LOS ANGELES — It kicked off early in the morning, quickly climbed to the top of U.S. trending topics and had serious legs: The hashtag #fav7films dominated Twitter on Monday as users in the tens of thousands — from regular Janes and Joes to the top film critics — listed their seven favorite movies of all time.

The winner, in a squeaker: The Dark Knight.

Christopher Nolan's batsterpiece was mentioned 5,056 times between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET on Monday, more than any film, according to social media research film and digital media consultancy Fizziology, which says the hashtag was used nearly 100,000 times during that span.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 movie villains of all time

Mashable asked our friends at the firm — an official Twitter partner that's been providing social-listening intel to Hollywood studios for several years now — to dig into the trend to see what they could find.

The top 15

1. The Dark Knight: 5,056

2. Pulp Fiction: 4,966

3. Shawshank Redemption: 4,910

4. Empire Strikes Back: 4,772

5. The Godfather* (all films): 4,604

6. Goodfellas: 3,877

7. Alien* (all films): 3,730

8. Fight Club: 3,574

9. Harry Potter* (all films): 2,757

10. Jaws*: 2,622

11. Forrest Gump*: 2,530

12. Jurassic Park*: 2,356

13. Blade Runner: 1,862

14. The Big Lebowski: 1,860

15 Rocky* (all films): 1,807



*With films like Godfather, Harry Potter and Alien, people were more likely to group the films together, or not specify a certain favorite in the franchise. But with the Star Wars films, people specifically called out Empire Strikes Back.

We'll always have #fav7films Image: John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

Curious trends

Casablanca was the most cited movie before 1970

Space Jam was mentioned on more top 7 lists than Annie Hall

Suicide Squad saw more mentions than The Force Awakens

The top animated film was Up

Finding Nemo was on 3x more lists than Finding Dory

The Room (not Room), a cult hit for being perhaps the worst movie ever, saw more mentions than Oscar winners A Beautiful Mind, Spotlight and 12 Years a Slave





Everyone's a comedian

Of course, these results had to be somewhat skewed by the fact that not everyone took this exercise seriously. Many used it as an excuse to ask the age-old question: Why so serious?

#fav7films

Seven Samurai

The Magnificent Seven

Seven

Furious 7

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

The one w the dwarfs — Chris Vognar (@chrisvognar) August 15, 2016

#fav7films

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

[i only have AMC] — Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 15, 2016

And inevitably, some folks couldn't help but turn the exercise into meta-commentary on things such as trending Twitter hashtags. Our hats are off ...

okay this is definitely the best #fav7films list pic.twitter.com/nSTa1DTb6I — andy levy (@andylevy) August 16, 2016