Same as Google ratings. Like it? 5 stars. Hate it, 1 star. No nuance. If it's below 3.5 stars, absolute garbage. In Japan they somehow treat the rating system as intended. 3 stars is a solid, ok experience. 5 is exceptionally hard to achieve

I agree with you, but the problem is, IMDb collates ratings from thousands of people, each of whom have their own scale. I might have the same opinion about a movie, but I rate it as a 5 because it was completely average, and the next person who feels the same gives it a 7.

I would love to use a service that asks you a series of questions about a movie and generates a rating based on that. That way, if you're honest about your answers, the ratings should match. Questions like "was the acting good?" with answers like "the acting was exceptional," "the acting was bad," and "the acting didn't make me think about it at all." But if you ask if the movie was good? If it's a movie about a working man being pushed to the breaking point and he dies, the rich man is going to like that a lot more than a working man.

Then you have review bombing. I think the best example of this is Fullmetal Alchemist. FMA fans believe that no anime should be rated higher than FMA, so if something starts to get popular, they will organise a review bombing of it. Don't get me wrong, Fullmetal Alchmist was a good anime, but it was also kinda trash. The first series in 2003 did 20-odd episodes, caught up with the manga, then they decided to write their own ending/second half. In 2009 after the books were done, they did a remake, but the first episode was original (not in the books), the next nine summed up the first half of the books (because the 2003 series already covered that), and then the next 50-odd episodes cover the second half of the books, so you have one where the pacing is good but the story goes off the rails (IMO, in a good way, I like where they took it), and another one where it's more true to the books (except that random ass first episode) but the pacing sucks. To top it all off, the lead actor was accused of sexual misconduct a few years ago and has basically been cancelled online. It's still an awesome series, but is it so good that nearly 20 years later, nothing can be rated more highly?

A LONG time ago back when Netflix first started its rating system was its major speak. I recall articles saying that even if you did not pay for the service, you should make an account just simply to use its rating system to decide your next watch (and then go get them at Blockbuster or something:-P). My, how things have changed in the meantime..

The scaling on IMDB is bad, 10point scales do not work 5 and below isn't really used, unless they hate it passionately

I've always found imdb way less inflated than Rotten Tomatoes.

I have both problems or I am counter-cyclical to IMDb. Anyways. My algorithm now works like this:

IMDb > 5 = potentially good movie
IMDb <=5 = trash

Rotten Tomatoes > 70% = potentially good movie
Rotten Tomatoes <= 70% = potentially good movie.

I just joined a site called criticker that aims to fix this via data normalization. It can adjust ratings to the way you rate and base them on people who rate like you as well. Although its database is a bit lacking and all ratings are public.

Also FYI on 1 to 10 5.5 is average, 5 is below average.

Might I add, a 10 scale is too granular for most people. It should be on 5. Most people have their scale start at 5 and go above. The only time they will go below is to give a 1 to a movie they hated.

On a scale from 1-10, the average is 7. That's how humans work. You should probably get used to it.

Ah, people.

5 is avreage? Oh so you mean 5 is absolute baseline? Like, treat 5 as 0 yes? Then anything below is basically how much you shouldn't watch it, no?

My friends balk when I say "Welp, that was 6/10, quite a good movie" xD

Yeah I think this is an issue in general with any kind of 1-10 scale! People tend to think 7+ is good. I don't think people recognize 5 as average or they see "average" as less than what it actually means - I'm with you that most media is average and that doesn't mean it's not worth checking out.

Anyone who creates a scale needs to be super clear about what each interval means lol because I think they get misconstrued all the time.

I do miss the old IMDb review/chat boards though. Before everything just moved to reddit, it was fun to go on there and just talk to people about certain movies. Was so good for when a movie had a confusing/open ending to share theories and stuff. Didn't get trolls when forums were all separate!

This is why approval voting is better than score voting, or rather, score voting quickly becomes approval voting anyways so might as well not overcomplicate matters 🙃

I rely on Letterboxd for a glance on rating curvature but that too has become untrustworthy for anything just released big and blockbustery that fortunately isn't really my thing anyway.

When I see something I really like I go check out the other productions by the people involved. Director and writer mainly, also producers and sometimes actors if they seem to be character actors that pick what projects to be in.

Exactly. Critics are only useful if your opinions are similar to the critics.

Remember, even in recent years movies have been review-bombed for being "woke", for instance, with hordes of people upset about things that are not important to the movie, attempting to destroy the reputation of the movie rather than evaluate it fairly on its own merits.

I was just watching facts behind "Robin Hood men in tights", and apparently Siskel gave it half a star, which is absolutely insane. It's no blazing saddles, but it's one of the better Mel Brooks movies

So yeah, review scores are basically a good way to decide whether you should go to the theaters and watch it or wait till it's on streaming. But outside of that, it's not a good indicator of whether or not you're going to enjoy the show.

unironically, I loved the mario bros movie from the 90s. It's rated REALLY low on imdb, but I loved that film.

I think about how I haven't reviewed a movie on imdb/rotten tomatoes in years. If you haven't either, then don't trust the user reviews.

I think one of the reasons the critics came at it so harshly was that it was sort of this meme-movie. Lots of quotable lines. Lots of memorable scenes. But the overarching story kinda sucked. The villains were silly and lame. The heroes were uninspired. The movie parked itself on Irish Dude-Bro demographics and just kinda catapulted itself into cult classic material by casting Willem Dafoe a bit before he went mainstream.

I think it's better than a 26%. But not all that much better.

For me, fan score is a separate axis (how much fun is the film).

I love to chase my toddler around and say “You’re going nowhere! Where you goin’? nowhere!” Before lightly bodyslamming him. Now he just runs around yelling, “I’m not going anywhere”

https://youtu.be/8qfNR-ft7A4

I actually just showed my partner the first movie a few weeks ago, somehow she had never heard of it but I was shocked at the scores on imdb.

Well it is owned by Amazon

They recently started demanding an account to read user reviews.

I guess you would need a variety of metrics for each movie, and then you would present them side by side like websites comparing computers/cars/phones do. So for example every movie would get an overall satisfaction score, but also a score for acting, music, how funny, how moving, thought provoking, accurate, aesthetics, and so on.

Scores are a comparative rating though? Like what's different between "S-tier" and "9.0-10.0"?

Oh, hi Mark

For me, it was the movie AVP2, that was way worse than it's IMDB rating.

I'm with you on this. It may be useful to get an idea of probably bad, probably good, but not as a function of quality, since they can easily score amazing a trash movie and write shit about actually high-quality movies.

But, essentially, the score doesn't say anything, more so when masses are involved. Legions of fans of some actor will, for example, score perfect a movie starring them.

Do people really trust ratings for things?

It's generally in the ballpark. Universally panned films rank lower than universally loved films. Cult classics tend to score better than average but rarely break into the 8-9 out of 10 range. It's good to check the "Critics Score" against the "Popular Score", as a big spread tends to say something about the nature of the film (High C:P suggests Oscar Bait, low C:P suggests it's either very niche or very crass or very ideological).

The scores contain useful information about the nature and quality of the film. They just don't tell you whether you will like the film.

I'll also throw in that I've heard more than a few movie reviews that have changed my opinion on a movie I've already seen (typically one I've seen forever ago that I just remember fondly or disparagingly). Return of the Jedi was my favorite Star Wars movie for years, but I've definitely come around on it being the worst of the OT. At the same time, my opinion of The Transformers Movie came up quite a bit after hearing a few reviews raving about the art design, the musical score, and the voice acting. Same with Princess Bride, which I'd mentally written off as some stupid low-budget made-for-TV schlock until I got into college and had friends screening it enthusiastically.

If you're just cruising for "decent movie to end the weekend" on, surfing through the Criterion Collection will yield a bunch of gems.

Most people don't have the ability or understand how to separate those 2 concepts. Asking too much from normal people that are just watching some entertainment.

Isn't that the idea behind the critic/audience scores on rottentomatoes?

I just skimmed it too and it reeks of slop…

Most people don't understand how Rotten Tomato's grades movies.

If the score is 91%, that doesn't mean the average viewer gave the movie a score of 91%, it means that 91% of the people who rated the movie, rated it >60%

Here's another way of thinking about it:

If a movie is rated by three people, 62%, 72%, 67%, then the movie will receive a RT score of 100%.

Rotten Tomatoes is a review aggregator. They don't decide what score the movie will have. The critics submit their reviews and the score is the percentage of critics who's own score is at or above 60%. It also shows the average rating. I think having hese two metrics is a great way to actually see if a movie is worth watching.

I also check out IMDb scores but it shows that it's mostly generated by regular users. And the average user doesn't know jack about cinema. Just looking at the top 250 : how is Shawshank the best movie of all time ? It's a great movie, but come on... just in general there are so many average movies that rank way too high while actual masterpieces are under the 100th position. It's not a ranking of the best movies OAT, it's a ranking of the most agreeable movies OAT.

Edit : The score is calculated on if a review is positive or negative. It does not specify what score is considered a positive review, I guess it is up to the critic submitting it. They also removed last year the average calculator which is sad...

What about it?

Ghidorah is a 4/10 at best.

Yeah, seriously. I didn't realize it was so shit on. I mean it isn't like top 10, but I'd definitely stop and watch it and enjoy it.

Same. But I'm very into the post apocalyptic genre.