The Internet loves Leonardo DiCaprio—and we have the numbers to prove it.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, IMDb—the largest movie Web site in the world and the go-to source for every imaginable movie fact—is looking back at its famous user rankings. They’ve exclusively shared with us this list, of the top-ranked film every year since the site was founded, in 1990. And while you may see a few common threads—lots of movies about men, many with violence, three with hobbits—there’s one undisputed movie-star king of the list. King of the World, you might call him.
DiCaprio isn’t the most popular man on this list—that would be Christopher Nolan, whose films have been IMDb’s favorite of the year a remarkable five times. But DiCaprio is by far the most popular actor, thanks to his work with IMDb-beloved directors Nolan, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino; he has four films on the list, three of them since 2010 alone. The third-most popular actor is Matt Damon, who appears three times, in films by Nolan (Interstellar), Scorsese (The Departed), and Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan), who surprisingly enough only has two films on the list.
Col Needham, who founded IMDb as a downloadable software available on the earliest version of the Internet, won’t provide a theory on why his users love Leo so much. “To be absolutely honest the common thread is they’re all great movies,” he says over the phone from England, where he still lives. “This is a great list. It reflects the votes of 250 million IMDb customers who are spread throughout the world.”
Below, see the top 25 films from the last 25 years, as voted on by millions of IMDb users (The Shawshank Redemption alone has received more than 1.5 million votes). IMDb celebrates its official 25th anniversary on October 17.
UPDATE, October 13: It’s been pointed out to us that Morgan Freeman, star of Se7en and The Shawshank Redemption and part of the ensembles of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, also has four films on the list; we regret the oversight.
