In the beginning, when I first ventured into wanting to know more about Aaron Paul’s work I would turn to Google, and the first site that always appeared in searches was IMDb.
I would go in and research what I needed, but I never really understood the dynamics and purpose of this platform beyond showing me what previous works Aaron Paul had been in.
I only discovered later on that with IMDb every actor is in a league of their own!
Do you fully know and understand what IMDB is, or what it is for?
IMDb or Internet Movie Database is a platform that specializes in that data related to movies and TV, keeping a precise record of every production – crew, talent, budgets, box office and so much more. Created in 1990 by Col Needham and subsequently purchased by Amazon eight years later, it is now the largest online database of everything to do with the moving picture entertainment industry.
There are three ways to interact with IMDb.
A visitor – someone who simply uses IMDb as a casual resource for checking out actors works, who that familiar face you recognise in the TV show you’re watching and just to see what productions are coming out and when.
There’s also the option to register and become a member on the Internet Movie Database. This entitles you to rate films, series, documentaries, or any other productions listed on a scale from 1 to 10. This is represented by stars, and gives an ability to see what is hot and what is not from the many productions listed. These individual votes are then aggregated over time and summarized into a single rating, that is then displayed prominently on the title’s main page to allow newcomers to know the general consensus of any Series, film or individual episodes.
There is also a paid option, known as IMDb professional. For a monthly fee you can explore even more information about any given productions, this is aimed at industry professionals who actively use IMDb as part of their job, or they work on the productions listed and can update their own listings, and that’s how usually IMDb has the most up to date information. The professional access gives you contact details that so if an actor catches your eye, and you’re working on something you want them to be a part of, you can get their agents information to reach out – a very useful industry tool.
This is why the platform is one of the most popular resources in the world when it comes to movie, TV and celebrity content.
But why are we telling you all this?
Well, for our own amusement there is another additional thing the professional IMDb option gives you – in addition to rating Movies and Television shows, IMDB also has a rating system in place for the actors. How this works in practice is each actor that is listed with a credit on IMDb is given a ‘star rating’ and this is unique to them and updates every Monday.
The Star Rating is predominately determined by ‘recent activity’ in the 7 days prior to getting their score. This rating is worked out using a number of different factors – those can include the number of productions the actor has been involved in, the number of productions that are currently released (actively being voted on by members), how many page views/searches for that actor has happened on imdb in that week, and extra activities like guest appearing on talk shows or any promotional work listed on IMDb for that week – all this data is collated, and that is what goes into the final weekly rating score.
Effectively the IMDb star rating is akin to an actors league table, as in sports. It’s how IMDb are able to list the top ten actors on the normal IMDb service, and with such accuracy – it’s rarely a surprise to see which actors are topping those tables because more often than not you would have seen them everywhere the week before if they are in the top ten – usually with big film releases or promotional activity seeing them on every chat show, and naturally people will search for that actor in great numbers on imdb.
Thinking of it as a league table, that means only one actor at a time can take the top spot in any given week, which can be the culmination of several factors to gauge their popularity as mentioned.
Aaron Paul’s Star Rating History
We wouldn’t be called the Aaron Paul fans site if we didn’t now focus on how our very own idol has rated in his career to date!
Aaron Paul early in his career, was consistently in the thousands – his first ever recorded entry on the star system came in April 11th 1999 and for that first recorded period his highest rating was 12,236 – it’s worth noting that he never went below that first figure, only up from there. In fact for the next period of time starting Nov 21 1999 he had already shot up to 2,989 – amazingly because in that period he made his infamous Price is Right appearance – it all helped!
For a while he remained in the low thousands until May 29 2005 when a guest starring role on Point Pleasant elevated him to a high of 454. It wasn’t until he finally got his break on Breaking Bad, supported by his secondary role of Big Love, and release of Last House on the Left that in the period starting Feb 1 2009 he returned to the 400’s with a 427 rating.
Then for the period starting August 15 2010, with an Emmy Award win to his name Aaron broke the 100 and rated at a high of 45. Things were steady for a while until he recorded his next Emmy win, and with Breaking Bad’s success now cemented in TV history – he found himself rated 13 in Jun 2012. However at the end of 2013, with the end of Breaking Bad and so much attention of Aaron Paul he made it right to the top, and became the number one actor on IMDb’s star meter!
It needs to be noted that no other Breaking Bad actor has ever reached the pinnacle of this rating system, and that alone is amazing to realise. Since then the numbers have fluctuated as work has come and gone, reaching 18 again when El Camino was released and only very rarely falling out of top 1000, always jumping right back up – when you consider just how many actors there are that’s quite a feat for a 22 year career with this rating system charting his every move!
When I started researching these rankings on IMDB a few months ago, but precisely on April 11, 2022, Aaron was ranked that week with 827 points, since then I have seen him rise up as two amazing performances came to air – Dual and Westworld, for which Aaron also did additional chat show appearances to promote, that boosted him back up.
The week he appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s show to talk about his movie Dual, it was also the week it was announced that Jesse would be in the final season of Better Call Saul, his score went up to 460.
On August 2nd it rose again to 335 and this very week we are so pleased to tell you that he rose up 182 places and is currently ranked at 153! (at time of this article’s publication in August 2022)
As you can see, getting a good grade is not an easy task, and staying in the same ranking for more than a week is also difficult when you are up against every other actor in the business.
It is worth mentioning that this information that IMDB brings is just collated data from an internal IMDb system, we don’t want to give the impression that there is a Hollywood leader board – that’s not the purpose of this article – its only as fans that we enjoy watching these ratings each week.
It’s also a great way to see the hard work Aaron Paul has put into not only having a career in such a tough industry but has also has sustained it throughout – remaining in the top 1000 consistently being in the higher half. That needs to be applauded, as that truly is a huge achievement that any actor would dream of when they set out to follow their dreams.
