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Movie Nerd Discussion Group Top 10

Last updated: 5 Jan

Numbers in parentheses represent the previous week’s placement. Links are now to the film's IMDb page; Apple killing its dedicated page for trailers makes that too much of a hassle (unless I just want to send everyone to YouTube for everything, which I don't).

01. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson) (1)
02. Sinners (Ryan Coogler) (2)
03. My Undesirable Friends: Part I · Last Air in Moscow (Julia Loktev) (3)
04. Eephus (Carson Lund) (4)
05. Predators (David Osit) (5)
06. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh) (6)
07. The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho) (7)
08. It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi) (–)
09. Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie) (7)
10. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt) (–)

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: 103)

103. Captain America: Brave New World (Julius Onah)
102. The Last Showgirl (Gia Coppola)
101. After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino)
100. Jurassic World Rebirth (Gareth Edwards)
99. Honey Don't! (Ethan Coen)
99. Wolf Man (Leigh Whannell)
97. Novocaine (Dan Berk & Robert Olsen)
96. The Monkey (Osgood Perkins)
95. Drop (Christopher Landon)
94. The Life of Chuck (Mike Flanagan)

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.