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Best Philadelphia, pennsylvania Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of philadelphia, pennsylvania cinema — measured across 1,414 indexed frames from 19 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Philadelphia, pennsylvania films over-index on stubble, sweater and fedora — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Trap (2024)

    M. Night ShyamalanDP Sayombhu MukdeepromIMDb 5.8TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event.

  2. 2

    A History of Violence (2005)

    David CronenbergDP Peter SuschitzkyIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Leading a happy and quiet life with his lawyer wife and their two children in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, mild-mannered Tom Stall cherishes his simple, uneventful existence. However, their idyllic lifestyle is shattered when, one night, Tom saves his customers and friends in self-defence, foiling a vicious attempted robbery in his diner by two violent wanted criminals. Now, heralded as a local hero, Tom's life is changed overnight, attracting unwanted attention, and a national media feeding frenzy. Uncomfortable with his newfound celebrity, Tom tries to return to normalcy, only to find himself confronted by a mysterious man who arrives in town believing Tom is the man who wronged him in the past. More and more, as Tom and his family struggle to cope with their new reality and this case of mistaken identity, they have no other choice but to fight back and protect all that they hold dear. But, is there more to Tom than meets the eye? Does he have, indeed, a history of violence?

  3. 3

    Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

    F. Gary GrayDP Jonathan SelaIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Clyde Shelton's family is brutally murdered. The ones responsible are caught. However, because of improper procedure, the D.A., Nick Rice only has circumstantial evidence. So he decides to get one of them to testify against the other. When Shelton learns of this, he is not happy. Ten years later, the one who was convicted is being executed but something goes wrong; his execution goes awry and he suffers. They learn that someone tampered with the machine. And the other one is found dead, killed in a gruesome manner. Rice suspects Shelton, so he has him picked up. At first, Shelton agrees to a plea agreement with Rice but changes his mind. It appears that Shelton is not done, it appears he blames the whole system and is declaring war on it going after everyone involved with his family's case. So Rice has to stop him but Shelton is way ahead of him.

  4. 4

    World War Z (2013)

    Marc ForsterDP Ben SeresinIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Life for former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls.

  5. 5

    Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

    David O. RussellDP Masanobu TakayanagiIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Against medical advice and without the knowledge of her husband Pat Solatano Sr., caring Dolores Solatano discharges her adult son, Pat Solatano Jr., from a Maryland mental health institution after his minimum eight-month court ordered stint. The condition of the release includes Pat Jr. moving back in with his parents in their Philadelphia home. Although Pat Jr.'s institutionalization was due to him beating up the lover of his wife Nikki, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Nikki has since left him and has received a restraining order against him. Although he is on medication (which he doesn't take because of the way it makes him feel) and has mandatory therapy sessions, Pat Jr. feels like he can manage on the outside solely by healthy living and looking for the "silver linings" in his life. His goals are to get his old job back as a substitute teacher, but more importantly reunite with Nikki. He finds there are certain instances where he doesn't cope well; however, no less so than some others who have never been institutionalized, such as his Philadelphia Eagles obsessed father who has resorted to being a bookie to earn a living, his best friend Ronnie who quietly seethes over the control wielded by his wife Veronica, and Veronica's widowed sister, Tiffany Maxwell, a girl with problems of her own. In their fragile mental states, Pat Jr. and Tiffany embark on a love/hate friendship based primarily on what help the other can provide in achieving their individual goals. But they may reevaluate their goals as their relationship progresses.

  6. 6

    The Brutalist (2024)

    Brady CorbetDP Lol CrawleyIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet flee Europe to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client. The seemingly charming industrialist Harrison Van Buren offers László and his family the American Dream on a silver platter by commissioning him to design a grand modernist monument and help shape the landscape of the country he now calls home. It will be the most ambitious project of his career, one that will take László and Erzsébet to both monumental heights and devastating lows.

  7. 7

    Marnie (1964)

    Alfred HitchcockDP Robert BurksIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Marnie Edgar is a habitual liar and a thief who gets jobs as a secretary and after a few months robs the firms in question, usually of several thousand dollars. When she gets a job at Rutland's, she also catches the eye of the handsome owner, Mark Rutland. He prevents her from stealing and running off, as is her usual pattern, but also forces her to marry him. Their honeymoon is a disaster and she cannot stand to have a man touch her, and on their return home, Mark has a private detective look into her past. When he has the details of what happened in her childhood to make her what she is, he arranges a confrontation with her mother realizing that reliving the terrible events that occurred in her childhood and bringing out those repressed memories is the only way to save her.

  8. 8

    Creed (2015)

    Ryan CooglerDP Maryse AlbertiIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Adonis Johnson is the son of the famous boxing champion Apollo Creed, who died in a boxing match in Rocky IV (1985). Adonis wasn't born until after his father's death and wants to follow his fathers footsteps in boxing. He seeks a mentor who is the former heavyweight boxing champion and former friend of Apollo Creed, the retired Rocky Balboa. Rocky eventually agrees to mentor Adonis. With Rocky's help they hope to get a title job to face even deadlier opponents than his father. But whether he is a true fighter remains to be seen....

  9. 9

    The Irishman (2019)

    Martin ScorseseDP Rodrigo PrietoIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran is a man with a lot on his mind. The former labor union high official and hitman, learned to kill serving in Italy during the Second World War. He now looks back on his life and the hits that defined his mob career, maintaining connections with the Bufalino crime family. In particular, the part he claims to have played in the disappearance of his life-long friend, Jimmy Hoffa, the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who mysteriously vanished in late July 1975 at the age of 62.

  10. 10

    The Sixth Sense (1999)

    M. Night ShyamalanDP Tak FujimotoIMDb 8.2TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    Malcom Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a child psychologist who receives an award on the same night that he is visited by a very unhappy ex-patient. After this encounter, Crowe takes on the task of curing a young boy with the same ills as the ex-patient (Donnie Wahlberg) . This boy "sees dead people". Crowe spends a lot of time with the boy much to the dismay of his wife (Olivia Williams). Cole's mom (Toni Collette) is at her wit's end with what to do about her son's increasing problems. Crowe is the boy's only hope.

What philadelphia, pennsylvania films are made of

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

  • stubble2.4×
  • sweater2.3×
  • fedora2.0×
  • jacket1.9×
  • door1.8×
  • curtain1.7×
  • plaid shirt1.7×
  • t-shirt1.6×

How philadelphia, pennsylvania 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 philadelphia, pennsylvania from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 10%high anglevs 6% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Shazam! (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 1,414 frames from 19 films carrying the philadelphia, pennsylvania 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/philadelphia-pennsylvania

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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