20 Baffling IMDb Top 250 Placements You Won't Believe
4. How To Train Your Dragon
The Film:
Probably DreamWorks' most successful movie since the Shrek films, this is an animated adventure about the friendship between a boy and a dragon.
Placement: #176
Why It's Wrong:
Animated films don't tend to do brilliantly on the list. The highest-rated is Spirited Away (#28) and that's fully justified. But there are a lot of glaring omissions. These include Toy Story 2, The Incredibles, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Lego Movie, The Wind Rises, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut... yeah, it makes for depressing reading.
It's very bizarre that How to Train Your Dragon, a less beloved film than those just mentioned, is one of the few animated movies to make it on here. Also, Shrek is one of the internet's most beloved films (Just look at all those endless memes relating to it) so it's extremely surprising that Shrek isn't on the list. It is more or less considered blasphemy to diss Shrek in any way.
How to Train Your Dragon has some interesting ideas and great visuals, but it doesn't live up to its high critical ratings. It does feel routine and cliched, much like everything DreamWorks makes. Maybe that's just me though.
Anyhow, whatever you think of it, there's no denying it's an odd choice for the Top 250 given that so many other beloved animated films missed out.
Where It Should Be: If you really, really insist of having it on here, then #225-#250.