You also had casual fans with no stake in the debate but who simply didn’t want to see such a new release (and a comic book film) in the top spot, who were willing to join the fight on The Godfather’s behalf. On the other side you had fans of The Godfather who came out of the woodwork to defend the film as one of the greatest of all time. However, time was not on their side The Godfather had far more ratings accrued already and therefore 1-star reviews did less to hurt it than it did TDK. It also had recency bias on its side as the film was still in theaters and users were naturally raising the number of 9- and 10-star reviews. The Dark Knight had an army of devoted fans to draw on, as we all know how passionate comic book film fans can be. All that matters is users flocked to IMDb to throw 1-star reviews at one film or the other in an attempt to sway the top spot of the leaderboard.īoth sides of the “war” had advantages (and disadvantages) over the other. Fans of the film claimed that this was a necessary response to The Godfather’s fans doing it first to The Dark Knight, but it’s impossible to tell when the coordinated attacks began. Mainstream media outlets even reported on the development, with most entertainment journalists coming to the conclusion that The Godfather would eventually reclaim its top spot once the fervor surrounding The Dark Knight died out.Ī week after The Dark Knight’s release, reports began to emerge that fans were bombarding The Godfather with 1-star reviews to prevent it from reclaiming the #1 spot.
The Dark Knight is a good movie, detractors argued, but are we really willing to declare it the best movie of ALL TIME? Fans of The Godfather came out of the woodwork to defend the film and lament the fact that a new release was able to climb the rankings so quickly, regardless of subject matter. At the time, The Godfather had held the #1 spot for over a decade, so to see it lose the throne was a big deal – especially to a film that had just been released literally earlier that weekend. Users flooded IMDb with 10-star reviews for the new film, and within two days the film had ascended to the top spot on the leaderboard. If you thought the Joker discourse was excessive a couple years ago, you should’ve seen Internet forums around this time because fanboys went WILD over The Dark Knight. Dark, gritty and grounded, it was praised not only as a comic book adaptation but as a thrilling crime drama in its own right. Keep in mind that the MCU didn’t even exist yet (okay technically Iron Man debuted two months earlier, but still), so nobody had seen a superhero movie like this before. If you are too young to remember, it was an instant phenomenon, becoming the fastest movie to reach a billion dollars and peaking at the #4 spot of highest-grossing films of all time. On July 18, 2008, Christopher Nolan’s second film in his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight, released in theaters worldwide. You probably recognize most of the titles in the top 10, but the story of how they landed at their current positions is not as straightforward as it might seem… IMDb also began maintaining a “Top 250” list, aggregating all site-wide user ratings into a single list of the top-rated films of all time. Since the feature was added in the mid-90’s, users were quick to create lists of their favorite films and rate movies from 1 to 10. IMDb also allows public users to give star ratings to films they’ve seen. It is an important resource for film buffs and industry insiders alike, as to this day you’ll hear crew members brag about their “IMDb credits” as an important indicator of their success within the industry. It launched in a limited capacity in 1990, was bought by Amazon in 1998, and quickly became a fixture of the film industry. IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is an online database containing all the information you could ever want about just about every movie ever made.