Zagat Goes To The Movies

Choosing a movie to rent just became a little easier.

Zagat Survey, the company that made its name with restaurant guides, has broken into Hollywood with a new movie gude, rating 1,000 films.

Tim and Nina Zagat told The Early Show that their "Zagat Survey Movie Guide"is the first Zagat guide to be based solely on an online survey. They believe the new guide will be their best-selling guide.

"It's the same excitement of having the restaurant guide and picking a great place in Chinatown - this is a great resource to be able to pick a movie," said Nina.

The Zagats said the new guide tries to reflect the tastes of the current movie audience, not the film buff or classicist.

"For me the excitement of this book, aside from loving to go to the movies, is about finally having something that makes it easy for me to pick the movie that I want to see," said Nina. "If we want to sit home at night and watch a video, we can pick what we want easily."

The new "Zagat Survey Movie Guide" contains surveyor-written reviews of classic and contemporary films. Movies are listed by several categories including by 20 different genres (action, animated, biography, horror, documentary) and by decade. Each title is scored separately for overall quality, acting, story line and production values on Zagat's 0- to 30-point scale.

The Zagat ratings reflect 613,000 surveyor screenings in the last year alone — from theater viewings to TV, video and DVD playbacks. Averaging more than two films a week, participants, who voted this past spring and summer at www.zagat.com collectively viewed some 1,680 movies per day.

Zagat Results

1. Asked to name their five favorite movies of all time, surveyors chose:
   
   • Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 "The Godfather"
   • "Casablanca"
   • "Star Wars"
   • "Gone with the Wind"
   • "The Shawshank Redemption."
2. The Most Popular list includes a diverse array of films such as:
   • "Braveheart" (No. 6)
   • "Citizen Kane" (8)
   • "When Harry Met Sally" (12),
   • "The Wizard of Oz" (19)
   • "Annie Hall" (20)
   • "The Sound of Music" (23)
   • "Pulp Fiction" (25)
   • "Apocalypse Now" (34)
   • "All About Eve" (42)
   • "Animal House" (40),
   • "Dr. Strangelove" (49)
   
   
3. High Scores:
   
   
   • "The Godfather" led in overall quality with a 29 average in the Survey's four scoring categories. Amazingly, "The Godfather, Part II" was the second place choice.
   • "Casablanca"
   • "Schindler's List"
   • "Lawrence of Arabia"
   • "To Kill a Mockingbird"
   
   
4. Other Top Films:
   
   
   • Best Action: "Lawrence of Arabia"
   • Animated: "Fantasia"
   • Comedy: "All About Eve"
   • Crime: "The Godfather" I and II
   • Documentary: "Shoah"
   • Fantasy: "The Wizard of Oz"
   • Film Noir: "Third Man"
   • Foreign: "The Seven Samurai"
   • Horror: "Psycho"
   • Musical: "The Wizard of Oz"
   • Sci-Fi: "Star Wars"
   • Silent: "The General"
   • Thriller: "Rear Window"
   • War: "Schindler's List"
   • Western: "High Noon"
   
   
5. Top stars are:
   
   
   • Top Actor: Harrison Ford, Cary Grant
   • Top Actress Julia Roberts, Katharine Hepburn
   • Top Director Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock
   
   
6. Favorite movie line:
   
   
   • "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." (Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind")
   • "I'll be back." (Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator")
   • "Here's looking at you, kid; This could be the start of a beautiful friendship." (Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca")
   • "You talkin' to me?" (Robert DeNiro in "Taxi Driver")
   • "I'll have what she's having." (Unidentified diner in "When Harry Met Sally"