Best Admiring Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of admiring cinema — measured across 6,432 indexed frames from 79 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Admiring films over-index on microphone — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
A Star Is Born (2018)
Bradley CooperDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
Seasoned musician Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) discovers-and falls in love with-struggling artist Ally (Gaga). She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer - until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally's career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.
- 2
Groundhog Day (1993)
Harold RamisDP John BaileyIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting "rat" (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day, he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing every day.
- 3
Pitch Perfect (2012)
Jason MooreDP Julio MacatIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
The Barden Bellas are a collegiate, all-girls a cappella singing group thriving on female pop songs and their perfect looks. After a disastrous failing at last year's finals, they are forced to regroup. Among the new recruits is freshman Beca, an independent, aspiring DJ with no interest in the college life. But after she meets Jesse, from the rival all-male a cappella group, Beca has a new outlook and takes it upon herself to help the Bellas find their new look and sound and get back into the competition.
- 4
Paul Thomas AndersonDP Robert ElswitIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Set in 1977, back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, idealistic porn producer Jack Horner aspires to elevate his craft to an art form. Horner discovers Eddie Adams, a hot young talent working as a busboy in a nightclub, and welcomes him into the extended family of movie-makers, misfits and hangers-on that are always around. Adams' rise from nobody to a celebrity adult entertainer is meteoric, and soon the whole world seems to know his porn alter ego, "Dirk Diggler". Now, when disco and drugs are in vogue, fashion is in flux and the party never seems to stop, Adams' dreams of turning sex into stardom are about to collide with cold, hard reality.
- 5
The Bodyguard (1992)
Mick JacksonDP Andrew DunnIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
A pop singer has been receiving threatening notes, and her manager hires a bodyguard known for his good work. The bodyguard ruffles the singer's feathers and most of her entourage by tightening security more than they feel is necessary. The bodyguard is haunted by the fact that he was on Reagan's secret service staff but wasn't there to prevent the attack by Hinckley. Eventually the bodyguard and the singer start an affair, and she begins to believe his precautions are necessary when the stalker strikes close to home.
- 6
Jason WolinerDP Luke GeissbühlerIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Fourteen long years after the culture shock he experienced in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Kazakh reporter, Borat Sagdiyev, has been called to Premier Nursultan Nazarbayev's office for a life-or-death task. To redeem himself and salvage the reputation of the glorious nation of Kazakhstan, Borat must now return to President Donald Trump's America to deliver an exceptional gift to Vice President Mike Pence. Instead, Borat's newfound fifteen-year-old daughter, Tutar, enters the picture, forcing a change of plans. As now-famous Borat takes a deep dive into U.S. politics, in the meantime, the father and daughter learn a thing or two about feminism, racism, and an insidious, lethal virus called COVID-19. Will Borat, Kazakhstan's fourth-best journalist, carry out his mission?
- 7
Ali (2001)
Michael MannDP Emmanuel LubezkiIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
In 1964, a brash new pro boxer, fresh from his Olympic gold medal victory, explodes on to the scene, Cassius Clay. Bold and outspoken, he cuts an entirely new image for African Americans in sport with his proud public self confidence with his unapologetic belief that he is the greatest boxer of all time. To his credit, he sets out to prove that with his highly agile and forceful style soon making him a formidable boxer who soon claims the heavyweight championship. His personal life is no less noteworthy with his allegiance to the Nation of Islam, his friendship with the controversial Malcolm X and his abandonment of his slave name in favor of Muhammad Ali stirring up controversy. Yet, at the top of his game, both Ali's personal and professional lives face the ultimate test with the military draft rules are changed, making him eligible for military induction during the Vietnam War. Despite the fact that he could easily agree to a sweetheart deal that would have meant an easy tour of duty for himself, Ali refuses to submit on principle to cooperate in an unjust war for a racist nation that treated his people so poorly. The cost of that stand is high as he finds himself unable to legally box in his own country while his case is contested in court. What follows is a battle for a man who would sacrifice so much for what he believes in and a comeback that would cement his legend as one of the great sports figures of all time.
- 8
Snake Eyes (1998)
Brian De PalmaDP Stephen H. BurumIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Ricky Santoro is a flamboyant and corrupt Atlantic City cop with a dream: become so well connected that he can become mayor. In lieu of that, he'll settle for keeping his comfortable lifestyle. On the night of the heavyweight boxing championship, Rick becomes mixed up in the assassination of the Secretary of Defense, an assassination involving his best friend. Becoming the investigating officer in the case, Rick soon uncovers a conspiracy to kill the Secretary and a mysterious woman in white. The conspiracy was shocking, but not half as shocking as the identity of its mastermind.
- 9
Back to Black (2024)
Sam Taylor-JohnsonDP Polly MorganIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
The extraordinary story of Amy Winehouse’s early rise to fame from her early days in Camden through the making of her groundbreaking album, Back to Black that catapulted Winehouse to global fame. Told through Amy’s eyes and inspired by her deeply personal lyrics, the film explores and embraces the many layers of the iconic artist and the tumultuous love story at the center of one of the most legendary albums of all time.
- 10
Steven SpielbergDP Vilmos ZsigmondIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Two parallel stories are told. In the first, a group of research scientists from a variety of backgrounds are investigating the strange appearance of items in remote locations, primarily desert regions. In continuing their investigation, one of the lead scientists, a Frenchman named Claude Lacombe, incorporates the Kodály method of music education as a means of communication in their work. The response, in turn, at first baffles the researchers, until American cartographer David Laughlin deciphers the meaning of the response. In the second, electric company lineman and family man Roy Neary and single mother Jillian Guiler are among some individuals in Muncie, Indiana who experience some paranormal activity before some flashes of bright lights in the sky, which they believe to be a UFO. Roy becomes obsessed with what he saw, unlike some others, especially in some form of authority, who refuse to acknowledge their belief that it was a UFO in not wanting to appear crazy. That obsession both for Roy and Jillian is ratcheted up a notch when they begin to have a vision of a mound with vertical striations on its side as a key to what is going on. While the obsession negatively affects Roy's life as he knows it in its entirety, Jillian knows she has to find the answer as to its meaning, especially as it relates to her only child, three year old Barry Guiler, who may be more attuned to what is happening than the adult figures around him. These two stories have the potential to intersect if Roy and Jillian can discover where they've seen that mound before, and if they can overcome what they believe to be the lies perpetrated by those in authority in covering up what is going on.
What admiring films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a admiring frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — microphone is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- microphone2.1×
How admiring films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate admiring from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 85%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 6,432 frames from 79 films carrying the admiring label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/admiring
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