1916

No Academy Award this year — the formula crowns:

Should have wonIntolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages poster

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

Composite 68.51

The full slate

#1
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages poster

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #1

Composite 68.51

Dir. D.W. Griffith · Lillian Gish · Mae Marsh · Robert Harron · F.A. Turner

IMDb 7.6 (18,020 votes) · TMDB 7.08

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

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#2
Judex poster

Judex (1916)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Louis Feuillade · René Cresté · Musidora · René Poyen · Édouard Mathé

IMDb 7.2 (1,233 votes) · TMDB 6.8

When an unscrupulous banker ruins his family, a young man swears to bring him to justice, so he adopts a new identity, the mysterious Judex, and ominously disguised and sunk into the muddy path of vengeance, punishes the crooks and protects the innocents. (Originally a twelve-part epic serial.)

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#3
Hell's Hinges poster

Hell's Hinges (1916)

⭐ Top-rated

Composite 61.69

Dir. Charles Swickard · William S. Hart · Clara Williams · Jack Standing · Alfred Hollingsworth

IMDb 6.7 (1,189 votes) · TMDB 6.109

When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.

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#4
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea poster

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)

⭐ Top-rated

Composite 61.34

Dir. Stuart Paton · Allen Holubar · Jane Gail · Howard Crampton · Matt Moore

IMDb 6.1 (2,248 votes) · TMDB 6.119

Captain Nemo has built a fantastic submarine for his mission of revenge. He has traveled over 20,000 leagues in search of Charles Denver - a man who caused the death of Princess Daaker. Seeing what he had done, Denver took the daughter to his yacht and sailed away.

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How scoring works: films are ranked by a composite of a weighted (Bayesian) IMDb rating — the same method as the IMDb Top 250, so a high score from few voters can't outrank a strong score from many — blended with TMDB. Box office is a tiebreaker and a badge, never part of the score. Raw IMDb ratings and vote counts are shown on each card.