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Published Feb 3, 2026, 7:01 PM EST
Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa. He has been writing professionally about pop culture for eight years. Luc's areas of interest are broad: he's just as passionate about psychology and history as he is about movies and TV. He's especially drawn to the places where these topics overlap.
Luc is also an avid producer of video essays and looks forward to expanding his writing career. When not writing, he can be found hiking, playing Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out with his cats, and doing deep dives on whatever topic happens to have captured his interest that week.
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IMDb’s Top 250 is meant to showcase films so universally admired that they transcend genre and era. That’s the theory, anyway, the way things should be. In practice, the list often reveals how ratings culture works in the internet age, where recency bias and fan mobilization can propel perfectly solid movies into the same statistical neighborhood as The Godfather or Seven Samurai.
That doesn’t mean the films below are bad; in fact, most of them are good. But the "Top 250 Greatest Films of All Time" is an absurdly high bar that implies historical weight and formal mastery, so seeing the titles on this list alongside the likes of 12 Angry Men and Pulp Fiction is a little jarring. Nothing wrong with bringing a little variety to the group, but these titles are genuine eyebrow-raisers.
7 ‘The Chaos Class Failed the Class’ (1975)
Image via Arzu Film"Failure again? Ah, this destiny!" The Chaos Class Failed the Class is an anarchic Turkish comedy built around rebellion, slapstick, and institutional mockery. Set in a private boys’ school, it follows a group of students who treat education as an obstacle to be creatively undermined. Teachers are pranked, authority figures are ridiculed, and classroom order collapses into joyful mayhem. The plot is loose and episodic, less interested in progression than in piling joke upon joke.
The movie's charm lies in its warmth and cultural specificity, capturing a generational frustration with rigid systems and joyless conformity. Within its national context, its reputation makes sense. But its placement among the greatest films ever made feels… enthusiastic. The Chaos Class Failed. The Class isn't aiming to be a masterpiece. The comedy is broad, the filmmaking straightforward, and the themes familiar to anyone who’s seen a dozen school comedies. Not exactly Citizen Kane-level stuff.
6 ‘Warrior’ (2011)
"All I want is a fair shot." Warrior is an emotionally charged sports drama about two estranged brothers (played by Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton) who enter a mixed martial arts tournament for deeply personal reasons. One is driven by financial desperation, the other by unresolved trauma and resentment toward their alcoholic father. The plot follows the familiar underdog arc, replete with training montages, escalating bouts, and an inevitable emotional collision. However, it does offer more sincerity and conviction than you normally find in this subgenre.
Still, it's a little surprising that Warrior holds an 8.1 on IMDb across more than half a million ratings. It's structurally conventional and not exactly subtle, with the expected tear-jerker plot turns and schmaltzy swells of music telegraphing the emotions. Ultimately, the movie's elevation to IMDb's cinematic pantheon says more about audience taste and voting patterns than about any radical artistic achievement on the part of the cast and crew.
5 ‘Wild Tales’ (2014)
Image via Warner Bros."Everybody has limits." Wild Tales is another movie that's charming and entertaining without necessarily screaming "classic." It's a pitch-black anthology comedy about ordinary people pushed to extraordinary breaking points. Each segment explores a different form of social rage, whether road rage, bureaucratic humiliation, or romantic betrayal, escalating everyday frustrations into absurd, often violent outcomes. The plots are sharp, efficiently constructed, and crowd-pleasing in their catharsis, although the segments do vary in their quality.
The film’s appeal is immediate: it’s funny, provocative, and relatable in its contempt for modern irritations. However, its observations are blunt rather than layered, and its satire favors extremity over insight, embracing a broad, aggressive, cartoony sensibility. Where there are flashes of comedic genius, the stories also get repetitive, predictable, and even a little gimmicky. The movie's inclusion on the Top 250 is more a reflection of IMDb voters' love for audacity, outrage, and cathartic chaos.
4 ‘Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc’ (2025)
Image via Crunchyroll"Everyone's after my chainsaw heart! What about Denji's heart?" This movie is a ton of fun, but it's still a little odd (awesome?) that a wild, ultraviolent, pulpy anime with a title like "Chainsaw Man" is in the Top 250 (sandwiched between The Best Years of Our Lives and The Seventh Seal, to be exact). The flick follows Denji (Kikunosuke Toya) as he becomes romantically involved with Reze (Reina Ueda), a mysterious girl whose true identity complicates everything.
What begins as an awkward, tender connection slowly reveals itself as a tragedy shaped by manipulation, power, and doomed affection. The themes are bold and, visually, the film is certainly impressive, all stylized action, expressive animation, and sudden bursts of surreal brutality. While the movie received positive reviews, Chainsaw Man's incredibly high IMDb score seems more driven by a fervent fandom. It probably has countless stans who gave it a full 10/10, which is good and all, but puts its presence in the Top 250 into question.
3 ‘Lost Ladies’ (2023)
Image via Yash Raj Films"If you think about it, women don't need men at all." Lost Ladies is a social comedy built around mistaken identity, gender roles, and the quiet injustices embedded in everyday life. It's about two brides who are accidentally swapped during a train journey, leading each woman to experience the other’s life—one shaped by oppression and control, the other by relative freedom and support. The film, produced in India, uses humor to explore patriarchy, autonomy, and self-worth, gradually shifting from farce to social critique.
There's a lot of urgent food for thought here, though most reviewers didn't necessarily declare this film a masterpiece or anything. It did not receive all that much critical attention outside its home country. Lost Ladies was also dogged by plagiarism accusations, with filmmaker Anant Mahadevan alleging that the filmmakers copied some scenes from his own work, while some viewers pointed out striking similarities to the short film Burqa City by Fabrice Bracq.
2 ‘Hachi: A Dog’s Tale’ (2009)
Image via 20th Century Studios"You want to wait for him, don't you?" Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is a relentlessly sincere tearjerker based on the true story of a dog who waits every day at a train station for his deceased owner to return. That's truly heartbreaking stuff, and the movie is expertly calibrated to elicit emotion. The plot is simple and intentionally repetitive, emphasizing loyalty, routine, and the passage of time. However, emotional effectiveness isn’t the same as cinematic complexity or storytelling skill.
Hachi is sentimental by design, using music, framing, and narrative simplicity to maximize its impact. It's a sweet movie in its way, and it's easy to see why so many people like it (in the rankings, it sits just above The Exorcist), but it's also very melodramatic and schmaltzy: strong Hallmark movie vibes. Critics were more mixed about it than general audiences, and its Rotten Tomatoes score is a more realistic 64%, the perfect place for such a sweet yet ultimately unimpressive movie.
1 ‘Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle’ (2025)
Image via Crunchyroll"I can do it... broken bones or not. I can fight!" Another anime hit from 2025, landing just below Dial M for Murder on the Top 250 list. Once again, it's understandable that this movie would get high scores from fans. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle represents the culmination of a massively popular anime saga, bringing its heroes into a final confrontation within a surreal, ever-shifting fortress. It's replete with escalating battles, emotional resolutions, and the fulfillment of long-running character arcs.
As spectacle, it’s undeniably impressive: fluid animation, striking color design, and operatic action sequences designed to overwhelm the senses. For fans, it’s cathartic and thrilling. For everyone else, it’s… a lot. Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle assumes deep familiarity with its world, characters, and emotional stakes. Without that context, its grandeur can feel abstract rather than earned. Some reviewers also took issue with the movie's repetitive story structure and overreliance on flashbacks. In other words, it's cool, but far from perfect.
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