Just a bit of stupid fun, in case you haven’t seen this floating around Facebook: The ‘List Challenges’ site gives you ‘The Top 250 Movies of All Time’, according to IMDB (the Internet Movie Database) – ‘as voted by our users’. Of course I disagree profoundly with the list, but that’s the point of lists like this.
You mark the films you have seen as you scroll through, and then it gives you the total. I was disappointed not to get 50% – my score was 117 out of 250. However, I took the moral high ground and decided to exclude from my check list those films I have walked out of and not seen to the end. I think I would have got to 50% with them.
It’s strange what you remember: I can recall the scene, the cinema, and just about the very place I was sitting of almost every film I have ever walked out from. As if the existential anxiety of cutting one’s losses and choosing to leave the ‘hallowed space’ of the cinema puts an indelible mark on the soul.
The first ‘walk out’ I remember was Fatal Attraction. This was when I was an undergraduate, in the old cinema near Parker’s Piece in Cambridge in about 1988, which has since been converted into a Weatherspoons pub on the ground floor and the new Arts Cinema on the first floor.
So you can do the list here. And do put your results in the comment box; and if you have had any particularly significant ‘walking out’ moments, do share them!
Bridges and Tangents 
I scored 105. I watched the 2 Bollywood movies 3 Idiots and Like Stars on Earth with my sons last month and enjoyed them both.
The list seemed a bit short on romantic comedies to me.
I’ve never walked out of a movie. I struggle to stop reading a book even if its boring, I like to see things through! I did switch off Resident Evil (at home) because it was just too violent.
114. Surprised by how many newer films which I quite wanted to see when they came out, e.g. Gran Torino, I never got round to seeing. A reasonable list, but doesn’t contain my greatest film of all time, “Les Enfants du Paradis”. Also doesn’t contain the daddy of all horror films, “Nosferatu”. List also contains quite a few duds, e.g. “Saving Private Ryan” and all the “Star Trek” movies.
I am not a regular cinema goer. A film really does have to catch my interest before I go. The last one I went to was ‘Summer in February’ and it got my top score despite getting a panning by the critics.
A very poor 50, and some of them I honestly can not remember in any detail at all. Some of them I turned off because they were just too violent, and whilst I wasn’t against the violence in the film, I just couldn’t stomach it.
Have walked out of a couple of booooorrrring films in Curzon having sat most of the way through hoping they would improve, wondering how they ever got through the arty net.
That arty net, sometimes the holes are portentously small, but the vine is good.
pretentiously!
How about the 101 best selling books of all time?! http://www.listchallenges.com/101-best-selling-books-of-all-time
Isabel E
I liked this list Isabel as I am more of a reader than cinema-goer. Thankyou for sharing the website link.
I liked this hollywood movie and i all time see hollywood movie
147. (Not sure whether I should be ashamed of having wasted so much time or proud of my engagement with mass culture! (Assuming (eg) Tarkovsky counts as mass culture!!))
I can’t imagine what would make me walk out of a movie. I’m both extremely mean (‘I’ve paid so I’ll stay to the end’) and optimistic (‘You can’t tell what a movie’s really like until the credits have finished’). I have been in two films where there was a mass walk out. ‘Motenegro’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro_(film) and ‘The Death of the Flea Circus Director’ http://www.koerferfilm.com/e/flohzirkus.html. In both cases I stayed despite all my friends (and most of the rest of the audience) leaving. Neither (unsurprisingly) featured on the 250 list.
In mitigation, I should explain that I watched neither as a Catholic and I was in both cases going through an extreme version of stroppy intellectual adolescent syndrome.
I’ve been thinking about my walkouts: most are either because a film is absolutely dire, or because it is much more violent than I expected.
My film watching is clearly too narrow with a score of just 40! Many of which I was made to sit through with my husband. Like Tonio says, a lack of rom coms bought my score down (I’m a typical girl!).
And I have to say that I’m rather surprised that there is not 1 James Bond on the list.
Also like Tonio I would always see things through to the end so have never walked out of a film, but I think perhaps I should in future. Time is precious after all.
Very good stuff indeed. A group of us have taken to watching B movies on a Sunday night. I looked on line the other day to try and find some more. Was shocked to find 5 of the top ten B movies were films I genuinely love. How are Escape from New York and Warriors B Movies?
All the best
Stuart
I love this list, especially the number of Jimmy Stewart films! Am always looking for good films, although also avoid violent films. Think Hotel Rwanda was probably the most gruesome film on this list that I’ve watched but isn’t mindless action violence.
I got 57. I don’t know what some movies are doing on the list, though. It looks like recency bias to me. They should have a mandatory 15-year waiting period before a film can be included, to give it time to prove its staying power.
I just got 112. However, I’ve got to say I have never made a walk out on any movie, no matter how crappy it was. I just can’t help myself and have to watch everything till the end.