Films that SHOULD be on the IMDB Top 250 but aren't
by sparkles_mcgee | created - 24 Apr 2011 | updated - 25 Apr 2011 | PublicSome of these films absences from the list makes it of such lesser quality. I'm also aware that some of these films make an appearance on the top 250 every now and again because of there 8.0 ratings.
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1. Blue Velvet (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Votes: 215,661 | Gross: $8.55M
It's a disgrace to see a film like "Avatar" on the IMDB Top 250 and not this influential David Lynch masterpiece. But then again, IMDB Top 250 has always been based on popularity rather than greatness.
2. Lost in Translation (2003)
R | 102 min | Comedy, Drama
A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.
Director: Sofia Coppola | Stars: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris
Votes: 488,819 | Gross: $44.59M
3. Almost Famous (2000)
R | 122 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A high-school boy in the early 1970s is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.
Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Billy Crudup, Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand
Votes: 293,337 | Gross: $32.53M
Oh, Penny Lane.
4. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
R | 159 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Todd Field, Sydney Pollack
Votes: 375,024 | Gross: $55.69M
5. Halloween (1978)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
Votes: 306,745 | Gross: $47.00M
6. Titanic (1997)
PG-13 | 194 min | Drama, Romance
A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates
Votes: 1,280,136 | Gross: $659.33M
Remember when it was cool to like this film and praise it wholeheartedly? Now it's cool to knock it. Shows how much movie buffs follow the 'trend' of what's a good or bad film. It goes like this: Oh, everyone says this movie's bad/overrated/pretentious, so I must think that too, regardless of my own opinion. So, looking beyond what is and isn't cool, this film is a tragic triumph.
7. Boogie Nights (1997)
R | 155 min | Drama
Back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, an idealistic porn producer aspires to elevate his craft to an art when he discovers a hot young talent.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán
Votes: 281,998 | Gross: $26.40M
8. Mulholland Drive (2001)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
After a car wreck on Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Jeanne Bates
Votes: 383,756 | Gross: $7.22M
9. The Breakfast Club (1985)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Drama
Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a great deal more in common than they thought.
Director: John Hughes | Stars: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy
Votes: 436,427 | Gross: $45.88M
10. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
R | 111 min | Drama, Romance
Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
Director: Mike Figgis | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands, Richard Lewis
Votes: 134,634 | Gross: $32.03M
Brilliant, unconventional romance without the sappy, unrealistic happy ending. Nicholas Cage was excellent and effective, but Elizabeth Shue was phenomenal.
11. Boys Don't Cry (1999)
R | 118 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A young man named Brandon Teena navigates love, life, and being transgender in rural Nebraska.
Director: Kimberly Peirce | Stars: Hilary Swank, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III
Votes: 103,278 | Gross: $11.53M
Despite the unanimous praise this film recieved when it was released, it is sorely underrated now. Same as above in regards to an unconventional romance. Chloe Sevigny was subtle, yet brilliant and moving. Hilary Swank was stellar, as usual. A depressing but beautiful film.
12. Lolita (1962)
Not Rated | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A middle-aged college professor becomes infatuated with a 14-year-old girl.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Gary Cockrell
Votes: 108,773 | Gross: $9.25M
13. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
R | 83 min | Horror
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain
Votes: 183,581 | Gross: $30.86M
14. The Virgin Suicides (1999)
R | 97 min | Drama, Romance
A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents in suburban Detroit in the mid 1970s.
Director: Sofia Coppola | Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, James Woods, Kathleen Turner
Votes: 169,160 | Gross: $4.86M
15. Ghost World (2001)
R | 111 min | Comedy, Drama
Two eccentric best friends graduate high school and respond to a man's romance-seeking newspaper ad as a gag, only to find their lives becoming increasingly complicated.
Director: Terry Zwigoff | Stars: Steve Buscemi, Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Brad Renfro
Votes: 126,819 | Gross: $6.22M
16. The Ice Storm (1997)
R | 112 min | Drama
In suburban New Canaan, Connecticut, 1973, middle-class families experimenting with casual sex and substance abuse find their lives beyond their control.
Director: Ang Lee | Stars: Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Henry Czerny
Votes: 59,955 | Gross: $7.84M
A delicate little gem.
17. Short Cuts (1993)
R | 188 min | Comedy, Drama
The day-to-day lives of several suburban Los Angeles residents.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Andie MacDowell, Julianne Moore, Tim Robbins, Bruce Davison
Votes: 47,382 | Gross: $6.11M
18. True Romance (1993)
R | 119 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In Detroit, a pop-culture nerd steals cocaine from his new wife's pimp and tries to sell it in Hollywood, prompting the mobsters who own the drugs to pursue the couple.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer
Votes: 242,445 | Gross: $12.28M
19. Heathers (1988)
R | 103 min | Comedy, Crime
At Westerburg High where cliques rule, jocks dominate and all the popular girls are named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and mysterious new kid to give teen angst a body count.
Director: Michael Lehmann | Stars: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk
Votes: 115,819 | Gross: $1.11M
*beep* me gently with a chainsaw, do I look like Mother Teresa to you?
20. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
PG-13 | 105 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
The solitary life of an artificial man - who was incompletely constructed and has scissors for hands - is upended when he is taken in by a suburban family.
Director: Tim Burton | Stars: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall
Votes: 523,714 | Gross: $56.36M
21. Do the Right Thing (1989)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson
Votes: 112,396 | Gross: $27.55M
22. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
PG-13 | 111 min | Drama
A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
Votes: 97,930
23. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
R | 99 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Two teenage girls share a unique bond; their parents, concerned that the friendship is too intense, separate them, and the girls take revenge.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent
Votes: 67,399 | Gross: $3.05M
Peter Jackson's debut film as a director is equally as good as his Lord of the Ring's trilogy, if not better. A superb, spellbinding little film.
24. 500 Days of Summer (2009)
PG-13 | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
After being dumped by the girl he believes to be his soulmate, hopeless romantic Tom Hansen reflects on their relationship to try and figure out where things went wrong and how he can win her back.
Director: Marc Webb | Stars: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Geoffrey Arend, Chloë Grace Moretz
Votes: 557,832 | Gross: $32.39M
25. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
R | 113 min | Drama
A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune, finding a new friend in the process.
Director: John Schlesinger | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver
Votes: 120,741 | Gross: $44.79M
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