A companion piece to Dave Vis' list of Letterboxd's official top 250 films of all-time, which excludes documentaries from consideration. Credit to Andrew for the idea.
Ranked by average user rating. This list was extracted from here. Updated once a month. This is an official list progress project on all-time stats pages for Pro and Patron users. Expanded from a top 100 to a top 250 on June 27th, 2021, on the list's 3-year anniversary.
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ELIGIBILITY RULES:
• Documentaries must be feature-length (45+ minutes), with a theatrical and/or festival release in its entirety.
• TV series, miniseries, and episodes are excluded but docs listed as 'TV movie' on IMDb are eligible. Exceptions made for series that also had a limited theatrical…
A companion piece to Dave Vis' list of Letterboxd's official top 250 films of all-time, which excludes documentaries from consideration. Credit to Andrew for the idea.
Ranked by average user rating. This list was extracted from here. Updated once a month. This is an official list progress project on all-time stats pages for Pro and Patron users. Expanded from a top 100 to a top 250 on June 27th, 2021, on the list's 3-year anniversary.
~~
ELIGIBILITY RULES:
• Documentaries must be feature-length (45+ minutes), with a theatrical and/or festival release in its entirety.
• TV series, miniseries, and episodes are excluded but docs listed as 'TV movie' on IMDb are eligible. Exceptions made for series that also had a limited theatrical release.
• No featurettes unless theatrically distributed, even if feature-length (featurettes are marked as 'Video' on IMDb, such as 'making of' docs).
• Concert films are allowed if they had a theatrical release. However, documentaries and concert films about contemporary musicians have a 10-year grace period before eligibility due to unintentional vote manipulation by fans. Exceptions are made for disbanded or deceased groups as well as films that debuted at a film festival.
• No standup comedy marked as a documentary, nor any stage shows. Exceptions may be made for borderline exceptions.
• There is a 1,000 minimum ratings threshold.
If I've excluded something you think deserves re-consideration please argue its case. I'm avoiding 'making of' docs (with exceptions) and concert films that were straight-to-DVD or part of a larger broadcast.
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STATS:
Top Decade: 2010s (95 films)
Top Decade, 20th Century only: 1990s (27 films)
Top Years: 2017 (17 films, by Letterboxd year)
Top Years, 20th Century only: 1976 (6 films, by Letterboxd year)
Newest Film: This Much I Know to Be True (2022)
Oldest Film: Häxan (1922)
Longest Film: Shoah (566 mins)
Shortest Film: Sink or Swim (48 mins)
Oscar Nominations: 44 (between 37 films. Woodstock and Flee were nominated for three awards; the former for Best Film Editing and Best Sound, and the latter for Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature, both alongside Best Documentary Feature. Honeyland, and Collective were nominated for two awards; both for Best International Feature as well as Best Documentary Feature. Hoop Dreams and Waltz With Bashir were nominated for Best Film Editing and Best Foreign Film respectively and not Best Documentary Feature. All other films were nominated in the latter category only.)
Oscar Wins: 13
Docs About Movies: 21
Concert Films: 17
Non-English Language Films: 76
Non-Verbal Films: 7
Films by Women Directors: 49
TOP DIRECTORS TALLY:
• Michael Apted – 7 films
• Agnès Varda – 7 films
• Martin Scorsese – 6 films
• Werner Herzog – 5 films
• D. A. Pennebaker – 5 films
• Patricio Guzmán – 4 films
• Jonas Mekas – 4 films
• Frederick Wiseman – 4 films
• Les Blank – 3 films
• Eduardo Coutinho – 3 films
• Adam Curtis – 3 films
• Spike Lee – 3 films
• Chris Marker – 3 films
• Marlon Riggs – 3 films
• Jon Alpert – 2 films
• Jimmy Chin – 2 films
• Andrew Dominik – 2 films
• Sam Dunn – 2 films
• David France – 2 films
• Ron Fricke – 2 films
• Peter Jackson – 2 films
• Asif Kapadia – 2 films
• Abbas Kiarostami – 2 films
• Albert Maysles – 2 films
• David Maysles – 2 films
• Scot McFadyen – 2 films
• James Moll – 2 films
• Errol Morris – 2 films
• Göran Olsson – 2 films
• Joshua Oppenheimer – 2 films
• Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi – 2 films
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I also run Letterboxd's 'official' top 50s of 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
See other 'official' Letterboxd's lists: my Top 100 Films Directed by Women, my Top 100 Films Directed by Black Directors, slinkyman's Top 100 Short Films, Rahat Ahmed's Top 100 Animated Movies and Devin Dulany's Top 100 Movies of the 2010s.
