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Best Film in film Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of film in film cinema — measured across 1,190 indexed frames from 19 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Film in film films over-index on neon sign, sweater and glasses — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Thesis (1996)

    Alejandro AmenábarDP Hans BurmannIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Why is death and violence so fascinating? Is it morally correct to show violence in movies? If so, is there a limit to what we should show? That's the subject of Ángela's examination paper. She is a young student at a film school in Madrid. Together with the student Chema (who is totally obsessed with violent movies) they find a snuff movie in which a young girl is tortured and killed. Soon they discover that the girl was a former student at their school...

  2. 2

    Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

    Stanley Donen, Gene KellyDP Harold RossonIMDb 8.3TMDB 8.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    1927 Hollywood. Monumental Pictures' biggest stars, glamorous on-screen couple Lina Lamont and Don Lockwood, are also an off-screen couple if the trade papers and gossip columns are to be believed. Both perpetuate the public perception if only to please their adoring fans and bring people into the movie theaters. In reality, Don barely tolerates her, while Lina, despite thinking Don beneath her, simplemindedly believes what she sees on screen in order to bolster her own stardom and sense of self-importance. R.F. Simpson, Monumental's head, dismisses what he thinks is a flash in the pan: talking pictures. It isn't until The Jazz Singer (1927) becomes a bona fide hit which results in all the movie theaters installing sound equipment that R.F. knows Monumental, most specifically in the form of Don and Lina, have to jump on the talking picture bandwagon, despite no one at the studio knowing anything about the technology. Musician Cosmo Brown, Don's best friend, gets hired as Monumental's ideas man and musical director. And by this time, Don has secretly started dating Kathy Selden, a chorus girl who is trying to make it big in pictures herself. Don and Kathy's relationship is despite their less than friendly initial meeting. Cosmo and Kathy help Don, who had worked his way up through the movie ranks to stardom, try make the leap to talking picture stardom, with Kathy following along the way. However, they have to overcome the technological issues. But the bigger problem is Lina, who will do anything to ensure she also makes the successful leap into talking pictures, despite her own inabilities and at anyone and everyone else's expense if they get in her way, especially Kathy as Don's off screen girlfriend and possibly his new talking picture leading lady.

  3. 3

    Bliss

    Mike CahillDP Markus FördererIMDb 5.4TMDB 5.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Bliss is a mind-bending love story following Greg (Owen Wilson) who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel's wild conspiracy.

  4. 4

    All That Jazz (1979)

    Bob FosseDP Giuseppe RotunnoIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Joe Gideon is a Broadway director, choreographer and filmmaker, he in the process of casting the chorus and staging the dance numbers for his latest Broadway show, starring his ex-wife Audrey Paris in what is largely a vanity project for her in playing a role several years younger than her real age, and editing a film he directed on the life of stand-up comic Davis Newman. Joe's professional and personal lives are intertwined, he a chronic philanderer, having slept with and had relationships with a series of dancers in his shows, Victoria Porter, who he hired for the current show despite she not being the best dancer, in the former category, and Kate Jagger, his current girlfriend, in the latter category. That philandering has led to relationship problems, with Audrey during their marriage, and potentially now with Kate who wants a committed relationship with Joe largely in not wanting the alternative of entering the dating world again. Joe also lives a hard and fast life, he chain smoking, drinking heavily, listening to hard driving classical music and popping uppers to keep going. In addition to pressures from investors and meeting film deadlines above and beyond his own self-induced hard life, he is teetering on the brink physically and emotionally. With Kate, Audrey, and his and Audrey's teenage daughter Michelle looking over him as best they can, Joe flirts with "Angelique" in the process, he potentially succumbing to her if he doesn't listen to them or what his body is telling him.

  5. 5

    The Big Sick (2017)

    Michael ShowalterDP Brian BurgoyneIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani), in the middle of becoming a budding stand-up comedian, meets Emily (Zoe Kazan). Meanwhile, a sudden illness sets in forcing Emily to be put into a medically-induced coma. Kumail must navigate being a comedian, dealing with tragic illness, and placating his family's desire to let them fix him up with a spouse, while contemplating and figuring out who he really is and what he truly believes.

  6. 6

    Southland Tales (2006)

    Richard KellyDP Steven PosterIMDb 5.3TMDB 5.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008, as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Boxer Santaros is an action star who's stricken with amnesia. His life intertwines with Krysta Now, an adult film star developing her own reality television project, and Ronald Taverner, a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.

  7. 7

    Final Girls (2015)

    Todd Strauss-SchulsonDP Elie SmolkinIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    When Max (Taissa Farmiga) and her friends reluctantly attend a tribute screening of an infamous '80s slasher film that starred Max's late mother (Malin Akerman), they are accidentally sucked into the silver screen. They soon realize they are trapped inside the cult classic movie and must team up with the fictional and ill-fated "Camp Bloodbath" counselors, including Max's mom as the shy scream queen, to battle the film's machete-wielding, masked killer. With the body count rising in scene after iconic scene, who will be THE FINAL GIRLS left standing and live to escape this film?

  8. 8

    I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

    Charlie KaufmanDP Łukasz ŻalIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Despite second thoughts about their relationship, a young woman (Jessie Buckley) takes a road trip with her new boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) to his family farm. Trapped at the farm during a snowstorm with Jake's mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis), the young woman begins to question the nature of everything she knew or understood about her boyfriend, herself, and the world. An exploration of regret, longing and the fragility of the human spirit, I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS is directed and written by Academy Award® winner Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Inspired by Iain Reid's bestselling namesake novel.

What film in film films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a film in film frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — neon sign is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • neon sign2.2×
  • sweater2.0×
  • glasses1.6×
  • shadow1.5×

How film in film 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 film in film from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 10%interior indeterminatevs 7% baseline
  • 31%naturalvs 44% baseline
  • 33%dayvs 43% baseline
  • 16%high keyvs 12% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Hail, Caesar! (2016) 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 1,190 frames from 19 films carrying the film in film 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/film-in-film

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used