Bubbling under but never at the Top

by penchofifteenpolls | created - 28 Jun 2016 | updated - 13 Jul 2016 | Public

The following films are currently (as of July of 2016) located in the IMDb Top 500 list (available to IMDb Pro users), but despite bubbling under the site's top films, they have never in history reached the famous Top 250.

Which of these films do you find more worthy of reaching the Top 250 some day?

Poll by Pencho15

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1. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Not Rated | 108 min | Drama

84 Metascore

Brick is an alcoholic ex-football player who drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife. A reunion with his terminal father jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson

Votes: 53,437 | Gross: $17.57M

2. Mommy (I) (2014)

R | 139 min | Drama

74 Metascore

A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.

Director: Xavier Dolan | Stars: Anne Dorval, Antoine Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clément, Patrick Huard

Votes: 61,857 | Gross: $3.49M

3. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

R | 117 min | Biography, Drama

77 Metascore

In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is diagnosed with the disease.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée | Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, Steve Zahn

Votes: 519,494 | Gross: $27.30M

4. Short Term 12 (2013)

R | 96 min | Drama

82 Metascore

A 20-something supervising staff member of a residential treatment facility navigates the troubled waters of that world alongside her co-worker and longtime boyfriend.

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton | Stars: Brie Larson, Frantz Turner, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever

Votes: 91,829 | Gross: $1.01M

5. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Thriller

89 Metascore

A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.

Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman

Votes: 139,201 | Gross: $0.09M

6. East of Eden (1955)

PG | 118 min | Drama

72 Metascore

Two brothers in 1910s California struggle to maintain their strict, Bible-toting father's favor as an old secret about their long-absent mother comes to light.

Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris, Burl Ives

Votes: 48,831

7. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

PG-13 | 117 min | Biography, Drama

64 Metascore

A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career

Director: Gabriele Muccino | Stars: Will Smith, Thandiwe Newton, Jaden Smith, Brian Howe

Votes: 561,199 | Gross: $163.57M

8. The Bourne Identity (2002)

PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller

68 Metascore

A man is picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddled and suffering from amnesia, before racing to elude assassins and attempting to regain his memory.

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Franka Potente, Matt Damon, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen

Votes: 576,494 | Gross: $121.66M

9. The Return (2003)

Not Rated | 110 min | Drama

82 Metascore

In the Russian wilderness, two brothers face a range of new, conflicting emotions when their father - a man they know only through a single photograph - resurfaces.

Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev | Stars: Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko, Nataliya Vdovina

Votes: 47,517 | Gross: $0.50M

10. Days of Heaven (1978)

PG | 94 min | Drama, Romance

94 Metascore

A hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.

Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz

Votes: 62,785

11. About Elly (2009)

TV-PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery

87 Metascore

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

Director: Asghar Farhadi | Stars: Taraneh Alidoosti, Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Merila Zare'i

Votes: 57,193 | Gross: $0.11M

12. The Man from Earth (2007)

Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery

An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his colleagues he has a longer and stranger past than they can imagine.

Director: Richard Schenkman | Stars: David Lee Smith, Tony Todd, John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford

Votes: 200,267

13. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

71 Metascore

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson

Votes: 737,372 | Gross: $100.21M

14. Straight Outta Compton (2015)

R | 147 min | Biography, Drama, History

72 Metascore

The rap group NWA emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California, in the mid-1980s and revolutionizes Hip Hop culture with their music and tales about life in the hood.

Director: F. Gary Gray | Stars: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr.

Votes: 218,559 | Gross: $161.20M

15. Whisper of the Heart (1995)

G | 111 min | Animation, Drama, Family

75 Metascore

A love story between a girl who loves reading books, and a boy who has previously checked out all of the library books she chooses.

Director: Yoshifumi Kondô | Stars: Yoko Honna, Issei Takahashi, Takashi Tachibana, Shigeru Muroi

Votes: 72,701

16. Head-On (2004)

R | 121 min | Drama, Romance

78 Metascore

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

Director: Fatih Akin | Stars: Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Güven Kiraç, Zarah Jane McKenzie

Votes: 57,697

17. A Prophet (2009)

R | 155 min | Crime, Drama

90 Metascore

A delinquent Muslim man struggles to get by in prison until he is taken under the wing of a powerful mob boss. But his gradual rise through the mob's ranks brings him in conflict with his mentor.

Director: Jacques Audiard | Stars: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Reda Kateb

Votes: 102,210 | Gross: $2.08M

18. The Hateful Eight (2015)

R | 168 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

68 Metascore

In the dead of a Wyoming winter, a bounty hunter and his prisoner find shelter in a cabin currently inhabited by a collection of nefarious characters.

Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins

Votes: 660,236 | Gross: $54.12M

19. Freaks (1932)

Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror

80 Metascore

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates

Votes: 50,629 | Gross: $0.63M

20. Do the Right Thing (1989)

R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama

93 Metascore

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson

Votes: 112,481 | Gross: $27.55M

21. Boogie Nights (1997)

R | 155 min | Drama

86 Metascore

Back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, an idealistic porn producer aspires to elevate his craft to an art when he discovers a hot young talent.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán

Votes: 282,180 | Gross: $26.40M

22. Badlands (1973)

PG | 94 min | Action, Crime, Drama

93 Metascore

An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.

Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri

Votes: 78,430

23. The Fall (I) (2006)

R | 117 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy

64 Metascore

In 1920s Los Angeles, a bedridden patient in a hospital captivates a young girl with a fantastic tale of heroes, myths, and villains on a desert island.

Director: Tarsem Singh | Stars: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Kim Uylenbroek

Votes: 116,720 | Gross: $2.28M

24. Nine Queens (2000)

R | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

80 Metascore

Two con artists try to swindle a stamp collector by selling him a sheet of counterfeit rare stamps (the "nine queens").

Director: Fabián Bielinsky | Stars: Ricardo Darín, Gastón Pauls, Graciela Tenenbaum, María Mercedes Villagra

Votes: 57,155 | Gross: $1.22M

25. C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)

Not Rated | 129 min | Comedy, Drama

81 Metascore

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée | Stars: Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx, Émile Vallée

Votes: 34,133

26. Mr. Nobody (2009)

R | 141 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

63 Metascore

A boy stands on a station platform as a train is about to leave. Should he go with his mother or stay with his father? Infinite possibilities arise from this decision. As long as he doesn't choose, anything is possible.

Director: Jaco Van Dormael | Stars: Jared Leto, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, Linh-Dan Pham

Votes: 245,904 | Gross: $0.00M

27. The Chaser (2008)

Not Rated | 125 min | Action, Crime, Drama

64 Metascore

A disgraced ex-policeman who runs a small ring of prostitutes finds himself in a race against time when one of his women goes missing.

Director: Na Hong-jin | Stars: Kim Yoon-seok, Ha Jung-woo, Seo Yeong-hie, Kim Yoo-jung

Votes: 72,805

28. Taken (I) (2008)

PG-13 | 90 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

51 Metascore

A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

Director: Pierre Morel | Stars: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser

Votes: 634,718 | Gross: $145.00M

29. The Notebook (2004)

PG-13 | 123 min | Drama, Romance

53 Metascore

An elderly man reads to a woman with dementia the story of two young lovers whose romance is threatened by the difference in their respective social classes.

Director: Nick Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, James Garner, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling

Votes: 620,549 | Gross: $81.00M

30. Halloween (1978)

R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller

90 Metascore

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes

Votes: 306,927 | Gross: $47.00M

31. The Boondock Saints (1999)

R | 108 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

44 Metascore

Two Irish Catholic brothers become vigilantes and wipe out Boston's criminal underworld in the name of God.

Director: Troy Duffy | Stars: Willem Dafoe, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, David Della Rocco

Votes: 250,762 | Gross: $0.03M

32. Predator (1987)

R | 107 min | Action, Adventure, Horror

47 Metascore

A team of commandos on a mission in a Central American jungle find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior.

Director: John McTiernan | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Kevin Peter Hall, Elpidia Carrillo

Votes: 455,140 | Gross: $59.74M

33. Key Largo (1948)

Approved | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore

Votes: 43,992

34. Big Hero 6 (2014)

PG | 102 min | Animation, Action, Adventure

74 Metascore

A special bond develops between plus-sized inflatable robot Baymax and prodigy Hiro Hamada, who together team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes.

Directors: Don Hall, Chris Williams | Stars: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Jamie Chung, T.J. Miller

Votes: 502,477 | Gross: $222.53M

35. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

G | 103 min | Animation, Family, Fantasy

85 Metascore

A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi

Votes: 165,670



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