The IMDb Top 250 is supposed to be a global list of the greatest films ever made. But the overwhelming number of American movies on there raises serious questions about fairness, balance, and credibility.

IMDb ratings are user-driven, and American movies often benefit from massive, organized voting campaigns. This inflates scores unnaturally compared to films from smaller markets that don’t have such large, active fanbases.

Cinema is global, yet the list gets disproportionately tilted towards Hollywood due to market/economy size. This crowds out deserving films from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asian and even classics get buried lower.

Many Hollywood films shoot into the Top 250 right after release with tens of thousands of 10/10 votes. Most don’t hold up historically, and many drop off in a year proving they never belonged there in the first place.

•A lot of these films are highly American in style (action, sequels, comic book, superhero).
•They may resonate locally, but they don’t hold the same universal cinematic impact as films like Pather Panchali or Seven Samurai.

When casual viewers see dozens of popular American films above universally acclaimed classics, the Top 250 loses authority. It starts looking less like a measure of “all-time greats” and more like a popularity contest.

Massive domestic support + fan driven votes = an echo chamber. Meanwhile, equally influential films from other nations don’t get the same push, creating imbalance.

The IMDb Top 250 should celebrate world cinema, not become a battleground of vote brigades of fandoms of directors (Nolan), superheroes (Marvel, DC) and studios (Pixar). Until there’s a system to filter manipulation and ensure balanced representation, American movies should NOT dominate the Top 250.

Like the title says they are useless and don't really reflect the audience opinions anymore. Bought and paid for or bots. Need something new.

Nowadays I am seeing that many peoples are using letterbox, I don’t know why, I still uses IMDB because it gives many more information about a file, and that is why we use these apps, to get information about films. Imo people’s are using letterbox just to showcase and share their profiles reviews, they are maintaining their profiles nothing much is there on letterbox. If we talk about ui then IMDB ui has been improved a lot since last few years, and its ui is quite decent though letterbox ui feels smooth.

I’m not criticizing any country, language, or film industry. This is about how the ranking system works.

In the last few years we’ve seen waves of brand-new titles (Hollywood, Indian cinema Hindi/Tamil/Telugu Chinese releases, anime, etc.) jump into the Top 250 within days. That might reflect genuine quality or it might reflect concentrated early 10/10 voting from passionate local fanbases. I’m curious how much this affects the list.

• Should IMDb weight early votes less (e.g., first 30–60 days) to reduce hype spikes?

• Would a higher minimum vote count (e.g., 200k+) or a stronger Bayesian average (R′ = (v/(v+m))·R + (m/(v+m))·C) make the list more stable?

• Should there be safeguards against coordinated voting (any fandom, any country), or is the current system “democratic” enough?

• What alternative lists/formulas do you trust for a more global, long-term view?

As someone who tries to avoid ratings as much as possible before watching something to judge it fairly, this is just yet another dumb unnecessary change when it comes to showing the rating of a title.

First there was the terrible update of the name pages that now show you every rating of every title that person is credited on and later there was the change to main titles where they decided to put a giant graph of the rating in the middle of each title. And now this. Just... why?

After all the unnecessary and toxic review bombing between two of the biggest fandoms Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad can we just agree on something?

“Ozymandias” from Breaking Bad and “The Rains of Castamere” from Game of Thrones are both peak television.

Instead of dragging each other down, why not push both up?

Both shows have had a massive cultural impact. Both changed television in their own way. And both absolutely deserve at least one 10/10 episode recognized at the top. As a big fan of both series, I genuinely think each fandom should be able to celebrate their masterpiece without trying to sabotage the other.

If we keep review bombing each other, the only outcome is that some lesser-deserving episode ends up taking the top spot. That doesn’t benefit either side.

Let’s put the rivalry aside and give credit where it’s due. You can think your favorite is better that’s fine. But we can still acknowledge greatness on both sides.

PS: I know IMDb ratings don’t really matter in real life… but to be honest, it’s still fun to see your favorite show get the praise it deserves.

for context they said that people are now downvoting breaking bad's Ozymandias Episode that had a 10/10 rating because the people are saying that bb fans keep on downvoting other episodes that had 10/10 scoring too when it was released, my question is how did the people that are downvoting Ozymandias knew that it was bb fans that are downvoting it, just curious I'm not siding with anyone

In the last 24 hours, here's how a bunch of film's ratings changed

"Vindicating Trump" went from 4.0 to 4.2

"Hillary's America" went from 4.8 to 4.9

"Trump Card" went from 4.5 to 4.7

"Death of a Nation" went from 4.1 to 4.2

"2000 Mules" went from 5.0 to 5.2

"America: Imagine The World Without Her" went from 5.0 to 5.1

"The Plot Against the President" went from 5.4 to 5.5

"Lady Ballers" went from 5.7 to 5.8

"What is a Woman" went from 8.1 to 8.2

"The Greatest Lie Ever Sold" went from 7.0 to 7.2

I'm sure you're noticing a pattern here, all of these films have a right wing agenda, all of them went up by 0.1 or 0.2 in just 24 hours, most of these films are over a year old and they all just MAGICALLY went up at the same time, yeah right....

Yesterday I saw a movie and I cannot rate it. 7 is too high and 6 is too low. What do you do in these situations? Please add .5 ratings finally :>

Ain’t no way not only the movie is not out, but people are posting reviews on the wrong movie 😭😭😭

Edit: for those who do not understand, I am referring to Nolan’s The Odyssey, some people went to rate it 10 or 1, it’s not even out yet AND they are posting their reviews on the wrong movie’s page (This is a different movie from 2006)

There are multiple movie/tv review sites out there, what do people love IMDb for?

When you go on the page of a true crime documentary, the killer & the victims are categorized like they are actors, calling them "stars" and "cast".

I know that is because the categories have the same name for every movie. But I think for true crime documentaries there should be a different wording. Currently, this is very inappropriate.

Why is this even a thing? Why are people being categorised by colour?? FFS.

I know what Morgan Freeman would say about this.

imdb wants me to sign in with my Amazon password? Screw that. I guess I'll just delete the app.

EDIT:

Okay, here's the workaround. In order to NOT use an Amazon account or an email, you need to delete the imdb app entirely. Then re-download it from the app store. Press "skip" and you get to use it as a guest.

For me it's a 7.2 and the story looks interesting. For streaming I don't watch anything below a 6.5. And I'm too old to watch bad movies because they're bad.

How to contact List Creators on IMDb

So, I'm afraid the 'documentary' was awful.

I went to give it a rating, and IMDb will only allow me to rate it from 2 - 10. If you select one star, the "Rate" button gets greyed out (see video).

What gives?

One - it needs the old simple layout back. This AI crap is disgusting.

Two - i hate that the actor photos on imdb use the current year photo of the actor and not the screenshot from the show of them. when you dont know the character's name or the actor's name you need to be able to find them by comparing the photo of how they look in the episode.

So this actor looks just like my husband but I can’t find any cast list to see who he is, can anyone help?

assuming you’ve seen them all. Personally, my list would probably be

1. Anger x and x light

2. End of the prologue

3. Re;

4. Sendai colony

They’re all incredible though

(haven’t seen Fighting Spirit yet)

so officially everyones waiting became the best episode of all time number 1 now i think its deserved tbf actually

Like for instance, the latest Netflix movie "House of Dynamite" I would rate around 6.4 or 6.5 as I did like the acting and set design and pacing (to elevate it above a 6) but felt the story writing and ending was lacking enough to not warrant it a 7.

Is it really that difficult to have a more precise system?