Hey Andrew, Sorry, but you're not foing to find a list and if you do chances are it might be biased. I feel the MA that I train in is the best as do a lot of others here. There are no bad Martial Arts only bad instructors. Every Art has it's advantages and disadvantages. You may be able to find a list of most popular, but most effective? I doubt it. The discovery channel did a show on the 10 best Martial Arts and I believe Sholin Kung Fu was #1 but that's all subjective.