Here is a list of the top 5 best social network movie sites for film buffs:

Sure we want you to hang out here on Screen Rave, but in fairness to you, other sites have other stuff worth checking out as well.

1. IMDb

Though not the most attractive site by any stretch of the imagination, the The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has been the go-to site for movies since shortly after it was launched in 1990. Owned by Amazon since 1998, IMDb is easily the most complete film and television reference on the Internet, and also one of the most vibrant social gathering places for film fans.

IMBd offers an extensive network of message boards, which though technologically dated, are extremely comprehensive content-wise. Every film, television show, actor, actress, director, producer, and other named page on IMDb has its own message board. According to Big-Boards.com, the message boards at IMBd sport a whopping 13 million posts, and over 4 million members, making it one of the biggest discussion communities on the Internet.

In addition to message boards, IMDb offers cast and crew listings for the most comprehensive list of films and television shows you’ll ever find, trivia, quotes, reviews, ratings, goofs, box office data, trailers, photos, news, show times, plot descriptions, filming locations, and more.

2. Flixster

Thought it launched months earlier, Flixster started experiencing phenomenal growth in 2007, and really took off when it released its “Movies” application on Facebook, which remains one of that platform’s most popular apps.

Flixster is a full-featured social network for movie lovers offering film info, reviews, movie trailers, and other media, as well as general social networking features like profiles, comment walls, and friending. Where Flixster really excels, though, is in the way they bring movie fans together and help them connect around their favorite films. Their movie compatibility tests, movie night planner, quizzes and personality tests all make it easy to find friends and connect with people who have similar film tastes.

3. FilmCrave

FilmCrave is a fun movie rating and review social site that rewards users for participation using a points system. The site gives users points for rating movies, adding reviews, making lists, or writing plot summaries. The points are really just for posterity, but for film buffs who like to contribute to crowdsourced information projects, it adds some all-in-good-fun appeal to FilmCrave.

The site also has discussion forums, movie polls, and trailers.

4. Criticker

“We hated Shrek 2 and were shocked that nobody agreed with us,” explains Criticker’s about page. It was that dislike of Shrek 2, and the refusal to believe that no one shared the same opinion that lead the developers to found the movie rating social network, which creates a “Taste Compability Index” for each user based on film ratings (you have to rate at least 10 before you start to see TCIs, though the more you rank, the better the results).

Criticker makes it painfully easy to rate films — it gives you a list of movies and for the ones you’ve seen you enter a number between 0 and 100, as well as a review of under 500 characters (not required). Once you’ve rated enough films, the site starts to suggest films you might like (based on what they call a Probability Score Index), and pair you with people you might get along with based on a similar taste in movies (the TCIs).

5. Flickchart

The idea behind Flickchart is to tap into the crowd to collaboratively assemble the most comprehensive ranking of films ever made. Flickchart’s method of deriving those rankings is a little unusual, but extremely simple and very addicting.

The site bases its list on a series of head-to-head matchups. Users are shown two films, if they’ve seen both, they pick which is better. Then they’re shown two new films, they pick the best and get two more, etc. If it seems odd to see The Little Mermaid up against The Godfather, well, it seemed odd to me at first as well.

But the logic makes sense — one of those two movies you enjoyed more than the other, so if you had to make a definitive list, which one would you pick? The result is that after you’ve completed enough head-to-head matchups, you start to see a pretty accurate list emerge (Flickchart re-inserts films you’ve already voted on fairly often, putting them up against other films so they move up or down your list).