Recordings of Musicals Such as Hamilton (2020) Should not Appear on Top 250 List

I get Gromit's argument, but I agree with Ed that the TV solution is not the best, especially considering that Hamilton was to be given a theatrical release until the pandemic changed that. This implies that Greyhound, though filmed and funded as a theatrical release, should now be listed as "TV movie" on IMDb. My argument against Hamilton being in the Top 250 Movies is not predicated on a technicality, it is that Hamilton is fundamentally not a movie, full stop.

Who decides that those three are not TV and everyone else must be?

Though this is perhaps a different topic, I think this is a major issue with not only IMDb right now, but the entire film industry. Even Steven Spielberg has argued that streaming movies are TV movies, saying  “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie."

I think IMDb should at least adopt the definition of "TV movie"  used by the Oscars, where a least a limited theatrical run is required for award consideration. This means that, using your examples, The Irishman (which got a limited release) is a theatrical film, but a Hallmark movie is a TV movie. Obviously this is a loophole for studios with deep enough pockets, as Spielberg pointed out in that same interview: “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

So personally, I think if there wasn't any theatrical run, a film should be listed as a TV movie (or, if there's a demand for the label, a Streaming movie). Of course, This doesn't apply to Hamilton, which is not a movie to begin with, but a recording of a live show.

...it definitely is less a film than any short on IMDb.

I agree with this. TV movies too.

Lots of "new media" is being added to IMDb these days, and not much has been done to adapt. The thing is, most of this new media can technically fit into the old categories that IMDb uses. For example, streaming shows are listed as regular TV shows, and YouTube "vlogs" are usually tagged "documentary" or "reality TV," which I guess is technically true and not misleading. But there is no category for a recording of a live musical to fit in, so IMDb considers it a "film," which is too much of a stretch. It is false and misleading.

I think it is great that the original production of Hamilton is now available for the price of Disney Plus instead of crazy Broadway prices and a trip to New York. As a recording of a play, it is done well, and I hope to see more recordings of plays/musicals in the future. But these recordings are the democratization of Broadway, not film adaptions. Not movies. And I hope the Internet Movie Database can acknowledge this.

Yeah, I wonder if the staff care or even have an incentive to keep it on the list. Surely the staff themselves have noticed it appearing there by now? Of the existing categories, I agree that documentary makes the most sense, though in the future there may be more recordings of live shows, so perhaps IMDb needs a new category.

On Hamilton as a "movie," something I've been thinking about today is, as a film (ignoring the context of the stage), some parts of Hamilton would be considered completely ridiculous.... as an example: a grown man playing a little kid?

Whatever the outcome is, I plan on having less faith in the IMDb "Top 250."

Faith in the list is gone. 10 movies are rotating in the last 5 spot of the list for months now. 5 Indians and 3 animated movies..even if their ratings go down they are still there. It looks like we have to have a certain amount of Indians or Japanese movies on the chart.

I see what you mean, I guess the list was never perfect and Hamilton appearing is just a manifestation of that.... a nail in the coffin, to be dramatic about it.

I have no problem with foreign films on the list, like the Kurosawa films, Parasite, or Bicycle Thieves, but some of the Indian films that have made the list recently objectively don't belong on the list. Most of their reviews are shallow 10/10s filled with emojis. There is a "Top Rated English Movies" list but it means you miss out on Kurosawa, Parasite, 8 1/2, and Pan's Labyrinth, to name a few... and still have Hamilton. I don't know what the solution is, but the list is losing value in my opinion.

Very interesting points. I agree that there is no "definitive definition" of a "film." I don't think the definition involves celluloid, or necessarily excludes all unconventional styles.

I do think that a major part of a reasonable definition is, implicitly, intention of the artists. To use your example: although I Love Lucy  was filmed live, the stories, lighting, camera angles, and the acting performances were intended for the final TV audience. The live audience was/is there mainly for reactions and for the cast to play off of. Hamilton was filmed over three days and two live performances with paying audiences. It was written, cast, acted, lit, even edited as a Broadway show. The filmed version was put together to bring the experience of the live stage performance as untouched as possible directly to the general public. I know Lin-Manuel Miranda has called it a "movie," an "independent film," etc, but I think that is more him talking as a marketing spokesman (and has actually confused some people into expecting an adaption, judging by some of the IMDb reviews). It seems obvious that the creative team intended the filmed version to be as much like seeing Hamilton live as possible (besides also being a way to make a huge amount of money relatively easily).

I like your I Love Lucy point, although comparing that show to a single camera comedy from the same time period, Leave It to Beaver,  I'd argue that they share more similarities than differences (compared to Apocalypse Now vs Hamilton).

TV in general seems to have a lot more variety than cinema though, with live late night shows, single-cam narratives, news/documentary programs, soap operas, SNL... all called "TV shows" by most people, and have been since the beginning of the format. So I'm not sure that is quite analogous to the issue here with Hamilton and the definition of "a movie/film."

In the internet age, we are seeing more and more digital video, so it's natural that there is going to be recordings of popular Broadway shows. I think, if this is not a new format, it is closer to a documentary film than "a movie." I think a big point of confusion is that it is a recording of a fictional story with actors to begin with. To me that is irrelevant. it is like a full concert video where some of the closeups and effects were filmed later and some mistakes fixed in post. We call them "concert films," but most people wouldn't say Roger Water's Us + Them is their favorite "film." Hamilton is like a concert film. Concert films are usually labeled Documentary on IMDb.

I wish I was better at articulating this, but it seems we here all have the same definition of "a film/move/cinema," at least enough to know what each other is saying. Just not a clear definition in writing.

My biggest argument of course was that IMDb already explicitly excluded documentaries, TV movies, and short films from the top 250 list. They already have somewhat arbitrary qualifications to be considered "a film." If Hamilton is indeed a "film" by IMDb's standards, fine. But get rid of the "TV movie" marker (those are definitely more "cinema" than Hamilton), and let shorts and maybe documentaries be included in the top 250 list.

I agree that the 250 list ultimately doesn't matter. My life doesn't perceptively change because of this. But lots of people (including me) use the 250 list. IMDb displays it prominently all over the site. They even put "Top Rated Movies #XY" on the awards section of a film's page. Plus it's tied into the site's 10 star rating system. So in the context of IMDb, I'd argue that the top 250 pages is one of the most important aspects of the site. Sure, some of us use IMDb to see if a movie was shot with Panavision C lenses (just for example), but the star and rating system are one of the most used parts of the site by a lot of people, in my experience.

And just as a side note, it seems IMDb takes the page very seriously, for example: they keep which user's votes will count secret, to preserve the "integrity" of the page.

Good points.  I guess I have a loose definition of "movie" or "film" usually, but I agree that Hamilton is different than Apocalypse Now, but then it's also different than, say, Woodstock (1970).  Other filmed plays of fictional stories, not music concerts, don't seem to be listed as documentaries, and I think to do so would be problematic regarding some early silent films or more-cinematic filmed plays such as Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary and would confuse the documentary genre.  But, yeah, it's a thin line between the purpose of Hamilton as the presentation of the play's narrative and as a recorded event intended for and of it being viewed by a live audience.  I see the merits of your argument.

Regarding TV, remember that movies in theatre used to be more varied.  TV replaced the past evening's entertainment at a cinema where one would be entertained by a feature along with short films, cartoons and newsreels.  Filmed plays, variety shows and all sorts of other varied programs that tested the definition of what a film is long before TV and streaming took over.

For instance, Hamilton seems an easier case to me than La Jetée, a series of narrrated still images with some camera movement within the images, and that "film" features highly on some critics' lists, although it's too short for the IMDb 250.

But, granted, Hamilton is another odd one.  The best solution would probably be if enough people eventually realize that it's deficient as a movie and so stop overrating it.  Seems like it has a long way to fall off the list, though.

I agree that labeling it a "documentary" is not a perfect solution. It seems to be a popular solution in the replies to my original post, and I think it is better than the current labeling, but, as the "idea" of my original post, I think IMDb needs a new category for live plays/musicals. I think with the success of Hamilton there are more to come. They probably won't be so overrated and make the 250 list, but they too would benefit from the accurate labeling (people could search for recordings of live shows, and there could be a "top musical theater" list eventually for the live recordings, for example).

I don't know if Hamilton will ever fall off the list naturally, as it already had its huge fan base to give it 10/10 reviews since day one, and less familiar IMDb users may avoid watching it all together because it is a 3 hour stage show and they may not be into that. I like your wording "deficient as a movie," though. That about sums up why it is frustrating to see it on the list. People are rating it as a Broadway show and Pop culture darling, not as a "movie."

You mentioned Le Jetée, and critic's praise of it. Some critics go for those kind of films, and look down on "commercial" films. Other critics read into the politics too much and rate a film based on their own ideology (many seemed to do this negatively with Joker last year, and maybe a bit with Parasite, positively). I personally believe that is one of the merits of a crowd sourced list like IMDb's, vs a critic's list. You usually get more "watchable," entertaining films that still have significant artistic merit. It was generally a good foil for rotten tomatoes and metacritic with their pretentiousness. As IMDb becomes more popular/mainstream, though, we seem to be getting a lot of fanatic 10/10 and 1/10 ratings and reviews.

I'm on the periphery of the film industry and have an IMDb page, so I guess I'm always stuck with IMDb. But recently I've really been drawn to Letterboxd. They have a 250 list that states this: "I removed all stand-up specials, stage plays, concert films, documentaries, shorts, 'collection listings' and other 'rarities', so only feature length narrative movies are listed here."  I agree less with the films on their 250 list compared to IMDb, but this seems like a totally sensible administrator/staff to me. Maybe IMDb could learn something before they lose cinema fans to Letterboxd?

The statement "I removed ... so only feature length narrative movies are listed here." sounds like the statement of an individual, not of a company. Just because he called his list "official" does not mean he represents the organization. I did a bit of searching, found the list and who created it, but found no connection between that individual and the admin/staff of Letterboxd. (I didn't spend a LOT of time on it, so maybe I missed something.)

You are correct that it is an individual.  I looked at it again and it is indeed a "patron" (a paying member?) that "created" the list.  So I misspoke when I said "staff" (I hadn't spent much time there either, but they have a very small staff in New Zealand)

However, Letterboxd does very much seem to endorse the list: it can be accessed much the same way as IMDb's. And if you go to their films page and go to browse by: rating it is one of the four options. It is also at the bottom of the "lists" page under all time lists. Upon farther investigation it appears that their 250 list is the site-generated "highest rating first" list with the documentaries, concert films, etc taken out, and maybe updated manually(?).

Your skepticism over the word "official" is justified, but at the same time, I don't think the Letterboxd staff would promote the list so much if it did not represent the site in some way (surely they'd take it down or change the "official" title instead of put it on the front of their site?)

Personally, I prefer the more polished and detailed IMDb.... for now.

Adding a genre is a good idea.

I made the jump to letterboxd last year for other reasons involving IMDb being an unpleasant experience, although I also still do the ratings, reviews and lists things on IMDb as well, but more so as a legacy and backup.  IMDb is still a better site for information mainly, "to see if a movie was shot with Panavision C lenses," for example, but letterboxd is nice as a social media site where I don't need to go through the sometimes-ridiculous IMDb review acceptance process.

And "patrons," indeed, are paying members there.  It's a user and add supported site, I believe, as opposed to IMDb's ownership by Amazon.

Ah, thanks for the info! I saw that they have a whole page about "Migrating from IMDb," so it must not be too uncommon. I use IMDb mostly for (besides ratings and lists) the technical info, trivia, and cast and crew lists, but I really like Leterboxd's "where to watch" section on each page. IMDb's is still just a plug for Prime (for obvious reasons). I would like to see IMDb at least try to compete though.

Maybe you can answer, is the "Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films" list really Official?

Official enough.  It's created by an ordinary patron, but the list is featured under the "films" section, so it's supported by the site runners it seems.

They don't have special users to determine such a list, nor a secret formula to calculate ratings as far I know, as IMDb does, so anyone could've made that list.

The people who run the site have their own profile "Letterboxd," and there are "crew," from which they also create lists, but the site also sometimes promotes lists by users.