Talk:List of films considered the best

Use of "frac" vs. Unicode ½ vs HTML entity ½

Hi folks,

I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but why is Fellini's movie 8½ described using 'frac' i.e. with {{frac|8|1|2}} (8+1⁄2)?

This seems to offer little improvement over the actual Unicode 'half' character ('½') which is used in the wikilink anyway. If a user's system doesn't support ½, then it won't be able to open the link to that article – though I suppose in that edge case, you could argue that at least this article might display OK even if the link doesn't work.

If Unicode is a stretch, how about an HTML entity? They've been a W3C recommendation since 1999, so unlikely to cause even the oldest of web-capable devices to break a sweat. That would make the film's title 8½ in the source, which is pretty human-readable if you can't have "8½".

I wouldn't have noticed if 'frac' worked. But on my Mac (running Firefox on Mac OS 11 Big Sur) the text appeared initially as "8 1/2", then after I looked at the source and subsequently cancelled, it started appering as "8+1/2"!

Looks like an issue with Template:Fraction, the Mediawiki codebase, or perhaps something else. The source for Template:Fraction appears to be here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Fraction/styles.css

AFI List

Resolved

 – The AFI's "100 greatest movies" polls are currently used in the article Betty Logan (talk)

Any idea why there is no mention of the AFI lists? Generally it's regarded as one of the better lists of top films:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Movies — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whubbard (talk • contribs) 09:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The American Film Institute only considers films from the US. TompaDompa (talk) 11:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a moot point anyway, because those polls are included in the United States section. Betty Logan (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Will this ever be more like the book and video game lists?

Genuinely wondering why we need so much space dedicated to some of the least populous areas of the globe Alena 33 (talk) 09:10, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Why would we make this list like some other random article? As for you second point, Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER. Betty Logan (talk) 10:58, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

If anything, List of books considered the best and List of video games considered the best should be more like this list in terms of WP:LISTCRITERIA and so on. TompaDompa (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Is say it should be similar for the sake of consistency. 2600:1006:B027:2F3F:B1D1:5F29:FBB4:7B11 (talk) 17:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Does this count?

NEWS SIDEBAR: `The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies’ Espngeek (talk) 18:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Jewish movies are not a recognised genre (although Israel exists, none of them seem Israeli produced). In any case, it is not clear how the list was formulated i.e. is it a proper polled survey or a magazine editorial? Betty Logan (talk) 12:53, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Logan and The Batman

@TheTechLich: Have either of Logan or The Batman topped any notable polls declaring them the best superhero film? That's the threshold for inclusion here, see the "Basic guidelines for inclusion" above. Whether the films are regarded as among the so-called "greats" is beside the point. TompaDompa (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Several cited sources include polls from audiences. Special:Contributions/TheTechLich (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Not all audience polls count towards inclusion on this list of course, but how about you, for starters, remove all the sources that are not polls in which these films have been voted the best and write up descriptions for the entries similar to all the other entries on the list? TompaDompa (talk) 18:04, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted the addition. I glanced through the sources and could not locate any polls. Happy to reconsider, but I suggest TheTechLich keeps the sourcing explicitly to that which meets the criteria. We have discussed the likes of Rotten Tomatoes before, and the consensus is that it does not constitute a "best film" poll because nobody has actually votes for the "greatest" film. Betty Logan (talk) 21:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

In that case should we not remove this article or repurpose it with something to the effect of "films notable for positive reception"?

seems redundant otherwise. Logan will be included, Batman (2022) will not for now TheTechLich (talk) 10:21, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The sources you have brought forward for Logan do not meet the criteria. All you need is one reliable sourced poll that has explicitly voted Logan the greatest film. Not one collated from aggregator scores, or in-house periodicals, but an authentic survey of opinion where people have voted Logan the "greatest" superhero film. That is the bar that all of the other entries have met, so exceptions are not going to be made for individual films. If you want to make a case for changing the criteria then by all means do so. If you want to propose a different name for the article then by all means do so. But please stop adding the film sourced to sources that do not fit the inclusion criteria. Betty Logan (talk) 11:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 13 June 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (non-admin closure) Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 17:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

---

List of films considered the best → List of films voted the best – The current title has long been recognized as being far from ideal. The inclusion criteria are, and have for a long time been, that the movie in question must have been voted the best in a notable poll. Indeed, the WP:LEAD states that This is a list of films considered the best in national and international surveys of critics and the public. The proposed new title better reflects the actual contents of the list, and may also be helpful in preventing the addition of entries that do not meet the inclusion criteria. TompaDompa (talk) 18:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 19:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Withdrawn alternative titles

Comment – Not against that title, but grammatically it still feels like we can do better. Browsing the list article, I noticed the language often flips between voted and ranked. So perhaps other candidates also include: List of film rankings List of highest-ranked films. Although not for this specific list, a sub-list that only lists films that are ranked by film critics could be called List of critically-acclaimed films, in case someone sees the value in splitting that out. Just a thought! --GoneIn60 (talk) 06:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC) As described in further discussion, the term "ranking" does not properly suit this list article, so I withdraw these suggestions. --GoneIn60 (talk) 14:54, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support I agree that the methodology needs to be incorporated into the title in some way. There might be better, more nuanced, titles which we can come up with, but the only question we need to address as far as this rename goes is whether or not the proposed title is better than the current one.

Betty Logan (talk) 08:30, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support. I'm not really crazy about these types of articles in general, but this would be a more accurate title for something that's just going after "well it's been in a lot of lists". Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:03, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support. If we have to have this article (and arguably we should), its name should at least give as little weight to its content as possible. Tduk (talk) 14:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Any consensus in the alternative proposal? Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 19:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to @Andrzejbanas, @Betty Logan, @GoneIn60, @Tduk, and @TompaDompa for the above comment. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 19:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

"List of film rankings" and "List of highest-ranked films" feel rather poor. The first just sounds like it's a list of grades or rankings that films would be graded which is not really what the article consists of. " List of critically-acclaimed films" makes it sound open to just dumping any films that gets decent ratings on MetaCritic to be added which I also don't think is appropriate. Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify, "List of critically-acclaimed films" was a side note for some future sub-list of films ranked by critics only, if and when that ever happens.

When you say rankings aren't "really what the article consists of", I'd have to disagree. The term "rank" or "ranked" appears 32 times in the article, which is still a lot less than than "voted" (175 times), but it's still a significant number nevertheless. When we talk about where something places in an opinion poll, we can refer to its ranking in that poll. Makes perfect sense to me, but I respect your opinion. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 20:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Here's an example of what I'm talking about (excerpt from the list):

Vertigo (1958) was ranked number 1 with 39 votes when German film magazine Steadycam [de] asked 174 critics and filmmakers to vote for their favorite films

Clearly, it's natural to say that something was ranked in a certain position within the poll. Here, we can also see one reason why "vote" might heavily outweigh "rank" throughout the article; it is sometimes used 2-3 times in the same statement or claim. So we have to look beyond the numbers and just go by common sense. The term "ranking" is a natural fit in the title. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 20:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Using the term ranked in the article with the context of knowing what it's about. If I saw a bare link in a see also section that just said "List if film rankings" I wouldn't know it was about films that were placed highly on several best of lists.

List of highly ranked films is also problematic. If film criticism was as simple as lists and star ratings forever, I'd say this *could* slide, but for now I'd say no as that is not the case. Andrzejbanas (talk) 13:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. Also when I give this more thought, a list of rankings does seem to imply that there would be something along the lines of a top 10 or top 20 list, which is definitely not the case here. This list aims to only collect the #1 film in each category, listing multiple #1's from multiple sources. So regardless of how we feel about the interchangeability between voted and ranked in the article, without context, I can see how "ranking" might be misleading and ambiguous as a title and link. Let's axe it. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 14:44, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

• I will likewise state for the record that I find List of film rankings and List of highest-ranked films to be clearly inferior options. The clarity as it relates to the actual scope of the present article is much reduced when compared to my initial proposal List of films voted the best. TompaDompa (talk) 02:20, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Clearly inferior how? Actual scope is "much reduced" how? You never give an explanation. That's like saying, "I disagree because." I couldn't care less if you all use the alternative suggestions or toss them aside (that's why they're called suggestions), but I don't get the harsh reactions of "poor" and "clearly inferior". If the term "ranked" is so wildly inappropriate and out of scope, then you might want to clean up the mess in the article before worrying about the title, because "ranked" is littered throughout. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  "Ranked" just means placed in an order, it says nothing about what that order represents. There are, for instance, ranked lists of films over at List of longest films and List of highest-grossing films where the ranking represents something completely different than it does in a "best film" poll. Thus, a title like List of film rankings or List of highest-ranked films is not particularly clear. That doesn't mean the word "ranked" needs to be avoided within this article, where the context has already been established. TompaDompa (talk) 14:28, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, I just responded to Andrzejbanas above coming to that same realization, thanks. For some reason, it was escaping my attention that each category was only listing the very top film (the #1 film) in each poll that was cited. My bad! -- GoneIn60 (talk) 14:45, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Popular culture, INACTIVEWP, WikiProject Lists, and WikiProject Film have been notified of this discussion. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 19:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support – Agree that the proposed title is an improvement and step in the right direction. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.