SEARCH

IMDB Top 250 review

Check out our review of IMDB Top 250 - an Android reference app that helps you keep your movie taste in sync with the Internet's favorite films

Published on Jan 25, 2010

Thanks to the low cost of DVDs, the proliferation of ‘on-demand’ movie services and the sheer number of quality cinemas devoted to showcasing filmic slices of brilliance, there really hasn’t been a better time to be a fan of the moving picture.

However, despite the availability of all these sources, deciding which films are worthy of your undivided attention is tricky business. Thankfully, the Internet Movie Database – or IMDb for short – is here to help.

The Android application IMDb Top 250 does pretty much what you’d expect it to – it connects with the IMDb site and displays the current top 250 films, based on the actual ratings given by members of the public.

When you first open the app you’ll have to tell it to connect with IMDb and collect the most recent data. Once this is done you’re presented with the entire list, which you can browse or search at will.

Obviously some of the titles are going to leap out straight away – The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Star Wars – you get the picture. However, some may be less familiar and in these cases you’ll be thankful of the fact that holding down your finger on the title reveals the option of connecting directly with the IMDb site and getting a more detailed description of the movie in question.

Arguably the most useful facet of the entire app is the ability to tick off each film you’ve watched. Simply tapping the title will strike a line through it, and the counter at the top of the screen will show that you’ve watched 1 of the 250 films currently in the list.

If you so wish you can apply a search filter which removes all of the movies you’ve seen, or conversely you can just display those celluloid classics you’ve witnessed personally – which is handy if someone asks if you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing a certain flick.

Naturally as you progress you’ll tick off more films until eventually you’ll have watched all 250 on the list – and at this point you can consider yourself a true film connoisseur. However, because the top 250 is always changing, it pays to update the list regularly to see if any new films have made their presence felt.

While there’s not a tremendous deal of functionality in this app we can’t fault its usefulness; if you’re one of those people who hates being sidelined in those down-the-boozer film debates then this is the ideal way to educate yourself in movie culture and prove yourself as a top-rank cinematic expert.