The Ultimate Film: Interesting Facts

Want to find out more about the Ultimate Film Chart? To help you out, we've compiled some facts about the list to feed the film buff in you!

Top performers

The list of actors who crop up most regularly in the chart makes for interesting reading, with the big names of Hollywood largely absent. Character actors who have played small parts in long-running film series dominate ahead of stars in leading roles. Bernard Lee played the role of 'M' in several James Bond films, and these appearances in combination with those in three earlier British classics make him the most-featured actor in the chart. Other Bond regulars Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) and Desmond Llewellyn ('Q') feature prominently.

Also highly-ranked are a number of Star Wars regulars including one noteworthy Hollywood actor - James Earl Jones - who features in a total of four films, yet is only heard but never seen on screen. Appearing incognito has also brought success for other members of the Star Wars cast, Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Anthony Daniels (C-3P0), Frank Oz (Yoda) and David Prowse who played Darth Vader on screen, the part for which Jones provided the distinctive voice.

Most-featured actors

9 films

Bernard Lee

6 films

Alec Guinness
Lois Maxwell

5 films

Kenny Baker
Anthony Daniels
Desmond Llewelyn
Frank Oz

4 films

Hugh Grant
Richard Harris
Charlton Heston
James Earl Jones
Anna Neagle
David Prowse

Most-featured directors

4 films

Lewis Gilbert
Steven Spielberg
Herbert Wilcox
William Wyler

3 films

Peter Jackson
David Lean
George Lucas
Hamilton Luske

2 films

Frank Capra
Chris Columbus
Cecil B. DeMille
Clyde Geronimi
Guy Hamilton
David Hand
John Lasseter
Carol Reed
Wolfgang Reitherm

Where are they?

High-profile favourites that did not make it onto the list include The Wizard of Oz (US 1939), Casablanca (US 1942), Singin' in the Rain (US 1952), The Great Escape (US 1963) and the Indiana Jones series of the 1980s.

Neither do any of the following stars feature: Katharine Hepburn, Laurel & Hardy, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Robert de Niro, Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood or Tom Cruise. Tom Hanks makes only a disembodied appearance as the voice of Woody in Toy Story 2.

Notable directors not featured include John Ford, Howard Hawks, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. And tellingly for the nature of the film industry, there is only a single film amongst the hundred directed by a woman - Bridget Jones's Diary directed by Sharon Maguire.

There is an absence of 'world cinema' on the list and it is no great surprise that no foreign language films feature. Indeed, the only film found that is not a majority US or British production is Crocodile Dundee - a primarily Australian film - but even so credited as an Australian/US co-production.

X-Rated

The chart is well-stocked with children's and family films and there are only five titles on the list that have been rated by the British Board of Film Classification as either 'X' (introduced in 1951 to exclude under-16s and upgraded to exclude under-18s in 1970) or '18' (replacing 'X' in 1982). It is more difficult for 'X' or '18'-rated films to become huge box office hits due to their smaller potential audiences. The five films that defy this disadvantage are The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Saturday Night Fever and The Exorcist. Saturday Night Fever did, though, benefit at the box office from a subsequent re-cut and re-release with an 'A' certificate (an advisory rating for films containing material perhaps unsuitable for under-14s). It is interesting to observe that these five 'X' titles were all released between 1972 and 1978.

Beyond the Frame

The Ultimate Film chart excludes silent films and documentaries, but there have been huge box office successes in these areas of film-making. A Queen is Crowned (GB 1953) - a feature documentary record of the Queen's coronation in colour - was thought to be the most widely-seen film of 1953 with the majority of cinemas in Britain screening it on its release. Released during World War I, the silent film The Battle of the Somme (GB 1916) became the most successful film of its era in Britain, with estimates of over 20 million attendances and suggestions that it may have been seen by the majority of the population. Other successful films of the silent era include an early version of Ben Hur (US 1925), The Big Parade (US 1925), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (US 1921), starring Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin hits The Kid (US 1921), The Gold Rush (US 1925) and City Lights (US 1931).