I'm doing a little experiment. IMDb has let users vote on movies since its creation, at least as far as I'm aware. I want to see how the ratings change over time. So I'm just going to ask you a question. Are you ready?
What was the rating of Leon: The Professional on IMDb when it first came out? Anyone remember?
~NW~
Leon is currently # 27 on imdb's top 250 movies of all time, with an 8.5.
Here is imdb's top movies of all time as of June 6 2004:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040606043027/http://www.imdb.com/chart/top
Leon is #64 with an 8.2
Scariest words in English: We’re from the federal government and we’re here to help. R. Reagan
I've followed Leon's standing since I became a fan in 1999. It was 96 on the list at that time.
shareI see you have posted the same message, changing the name of the movie, on 11 different boards. So I am curious, what is "the little experiment"??
..*.. TxMike ..*..
I've noticed how ratings rarely change with movies on the site after a certain amount of time of their theatrical release. Usually they start higher and factor to a lower rating, but I've run into a few so far that actually got HIGHER after years. Part of me is curious about controversial films specifically, since those are generally hated when they first come out but are then loved over time. I want to see if the rating was as low as a 5 or so for movies like "Fight Club" and then it changed or the site got it right the first time, etc. Leon is another one of those critics hated when it first came out but became a classic as the years went on.
There's also the fascinating rarity of a vice versa, such as a movie being loved when it first came out and being considered less good with time, such as the Phantom Menace or Independence Day
Why do I want to know this and how long it takes for the rating to be accurate of what people actually think? I want to try and predict which movies of today will be remembered as "The Critics got it wrong the first time around" in the likeness of movies like "2001" or "Blade Runner" if you will
~NW~
Regarding your last paragraph my gut reaction is that it isn't feasible simply by looking at the numbers, the statistics. I have observed a couple of phenomena that skew ratings terribly, and in some cases they never recover.
An example, two years ago the latest version of "Annie" came out, with it came along a lot of bigotry, usually in the form "I don't want a black actress to play an iconic white character". As a result a few thousand who had not even seen the movie voted it as "1". It has recovered some to an average of 5.2 but with 12.5% "1" votes. If you look at the actual distribution of votes, rejecting both the "1" and the "10" votes, you get an almost exact median of 6.0.
That is one example, the one most clear in my mind because I followed it closely before and after theatrical release.
The opposite case is when a bunch of die-hard fans of a genre eagerly anticipate the release of their latest favorite movie, see it early, and vote it "10", helping it to a very high early rating which gradually comes down as more and more mainstream viewers see it and vote.
So back to a movie like TSR, it doesn't fall into either extreme. There are lots of movies like that and to me it would be very difficult to look at their ratings early after release, even a year after, and predict whether they will trend up or trend down over the next 20 to 30 years.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
It seems, from all I can gather about my initial findings, that IMDb gets it right whether or not a movie is good upon its release. What seems to shift, however, is HOW good or HOW bad people think it is. Generally, however, truly great movies start low in the 7 range and rise significantly with time. Jurassic Park, for instance, started with a measly 7.2 and now sits high and mightily at an 8.1, talk about proper recognition. Some movies, which aren't truly great but just really good, start out overwhelmingly high only to drop low at a massive rate later. Example include Star Trek: First Contact which originally had an 8.6 and has now dropped down 10 points.
SO, the lower the rating of a good movie upon first being released, the better it will be in time. So, with these results in mind, here's my list of predictions for movies that will rise significantly in rating in the next 10-20 years (Keeping in mind, the lower they are on the list, the less I think their rating will rise):
1.) X-Men: Apocalypse (7.4)
2.) Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (7.7-8.1)
3.) Mad Max: Fury Road (8.1)
4.) The Avengers (8.1)
5.) Guardians Of The Galaxy (8.1)
6.) Iron Man (7.9)
7.) Captain America: Civil War (8.2)
8.) Predestination (7.4)
9.) The Martian (8.0)
10.) Star Trek Beyond (7.3)
~NW~
I don't see how you can come up with that, The Avengers has been dropping for years, here's proof -
http://250.took.nl/title/0848228
And Deathly Hallows has been steady since 2012.
http://250.took.nl/title/1201607
"You're not a standup guy today, Pat!"
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