Celebrating 25 Years of IMDb

John Grimaldi
Staff Writer
@JGrim44

In a recent post on the popular online movie site IMDb (Internet Movie Database), the top movies of each of the last 25 years according to IMDb user rating were listed in honor of the site’s 25th anniversary.

Considering that IMDb is the first place where most people go to lookup a movie they’ve never seen or are curious about, it has a reputation of being reliable with its film reviews. It also doesn’t hurt that the site allows its users to give a rating of 1-10 to any movie listed, which affects its user rating. If you’re looking for a movie to see when you have some downtime, here you go.

The list based on hundreds of thousands of votes from IMDb users:

2014: “Interstellar”

2013: “The Wolf of Wall Street”

2012: “Django Unchained”

2011: “The Intouchables”

2010: “Inception”

2009: “Inglourious Basterds”

2008: “The Dark Knight”

2007: “Into the Wild”

2006: “The Departed”

2005: “Batman Begins”

2004: “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

2003: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”

2002: “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”

2001: “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”

2000: “Memento”

1999: “Fight Club”

1998: “Saving Private Ryan”

1997: “Life Is Beautiful”

1996: “Fargo”

1995: “Seven”

1994: “The Shawshank Redemption”

1993: “Schindler’s List”

1992: “Reservoir Dogs”

1991: “The Silence of the Lambs”

1990: “Goodfellas”

I cannot help but find it disappointing that all three “Lord of the Rings” movies made it on the list. I’ve only seen parts of the trilogy (and I know I’m in the minority here), but I never thought they were as amazing as everyone said they were.

I have never even heard of the movie “Seven” and I thought I’d at least recognize the name of every movie on this list when I first saw it.

1990 through 1994 are all classics in my opinion. “Reservoir Dogs” is a great Quentin Tarantino crime film, and “Shawshank Redemption” is considered by many to be up there for the greatest movie of all time.

I’m also a huge “Saving Private Ryan” fan.

If you haven’t seen it, see it as soon as possible. Matt Damon and Tom Hanks give great performances. “Life Is Beautiful” is a movie that I first heard about from my parents and saw for the first time a couple years ago. This is a sad one, but definitely worthy of making it on this list.

The only other movie from 1997 I can think of that I liked a lot was Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown”. I have never seen “Fight Club”, but I heard it was pretty good, and people always give me a hard time when I tell them I’ve yet to watch it.

I’ve seen all of the movies on the list from 2004-2014 minus “Into the Wild” and “The Intouchables”.

“Interstellar” was a cool movie, but I felt like it dragged on forever.  One of my favorite movies ever “There Will Be Blood” didn’t grab the spot for 2007. “Into the Wild” must have been incredible, because “No Country for Old Men” and “Gone Baby Gone” came out that year as well. Director Christopher Nolan has five films on the list.

Overall, I would say the average active IMDb user likes good movies, but tends to only review for some of the most mainstream films. I would imagine the voters on IMDb consist of a younger user group than other movie blogs.