Top 50 Actresses: Final Thoughts

Following the example of my Sci Fi Movie Project, I thought I would wrap-up the Top 50 Actresses Project with some final thoughts. Before I started the project, I guessed what rating I would give each movie. So first, here are a few stats related to those guesses.

Out of the 50 movies reviewed for this project:

4 movies, I guessed my rating accurately

15 movies, I was within a quarter star (plus or minus)

15 movies, I was within half a star (plus or minus)

9 movies, I was within three-quarters of a star (plus or minus)

3 movies, I was within 1 star (plus or minus)

4 movies, I was within 1+ stars (plus or minus)

Biggest difference in the positive: It’s a 3-way tie between The Country Girl (I guessed 3, gave it 4), The Killers (same as Country Girl), and Ball of Fire (I guessed 3.5, gave it 4.5).

Biggest difference in the negative: The Quiet Man, which I guessed I would give 4 stars. I gave it .25 star. I still really hate that movie. Even remembering it makes me angry.

I was more likely to guess low than high. Of the movies in which my guesses were inaccurate, I gave 26 a higher rating than I guessed. That means I gave only 20 a lower rating than I guessed.

I feel that I was more accurate than not. I think guessing within half a star is pretty good. 34 of my guesses were either spot on, or within a half star. Only 16 were wrong by more than half a star.

I enjoyed this project and felt that it was very successful. In fact, out of 50 movies, I gave 27 a rating of 4 stars or higher. That means I felt that 54% of the movies were excellent. That’s far better than any other movie project I’ve undertaken. The Oscars project is a distant second, with a current percentage of 43% of films rated 4 stars or higher.

I attribute this huge jump in enjoyment to the fact that I got to choose which films I watched, and I gave myself a lot of flexibility in those choices. While I tried to watch Oscar-winning performances, if there was a film I simply didn’t feel like watching, I chose something else. I do feel that there were some actresses who didn’t belong on the list (ex: Barbra Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts). Since it was a publicly generated list, it was, to some extent, a popularity contest.

However, in a general sense, I thought it was a pretty solid list. I liked the aspect of watching the films in order to focus on a specific performance. In the end, I felt like I got to see a lot of great films & become acquainted with some performers with whom I was previously unfamiliar.

I’m looking forward to doing the same for the Top 50 Actors, which will be my next project.