85 Messages
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1.4K Points
„Top Cast“ is a misnomer!
The new layout fails to list important characters under “top cast”. Whatever the logic behind it, it is misleading, counterintutive and not useful. If the current criteria are to be retained, it should at least be renamed „first listed“. Why isn‘t Johnny Depp, male lead in „Chocolat“ not listed in „Top Cast“? Why isn‘t Miriam Stein, female lead in „Moskau Einfach“ not listed under „Top Cast“? The film front page would be far more useful if the „Top Cast“ truly reflected the important roles, actors and actresses in the film instead of some arbitrary selection.
Col_Needham
Employee
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8.2K Messages
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190.5K Points
4 years ago
@rsbrux Thanks for the feedback, however, the ordering reflects the on-screen credits listing and is not arbitrary -- in most cases the on-screen listing already matches importance order, please see https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/filmography-credits/how-are-cast-credits-ordered-why-don-t-the-main-stars-appear-at-the-top-of-the-cast/G39K5N4YYV2QJ4GR and https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/filmography-credits/credit-order/G8QZ9QSY5EVKAPNF -- however, there are exceptions as you note above, usually when casts are listed on-screen in appearance order.
This display order has been IMDb policy since support for cast ordering was added in 1993 and is unrelated to the title page redesign. Appreciating this was a weakness on the old title page, the new title page supports overrides to move the most important stars to the top when necessary. You will see that we have updated Chocolat and One-way to Moscow -- thanks for highlighting those.
Hope this helps.
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rsbrux
85 Messages
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1.4K Points
4 years ago
Thanks for responding, and for correcting Chocolat and Moskau Einfach. I had read the help topics you mention, which are outdated, as they say that the order cannot and will not be changed. The second help topic you referenced specifically mentions Johnny Depp in Chocolat as an example of counter-intuitive orderi ng *not subject to change*. Is a change of cast order reserved to administrators? When I add or edit a cast member, there is a field named order, but I am unable to do anything with it.
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