Just answer these 20 easy questions (research is OK):

Most popular movie star of all time
2nd most popular movie star of all time
3rd most popular movie star of all time
4th most popular movie star of all time
5th most popular movie star of all time
6th most popular movie star of all time
7th most popular movie star of all time
8th most popular movie star of all time
9th most popular movie star of all time
10th most popular movie star of all time
25th most popular movie star of all time
50th most popular movie star of all time
100th most popular movie star of all time
500th most popular movie star of all time
1,000th most popular movie star of all time
5,000th most popular movie star of all time
10,000th most popular movie star of all time
50,000th most popular movie star of all time
100,000th most popular movie star of all time
least popular movie star of all time (must be on the list but right at the bottom)

Each question will be ranked best answer to worst answer with points awarded accordingly
You must not put in any duplicates - 20 different "stars".

I haven't even started coding yet so you should have plenty of time to enter - I'll keep you advised.
Enter by PM or in the thread if you don't mind others stealing your great picks.
I'll enter too so I won't look at any PMs til I've put in my entry.

How it's calculated:
From IMDB, list all movies (live action feature films or TV-movies) 1 year at a time (1930-2020)
Calculate average popularity (by number of votes).
Award each "star" (listed as such in IMDB Advanced Search) points equal to "votes for this move" divided by "average popularity".
Total all the awarded points for each movie that this person starred in.

Example: this actor starred in 2 movies. one in 1935 that got 100 votes and one in 1955 that got 50 votes.
Average votes for a 1935 movie was 100. Average votes for a 1955 movie was 1000.
The calculation is (100/100) + (50/1000) = 1.05
This actor is more popular than someone who scored 1.0499 or less but less popular than someone who scored 1.0501 or better.

Started IMDB research but as soon as I put in "genres" it says "no results". Anyone else having this problem?
Might have to just go with "feature film" and "TV-movie" if IMDB is not working properly.

Ooh fun

To get the ball rolling after just a modicum of thought:

1 Clint Eastwood
2 Tom Hanks
3 Clark Gable
4 Jimmy "James" Stewart
5 Bette Davis
6 John Wayne
7 Cary Grant
8 Robert De Niro
9 Joan Crawford
10 Drew Barrymore
25 Adam Sandler
50 Susan Sarandon
100 Jane Fonda
500 Peter Fonda
1000 Brenda Marshall
5000 "Wild" Bill Elliott
10000 Tor Johnson
50000 Aneta Corsaut
100000 Dawn Bender
least Tatanya Kulakova



Dawn Bender: 100,000th most popular movie star of all time?

BTW, we only count movies that have 5 or more votes.
On IMDB, 0 votes doesn't mean 0, it means less than 5.

no need to hurry - I'm still coding
they have directors and "stars" on the same line
they have commas (end of field markers) in the # of votes
the "genres" are an "and" not an "or" so you can't just select the live action genres

but, I will find a way around these obstacles


Aneta Corsaut: the 50,000th most popular movie star?

Program for calculating is beginning to take shape.
I was using the movies of 1930 as test data.
I think the code is good enough to be fairly certain who the most popular star of 1930 was:

who? That doesn't look like Greta Garbo!

He was in the Best Picture winner and a couple of other popular movies that year. The Best Picture winner has far and away the most votes that year.

Looking good for 1930.
I'm out of the starting gate with John Wayne in 43rd and Joan Crawford in 68th.
Bette Davis & Clark Gable make their debuts in starring roles next year (1931).

So, you can start flooding my in-basket with entries. Can't wait to do 1931!

BTW, I see "King Of Jazz" was listed as animation even though it's mostly live action......so..............OK, we'll count voice actors.


John Wayne makes a good start in 43rd but he has a whole decade of "B" westerns ahead of him before "Stagecoach".

No entries yet?
Certainly not running this without entries - this will be a massive amount of work.
1930 only had about 590 movies with 5 or more votes. Subsequent years will have way more.
I think a lot of you would like to see the results but entering the quiz isn't a priority.
Here's something to wet your appetite: the top 200 from 1930.
I won't run 1931 until entries start flowing in.

RANK + NAME	SCORE
1 Lew Ayres	151.56354
2 Louis Wolheim	151.10069
3 John Wray	148.61109
4 Arnold Lucy	148.55994
5 Marlene Dietrich	53.10741
6 Emil Jannings	36.71795
7 Rosa Valetti	36.61807
8 Kurt Gerron	36.61807
9 Harpo Marx	35.23685
10 Chico Marx	35.23685
11 Groucho Marx	35.23685
12 The Marx Brothers	35.23685
13 Caridad de Laberdesque	33.72166
14 Lya Lys	33.72166
15 Gaston Modot	33.72166
16 Max Ernst	33.72166
17 Robert Montgomery	19.19818
18 Gary Cooper	17.78529
19 Adolphe Menjou	16.85474
20 Marie Dressler	16.47716
21 Chester Morris	16.43818
22 Ullrich Haupt	16.38459
23 Herbert Marshall	15.48570
24 Norah Baring	15.48570
25 Edward Chapman	15.48570
26 Phyllis Konstam	15.48570
27 James Hall	14.56976
28 Ben Lyon	13.97294
29 Semyon Svashenko	13.96320
30 Yuliya Solntseva	13.96320
31 Yelena Maksimova	13.96320
32 Stepan Shkurat	13.96320
33 Jean Harlow	13.19342
34 John Darrow	13.19342
35 Wallace Beery	12.48210
36 Greta Garbo	12.08503
37 David Torrence	12.04606
38 Conrad Nagel	11.67822
39 El Brendel	11.27872
40 Marguerite Churchill	10.37009
41 Tully Marshall	10.19956
42 Charles Bickford	9.69044
43 John Wayne	9.28850
44 Charles Farrell	9.25439
45 George F. Marion	9.07657
46 Lewis Stone	9.04246
47 Norma Shearer	9.01566
48 Elliott Nugent	8.48218
49 Mary Duncan	8.05831
50 Edith Yorke	8.02421
51 Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	8.02421
52 Christl Ehlers	7.69048
53 Brigitte Borchert	7.69048
54 Erwin Splettstößer	7.69048
55 Wolfgang von Waltershausen	7.69048
56 Walter Huston	7.24956
57 Kay Francis	6.74531
58 Leila Hyams	6.67466
59 Neil Hamilton	6.28490
60 Una Merkel	6.21426
61 Frank McHugh	6.08515
62 Marion Davies	5.86103
63 Marie Prevost	5.65397
64 Albert Préjean	5.59064
65 Bill Bocket	5.59064
66 Edmond T. Gréville	5.59064
67 Pola Illéry	5.59064
68 Joan Crawford	5.58820
69 Dorothy Jordan	5.48102
70 Anita Page	5.43473
71 William Haines	5.42012
72 Richard Barthelmess	5.35922
73 Marjorie Rambeau	5.29101
74 Phillips Holmes	5.28370
75 Lawrence Gray	5.25690
76 Claus Clausen	5.10831
77 Kay Johnson	5.09126
78 Fritz Kampers	5.04984
79 Gustav Diessl	5.04984
80 Hans-Joachim Möbis	5.04984
81 Loretta Young	5.00356
82 Lowell Sherman	4.69175
83 Jeanette MacDonald	4.63572
84 Jean Arthur	4.57482
85 Claud Allister	4.54072
86 Cliff Edwards	4.43597
87 James Cagney	4.32148
88 Zasu Pitts	4.29225
89 Warren Hymer	4.13391
90 Jeanette Loff	4.13147
91 Frederick Kerr	4.02185
92 Ronald Colman	4.02185
93 John Boles	3.90492
94 Polly Moran	3.89274
95 Alice White	3.76850
96 William L. Thorne	3.76363
97 Lucille La Verne	3.76363
98 Robert Armstrong	3.75876
99 Fredric March	3.57362
100 Dorothy Sebastian	3.52978
101 Louise Fazenda	3.52734
102 Buster Keaton	3.52003
103 Tatsuo Saitô	3.49567
104 William Powell	3.47862
105 Laura La Plante	3.41285
106 Raymond Hackett	3.33977
107 Paul Whiteman	3.33002
108 Myrna Loy	3.31541
109 Lila Lee	3.30810
110 Basil Rathbone	3.30566
111 Lillian Roth	3.26669
112 Robert Woolsey	3.26425
113 Bert Wheeler	3.26425
114 Walter Catlett	3.26181
115 Reginald Denny	3.23745
116 Humphrey Bogart	3.22527
117 Jack Buchanan	3.22040
118 Louis John Bartels	3.21066
119 William Bakewell	3.09373
120 Harry Earles	3.02552
121 Lon Chaney	3.02552
122 Spencer Tracy	3.01821
123 Claire Luce	3.01821
124 Roland Young	2.98898
125 Barbara Stanwyck	2.98411
126 Ralph Graves	2.98411
127 Kenneth MacKenna	2.98167
128 Johnny Mack Brown	2.95731
129 Barbara Kent	2.87449
130 Boris Karloff	2.84039
131 Constance Cummings	2.84039
132 Lloyd Hughes	2.80872
133 John Gilbert	2.77948
134 Grant Withers	2.76487
135 Dorothy Mathews	2.73320
136 Leon Janney	2.73320
137 Constance Bennett	2.67474
138 Robert Ames	2.65768
139 Charles King	2.65038
140 Franklin Pangborn	2.65038
141 Robert McWade	2.64550
142 Harold Lloyd	2.64550
143 Lillian Leighton	2.64550
144 Mary Astor	2.62114
145 Rod La Rocque	2.55537
146 Dorothy Mackaill	2.54563
147 Paul Gregory	2.53832
148 Ethel Shutta	2.53832
149 Eddie Cantor	2.53832
150 Eleanor Hunt	2.53832
151 Noah Beery	2.52614
152 Joan Bennett	2.51396
153 Bebe Daniels	2.49447
154 H.B. Warner	2.47255
155 Bessie Love	2.47255
156 Grayce Hampton	2.45062
157 David Manners	2.40678
158 Lilian Harvey	2.40678
159 Maureen O'Sullivan	2.40434
160 Nancy Carroll	2.39216
161 Joe E. Brown	2.36293
162 Edward G. Robinson	2.35562
163 Dorothy Lee	2.34100
164 John Garrick	2.33126
165 Ralph Forbes	2.27036
166 Theo Shall	2.25331
167 Willy Fritsch	2.24113
168 Heinz Rühmann	2.21190
169 Trixie Friganza	2.21190
170 Salka Viertel	2.18023
171 Hans Junkermann	2.18023
172 Oskar Karlweis	2.17779
173 Gavin Gordon	2.17048
174 Mary Doran	2.16317
175 Marjorie White	2.16074
176 Regis Toomey	2.15099
177 Beryl Mercer	2.14369
178 Tokihiko Okada	2.13881
179 Mitsuko Ichimura	2.11933
180 James Gleason	2.09497
181 Catherine Dale Owen	2.05112
182 Natalie Moorhead	2.02676
183 Chishû Ryû	2.01701
184 John Miljan	1.98291
185 Raymond Hatton	1.95124
186 Evalyn Knapp	1.94881
187 Gilbert Emery	1.94150
188 Evelyn Brent	1.93175
189 Mary Brian	1.90739
190 Bernice Claire	1.88547
191 Douglass Montgomery	1.87329
192 Jack Mulhall	1.81239
193 Claudette Colbert	1.80508
194 Sue Carol	1.80021
195 Rita La Roy	1.78559
196 Hallam Cooley	1.77341
197 Hobart Bosworth	1.76854
198 Paul Lukas	1.75149
199 Frank Morgan	1.74175
200 Maurice Chevalier	1.72957

that pic looks like a mix between Drew Barrymore and Joan Cusack

Things sure a looking bleak here. The only entry was mine.
Maybe the weekend will bring some entries.

this total silence here
reveal will start when we get 5 2+2 entries AND there hasn't been an entry in the last 24 hours

So, I'll have to accept entries from outside 2+2.
Your entry will have an advantage because you know exactly what the criteria is - however these lists are close.

Chris Walcyzk55 (IMDB)
("greatest" instead of "most popular")

1 Jack Nicholson
2 Meryl Streep
3 Marlon Brando
4 Katharine Hepburn
5 Robert De Niro
6 Ingrid Bergman
7 Al Pacino
8 Bette Davis
9 Daniel Day-Lewis
10 Olivia DeHavilland
25 Jack Lemmon
50 Kathy Bates
100 Marilyn Monroe

Ranker
("best" instead of "most popular")

1 Robert De Niro
2 Meryl Streep
3 Al Pacino
4 Katharine Hepburn
5 Jack Nicholson
6 Audrey Hepburn
7 Marlon Brando
8 Maggie Smith
9 Daniel Day-Lewis
10 Julie Andrews
25 James Stewart
50 Natalie Portman
100 Reese Witherspoon
500 Miranda Richardson

YouGovAmerica
(obviously includes TV work as well)

1 Betty White
2 Morgan Freeman
3 Robin Williams
4 Denzel Washington
5 James Earl Jones
6 Sandra Bullock
7 Tom Hanks
8 Keanu Reeves
9 Samuel L Jackson
10 Robert Downey Jr
25 Dick Van Dyke
50 Dustin Hoffman
100 Kate Winslet
500 Richard Burton
1000 Bill Cosby

American Film Institute
(old-timers only, "legend" instead of "most popular")

1 Humphrey Bogart
2 Katharine Hepburn
3 Cary Grant
4 Bette Davis
5 James Stewart
6 Audrey Hepburn
7 Marlon Brando
8 Ingrid Bergman
9 Fred Astaire
10 Greta Garbo
25 John Wayne
50 Ava Gardner

Yahoo
("highest grossing" instead of "most popular")

1 Samuel L Jackson
2 Robert Downey Jr
3 Andy Serkis
4 Tom Hanks
5 Anthony Daniels
6 Scarlett Johansson
7 Harrison Ford
8 Morgan Freeman
9 Bradley Cooper
10 Gwyneth Paltrow
25 Gary Oldman
50 Christopher Lee

So, the changes are:

Scoring will be: your 10 best guesses (how far away your guess is to the actual rank). Low score wins.

Reveal starts once we have 5 2+2 entries AND there has not been an entry in the last 24 hours.

another list:

Ultimate Movie Rankings

1 James Stewart
2 Gary Cooper
3 Cary Grant
4 Humphrey Bogart
5 Spencer Tracy
6 Burt Lancaster
7 Clark Gable
8 John Wayne
9 Clint Eastwood
10 Tom Hanks
25 Olivia De Havilland
50 Ingrid Bergman
100 Bill Murray
500 Liza Minnelli

I'm working on a list.

It's far from optimal and it's done using my phone and without advanced imdb search.

If this runs or not I'll share what my strategy is.

If you gave a deadline it might encourage the entries to roll in.

You might be right but running this massive reveal with just the two of us interested in the outcome.........................

So, I'll accept people just saying they will submit if they're sure it'll run.
That way they don't need to make a list until they're sure this will run.
And we just need 5 to say they'll enter. Since we already have 2..........just 3 more.

Soon as we have 3 more saying that they'll enter, I'll set a deadline.

While we're waiting for the start of this thing, I decided to look over my picks and make a few adjustments.

1 Clint Eastwood
2 Tom Hanks
3 Morgan Freeman
4 Jimmy "James" Stewart
5 Clark Gable
6 Bette Davis
7 Harrison Ford
8 John Wayne
9 Cary Grant
10 Robert De Niro
25 Adam Sandler
50 Susan Sarandon
100 Jane Fonda
500 Peter Fonda
1000 Brenda Marshall
5000 "Wild" Bill Elliott
10000 Tor Johnson
50000 Aneta Corsaut
100000 Dawn Bender
least Tatanya Kulakova

Still waiting for 3 more to say they'll enter once we set a deadline.

Here's a little something about why I want at least 5 2+2ers to enter.
This undertaking is massive.
There are 267,285 movies that were made between 1930 and 2020 that have 5 or more IMDB votes.
Each one will need to be cut and pasted into my program to extract the "stars" and "votes".
That means over 1,000,000 data items (IMDB lists 4 stars for each movie) need to be tabulated in order to rank every person who starred in one of those 267,285 movies.
This should be the first time ever that popularity will be derived strictly from data rather than from guess work.

The results however will be a bit of a mixed bag:
a) each movie will be compared only to other movies of the same year
b) each movie will have data from people watching the movie recently instead of at time of release

So, a perennial leading man like George Brent will be ranked low because he might have been popular during his day but is almost forgotten today.
On the other hand, The Blob gets a lot more views today because in 1958 moviegoers were asking "who's Steve McQueen?".

So, I'd like to know if anyone is interested in the results before I start this task.
I'm interested and so is Xander Biscuits.
Are you one of the 3 more we need?

Interested

thanks D1iabol1cal

2 more?

Have sent you a list