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Blow Out

1981 · directed by Brian De Palma · 108 min
24,032 feet · Prominence
794th of 15,261 films scored
The Rewatchables‘Blow Out’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Wesley Morris

How this film scores

Draw48

$12m worldwide in 1981 — $44m in today's money.

As released$12mIn 2026 money$44mRank4,025 of 8,589In 198144 of 76

How Draw works

Inflation-adjusted worldwide box office, on one global curve, and nothing else. It does not know whether a film was good.

Praise87

Critics 87, awards 0. Half each, so Praise lands at 87.

Critics87 → 44Awards0 → 0

No award rows on file. The awards pass reads Wikidata, which is thin for older and non-English films, so an empty ledger is usually missing data rather than an absence of honours.

How Praise works

Half critics, half a tiered award record where Picture and Directing carry most of the weight. Praise is the verdict at the time; Legacy is the verdict since. This film is near critically unanimous and barely registers on awards, so the awards half halves it — which penalises it for the Academy's rules rather than its quality.

Legacy52

Judged directly: De Palma favorite of critics and Tarantino.

Verdict52 of 100IMDb7.4 from 74kWikipedia24k views a monthAge45 years

On the listsCriterion Collectionevidence, not an input to the score
Scored beside it · 750 of 3,430 films judged

If it does not belong in this company, the number is wrong.

How Legacy works

Legacy is a judgment, not a formula. A film can be adored by critics and culturally quiet, or lightly reviewed and permanently lodged in the culture, and no arithmetic over IMDb numbers tells the difference. Every signal behind it keeps updating.

draw 48 praise 87 legacy 52averages 62, which places it at24,032 ft
How the three become one number

Added, not multiplied, so a film transcendent on one pillar and weak on another is not zeroed out. A compression curve then squeezes the top, because the seven greatest films ever made should not be four thousand feet apart.

In these careers — elevation for this film

John Travolta22,378 ft