Composite Rankings to come to a consensus as a moviegoing community about which films truly deserve that number one spot. 

I have a suggestion.  It would be great to have a way for the Rankography community to engage in live interactive discussions – we could chat about the merits and flaws of various films, justify why this film made our list and why this film didn’t, and perhaps even have scheduled debates about which movies are the best.  Live interaction is much more appealing than exchanging posts on a forum.  Perhaps a more direct method of communication will be a reality for us sometime down the road.

Rankography celebrates the skill and talent required to construct a list of great movies and place them in the correct order.  I am very exited to be a part of this community and look forward to seeing it grow.  So join us, create your profile and start ranking movies.  When you do, look me up: my username is John49.