Dear film friends,

Many thanks again to all 224 participants in the last survey.

letterboxd.com/helenwelonmelon/list/results-poll-2022-top-250-favourite-film/

As already announced, the Top 500 survey will follow this year. All 224 participants in the last survey are cordially invited. Please create a list of your 500 favorite films* and link them below in the comments.

NO RANKING IS NECESSARY.**

EACH FILM NAMED GETS ONE POINT.**

Please think carefully about which titles you choose and make sure that you don't forget a favorite film, as subsequent changes will no longer be taken into account.

Of course, LB users who did not take part last year can and should also submit a top 500 list. The more people take part, the more differentiated the end result. However, since this survey is primarily aimed at people who have seen a large number of films, the first-time participants should have seen at least 3000 films.
This is to prevent that only the most popular films have a chance of a good placement. The main problem with all film surveys is that films have varying degrees of popularity and therefore popular films always have an advantage.
Logically, films that 80-100% of all participants have seen have a much better chance of being placed in the overall list than films that only 10-20% have seen. Especially since these 10-20% are usually the people who have seen a great many films, which further reduces the chance of being named. Because for someone who has seen 1000 films, the chance of a film ending up in the top 500 is 1 in 2, 3000 is 1 in 6, 5000 is 1 in 10, 10,000 is 1 in 20, etc.

However, since, in contrast to most other polls, many relatively unknown films are also included in the overall list at the end, this means that such films also receive more attention and may achieve a higher ranking next year. Inevitably, over the years, some popular films will fall in the overall ranking and some unpopular films will rise.

If this TOP 500 survey is successful, it is planned to repeat it next year. I hope that through word of mouth the number of participants will increase every year.

*WHY 500 FILMS?
Since this survey is planned annually and is primarily aimed at film experts who have seen a large number of films, it is important that a larger number of films are named because:

1. Even people who have seen well over 5000 films still have enough space for annual changes, which is not the case to this extent in a new TOP 250 survey and the end result for 2023 and the following year will hardly change.
2. The total number of titles mentioned in the poll will increase significantly, which is the very purpose of this poll.
3. A top 500 survey leads to a much more nuanced end result. If there were 56,000 individual votes for 224 Top 250 lists, it would be 112,000 for 224 Top 500 lists.

**WHY NO RANKING and ONE POINT FOR EACH FILM?
Sometimes there were suggestions that the survey could be done on ranked lists with different points depending on the placement. Experience has shown that three points speak against this.
1. A ranking with a corresponding distribution of points would once again unassailably favor the popular films. Because in the vast majority of cases, everyone's absolute favorite films (top 20-top 100) will be the films they saw relatively early and essentially caused them to engage with films. And these are usually popular films, which fall in front of you relatively quickly.
2. Requiring each participant to rank their favorite films and rack their brains over whether a film is 175th or 176th would certainly discourage many from posting a list. And probably especially those who have seen an extremely large number of films and who have trouble limiting their favorite films to only 500 titles.
3. Evaluating the lists would be much more time-consuming and complicated, and I wouldn't be able to do it that easily in terms of time.

I hope now that probably many will submit a top 500 by the end of the year (Deadline is December 31st, 2023) and that this survey and the result at the end will be entertaining and exciting. Of course, no one will completely agree with the final result, but each participant can at least try to influence the result in their favor and support their favourites.