LsDoorMat

Well, it seems to be the biggest, so it is probably better traveled than the TCM database with more information, more votes.

I haven't tried my search on the TCM database, so I wouldn't know how to do that TopBilled. Sorry.

I experimented with it and got what I thought were the best results at 1000 votes. Just a matter of judgment I guess.

Sorry drednm, you commented on the list by LawrenceA. My apologies for taking your name in vain.

Here's my list of 1920's films with the highest imdb rating with number of votes >= 1000. I note that drednm and I have some discrepancies still. This would be the list of films that are considered classics today from the 20s. I included films >= 45 minutes long due to the difference in what was considered a feature in the silent era and what would be considered a feature from the 1930s on. Note that no talking film makes my list even though 1929 was a majority talkie year. 1920 1. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 8.1 2. Way Down East 7.9 3. Why Change Your Wife? 7.9 4. The Penalty 7.5 5. The Mark of Zorro 7.3 1921 1. The Kid 8.3 2. The Phantom Carriage 8.1 3. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 7.9 4. Tol'able David 7.9 5. The Affairs of Anatol 7.9 1922 1. Nosferatu 8.0 2. Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler 7.9 3. Haxan 7.7 4. Nanook of the North 7.7 5. Beyond the Rocks 7.7 1923 1. Safety Last 8.2 2. Our Hospitality 7.9 3. The Wheel 7.6 4. The Pilgrim 7.5 (Only 45 minutes long...a feature in 1923???) 5. Why Worry? 7.5 1924 1. Sherlock Junior 8.3 (45 minutes long...A feature in 1924??) 2. Die Nibelungen" Siegfried 8.1 3. The Last Laugh 8.1 4. The Navigator 8.0 5. Girl Shy 7.9 1925 1. The Big Parade 8.2 2. The Gold Rush 8.2 3. The Merry Widow 8.1 4. Battleship Potemkin 8.0 5. Ben Hur 8.0 1926 1. Brown of Harvard 8.3 People remember it though it has no DVD release that I know of and TCM never plays it because it has no score. I think it had a VHS release in the 1990s. 2. The General 8.2 3. Faust 8.1 4. Flesh & The Devil 8.1 5. Adventures of Prince Achmed 7.9 1927 1. Metropolis 8.3 2. Sunrise 8.2 3. The Unknown 7.9 4. 7th Heaven 7.8 5. Student Prince in Old Heidelberg 7.8 1928 1. The Wind 8.3 2. The Cameraman 8.3 3. Passion of Joan of Arc 8.2 4. Show People 8.2 5. The Circus 8.1 1929 1. Man With A Movie Camera 8.4 2. Desert Nights 8.1 3. Pandora's Box 8.0 4. Diary of a Lost Girl 8.0 5. Queen Kelly 7.8

Films of the 1930s listed by IMDB rating with >= 1000 votes. International films are included. If films have the same rating, IMDB apparently rates them in order of the number of votes. Not many surprises, other than some foreign titles I had never heard of before. Oh, and those Marion Davies fans continue to somewhat tilt the scale, IMHO. "Five and Ten" and "Going Hollywood" were amusing, but not close to 8/10. This should give a picture of what films have stood the test of time. Example: Ingagi is no longer considered a classic though it was a blockbuster in 1930, but "City Girl" is considered classic. Wait untiil I get to the 2010s. I think you'll be horrified by what made money AND what is rated highly. 1930 1. All Quiet on the Western Front 8.1 2. City Girl 7.9 3. Hell's Angels 7.8 4. The Blue Angel 7.8 5. The Dawn Patrol 7.8 1931 1. City Lights 8.6 2. M 8.4 3. Frankenstein 7.9 4. Marius 7.9 5. Five and Ten 7.8 1932 1. Trouble in Paradise 8.2 2. I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang 8.1 3. I Was Born But... 8.1 4. One Way Passage 8.0 5. Freaks 7.9 1933 1. Gold Diggers of 1933 8.1 2. Duck Soup 8.0 3. King Kong 7.9 4. Testament of Dr. Mabuse 7.9 5. Going Hollywood 7.9 1934 1. It Happened One Night 8.2 2. The Thin Man 8.1 3. Les Miserables 8.1 4. L'Atalante 7.9 5. A Story of Floating Weeds 7.9 1935 1. A Night at the Opera 8.0 2. Bride of Frankenstein 7.9 3. The 39 Steps 7.8 4. Mutiny on the Bounty 7.8 5. Top Hat 7.8 1936 1. Modern Times 8.5 2. My Man Godfrey 8.1 3. Dodsworth 8.1 4. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 8.0 5. Libeled Lady 7.9 1937 1. Make Way For Tomorrow 8.3 2. Grande Illusion 8.1 3. Captains Courageous 8.0 4. The Awful Truth 7.9 5. Humanity and Paper Balloons 7.9 1938 1. Bringing Up Baby 8.0 2. Adventures of Robin Hood 8.0 3. Angels with Dirty Faces 8.0 4. You Can't Take it With You 8.0 5. Olympia Part 1:Festival of Nations 8.0 1939 1. Gone With the Wind 8.2 2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 8.2 3. The Wizard of Oz 8.1 4. The Rules of the Game 8.1 5. The Women 8.0

Yes, there seems to be lots of room for argument as to what the numbers were. In researching what went wrong with my imdb searches, it seems that if no USA box office was entered by an imdb user, then it doesn't get listed when you search by box office. That's why I was so off for some years. What i was TRYING to do with all of this was to rate by box office numbers - showing what was popular then - and then rank by rating, showing what is popular now. For example, "All Quiet on the Western Front" seems very modern and approachable by today's audiences, while the 1930 version of Tom Sawyer probably would not cut it. For sure Ingagi would not, as described above!

Actually, "You Can't Take it With You" is #6 on his list, making just 100,000 dollars less than Sweethearts, which was #5.

http://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/1938-top-grossing-movies/ This guy seems to have a better handle on what happened in 1938 than imdb. His top grossing list for that year is: 1. Alexander's Ragtime Band 2. Boy's Town 3. Adventures of Robin Hood 4. Test Pilot 5. Sweethearts

By "done right" it was pointed out to me that "popular" on imdb just means clicked on a great deal. I'll do these by U.S. box office . I tried it by rating for this decade with weird results. Films I had never heard of that had 7 people all rate it a ten. At any rate, by box office: 1930 1. Tom Sawyer 11.00M I've never seen this one. I'm not even sure it still exists. 2. Ingagi 4.00M Same as above. 3. All Quiet on the Western Front 3.27M 4. Feet First 1.59M 5. Anna Christie 1.01M 1931 1. Frankenstein 12.00M 2. Mata Hari .93M 3. Susan Lenox .81M 4. Inspiration .73M 5. Kiki .43M Stars Mary Pickford. On Alpha DVD-R. 1932 1. Shanghai Express 3.70M 2. Emma 2.00M 3. Movie Crazy 1.44M 4. Grand Hotel 1.24M 5. As You Desire Me .71M 1933 1. King Kong 10.00M 2 Calvalcade 7.63M 3. I'm No Angel 2.85M 4. 42nd Street 2.30M 5. She Done Him Wrong 2.00M 1934 1. Treasure Island 2.54M 2 Viva Villa 1.11M 3. The Cat's Paw .69M 4. The Painted Veil .54M 5. The Black Cat .24M 1935 1. Top Hat 1.78M 2. No More Ladies 1.12M 3. The Miracle Rider 1.00M 4. Tumbling Tumbleweeds 1.00M 5. Anna Karenina .87M 1936 1. Three Smart Girls 3.00M 2. One In a Million 2.00M 3. The Gorgeous Hussy 1.46M 4. The Milky Way 1.17M 5. Camille 1.15M 1937 1. Snow White & 7 Dwarfs 184.93M Inflated because of theatre runs that went on for decades. 2. Saratoga 5.37M 3. A Star is Born 4.26M 4. 100 Men and a Girl 2.27M 5. Stella Dallas 2.00M 1938 1. Adventures of Robin Hood 3.98M 2. Professor Beware .80M 3. Radio City Revels .51M 4. Port of Shadows .03M 5. Bringing Up Baby NOT AVAILABLE 1939 1. Gone With the Wind 198.68M Inflated because of theatre runs 1939-1976. 2. Wizard of Oz 22.20M 3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 9.60M 4. The Women 2.27M 5. Ninotchka 1.19M A few interesting points given box office: 1. Could MGM have gotten through the Depression without Greta Garbo? 2. None of Jean Harlow's films made so much money in the 30s as the one that was released after her death. 3. Harold Lloyd's career did not die with the talkies. In fact he seemed to continue to do well. 4. I was surprised to see Cavalcade doing so well in the US. To me it is a terrible bore. 5. Only four Best Picture Oscar winners were in the top five of their respective years given box office - All Quiet on the Western Front, Grand Hotel, Cavalcade, and Gone With The Wind. 6. Although you can clearly see the Great Depression's effect on box office, SOMETHING happened in 1938 that caused box office to tank big time, even compared to the early 1930s.

The list for U.S. box office for 1928 is interesting too. I don't think anybody but people on this board and film historians have ever even heard of them: 1. Singing Fool 10.9M 3/4 Talking. Richard Barrios said "This film made The Jazz Singer look like Ibsen". 2. Road To Ruin 2.5M I've never heard of this one. It is on Alpha as a DVD-R though. 3. Noah's Ark 1.37M John Wayne, an extra, almost drowned. Silent with abysmal talking sequences. 4. Lights of New York 1.20M First all talking feature film. 5. Sadie Thompson 1.00M A pretty good silent film. "Rain" was the all talking version.

If you do the IMDB top five for 1925 by US box office you get: 1. Ben Hur Gross = 12.45M 2. The Big Parade = 11.00M 3. The Gold Rush = 5.45M 4. His People = 3.00M 5. Little Annie Rooney =1.10M I don't know what the list would look like if you brought in royalties from all sources including television, international sales, and home video (VHS and DVD).

I am going to try and do one of these for each decade. Apparently imdb is not rating them according to just rank or number of votes, so I am not sure what algorithm is being used. Each list says "most popular", which is open to interpretation. Still iti is interesting to see what flopped at the box office is often popular today. 1920 1. Cabinet of Doctor Caligari 2. The Golem 3. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 4. The Mark of Zorro 5. Sex 1921 1. The Kid 2. The Phantom Carriage 3. Destiny 4. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 5. The Sheik 1922 1. Nosfaratu 2. Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler 3. Robin Hood 4. Foolish Wives 5. Oliver Twist 1923 1. Safety Last 2. The Ten Commandments 3. Hunchback of Notre Dame 4. Our Hospitality 5. A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate 1924 1. Die Nibelungen: Siegfred 2. Sherlock Jr. 3. Greed 4. The Thief of Bagdad 5. The Last Laugh 1925 1. The Gold Rush 2. Battleship Potemkin 3. Phantom of the Opera 4. Wizard of Oz 5. Ben Hur 1926 1. The General 2. Faust 3. Scarlet Letter 4. The Great Gatsby (LOST?) 5. Flesh and the Devil 6. Son of the Sheik 1927 1. Metropolis 2. Sunrise 3. Wings 4. The Jazz Singer 5. The Lodger 1928 1. Passion of Joan of Arc 2. The Man Who Laughs 3. The Wind 4. October 5. The Circus 1929 1. The Single Standard 2. Pandora's Box 3. Blackmail 4. Broadway Melody 5. The Cocoanuts

Maybe an unpopular opinion: George Lucas does not now nor has he ever gotten what makes Star Wars great. He made two good films off of the saga in 1977 and 1980 and has basically been raking in the bucks from third rate knock offs of the basic idea since 1983. And the public just keeps handing over their money to him. If any of the successors to the first two Star Wars films had been the first Star Wars film it would have been the last.

I'm glad I had at least one unpopular opinion that ignited conversation! Nobody has ever cared for my opinion of Gigi, which I have had since I first saw it at age ten.

I wasn't saying that they should strip away the music or the art design. I was saying that the story underneath Gigi is that of trying to exploit a young girl who, fortunately, is wise enough to see the life towards which she is being pushed - prostitution - is a dead end one. As for having no love for 41 or 43 - I strongly advise against it, even in the days when 41 was capable. Both have wives that carefully guard their territory. They are not nearly as open minded as the wife - if that's what you want to call her - of 42.

Pretty much. That and the composite scenes of all of the musical numbers they were supposedly shooting weeks after The Jazz Singer. They couldn't do any of that sort of thing until Busby Berkeley in 1932-1933. But it makes for a dynamite montage. I think Jean Hagen - who had a perfectly fine speaking voice - was trying to talk like Judy Holliday and behave like Norma Talmadge.

James Cagney must be rolling over in his grave over George Clooney getting this award for a much weaker body of work than he had, at an age 20 years younger than he was when he received the award. But then Cagney was not the jealous or comparing type, so I'll be outraged for him.

I have the Laurel and Hardy set. I was looking for the ones with Charlie Chase, Zasu Pitts, Patsy Kelly, and Thelma Todd that were made by Roach. I do not think such a set exists. I also have the Benchley shorts. I am fairly certain the Pete Smith shorts are not in a single collection. Thanks for the info though, TomJH.

I have four favorite Cagney films. "Hard to Handle" is just one great zany precode with rat a tat action and zippy dialogue all of the way and Cagney as a conman. Plus there are great supporting performances from all of those great Warner contract players. "Blonde Crazy" has a meaningless title, but I think it shows the Cagney/Blondell chemistry at its best at the height of the Great Depression. Plus I have never understood that ending as far as what Ray Milland's character was really trying to do, although I have my theories. My favorite mature Cagney performance is a split decision. "Those Wilder Years" has Cagney as a self made millionaire looking for his out of wedlock son. He runs up against Barbara Stanwyck who does not want him to have the information on where his grown son is. When they get to court Cagney has to hear his own words on the subject of his pregnant girlfriend thrown back at him from twenty years in the past. But there is a bittersweet ending. The other mature role in a film almost nobody has seen is "Come Fill the Cup". WB made this film but somebody is - once again - sitting on the rights, refusing to let it be released by WB, but refusing to do anything with it themselves. It has Cagney as a drunken reporter who hits bottom before he decides to reform. He gets his job back at the paper. And then years later, the dilemma. The newspaper owner wants Cagney to help dry out his nephew - the nephew who married his best girl back when Cagney was just beginning to recover from alcoholism. The only Cagney film I've never seen and don't own a copy of - "Never Steal Anything Small" by, of course, Universal. Obviously, I'm a huge fan.

Maybe pet peeves more than unpopular opinions. 1. Does TCM really need three whole days of war movies every single Memorial Day weekend? It's one of those weekends I get to watch TCM live, and it's all war all day and night for three days. And it is generally just one war - WWII. I think special programming on one day would suffice. 2. I love the artful awkwardness of the very early talkies. I wish they would play more from 1929 and 1930. 3. Could TCM please play ALL of the Private Screening episodes in order sometime? Just because RO is dead is no reason to erase his image from the channel. His birthday this coming May would be a good day for that. Also put them ALL together in one DVD set in the Warner Archive so we can buy them all in one place. 4. Less "word of mouth" shorts between films and more of the vintage shorts please. 5. I am not looking forward to a month of Lana Turner movies next month. I always thought she was pretty limited in range. 6. I don't like Gigi at all. Strip away the art design and the musical numbers and all you really have are a bunch of older authority figures - including relatives - and one very selfish would be lover pushing a young girl into a life of prostitution from which there is no exit. How is this any different from "The Primrose Path"???

I have often wondered why the Warner Archive did not put the Pete Smith specialties together on disc. Is there any collection of the talking shorts from Roach studios? That would be a blast!

Were the witnesses "actually" witnesses? I wondered this at the time I saw it. For them to have known John and Louise in the 1910s and be interviewed in 1980-81 they would have had to be at least 90 years old. Nobody talks about the sad end of Louise Bryant, who was actually looked down upon in socialist circles as somebody who slept with socialists rather than someone who was a socialist herself. After John Reed died she remarried in 1923, had a series of affairs with women which caused her husband to divorce her, and caused the courts to give their only child to her husband. Then Louise developed Dercum's disease in which the sufferer gains weight out of any proportion to caloric intake. The fat gained forms a bunch of hardened tumors making the sufferer look something like The Michelin Man. To deal with the pain Louise became an alcoholic and died in 1936. Part of this can be found by anybody with access to Wikipedia. Part of it came from a book I read several years ago, the title I do not recall.

Free country, TheCid. I do not patronize TCM shoppe because of their outrageous shipping costs, often comparable to any item I want to buy. When they waive shipping I do take a look around.

For me, Amazon has been the best place to find OOP titles since you can always find some 3rd party willing to sell via Marketplace. Also check out camelcamelcamel.com if the price is too high. Set your own price and they will email you when the price reaches what you are willing to pay. It has been a world of help to this DVD hoarder.