Lists used in The Greatest Movies Project
The following lists are used in the Greatest Movies Project. Lists in red are used in the Critics' List; those in blue are used on the People's List. All lists are used to create the Overall List of 100 Greatest Films. Names in parenthesis are used to identify the lists on the film pages. Have a list that's not on here? E-mail me at mwmailsea at yahoo dot com.
TV Guide's 50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video (1998) (TV Guide)
Tim Dirks' website indicates this was compiled by the editors, but Wikipedia says it was a poll. In any case, the main criteria is "how fun is it to watch?" which leans more towards the people's list side.
FilmFour 100 Greatest Films (2001?) (FilmFour)
Probably the most famous list in the UK. Tim Dirks indicates this was an experts' list, but Wikipedia has a BBC article to confirm that it was a people's list. Certainly the composition is more consistent with a people's list. Perhaps the confusion is the result of the actual films being selected by FilmFour's experts and only the order being determined by the people.
LA Daily News Reader's Poll (1997) (LA Daily News)
Supposedly a people's version of the AFI list based on the same list of nominees. Only top 30 will be considered because it is littered with ties.
Empire Ultimate Film Poll (2001) (Ultimate Film Poll)
As though the Empire lists weren't confusing enough, Empire also has a top-50 list that was part of a larger effort to rank like crazy!
Time Out Film Guide Readers' Top 100 Films (1998) (Time Out Readers)
Later, Time Out Film Guide polled readers for their picks. Like its predecessor, limited reliability, and so riddled with ties that I had to cut it short at 60 and include only around 10. I may extend it later if I feel like it.
TotalFilm 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (2006) (TotalFilm 2006)
The people objected, and TotalFilm turned it over to them. Like its predecessor, takes a turn towards the weird and disregards critical consensus in favor of the recently popular.
John Kobal Presents The Top 100 Movies (1988) (Kobal)
A decade before AFI, John Kobal solicited top 10 lists from 81 critics and filmmakers and tabulated them using a Borda system. Not only is it technically unreliable outside the top 10, there are some unfortunate math errors, and Kobal was unwilling to accept any ties and broke them alphabetically.
Radio National Listeners Poll (1993) (RadioNational)
That's about all I know about this list, found on Aaron B. Caldwell's site. Gives all appearances of being ranked but has some odd choices by any standard.
The Cinematheque Top 10 Project (2008; Top 10 2009) (The Cinematheque)
They "are asking an ever-growing panel of Film Experts (Critics, Historians, Theoreticans, Filmmakers, Professors et cetera)" to name their Top 10, but they're also asking for ordinary people's consideration, hence the people's list categorization. Only the top 10 is included, but I could extend it as far as around the top 50 before the ties became problematic.
Interfilms.co.uk (????) (Interfilms)
"The top 100 films as voted by our readers." I know nothing else about this list. I don't know if they even have any readers.
Empire Magazine 500 Greatest Movies of All Time (2008) (Empire 500)
Yes, yet another way for Empire to confuse you. And me, at this point. They polled "10,000 Empire readers, 150 of Hollywood's finest and 50 key film critics", and if they were all tabulated together the Empire readers should dwarf the 200 experts to the point of making mention of them irrelevant, so I don't know how it was weighted or anything, or whether it's intended to follow on from the greatest list last updated in 2006.
Flickchart Best Movies of All Time (regularly updated) (Flickchart)
Site invites members to create their own favorites lists. Near as I can tell, the amalgamated list (and indeed the entire site) is only available if you're logged in, so I may reproduce the list on-site.
Cahiers du Cinema 100 Films (2008) (Cahiers du Cinema)
I don't know how I only found out about this French publication's list from TMA above - maybe that's a sign they're not what I'm looking for.
imdB Top 100 (regularly updated) (imdB)
I'm limiting imdB's role to the Top 100 because A, it would be just too much work to do the whole Top 250, and B, depending on the method used, it might not matter. (For example, using Borda count, to extend the voting to the top 250 would needlessly skew the results.) This is often biased towards recent releases.