Talk:List of films voted the best

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This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Deletion discussions:
Keep, 24 May 2023, see discussion. SNOW keep, 11 July 2017, see discussion. SNOW keep, 15 March 2016, see discussion. SNOW keep, 17 February 2012 (UTC), see discussion. Keep, August 3, 2010, see discussion. Keep, September 24, 2006, see discussion. Keep, May 30, 2004, see discussion.

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.

Discussions:

RM, Films considered the greatest ever → List of films considered the best, moved, 18 November 2010 (discussion)
RM, List of films considered the best → List of top films, not moved, 9 June 2016 (discussion)
RM, List of films considered the best → List of films topping Best Film polls, not moved, 4 October 2016 (discussion)

On 13 June 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from List of films considered the best to List of films voted the best. The result of the discussion was moved.

Archives

Archive 1 – Pre-VfD discussion
Archive 2 – Discussion in 2004
Archive 3 – Discussion from January through October 2005
Archive 4 – Discussion from November 2005 through March 2007
Archive 5 – Discussion from April 2007 through December 2007
Archive 6 – Discussion from March 2009 through December 2010
Archive 7 – Discussion from May 2013 through August 2016
Archive 8 – Discussion from September 2016 through February 2018
Archive 9 – Discussion since March 2018

This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be auto-archived by if there are more than 4.

Current/recent consensuses:

Don't add movies based on having won awards. (link)
Don't add movies based on having been picked as "the best" by the editorial staff of a periodical. (link)
Don't add movies that are only "the best" if both country and genre are specified. (link)
Don't add movies that are only "the best" if more than one genre is specified. (link)
Don't add movies that are only "the best" if only a limited timeframe is considered. (link)
Don't add movies based on topping Rotten Tomatoes' lists. (link)

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 8&half; 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

Belarus and Palestine

Here are entries for Belarus and Palestine which should be fit to be added straight in.

Come and See (Idi i smotri, 1985) was voted the best Belarusian film by a 2024 poll of 49 experts arranged by the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA)^[1].

Divine Intervention (2002) was the highest ranked Palestinian film at seventh place in a 2013 poll of greatest films from the Arab world organized by the Dubai International Film Festival.^[2]^[3]. It also received the most votes (six) of any film by a Palestinian director on the 2022 Sight & Sound poll of greatest films of all time.^[4]

References

^ "The 50 Greatest Belarusian Films". Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
^ "Dubai International Film Festival Releases The 100 Greatest Arab Films". Dubai International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
^ Hamad, Marwa (6 November 2013). "Dubai International Film Festival picks top 100 Arab films". Gulf News. Archived from the original on 20 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
^ Cite error: The named reference S&S was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

60.242.91.200 (talk) 00:24, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added Belarus—that's straightforwardly a poll about the best Belarusian films. The Palestine one, on the other hand, is not from polls specifically about the best Palestinian films but rather the top-ranking Palestinian entry in polls with broader scopes, so the case for inclusion is more debatable there. Let's hear what others think. TompaDompa (talk) 10:19, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Best film of the 21st century

We have a couple of polls covering the 21st century, one from 2016 and another from 2025. I'm of the view the criteria is too narrow: the 2016 poll especially is essentially a best film of the decade poll, and we wouldn't have a category for the 1990s and so on. Basically none of the polls we document restrict the period; so the best film of all-time covers all of film-making history up to the time of the poll, best horror film covers the entirety of the genre, best French film covers all French films etc. Personally, I believe this list works best without restricting periods the considered and the 21st century polls should be removed. Betty Logan (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it is too narrow. TompaDompa (talk) 22:59, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Russia and USSR

For some reason, the "Russia" section lists a Soviet film. Perhaps it should be moved to the "Soviet Union" section. The best Soviet films are presented here, including those chosen as the best after the collapse of the USSR.

Also, you may add these films to the "Russia" section (source on russian language - https://tass.ru/obschestvo/21701445):

"The films 'Brother 2,' 'The Island,' and 'Fortress of War' topped the ranking of the best Russian films of the 21st century, according to a survey by the Kino Mail.ru service. A copy of this study, prepared for Russian Cinema Day, is available to TASS.

"The top 50 Russian films of the 21st century were topped by Alexei Balabanov's crime drama 'Brother 2.' The second film about Danila Bagrov, an implacable fighter for truth and defender of the weak, was released in 2000 and eventually gained cult status, cementing Sergei Bodrov Jr. as a national film hero.

Second place in the ranking went to 'The Island,' directed by Pavel Lungin, starring Pyotr Mamonov as a righteous elder.

Rounding out the top three was Alexander Kott's 'Fortress of War', which reconstructs the chronicle of the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War" 86.54.29.65 (talk) 11:37, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "The 50 Greatest Belarusian Films". Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 20 May 2025.

[2] "Dubai International Film Festival Releases The 100 Greatest Arab Films". Dubai International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2017.

[3] Hamad, Marwa (6 November 2013). "Dubai International Film Festival picks top 100 Arab films". Gulf News. Archived from the original on 20 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2017.

[S&S-4] Cite error: The named reference S&S was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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