the legend · the key to every chart in the building
How to read this place
Every graphic on the site is one of the grammars below — and every specimen on this page is real and live: the actual component, drawing this week's actual movies chart. Rank something and watch this page change under you.
first, the two words
A list is somebody's — your ten, in your order. The house keeps lists; so does everyone you follow. The chart is what all the lists make together: every ballot argued head-to-head, week by week. You edit your list. Nobody edits the chart — it re-ranks.
The chart row
the workhorse — one thing's whole chart life in one line- 1—
- 8▲2
- 6—
how it's made · Head-to-head Copeland scoring: every pair of things is a matchup, every ballot a judge, and the rank is wins minus losses across all of them. One judge flipping one matchup moves a score by exactly two — which is why the closest races are quoted in ballots, the unit a person can feel.
- The numeral
- This week's rank. Size is the marker; weight fades below the podium.
- ▲ ▼ NEW RE
- Movement against the WINDOW you picked (1W · 1M · 1Y, top right of the chart). The shape carries direction — ▲ wears the accent, red means down and nothing else. NEW never charted in the window; RE is back from the dead.
- The little line
- The run — ten weeks of rank, drawn word-sized. It flows INTO the numbers it explains.
- LW · PK · WKS
- Where it was, best-ever peak, weeks on the chart — the Billboard triptych. The first figure follows the window: LW at 1W, 1M a month back, WK1 at 1Y, so the arrow and the figure always measure the same week. A lit PK means it's at its peak right now.
- ● the bullet
- Momentum, not movement: it's winning a bigger share of its matchups than last week, whatever its rank did. A held №1 with a bullet is the one that moves next.
- YOU №n
- Where your own ballot has it, and how far the room disagrees with you.
- Name chips
- Your people: where the folks you follow land it. Garnish — they never reorder the chart. At GLANCE they fold to one dimmed count ('· 2 of yours'); the names wait one zoom stop in.
- ★ HOT DEBUT · GAINER · HARDEST FALL
- The week's superlatives, one each per chart: the highest-placed arrival, the biggest climb, the biggest drop. The fall wears red because a fall is down.
- N BALLOTS FROM THE TEN
- On №11 and №12 only: how many judges would have to change their mind for it to reach the ten. Distance to the line beats raw rank.
- RE · WKn
- A re-entry names its provenance: the last week it was seen, and where, in the tooltip.
The MVL — a whole list in one line
the wall unit · №1 withheld on purposethe most loved board's actual №1, live — its numeral is its board rank
how it's made · The board numeral is the list's rank by hearts; the race is the №1-vs-№2 gap re-scored every week; the runner-up is named because the champion ENDS an argument and second place starts one.
- The big numeral
- The list's position on its board, in the list's own genre colour. A board is TEN — nothing below the cut wears one.
- The bars
- THE RACE (next section) — ten weeks of the fight for №1.
- №2
- Who's second. The №1 is inside — that withholding is the whole pitch.
- ♥48
- Hearts, joined up — the site's only vote.
- · 2 of yours
- The follow layer's glance dose: how many of your people rank this list — one dimmed count, never faces. The names wait in the tooltip and on the list.
The race
ten weeks of the fight for №1 · in ballotsmovies · this week's margin: 1 ballot
how it's made · Each bar is one week's gap between №1 and №2, counted in BALLOTS — how many judges would have to change their minds to flip the crown. Scaled to this list's own busiest week; time is carried by weight, oldest faintest.
- Bar height
- The margin. Tall = a rout; short = one dinner-party argument from a new champion.
- The fade
- Oldest week faintest, this week solid — the row reads left-to-right without an axis.
- A falling staircase
- The chase is on. This graphic exists because a runner-up's rank line flat-lines (second has usually HELD second) while the margin moves every week.
The views — five pictures of the same ten
the study tier's rackThe slope · last week against this week
the tilt reads before the wordsclimbed · arrived fell · departed helddashed = crossed the boundary of the ten
the gutter is the fix — last week's №8 didn't vanish, it fell out, and now the chart says so
how it's made · Every view is drawn from the weekly record the chart engine already keeps — the same standings, the same ballots — in one hue, hairline at rest. Pick a view; the chart's numbers never change, only the picture does.
- SPREAD
- Where every voter actually put each thing. A spike is consensus, a smear is a fight; the tick is where the chart landed.
- SLOPE
- Last week against this week. Accent climbs, red falls, faint holds — and the gutter at the bottom is where things that left the ten land, so a departure is drawn, never dropped.
- BRAID
- Twelve weeks as one moving leaderboard: an overtake reads as an overtake. Leaving the ten drops a strand to the lane; staying out keeps it there. The ⤢ opens its room.
- MATRIX
- The Copeland machine with its lid off — every pair a matchup, every ballot a judge; a cell is the share of ballots where the row beats the column. This grid IS the chart. The ⤢ opens its room.
- CHURN
- The only view whose subject is the boundary: who climbed in, who fell out, how many held their exact place — the churn rate of the week.
- ⤢ the room
- The corner control: ▾ unfolds a frame in place, ⤢ travels to the room where that graphic is the whole floor. Nothing does both.
The run — the rank sparkline
a dataword about shapeHeat — the liveliest run on the chart right now · now №8 · peak №8
how it's made · Twelve weekly ranks, axis inverted so №1 sits on top and climbing draws as climbing. The window follows the DATA's own range (with a minimum span), so a №6↔№8 knife-fight gets a real shape instead of three invisible pixels.
- Gaps
- Weeks off the chart draw as nothing — never a flat line pretending it sat there being ignored.
- A lone dot
- One week of history is data too: it just arrived.
- The accent dot
- Now.
- The hollow ring
- Only when the window reaches back (1M · 1Y): the week the ▲▼ measures from, so the arrow is the rise or fall from this ring to the dot. At 1W the arrow is the line's last step and needs no ring.
- Flat
- Holding. A genuinely held rank draws flat because holding IS the story.
The spread
whether the room actually agreedEvery chart position is an average, and an average hides whether anyone agreed. This is where all 59 voters actually put each thing — a spike is consensus, a smear is a real fight.
- 1The Truman Show±6most split40/59 ranked
- 2Die Hard±4tightest38/59 ranked
- 3Arrival±539/59 ranked
- 4Rear Window±4tightest33/59 ranked
- 5Vertigo±6most split34/59 ranked
bar height = how many voters chose that place · the tick under each row is where the chart landed · ± is the interquartile range, the distance between the 25th and 75th voter · verdicts are relative to this list this week, because an absolute threshold calls everything contested
how it's made · Each row is a histogram of where EVERY voter placed that thing, on one shared axis — a chart position is an average wearing a crown, and this is the only place that shows the disagreement under it. Verdicts are comparative (this list, this week), with the ±number always beside them.
- A tight spike
- Consensus — the room genuinely agrees where this belongs.
- The brighter bins
- The follow layer's study dose: your people, drawn at full strength inside the room's bars. They annotate the argument; they never bend it.
- A smear
- A fight. №3-but-half-the-room-has-it-outside-the-top-five is a different fact from №3.
- The tick
- The median voter's placement.
The replay
who took it from whom, and whenhow it's made · Every week's full Copeland standings, replayed in order — the same math as the chart row, run ten times. A chart says who is winning; the replay shows the overtakes, which are the story.
- The scrubber
- Drag through the weeks, or press play and watch the season.
- A crossing
- An overtake — one thing passing another is the one fact a static chart can never show.
The plates
the argument, as a picture · always on blackhow it's made · Algorithmic art drawn FROM the chart data — no image model, no curation. Ten styles (ridge · braid · field · orbit · peaks · threads · tally · spiral · bloom · stack), and the STYLE is data too: the list's own character (does the room disagree? do the ten keep overtaking? did a crowd turn up?) scores five traits and a seeded draw weighted by that score settles it. One hue — the genre's — because colour identifies.
- This one (the ridge)
- Each crest is one thing's spread of ballot placements — the mountains ARE the disagreement. It's also the one style every pressing ticket wears.
- On black, always
- A plate is an object the page holds, like a photograph — a picture that changed with your theme would be two different pictures.
- The halftone
- The same screen the cards wear. One house, one ink.
The pressing ticket
a snapshot in ink · three faces, one anatomyno pressing to annotate yet — the legend never fakes one. cut your first: the snapshot button on any list page freezes the order and files the ticket in your archive (+20, first press of each new order)
how it's made · A ticket freezes the exact order at the moment of pressing — dated, serialled, permanent. The movement marks beside the frozen ten are LIVE (the universal chart's verdict on your old opinion), the art half is the list's own ridge plate (a chartless list draws one from the frozen ballot itself — identity as topography, no invented electorate), and the QR is real. Cutting a snapshot pays +20 once per genuinely new order; a birth certificate — cut silently when a list you created first holds a podium — pays nothing, ever.
see it live · your showcase and archive drawer; the sealed twin rides every /s/ share link →
- The stub
- 9:19.5, the ink block, the tear through the ten — every ticket recognisably a ticket, because they all wear the ridge.
- ORIGINAL
- A birth certificate: open-faced (a showcase doesn't tease its own room), the only ticket a profile ever displays.
- SEALED · the lifted corner
- An archive ticket on site: the podium hides under redaction bars, and each bar's lifted corner peels ONE row — three small reveals beat one, and your browser remembers each.
- Off-site: sealed, no peel
- The export law — off-site always shows one stop less than on-site. The redaction is the tease; the lure points inward, and the tap is always worth something.
- △ ▼ beside the ink
- What the world has done since: the frozen rank against the universal chart now. The ticket never moves; the marks never stop.
The vital signs
one noun, one word-sized linepresence lines light up when the living universe is connected — see them beside every name on People
no unsealed print charts yet — the bet appears under every card on its stage
how it's made · A name wears its presence (public acts per week, from the record everyone can already see; weeks before its first act are gaps, never zeros). A card wears its subject's live universal line with the AMBER — the rank frozen at print time — as a dashed guide: the gap between the line and the guide IS the drift, and the drift is the price.
see it live · beside names on People; under every unsealed card — binder, gallery, stage →
- The presence line
- Public acts per week. Rising = they're around; gaps = before their time. Everything else a name could say lives one tap deeper.
- The dashed guide + ◆
- Where the chart stood when the card was printed. The chart moves on; the amber never does.
- ★ ROOKIE · CLIMBER · RELIC
- The drift badge, live — printed low then climbed to the podium is the early rookie card. It can vanish as the list argues; every card is a bet.
The Book's lines
for entertainment only, obviously- The Truman Show holds top 5 next week−205
- Die Hard holds top 5 next week−255
- Arrival holds top 5 next week−145
how it's made · American odds derived from each thing's head-to-head win share and momentum — the favourite prices negative (bet 150 to win 100), the longshot positive. The house takes no bets; the line is just the chart's opinion wearing a visor.
- −150
- The favourite. A price is not a direction — the accent marks it because it matters, never green, never red.
- +400
- The longshot, stepping back in grey.
every specimen above is live — the legend redraws as the charts move · the cards get the same treatment in anatomy of a card →