There are two lists here, and they work differently.

The Voter Board is yours. Anyone with a verified TOPICAL account gets one vote - for the movie they think is truly the best of all time - and can add a movie if it's missing. Voting for a different movie moves your vote there. The board is sorted by votes. When you add a movie, you search and pick the exact film from a real movie database, so typos and nicknames can't create a wrong or duplicate entry. If the film is already listed, your pick just counts as your vote.

Top Movies and Top Actors are TOPICAL's own scores - every film we score and every actor we rank, each with its own page. Every film we score is also on the Voter Board, starting at 0 votes, so the board begins in TOPICAL order until your votes take over. We score about 6,700 films - every film covered by Wikipedia in 30 or more languages, every film nominated for an Oscar, every film in the U.S. National Film Registry, and every film on the Voter Board. Only feature films that are already out are ranked: shorts (under 40 minutes) and films that haven't been released yet are left out.

How a movie is scored

Each film gets seven part-scores. For each part we measure how far the film is above or below the average film, then add the parts together using fixed weights:

Part	Weight	What it measures
Critics	20%	Rotten Tomatoes (the critics' average rating and the % of positive reviews) and Metacritic.
Audience	20%	How regular viewers rate it: TMDB members' average, plus IMDb and Letterboxd where available. A film rated by only a few hundred people is pulled toward average until more people rate it.
Awards	15%	Wins and nominations, weighted by how big the award is: Best Picture counts most, then Palme d'Or, the other top Oscars, Golden Lion and Golden Bear, then BAFTAs, Golden Globes and guild awards, then national academies and critics' groups. A nomination counts about a third of a win. Fan polls (MTV, Kids' Choice) count very little and "worst film" awards count for nothing.
Historical impact	15%	How many of the world's Wikipedias have an article on it (a film known in 100 languages has crossed the world), plus a boost for being chosen by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry.
Lasting engagement	10%	Are people still looking it up and watching it? Wikipedia readers in the last 60 days and how many people have rated it on TMDB. Films less than 3 years old can't score above the middle here yet - they haven't had time to last.
Cast	10%	The actor scores (below) of the top four billed actors, added up.
Legacy & cult status	10%	An AI reading of the film's Wikipedia reception and legacy sections, scored 1-10 from "poorly received" to "routinely named one of the greatest films ever made". The AI must quote the sentence its score is based on, and that sentence has to be found in the article - if it isn't there, the score is thrown out, and the quote we show is always the article's own words. Cult films get two boosts on top. First, if the article calls the film a cult classic or says it has a cult following: +0.8, or +1.5 if it says so three or more times (plot summaries and "See also" links don't count). Second, a living fan culture: +0.5 for each kind the article describes - annual fan festivals or conventions, midnight screenings or audience participation, fans in costume, a fanbase with its own name or a religion it inspired, and fan-made films, fiction or fan clubs - up to +2. One kind on its own only counts if the article also calls it a cult film, because a single mention is often something else (a "midnight showing" box-office record, for example). The Big Lebowski, with Lebowski Fest, costume contests, midnight screenings and Dudeism, gets the full +2. Every film's article is checked for both, and a cult film always gets the AI reading, even if its critics and awards numbers are modest. On a film's page the Legacy bar shows the AI's read plus these boosts, times 10 and capped at 100 (8/10 plus 1.5 shows as 95); the other bars show what % of films it beats.

If a part is missing (for example, an old film with no Metacritic score), we assume it's halfway between average and what the film's other parts say. The final TOPICAL score (0-100) is based on the film's place among all scored films, so the best film scores about 99 and a typical film about 50.

How an actor is scored

Bigger roles count more. Each film counts toward an actor by where they're billed in the cast list: 1st billed 100%, 2nd 90%, 3rd 75%, 4th 60%, 5th 45%, 6th 35%, 7th 25%, 8th 15%, and below that not at all. Actors are ranked once their roles add up to at least three full leads (for example three starring roles, or five 4th-billed parts). Acting awards count in full whatever the billing - a supporting-actor Oscar is still an Oscar.

Part	Weight	What it measures
Acting honours	30%	Acting awards and nominations (Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Cannes, Venice, Berlin, SAG and more, weighted like the film awards) plus career honours such as an honorary Oscar or the AFI Life Achievement Award.
Their movies	35%	How good their best work is. We take their best films first and keep adding until we have the equivalent of five lead roles (a lead counts fully, an 8th-billed part 15%), then average them - so a few weak films further down don't drag a great actor down. It uses the film score without the cast part, so an actor doesn't boost their own score, and it's pulled toward average until they've had several big roles. A smaller share (about a third) is their best decade: the ten-year stretch where their good films came closest together, which rewards a run of hits.
Credits	10%	How many films and shows they've appeared in.
Career standing	25%	An AI reading of their Wikipedia article (1-10, from "little acclaim" to "one of the greatest actors of all time", with the same quote check) plus how many of the world's Wikipedias cover them.

Where the data comes from

Wikidata (awards, nominations, critic scores, cast, National Film Registry), Wikipedia (article text and reader numbers) and TMDB (posters, actor photos, billed cast order, audience ratings). The weights are fixed and chosen by us, not fitted to any list - so this is TOPICAL's view, not a copy of anyone else's. The lists rebuild every week.

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.