The IMDb Top 250 in mid-2004

Introduction

To help track the Change in the IMDb Top 250, I grab a static copy of that list each 1st January. My oldest such list is 2013, but I did grab an earlier static copy sometime in mid-2004. Here are more useful equivalent pages with change information for 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Of course, the list changes all the time. Here's the current version of the IMDb Top 250 at the Internet Movie Database.

Key

This list is in order and lists the title, year and director of each film, with a link to its IMDb page.

The List

#	Title	Year	Director	IMDb
1	The Godfather	1972	Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
2	The Shawshank Redemption	1994	Frank Darabont	IMDb
3	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003	Peter Jackson	IMDb
4	The Godfather: Part II	1974	Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
5	The Seven Samurai	1954	Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
6	Schindler's List	1993	Steven Spielberg	IMDb
7	Casablanca	1942	Michael Curtiz	IMDb
8	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	2002	Peter Jackson	IMDb
9	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	2001	Peter Jackson	IMDb
10	Star Wars	1977	George Lucas	IMDb
11	Citizen Kane	1941	Orson Welles	IMDb
12	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	1975	Milos Forman	IMDb
13	The Empire Strikes Back	1980	Irvin Kershner	IMDb
14	Rear Window	1954	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
15	Dr Strangelove	1964	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
16	Pulp Fiction	1994	Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
17	Raiders of the Lost Ark	1981	Steven Spielberg	IMDb
18	The Usual Suspects	1995	Bryan Singer	IMDb
19	Memento	2000	Christopher Nolan	IMDb
20	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	1966	Sergio Leone	IMDb
21	12 Angry Men	1957	Sidney Lumet	IMDb
22	North By Northwest	1959	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
23	City of God	2002	Fernando Meirelles Kátia Lund	IMDb
24	Lawrence of Arabia	1962	David Lean	IMDb
25	Psycho	1960	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
26	Amelie	2001	Jean-Pierre Jeunet	IMDb
27	It's a Wonderful Life	1946	Frank Capra	IMDb
28	The Silence of the Lambs	1991	Jonathan Demme	IMDb
29	Goodfellas	1990	Martin Scorsese	IMDb
30	American Beauty	1999	Sam Mendes	IMDb
31	Sunset Boulevard	1950	Billy Wilder	IMDb
32	Once Upon a Time in the West	1968	Sergio Leone	IMDb
33	Vertigo	1958	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
34	The Matrix	1999	Andy Wachowski Larry Wachowski	IMDb
35	To Kill a Mockingbird	1962	Robert Mulligan	IMDb
36	Apocalypse Now	1979	Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
37	The Pianist	2002	Roman Polanski	IMDb
38	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	2004	Michel Gondry	IMDb
39	The Third Man	1949	Carol Reed	IMDb
40	Paths of Glory	1957	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
41	Fight Club	1999	David Fincher	IMDb
42	Taxi Driver	1976	Martin Scorsese	IMDb
43	Spirited Away	2001	Hayao Miyazaki	IMDb
44	Some Like It Hot	1959	Billy Wilder	IMDb
45	Double Indemnity	1944	Billy Wilder	IMDb
46	Das Boot	1981	Wolfgang Petersen	IMDb
47	Singin' in the Rain	1952	Gene Kelly Stanley Donen	IMDb
48	Chinatown	1974	Roman Polanski	IMDb
49	LA Confidential	1997	Curtis Hanson	IMDb
50	M	1931	Fritz Lang	IMDb
51	Requiem for a Dream	2000	Darren Aronofsky	IMDb
52	The Bridge on the River Kwai	1957	David Lean	IMDb
53	The Maltese Falcon	1941	John Huston	IMDb
54	All About Eve	1950	Joseph L Mankiewicz	IMDb
55	Se7en	1995	David Fincher	IMDb
56	Monty Python and the Holy Grail	1975	Terry Gilliam Terry Jones	IMDb
57	Rashômon	1950	Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
58	Saving Private Ryan	1998	Steven Spielberg	IMDb
59	Raging Bull	1980	Martin Scorsese	IMDb
60	Alien	1979	Ridley Scott	IMDb
61	American History X	1998	Tony Kaye	IMDb
62	The Wizard of Oz	1939	Victor Fleming King Vidor	IMDb
63	Kill Bill: Vol 1	2003	Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
64	Léon	1994	Luc Besson	IMDb
65	The Manchurian Candidate	1962	John Frankenheimer	IMDb
66	Mr Smith Goes to Washington	1939	Frank Capra	IMDb
67	The Sting	1973	George Roy Hill	IMDb
68	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	1948	John Huston	IMDb
69	Modern Times	1936	Charles Chaplin	IMDb
70	Touch of Evil	1958	Orson Welles	IMDb
71	Reservoir Dogs	1992	Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
72	Life is Beautiful	1997	Roberto Benigni	IMDb
73	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
74	A Clockwork Orange	1971	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
75	Finding Nemo	2003	Andrew Stanton Lee Unkrich	IMDb
76	Ran	1985	Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
77	The Great Escape	1963	John Sturges	IMDb
78	On the Waterfront	1954	Elia Kazan	IMDb
79	Amadeus	1984	Milos Forman	IMDb
80	Annie Hall	1977	Woody Allen	IMDb
81	The Apartment	1960	Billy Wilder	IMDb
82	Jaws	1975	Steven Spielberg	IMDb
83	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	2000	Ang Lee	IMDb
84	High Noon	1952	Fred Zinnemann	IMDb
85	Braveheart	1995	Mel Gibson	IMDb
86	Metropolis	1927	Fritz Lang	IMDb
87	Aliens	1986	James Cameron	IMDb
88	Fargo	1996	Joel Coen	IMDb
89	The Shining	1980	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
90	Strangers on a Train	1951	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
91	City Lights	1931	Charles Chaplin	IMDb
92	Donnie Darko	2001	Richard Kelly	IMDb
93	The General	1927	Buster Keaton Clyde Bruckman	IMDb
94	Blade Runner	1982	Ridley Scott	IMDb
95	The Seventh Seal	1957	Ingmar Bergman	IMDb
96	The Sixth Sense	1999	M Night Shayamalan	IMDb
97	The Great Dictator	1940	Charles Chaplin	IMDb
98	Duck Soup	1933	Leo McCarey	IMDb
99	Cinema Paradiso	1988	Giuseppe Tornatore	IMDb
100	Princess Mononoke	1997	Hayao Miyazaki	IMDb
101	The Princess Bride	1987	Rob Reiner	IMDb
102	Full Metal Jacket	1987	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
103	Notorious	1946	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
104	The Bicycle Thief	1948	Vittorio De Sica	IMDb
105	Rebecca	1940	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
106	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	William Wyler	IMDb
107	Yojimbo	1961	Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
108	The Big Sleep	1946	Howard Hawks	IMDb
109	Run, Lola, Run	1998	Tom Tykwer	IMDb
110	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	1991	James Cameron	IMDb
111	Toy Story 2	1999	Ash Brannon John Lasseter Lee Unkrich	IMDb
112	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	1969	George Roy Hill	IMDb
113	It Happened One Night	1934	Frank Capra	IMDb
114	Patton	1970	Franklin J Schaffner	IMDb
115	Forrest Gump	1994	Robert Zemeckis	IMDb
116	The Graduate	1967	Mike Nichols	IMDb
117	The Deer Hunter	1978	Michael Cimino	IMDb
118	Kill Bill: Vol 2	2004	Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
119	Glory	1989	Ed Zwick	IMDb
120	Manhattan	1979	Woody Allen	IMDb
121	Cool Hand Luke	1967	Stuart Rosenberg	IMDb
122	Dogville	2003	Lars Von Trier	IMDb
123	The Philadelphia Story	1940	George Cukor	IMDb
124	Once Upon a Time in America	1984	Sergio Leone	IMDb
125	Mystic River	2003	Clint Eastwood	IMDb
126	The African Queen	1951	John Huston	IMDb
127	Unforgiven	1992	Clint Eastwood	IMDb
128	The Searchers	1956	John Ford	IMDb
129	Ben-Hur	1959	William Wyler	IMDb
130	The Elephant Man	1980	David Lynch	IMDb
131	Return of the Jedi	1983	Richard Marquand	IMDb
132	The Green Mile	1999	Frank Darabont	IMDb
133	Bringing Up Baby	1938	Howard Hawks	IMDb
134	Stalag 17	1953	Billy Wilder	IMDb
135	Talk to Her	2002	Pedro Almodovar	IMDb
136	The Grapes of Wrath	1940	John Ford	IMDb
137	Shrek	2001	Aron Warner	IMDb
138	Wild Strawberries	1957	Ingmar Bergman	IMDb
139	Amores Perros	2000	Alejandro González Iñárritu	IMDb
140	Lost in Translation	2003	Sofia Coppola	IMDb
141	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	1989	Steven Spielberg	IMDb
142	The Night of the Hunter	1955	Charles Laughton	IMDb
143	Back to the Future	1985	Robert Zemeckis	IMDb
144	Arsenic and Old Lace	1944	Frank Capra	IMDb
145	The Straight Story	1999	David Lynch	IMDb
146	A Christmas Story	1983	Bob Clark	IMDb
147	Platoon	1986	Oliver Stone	IMDb
148	Gone With the Wind	1939	Victor Fleming	IMDb
149	The Wild Bunch	1969	Sam Peckinpah	IMDb
150	The Hustler	1961	Robert Rossen	IMDb
151	The Gold Rush	1925	Charles Chaplin	IMDb
152	All Quiet on the Western Front	1930	Lewis Milestone	IMDb
153	Young Frankenstein	1974	Mel Brooks	IMDb
154	The Adventures of Robin Hood	1938	Michael Curtiz William Keighley	IMDb
155	His Girl Friday	1940	Howard Hawks	IMDb
156	Die Hard	1988	John McTiernan	IMDb
157	Battleship Potemkin	1925	Sergei Eisenstein	IMDb
158	Hero	2002	Zhang Yimou	IMDb
159	Life of Brian	1979	Terry Jones	IMDb
160	The 400 Blows	1959	Francois Truffaut	IMDb
161	Monsters, Inc	2001	Peter Docter David Silverman Lee Unkrich	IMDb
162	Grand Illusion	1937	Jean Renoir	IMDb
163	Spartacus	1960	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
164	Witness for the Prosecution	1957	Billy Wilder	IMDb
165	The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance	1962	John Ford	IMDb
166	Charade	1963	Stanley Donen	IMDb
167	The Celebration	1998	Thomas Vinterberg	IMDb
168	Gladiator	2000	Ridley Scott	IMDb
169	Roman Holiday	1953	William Wyler	IMDb
170	Sling Blade	1996	Billy Bob Thornton	IMDb
171	Grave of the Fireflies	1988	Isao Takahata	IMDb
172	Magnolia	1999	Paul Thomas Anderson	IMDb
173	The Day the Earth Stood Still	1951	Robert Wise	IMDb
174	The Conversation	1974	Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
175	Ed Wood	1994	Tim Burton	IMDb
176	A Streetcar Named Desire	1951	Elia Kazan	IMDb
177	Toy Story	1995	John Lasseter	IMDb
178	The Killing	1956	Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
179	To Be or Not to Be	1942	Ernst Lubitsch	IMDb
180	Almost Famous	2000	Cameron Crowe	IMDb
181	A Night at the Opera	1935	Sam Wood	IMDb
182	All the President's Men	1976	Alan J Pakula	IMDb
183	Brazil	1985	Terry Gilliam	IMDb
184	Three Colours: Red	1994	Krystof Krystofski	IMDb
185	The Insider	1999	Michael Mann	IMDb
186	Big Fish	2003	Tim Burton	IMDb
187	21 Grams	2003	Alejandro González Iñárritu	IMDb
188	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	2003	Gore Verbinski	IMDb
189	Shadow of a Doubt	1943	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
190	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	1966	Mike Nichols	IMDb
191	Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens	1922	F W Murnau	IMDb
192	Gandhi	1982	Richard Attenborough	IMDb
193	Ikiru	1952	Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
194	Harvey	1950	Henry Koster	IMDb
195	Being John Malkovich	1999	Spike Jonze	IMDb
196	Stand By Me	1986	Rob Reiner	IMDb
197	The Exorcist	1973	William Friedkin	IMDb
198	Dog Day Afternoon	1975	Sidney Lumet	IMDb
199	Twelve Monkeys	1995	Terry Gilliam	IMDb
200	Mulholland Dr	2001	David Lynch	IMDb
201	In America	2002	Jim Sheridan	IMDb
202	The Terminator	1984	James Cameron	IMDb
203	Trainspotting	1996	Danny Boyle	IMDb
204	Groundhog Day	1993	Harold Ramis	IMDb
205	The Passion of Joan of Arc	1928	Carl Theodor Dreyer	IMDb
206	The Lion in Winter	1968	Anthony Harvey	IMDb
207	Miller's Crossing	1990	Joel Coen	IMDb
208	This is Spinal Tap	1984	Rob Reiner	IMDb
209	La Strada	1954	Federico Fellini	IMDb
210	Laura	1944	Otto Preminger	IMDb
211	The Right Stuff	1983	Philip Kaufman	IMDb
212	8½	1963	Federico Fellini	IMDb
213	King Kong	1933	Merion C Cooper Ernest B Schoedsack	IMDb
214	Rain Man	1988	Barry Levinson	IMDb
215	Whale Rider	2002	Niki Caro	IMDb
216	Adaptation	2002	Spike Jonze	IMDb
217	Network	1976	Sidney Lumet	IMDb
218	Bonnie and Clyde	1967	Arthur Penn	IMDb
219	Midnight Cowboy	1969	John Schlesinger	IMDb
220	The 39 Steps	1935	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
221	Snatch	2000	Guy Ritchie	IMDb
222	The Big Lebowski	1998	Joel Coen	IMDb
223	Stagecoach	1939	John Ford	IMDb
224	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels	1998	Guy Ritchie	IMDb
225	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	1927	F W Murnau	IMDb
226	X2	2003	Bryan Singer	IMDb
227	The Thin Man	1934	W S Van Dyke	IMDb
228	Rio Bravo	1959	Howard Hawks	IMDb
229	In the Heat of the Night	1967	Norman Jewison	IMDb
230	The Untouchables	1987	Brian De Palma	IMDb
231	Bride of Frankenstein	1935	James Whale	IMDb
232	The Others	2001	Alejandro Amenabar	IMDb
233	The Killer	1989	John Woo	IMDb
234	Planet of the Apes	1968	Franklin J Schaffner	IMDb
235	Persona	1966	Ingmar Bergman	IMDb
236	Fanny and Alexander	1982	Ingmar La Cava	IMDb
237	Sullivan's Travels	1941	Preston Sturges	IMDb
238	Kind Hearts and Coronets	1949	Robert Hamer	IMDb
239	The Station Agent	2003	Thomas McCarthy	IMDb
240	Red River	1948	Howard Hawks	IMDb
241	Being There	1979	Hal Ashby	IMDb
242	Children of Paradise	1945	Marcel Carne	IMDb
243	Beauty and the Beast	1991	Kirk Wise Gary Trousdale	IMDb
244	Spider-Man 2	2004	Sam Raimi	IMDb
245	Heat	1995	Michael Mann	IMDb
246	Traffic	2000	Steven Soderbergh	IMDb
247	Minority Report	2002	Steven Spielberg	IMDb
248	Good Will Hunting	1997	Gus Van Sant	IMDb
249	Sleuth	1972	Joseph L Mankiewicz	IMDb
250	Judgment at Nuremberg	1961	Stanley Kramer	IMDb

Basic Data

The mean is 1973, the median 1976 and the mode 2003.

Breakdown by Decade

Here's how the films break down by decade:

Decade	2004
1920s	7
1930s	18
1940s	24
1950s	33
1960s	28
1970s	25
1980s	32
1990s	44
2000s	39