'The Dark Knight' dominated the #fav7films hashtag on Twitter
"LOS ANGELES — It kicked off early in the morning, quickly climbed to the top of U.S. trending topics and had serious legs: The hashtag #fav7films dominated Twitter on Monday as users in the tens of thousands — from regular Janes and Joes to the top film critics — listed their seven favorite movies of all time.
The winner, in a squeaker: The Dark Knight.
Christopher Nolan's batsterpiece was mentioned 5,056 times between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET on Monday, more than any film, according to social media research film and digital media consultancy Fizziology, which says the hashtag was used nearly 100,000 times during that span.
Mashable asked our friends at the firm — an official Twitter partner that's been providing social-listening intel to Hollywood studios for several years now — to dig into the trend to see what they could find.
The top 15
1. The Dark Knight: 5,056
2. Pulp Fiction: 4,966
3. Shawshank Redemption: 4,910
4. Empire Strikes Back: 4,772
5. The Godfather* (all films): 4,604
6. Goodfellas: 3,877
7. Alien* (all films): 3,730
8. Fight Club: 3,574
9. Harry Potter* (all films): 2,757
10. Jaws*: 2,622
11. Forrest Gump*: 2,530
12. Jurassic Park*: 2,356
13. Blade Runner: 1,862
14. The Big Lebowski: 1,860
15 Rocky* (all films): 1,807
*With films like Godfather, Harry Potter and Alien, people were more likely to group the films together, or not specify a certain favorite in the franchise. But with the Star Wars films, people specifically called out Empire Strikes Back.
Curious trends
Casablanca was the most cited movie before 1970
Space Jam was mentioned on more top 7 lists than Annie Hall
Suicide Squad saw more mentions than The Force Awakens
The top animated film was Up
Finding Nemo was on 3x more lists than Finding Dory
The Room (not Room), a cult hit for being perhaps the worst movie ever, saw more mentions than Oscar winners A Beautiful Mind, Spotlight and 12 Years a Slave."