What's the point of it?

We think that star ratings are too subjective and open to bias and abuse. The Great Movie Experiment invites you instead to vote on movies head to head. As well as being good fun, we think the resulting rankings list will make for very interesting reading.

How do I vote? What are the controls?

How are the pairings of movies chosen?

The pair of movies returned is chosen at random from a round-robin list which includes each of the top 1000 head-to-head against every other. This means that each movie gets the same amount of views and chances to be voted on.

How do I choose between wildly different types of movie?

As each movie is shown against every other, every so often you will get a most unlikely mach-up, ie. The Matrix vs Shrek. How do you compare two movies that are different in every way? It's entirely up to you. Did you have an instant gut feeling about one or other of the movies? Great! Or if you're humming and harring perhaps you'd rather consider which you enjoyed more when you saw it, or which would you rather watch right now? Maybe an older movie has really stood the test of time and you consider it a classic. It's entirely your choice.

What happens when I place a vote?

Your vote is sent to the server and the next pairing of two movies will appear. You can vote as many times as you like - a thousand movies paired each against the other gives us 499,500 pairings so you won't run out any time soon! The vote you just recorded is shown in the 'Previous Round' panel on the right hand side. You can compare how you voted to the current rank of the movies, and click on them to see all information and stats we have for that movie.

How many votes are needed?

9,999,000 is each movie voted individually against each other 20 times. We think that's the number when the results will start to get very real. The swings and roundabouts that the top 1000 will take between now and then is all part of the fun. The number might seem boggling, but having seen people instantly hooked and rattling through a few hundred votes, we're confident we'll make it.

What is the Up & Coming page for?

The Up & Coming page exists as a means of promoting movies into the Top 1000 voting. At then end of each month, the bottom fifty of the top 1000 will drop out and be replaced by the top 50 from Up & Coming.