Does popular = good?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

As for the IMDB "geek herd", I think that's what surprises me most about Shawshank being up there.

I don't mean to say that every movie at the top of the list is there because of geek herd, but that there is a strong distorting influence on the overall list.

All the Lord of the Rings movies rated at least as well as (and two better than) Citizen Kane? And any list that saves All About Eve for 80 is way out of whack (in my subjective view, of course). That said, I do agree that most of the movies in the top 20 are good.

But while I won't say you're wrong to not be impressed with Shawshank I also don't think the fact that you don't like it (or CP doesn't) doesn't make it a bad movie any more than the fact that millions do makes it a good movie. On this one the popularity indicator fails for CP. But you are probably missing a larger societal feeling. Notice that among the 250 moves in IMDb's list, Shawshank has, by far, the most ratings. So it does have strong cross-demographic response.