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Blow Out

1981 · directed by Brian De Palma · 108 min
24,008 feet · Prominence
878th of 24,106 films scored
The Rewatchables‘Blow Out’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Wesley Morris →

How this film scores

Draw48

Lifetime worldwide gross $12m, re-releases included; about $44m in 2026 money.

Rank4,529 of 11,051In 198152 of 90

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

Awards claim half the headroom above the critics' score.

Critics87 baseAwards0 signal → +0 lift

No award rows on file, usually missing data rather than missing honours. Wikidata is thin for older and non-English films.

How Praise works

Critics set the score; a tiered award record, Picture and Directing carrying the most weight, claims half the headroom above it. Praise is the verdict at the time; Legacy is the verdict since. This film is near critically unanimous and barely registers on awards, so there is little headroom for awards to claim. The score is the critics' verdict, nearly untouched.

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 · 939 of 4,039 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, placing it at24,008 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 Travolta19,824 ftNancy Allen19,014 ftJohn Lithgow18,840 ftDennis Franz18,058 ftRoger Wilson17,721 ft