Phi Phenomenon Movie site

[o.m.]

Hi fellow cinephiles, I found an excellent site a few years ago that looks like TSPDT but, euh, in a more popular (or mainstream) format maybe. And they had a major update recently, so let me know what you think about it! Here's a link!
http://www.phi-phenomenon.org/

[andyd1010]

Thanks for sharing! This seems like a good starting place for someone like me. I'm not exactly a cinephile, and some of the subtle filmmaking achievements in TSPDT's obscure top films are lost on me, so this seems more likely to appeal to my taste. A lot of my favorites rank higher here than they do there. This also seems like a list with a lot of culturally significant movies that are worth seeing for that purpose in addition to their quality.

[Harold]

As I have noted several times in this forum, I've always had a fondness for Phi-Phenomenon, even though by any objective standard it's an almost-comically out-of-date website (even the creator acknowledges this in the latest update) and has some questionable-at-best methodology. But at the time I discovered it, it was the only movie website I knew of that aggregated extant greatest-film lists into a ranked list that went well beyond TSPDT's top 1,000, which was exactly what I was looking for at the time.

A few years later, I discovered Films101.com, which does a lot of the same things in a much more systematic and extensive (not to mention much more reader-friendly, and much more regularly-updated) way; but I will always have a soft spot for Phi-Phenomenon. This new update is the first one in almost four years, and it would not surprise me if it is the last.

[burbigo]

Hi, thanks for sharing the site it's really interesting.

[Humphrey12]

Hello, Rita, and welcome to the forum!

Also, what are you talking about? The site works just fine. We just checked and had an all-around great and memorable experience.

[o.m.]

Hey Harold, I've got some terrific news ! You were supposing in your message that it would be the last update of this wonderful site! Well, I logged in tonight and saw this banner "Update on the update". He intends to get a brand new version in 2025...containing 3061 films. He even posted the master list on IMDB. PSYCHO is now number one!
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546699564/
And also the movies that fell off the last version.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546620396/
And also the movies that will be added.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546621763/
Enjoy!

[Harold]

Hey Harold, I've got some terrific news ! You were supposing in your message that it would be the last update of this wonderful site! Well, I logged in tonight and saw this banner "Update on the update". He intends to get a brand new version in 2025...containing 3061 films. He even posted the master list on IMDB. PSYCHO is now number one!
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546699564/
And also the movies that fell off the last version.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546620396/
And also the movies that will be added.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546621763/
Enjoy!

Yes, I am aware of the update - thanks, though!

[jamieW]

Hey Harold, I've got some terrific news ! You were supposing in your message that it would be the last update of this wonderful site! Well, I logged in tonight and saw this banner "Update on the update". He intends to get a brand new version in 2025...containing 3061 films. He even posted the master list on IMDB. PSYCHO is now number one!
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546699564/
And also the movies that fell off the last version.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546620396/
And also the movies that will be added.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls546621763/
Enjoy!

Yes, I am aware of the update - thanks, though!

Harold, out of curiosity, is there a place where I can find the methodology used for this site? The list itself is extremely mainstream (even more so than the fan-generated IMDB list), which made me wonder which critic lists they were using. (I much prefer the TSPDT ranking, but that's just my personal taste. For a more mainstream list, I also think Film101 is a great source; Phi Phenomenon almost seems like a fan-voting list, although it sounds like that's not what it is.)

[Harold]

Harold, out of curiosity, is there a place where I can find the methodology used for this site? The list itself is extremely mainstream (even more so than the fan-generated IMDB list), which made me wonder which critic lists they were using. (I much prefer the TSPDT ranking, but that's just my personal taste. For a more mainstream list, I also think Film101 is a great source; Phi Phenomenon almost seems like a fan-voting list, although it sounds like that's not what it is.)

Oh, I much prefer TSPDT and Films101 as well; however, Phi was the first aggregate best-films site I'd ever found that had a list that went beyond 1,000 films (long before TSPDT started posting its full master list), so I've always retained my fondness for it. It's definitely highly dependent on its creator's idiosyncratic decisions as to which lists to include; the homepage (phi-phenomenon.org) has links to pages discussing the site's methodology and "philosophy," although to a certain extent I've often felt like Willard in Apocalypse Now while perusing the list: "I don't see...any method...at all."

[o.m.]

Well, I don't know if he included all these lists but you can tell that he worked his ass off. Respect.
http://www.phi-phenomenon.org/links/

[jamieW]

Thanks, Harold & o.m.! Yep, lots of work went into it for sure. Honestly, I'm a little surprised it does skew so mainstream since there are a great many of the critic lists included that are featured in TSPDT, as well. I appreciate the info!

[nquoid]

I wonder if the main difference is that TSPDT includes all the previous versions of the sight and sound lists and counts each ballot as an individual list?