Best Movie Musicals – Methodology
I searched far and wide for lists of best musical movies of all time. Criteria included the movies being ranked, not just listed, and covering all time, not just a decade. The lists were generally created by groups, whether teams or committees or based on general public voting (like Ranker.com).
I was able to find 22 lists. I took the 22 lists and added all their content into a spreadsheet, noting the rank of every film. The total number was almost 1,300 including all the repeats. I experimented with different formulas, trying to balance the value of being ranked high on any list and being included on the most lists. I ended up averaging the rankings each movie got (there were 201 that were on at least 2 lists) and dividing that average by a factor of the number of lists that movie was on. The lowest score meant a high ranking average on many lists. The complete spreadsheet is attached at the bottom.
The movies that were on the most lists (out of 22 ) were:
- Singin’ in the Rain (1952) – 20 lists
- The Wizard of Oz (1939) – 18 lists
- The Sound of Music (1965) – 18 lists
- Cabaret (1972) – 18 lists
- West Side Story (1961) – 17 lists
- Mary Poppins (1964) – 17 lists
- La La Land (2016) – 17 lists
- Chicago (2002) – 17 lists
- Grease (1978) – 17 lists
Here are links to the lists I used along with dates the lists were created:
- Ready Set Cut – 23 Nov 2022
- Stacker – 16 Nov 2022
- PinkVilla – 26 Sep 2022
- InsideOAU – 5 Aug 2022
- Rotten Tomatoes – 4 Aug 2022
- Ranker.com – 1 Jul 2022
- IndieWire – 29 Jun 2022
- BBC Classical Music – 6 Jun 2022
- ScreenRant – 14 Apr 2022
- TimeOut – 8 Apr 2022
- Parade – 17 Dec 2021
- GoldDerby – 7 Jun 2021
- FilmsRanked – 11 Mar 2021
- PureWow – 16 Nov 2020
- What’s On Stage – 8 Jun 2020
- Newsweek – 8 Aug 2018
- TeenVogue – 15 Feb 2018
- The Playlist – 10 Jan 2017
- American Film Institute (AFI) – no date
- FilmZone – no date
- IMDb – no date, but only movies with 10,000+ votes
- Metacritic – no date