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Movie Nerd Discussion Group Top 10

Last updated: 6 Feb [on hiatus awaiting 2023 changeover]

Numbers in parentheses represent the previous week’s placement. Links are to trailers.

01. Great Freedom (Sebastian Miese) (1)
02. RRR (S S Rajamouli) (3)
03. TÁR (Todd Field) (2)
04. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras) (4)
05. The Girl and the Spider (Ramon & Silvan Zürcher) (5)
06. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh) (6)
07. Living (Oliver Hermanus) (–)
08. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook) (7)
09. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski) (8)
10. Happening (Audrey Diwan) (9)

And just for fun, the ten worst-rated films—though, again, bear in mind that films receiving fewer than ten votes (which would likely include most of the truly terrible ones) aren’t tallied.

(Total number of films ranked: 117)

117. Jurassic World Dominion (Colin Trevorrow)
116. Rifkin's Festival (Woody Allen)
115. Moonfall (Roland Emmerich)
114. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
113. Don't Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde)
112. The Gray Man (Anthony & Joe Russo)
111. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
110. Death on the Nile (Kenneth Branagh)
109. Spiderhead (Joseph Kosinski)
108. Amsterdam (David O. Russell)

As a public service for readers seeking out excellent films—specifically, for those readers who put more trust in the Skandies than in the aggregate results compiled by Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes—I’m going to start keeping a tally of the top ten films released so far this year as judged by members of the Movie Nerd Discussion Group you may have seen mentioned here now and again. Basically, we stole and slightly modified Variety’s “crix pix” survey, with its pro/mixed/con structure; the only difference is that voters can strengthen their votes at either end with an all-caps PRO or CON.

This project began as a labor-intensive deal whereby everyone e-mailed their votes to poor Scott Tobias; eventually, Greg Dunlap created an automated version that also maintains stats, updated weekly. Since the Movie Nerd Discussion Group has 100+ members, and the Skandies only about 40, the results aren’t precisely congruent, but they’re pretty close; of the Skandies top 20 for 2007, for example, 14 were in the crix pix top 20. (The six that weren’t: Exiled (#27), Into the Wild (#32), Grindhouse (#34), Once (#38), Atonement (#46), and Joshua (#51).)

Films without at least ten votes aren’t counted, and folks don’t always send in their votes (or even see the films) the week they’re released, so don’t conclude that a given title wasn’t well-received simply because it doesn’t show up on the list right away.