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Best Greed Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of greed cinema — measured across 810 indexed frames from 13 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Greed films over-index on horse, cowboy hat and hat — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Fistful Of Dollars (1964)

    Sergio LeoneDP Massimo DallamanoIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    With nothing but profit on his mind, a taciturn American with a lightning-fast right hand rides into San Miguel, a sun-bleached border town where everyone is either rich or dead. As the amoral man with no name discovers that the sleepy town provides the perfect opportunity to make a quick buck, the mysterious stranger soon finds himself caught in the middle of a destructive, long-standing feud. After all, the corrupt Baxters and the murderous Rojos, two feuding families fighting for control, won't let a nameless nobody get a slice of the cake. But the dusty, poncho-clad newcomer has already set his sights on the grand prize--the only way to get it is to play the gangs off against each other in a deadly battle of wits. Of course, no one has pulled such a reckless stunt and lived to tell the tale. How far is a man willing to go for a fistful of dollars?

  2. 2

    There Will Be Blood (2007)

    Paul Thomas AndersonDP Robert ElswitIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    The intersecting life stories of Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday in early twentieth century California is presented. Miner turn oilman Daniel Plainview is a driven man who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He works hard but he also takes advantage of those around him at their expense if need be. His business partner is his son H.W., who in reality he "acquired" when H.W.'s biological single father, who worked on one of Daniel's rigs, got killed in a workplace accident. Daniel is deeply protective of H.W. if only for what H.W. brings to the partnership. Eli Sunday is one in a pair of twins, whose family farm Daniel purchases for the major oil deposit located on it. Eli, the local preacher and a self-proclaimed faith healer, wants the money from the sale of the property to finance his own church. The lives of the two competitive men often clash as Daniel pumps oil off the property and tries to acquire all the surrounding land at bargain prices to be able to build a pipeline to the coast, and as Eli tries to build his own religious empire.

  3. 3

    Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

    Martin ScorseseDP Rodrigo PrietoIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one - until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

  4. 4

    Ran (1985)

    Akira KurosawaDP Takao SaitōIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    Japanese warlord Hidetori Ichimonji decides the time has come to retire and divide his fiefdom among his three sons. His eldest and middle sons - Taro and Jiro - agree with his decision and promise to support him for his remaining days. The youngest son Saburo disagrees with all of them arguing that there is little likelihood the three brothers will remain united. Insulted by his son's brashness, the warlord banishes Saburo. As the warlord begins his retirement, he quickly realizes that his two eldest sons selfish and have no intention of keeping their promises. It leads to war and only banished Saburo can possibly save him.

  5. 5

    Casino (1995)

    Martin ScorseseDP Robert RichardsonIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970s and '80s are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.

  6. 6

    You’re Next (2013)

    Adam WingardDP Andrew Droz PalermoIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    In an attempt to mend their broken family ties, Aubrey and Paul Davison decide to celebrate their wedding anniversary by inviting family members to their weekend estate. The celebration gets off to a rocky start when mysterious assailants wearing animal masks suddenly attack the house.

  7. 7

    The Long Goodbye (1973)

    Robert AltmanDP Vilmos ZsigmondIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the middle of the night, private eye Philip Marlowe drives his friend Terry Lennox to the Mexican border. When Marlowe returns home police are waiting for him and learns that Terry's wife Sylvia has been killed. He's arrested as an accessory but released after a few days and is told the case is closed since Terry Lennox has seemingly committed suicide in Mexico. Marlowe is visited by mobster Marty Augustine who wants to know what happened to the $350,000 Lennox was supposed to deliver for him. Meanwhile, Marlowe is hired by Eileen Wade to find her husband Roger who has a habit of disappearing when he wants to dry out but she can't find him in any any of his usual haunts. He finds him at Dr. Veringer's clinic and brings him. It soon becomes obvious to Marlowe that Terry's death, the Wades and Augustine are all somehow interconnected. Figuring out just what those connections are however will be anything but easy.

  8. 8

    Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

    Mark Gustafson, Guillermo del ToroDP Frank PassinghamIMDb 7.6TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    A dark, twisted retelling of the famous Carlo Collodi fairy tale about the wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy. When Pinocchio comes to life, he turns out not to be that nice of a boy, creating mischief and playing mean tricks. He eventually learns a few lessons.

What greed films are made of

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

  • horse6.8×
  • cowboy hat4.7×
  • hat3.9×
  • sand3.1×
  • mustache2.2×
  • blood1.8×
  • suit jacket1.6×

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

  • 27%widevs 20% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Ugetsu (1953) 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 810 frames from 13 films carrying the greed 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/greed

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