The Best Films of the Half-Decade (2010 - 2014): General Voting Thread

[Chaos]

I had mentioned doing this a few weeks ago. With it being Black Friday and, consequently, a slow day at work, I thought I would go ahead and get this off the ground. I hope we can do this in a way that it does not clash with our best of 2015 voting. Although the quality of films for year end voting overall in 2015 hasn't been very strong, so this might be a good palate cleanser. This post will be edited over time, as I really would like some feedback as to what is realistic from everyone.

 

Due Date: Sunday, March 27, 2016.

Criteria: Any full length film released between 2010 and 2014. We will use Rotten Tomatoes for this, as I feel it better captures theatrical release date over (debuted at 'x' foreign film festival).

Ballot Size: Would everyone be open to a ballot size of 50? Is that too big? Would you like a range?

How to Vote: For right now, you can PM me your ballot. I am debating whether to just share my personal email as an option or to create an email address for submitting these. I will update this thread

 

We can use this thread for pimping purposes, or I can create another thread for that. I do not have the previous years ballots stored to see how this bored voted on an individual year basis, but I know we have held this vote every year in this decade.

 

Also, at some point, I would appreciate if Caley, Rippa, Hollinger, or anyone else that has manned these things as to what their best practices are on scoring methodology.

 

I am looking forward to using this ballot as a chance to revisit certain films and get other films I have needed to see off my pile of shame.

[S.K.o.S.]

Ballot Size: Would everyone be open to a ballot size of 50? Is that too big? Would you like a range?

 

I'm good with 50.  Should easily be able to come up with (on average) ten movies from each year.

[JRGoldman]

I'm not sure if you would end up getting more ballots, but you might get more interest you did a sliding 25-50 ballot. Anyway, I am in, I think there is a lot to discuss. I'll start pimping stuff next week. 

[Jingus]

From what I've seen, the easiest way to count votes is with a simple reverse-numbering system. First, decide what the maximum number of entries on a ballot is; then, assign an inverted number of points to whatever the numbered position is on the chart. That being, let's say you've got a fifty-title limit: the movie that the poster puts at #1 would get 50 points, #2 would get 49 points, and so forth and so on all the way down to #50 getting 1 point. Add up the points for each individual movie, and rank them by score.

An extra elegant side effect of this system is that it allows people to send in shorter ballots if they want. Their top votes still score the same number of points as the top votes of anyone who sent in a longer list.

[Chaos]

From what I've seen, the easiest way to count votes is with a simple reverse-numbering system. First, decide what the maximum number of entries on a ballot is; then, assign an inverted number of points to whatever the numbered position is on the chart. That being, let's say you've got a fifty-title limit: the movie that the poster puts at #1 would get 50 points, #2 would get 49 points, and so forth and so on all the way down to #50 getting 1 point. Add up the points for each individual movie, and rank them by score.

An extra elegant side effect of this system is that it allows people to send in shorter ballots if they want. Their top votes still score the same number of points as the top votes of anyone who sent in a longer list.

 

That was my logic, but wasn't sure how partial ballots skewed everything. It's easy to get a consistent 

 

Also, this has been done elsewhere, and I'll link to others next week, but AV Club reshared their list from April today. (I have no idea how Scott Pilgrim is a top 20 film.)

 

It starts here:

[caley]

I had mentioned doing this a few weeks ago. With it being Black Friday and, consequently, a slow day at work, I thought I would go ahead and get this off the ground. I hope we can do this in a way that it does not clash with our best of 2015 voting. Although the quality of films for year end voting overall in 2015 hasn't been very strong, so this might be a good palate cleanser. This post will be edited over time, as I really would like some feedback as to what is realistic from everyone.

So excited someone picked this up and ran with it!  I'll probably have the Best of 2015 deadline sometime around this time, too, but as you guys all know, I'll also almost certainly push that date back 3-4 times anyways!

 

I'm not sure if you would end up getting more ballots, but you might get more interest you did a sliding 25-50 ballot. Anyway, I am in, I think there is a lot to discuss. I'll start pimping stuff next week. 

This is something I would definitely consider is not having a minimum.  Some people don't have 50 they feel comfortable ranking, some people feel getting together a list that big a little daunting/time-consuming.

 

From what I've seen, the easiest way to count votes is with a simple reverse-numbering system. First, decide what the maximum number of entries on a ballot is; then, assign an inverted number of points to whatever the numbered position is on the chart. That being, let's say you've got a fifty-title limit: the movie that the poster puts at #1 would get 50 points, #2 would get 49 points, and so forth and so on all the way down to #50 getting 1 point. Add up the points for each individual movie, and rank them by score.

An extra elegant side effect of this system is that it allows people to send in shorter ballots if they want. Their top votes still score the same number of points as the top votes of anyone who sent in a longer list.

  Two problems with this method.

#1. A movie could get five votes around the bottom near peoples' lists while another movie places #41 on one person's list and ends up ranking above it.  I'm not sure there's a good method to reduce this, though.  In recent years I've given heavy points to movies in people's Top 10/Top 20 and then gave single points to stuff in the lower echelons of a list, but I don't know if it's necessarily a better way.

#2. Someone makes a list of 10 movies they enjoy and throws a movie that was so-so, on at the end to round it up to 10.  That movie ends up skewing way higher when voting comes around because of its single inclusion at the end of someone's Top 10, when others that turn up on several ballots that go to 50 are left behind it.  I don't know that there's a real solution to this, though.  I used to vote on a music message board that had a rather complicated equation related to ballot size, but I could never make it work anyways.

As for what ballot to use, I've never come up with one that really works, you know?  I usually play around with several methods until I find one that gets everyone's #1 on the list and a decent representation of what turns up on the majority of ballots.  Basically, if it passes the smell test, go with it.

[caley]

Here's My Top 10s for every year for this poll (Note these are the rankings at the end of the year for each of these years and a lot of movies have shifted around since then, while the 2015 list is very much in flux as I've barely gone out to the theaters this year)

2015

01. Mad Max: Fury Road

02. It Follows

03. Ex Machina

04. What We Do in the Shadows

05. Paddington

06. Maggie

07. Creep

08. While We're Young

09. Kingsman: The Secret Service

10. Jurassic World

 

 

2014

01. We Are the Best

02. Guardians of the Galaxy

03. The Raid 2

04. Interstellar

05. Under the Skin

06. Nightcrawler

07. The Skeleton Twins

08. John Wick

09. Birdman

10. Whiplash

 

2013

01. Nebraska

02. Her

03. Short Term 12

04. To the Wonder

05. Inside Llewyn Davis

06. Upstream Color

07. Gimme the Loot

08. Prince Avalanche

09. Mud

10. Gravity

 

2012

01. Seven Psychopaths

02. Killing Them Softly

03. Jeff, Who Lives at Home

04. Safety Not Guaranteed

05. The Master

06. Argo

07. The Raid: Redemption

08. The Dark Knight Rises

09. Celste & Jesse Forever

10. The Imposter

2011

01. The Tree of Life

02. Drive 

03. Take Shelter

04. Attack the Block

05. The Skin I Live In

06. Our Idiot Brother

07. Win Win

08. Trollhunter

09. Super 8

10. Rango

2010

01. Four Lions

02. I'm Still Here

03. True Grit

04. The Fighter

05. Animal Kingdom

06. Please Give

07. Inception

08. Enter the Void

09. The Other Guys

10. Winter's Bone

[S.K.o.S.]

Here's a link to the Filmspotting forums with assorted cinephiles posting their top 10 of 2010-14.  (Start reading at the first February 2015 post.)

 

Edit: Some people in there are posting their bottom 10 as well, which confused me for a bit.

[S.K.o.S.]

So I have this text file that's just a list of movies that I think are really really good, and I just realized that seven of the ones I have listed as 2009 are 2010 according to Rotten Tomatoes.  That's a good thing.

[Chaos]

Here's a link to the Filmspotting forums with assorted cinephiles posting their top 10 of 2010-14.  (Start reading at the first February 2015 post.)

 

Edit: Some people in there are posting their bottom 10 as well, which confused me for a bit.

 

I am just glad that I am not the only Filmspotting listener on the board. It was my first podcast in 2008.

[The Natural]

I had mentioned doing this a few weeks ago. With it being Black Friday and, consequently, a slow day at work, I thought I would go ahead and get this off the ground. I hope we can do this in a way that it does not clash with our best of 2015 voting. Although the quality of films for year end voting overall in 2015 hasn't been very strong, so this might be a good palate cleanser. This post will be edited over time, as I really would like some feedback as to what is realistic from everyone.

 

How the fuckity fuck have I only seen this now? D'oh on me. Good on you for running this. I'll be taking part.

 

I'm not sure if you would end up getting more ballots, but you might get more interest you did a sliding 25-50 ballot. Anyway, I am in, I think there is a lot to discuss. I'll start pimping stuff next week. 

This is something I would definitely consider is not having a minimum.  Some people don't have 50 they feel comfortable ranking, some people feel getting together a list that big a little daunting/time-consuming.

 

Agreed.

[The Natural]

I'm looking forward to seeing the countdown and how comic book movies place as a big fan of comic books and comic book films. The half-decade had a lot of them.

[The Natural]

Best of 2010-2014 countdowns I found:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/05/top-50-films-of-the-demi-decade-peter-bradshaw

http://thedissolve.com/features/the-dissolve-canon/908-the-50-best-films-of-the-decade-so-far-part-1/

http://thedissolve.com/features/the-dissolve-canon/909-the-50-best-films-of-the-decade-so-far-part-2/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/08/best_films_of_the_decade_so_far_twitter_poll_of_critics_and_movie_lovers.html

http://www.craveonline.co.uk/culture/843413-50-best-movies-decade-far#/slide/1

[Chaos]

I'm looking forward to seeing the countdown and how comic book movies place as a big fan of comic books and comic book films. The half-decade had a lot of them.

 

I'm interested in that too. I really cannot see many (if any) making my list despite one or two making my yearly countdowns, but I haven't really started short listing stuff because there's at least 20 films or so I want to watch for the first time, and probably about the same amount I want to reassess a few years later. I know, for instance, that i want to see how well The Social Network holds up for me.

[Jingus]

We will use Rotten Tomatoes for this, as I feel it better captures theatrical release date over (debuted at 'x' foreign film festival).

Why do we keep using RT's questionable dates? IMDB is the industry standard, after all. I had to go through my To-Watch List and manually look up every single date on RT for every movie within the time period; and quite a few movies that weren't in the time period, since Rotten's dates often differ by three years or more from other websites.

Worst of all, there's nine different movies on my list which don't even have RT pages at all.

[The Natural]

I'm looking forward to seeing the countdown and how comic book movies place as a big fan of comic books and comic book films. The half-decade had a lot of them.

 

I'm interested in that too. I really cannot see many (if any) making my list despite one or two making my yearly countdowns, but I haven't really started short listing stuff because there's at least 20 films or so I want to watch for the first time, and probably about the same amount I want to reassess a few years later. I know, for instance, that i want to see how well The Social Network holds up for me.

 

Had an attempt last night, comic book films will be well represented regarding what I said previously.

 

How do you want to do the pimping (ain't easy!), Chaos? This thread, one new one or a thread for every year? Your call as you're good for doing this in the first place.

[Chaos]

 

We will use Rotten Tomatoes for this, as I feel it better captures theatrical release date over (debuted at 'x' foreign film festival).

Why do we keep using RT's questionable dates? IMDB is the industry standard, after all. I had to go through my To-Watch List and manually look up every single date on RT for every movie within the time period; and quite a few movies that weren't in the time period, since Rotten's dates often differ by three years or more from other websites.

Worst of all, there's nine different movies on my list which don't even have RT pages at all.

 

 

I'd say in that case, use IMDB for stuff you cannot find. The thing that bugs me about IMDB is that I feel they should adjust their dates to the earliest limited/wide release date as opposed to first Festival screening. There's a few things possibly on my list (Meek's Cutoff and A Prophet come to mind) that I know would probably be "on the cusp" and I have a feeling they did not make our previous decade's list because noone saw them until 2010.

 

If everyone would rather use IMDB, I am perfectly okay with that, and we can go case by case on the "on the cusp stuff." 

 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the countdown and how comic book movies place as a big fan of comic books and comic book films. The half-decade had a lot of them.

 

I'm interested in that too. I really cannot see many (if any) making my list despite one or two making my yearly countdowns, but I haven't really started short listing stuff because there's at least 20 films or so I want to watch for the first time, and probably about the same amount I want to reassess a few years later. I know, for instance, that i want to see how well The Social Network holds up for me.

 

Had an attempt last night, comic book films will be well represented regarding what I said previously.

 

How do you want to do the pimping (ain't easy!), Chaos? This thread, one new one or a thread for every year? Your call as you're good for doing this in the first place.

 

 

Either this thread, or maybe a second thread. I'll determine that while I'm at work today. With this being 5 years instead of 10 years, I don't think this needs a full 5 individual threads. 

[caley]

 

 

We will use Rotten Tomatoes for this, as I feel it better captures theatrical release date over (debuted at 'x' foreign film festival).

Why do we keep using RT's questionable dates? IMDB is the industry standard, after all. I had to go through my To-Watch List and manually look up every single date on RT for every movie within the time period; and quite a few movies that weren't in the time period, since Rotten's dates often differ by three years or more from other websites.

Worst of all, there's nine different movies on my list which don't even have RT pages at all.

 

 

I'd say in that case, use IMDB for stuff you cannot find. The thing that bugs me about IMDB is that I feel they should adjust their dates to the earliest limited/wide release date as opposed to first Festival screening. There's a few things possibly on my list (Meek's Cutoff and A Prophet come to mind) that I know would probably be "on the cusp" and I have a feeling they did not make our previous decade's list because noone saw them until 2010.

 

If everyone would rather use IMDB, I am perfectly okay with that, and we can go case by case on the "on the cusp stuff." 

 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the countdown and how comic book movies place as a big fan of comic books and comic book films. The half-decade had a lot of them.

 

I'm interested in that too. I really cannot see many (if any) making my list despite one or two making my yearly countdowns, but I haven't really started short listing stuff because there's at least 20 films or so I want to watch for the first time, and probably about the same amount I want to reassess a few years later. I know, for instance, that i want to see how well The Social Network holds up for me.

 

Had an attempt last night, comic book films will be well represented regarding what I said previously.

 

How do you want to do the pimping (ain't easy!), Chaos? This thread, one new one or a thread for every year? Your call as you're good for doing this in the first place.

 

 

Either this thread, or maybe a second thread. I'll determine that while I'm at work today. With this being 5 years instead of 10 years, I don't think this needs a full 10 individual threads. 

 

 

 

 

We will use Rotten Tomatoes for this, as I feel it better captures theatrical release date over (debuted at 'x' foreign film festival).

Why do we keep using RT's questionable dates? IMDB is the industry standard, after all. I had to go through my To-Watch List and manually look up every single date on RT for every movie within the time period; and quite a few movies that weren't in the time period, since Rotten's dates often differ by three years or more from other websites.

Worst of all, there's nine different movies on my list which don't even have RT pages at all.

 

RT is better for dates than IMDB.  IMDB will take a movie with one single screening somewhere as determination that said movie is from that year, so it's not uncommon to see Oscar movies for that particular year listed as previous years.  RT bases their year as the year when most people were able to see said movie, not just a select amount of people who made it to one single screening.

[S.K.o.S.]

 

there's at least 20 films or so I want to watch for the first time, and probably about the same amount I want to reassess a few years later.

 

 

About the same for me.

 

I'm mostly trying to catch up with 2015 movies before the end of the year, but a couple of days ago I took a shot at a first-time watch for this project: Girl Walk // All Day.  I turned it off after 15 minutes, Jingus style.  Did not like.

[Jingus]

Twenty new movies?

(casually nudges his "list of over two hundred and fifty unseen 2010-2014 movies" under the rug)

...in all truth, I'll probably only get around to about twenty new movies myself anyway. I'm currently in the middle of Big Hero 6; it's killing it, but in more of a "Lilo and Stitch is pretty damn cool" and less of a "Frozen redefines what Disney does" sort of way.

[Chaos]

Twenty new movies?

(casually nudges his "list of over two hundred and fifty unseen 2010-2014 movies" under the rug)

...in all truth, I'll probably only get around to about twenty new movies myself anyway. I'm currently in the middle of Big Hero 6; it's killing it, but in more of a "Lilo and Stitch is pretty damn cool" and less of a "Frozen redefines what Disney does" sort of way.

 

Honestly, I probably have about 200 I need to see, but my schedule will make me lucky to squeeze in 20 of them.

[Jingus]

Should we start a pimping thread? Or should I babble about how "13 Assassins left me mostly impressed but still slightly disappointed" in here? (Short version: too many assassins, not enough time to get to know half of 'em.)

[caley]

All this talk about watchlists so I ended up making a nice, snug list of about 50 I wanted to see and was able to see.  Settled in on Saturday and watched 40 minutes of drug war on Netflix, got up the next day to finish it, only to find it's no longer on Netflix!  Thanks Obama!

[Jingus]

EDIT: wrong thread

[New Blood]

Just saw the project this afternoon.  I plan on submitting my ballot later today.  2010-2012 was the height of my film watching but unfortunately the last couple years life had gotten really busy and I couldn't see as many as I would've liked.