I’ll be the contrarian and say IMDb ratings are pretty accurate for me. The two exceptions are super inflated Cinema™ ratings and middling ratings for comedies. A 9.3/10 silent era movie gets too much credit for having functional lighting while a 6/10 comedy gets panned for its shallow character development.
i stopped thinking imdb or rating for entertainment as “how good it is” but rather “the odds of me liking it” i’ve seen plenty 5 or 6 imdb but i absolutely love it. and 9s as meh.
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.
Oh wait. The previous commenter didn’t specify if they’re talking about the critics score or the general public one.
Personally I find I usually agree with the public opinion of movies on imdb, and most things below a 6 I tend to not enjoy. Franchises with hardcore fans are a notorious exception to scores being reliable because they often overhype them (such as Star Wars or Marvel etc). Otherwise the score system works, more or less.
The critics’ score is absolutely meaningless to me. Might as well be a random number for all I care
Fuck ratings and reviews. I’ve watched terribly rated movies that are gold, and award winning films that are absolute dumpster fire.
Too many times other people insist on inserting their opinion when it is not requested. A lot will also just go with the tide as well. If others are giving good reviews, then they will do the same.
I prefer to read a summary of the plot and give it a watch to form my own opinion.
Sad that IMDB now hide the user opinions behind their login screen. A score alone isn’t helpful at all.
I don’t trust IMDB after Amazon bought it. Maybe a company that makes movies shouldn’t be in charge of rating them? Conflict of interest maybe?
It never affects my enjoyment of a thing. But if I’m already questioning whether or not I want to continue, that rating makes a difference.
I saw “The Bride” in theaters a few months ago and the fact that that movie ISN’T a 0 on imdb invalidates the whole concept of critic reviews for me. Worst movie I have ever seen (and I’ve seen “The Room” twice)
Oh, hi Mark
You’re my favorite customer
For me, it was the movie AVP2, that was way worse than it’s IMDB rating.
I can’t think of many examples so my comment is worthless, but for years I had this experience with Rotten Tomatoes and hated the site/community for it. Some of the most artistic and impactful films I had seen would get a 30% or something, and I’d be like how?!
I guess one more recent example that I do have was The Northman while it was still playing in theatres. It scored well enough on Rotten Tomatoes over time, but initial reviews were trash and I was hard-pressed to find a single person online who enjoyed it. Just endless shitting all over it. Comments sections full of folks calling it the worst/dumbest thing they’ve ever wasted their money on.
My wife and I went into it blind and were honestly blown away. It was like John Wick with Norse mythology. From the very beginning where Willem Dafoe is howling and going into a crazy shamanistic fire trance to the big otherworldly climax at the end, we were floored by how fucking cool that movie was. A genuine piece of art. Got us both playing Valheim again soon after.
Not sure what changed, but despite the 90% Tomatometer, the 64% Popcornmeter still shows that audiences were fairly divided. But that spread was way worse a few years ago. The part that perplexed me most is that most people’s criticisms of the movie could just as easily be applied to Mad Max: Fury Road (which I ironically thought was hot garbage).
IMDb is charitable and fairly reasonable and accurate compared to Rotten Tomatoes.
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%.
That means that Rotten Tomatoes rating system even shittier than I had thought it was.
It’s not shitty, its just not intuitive.
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…
I feel IMDB ratings for new movies are ridiculously gamed / paid-for. Like the amazon reviews scandal all over again.
Hudson Hawk, widely panned, is fun; just refuses to take itself seriously.
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iMDB: 5.7/10
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RT: 30/100
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Metacritic:17/100
I don’t care. That’s what I think of any film rating system. It’s a report, but not the experience itself.
See also: the Southland Tales, The One (2001), Lost Souls (2000). All are, objectively, bad films. And yet… I remember them to be re-watchable.
This write-up is on a site for and app and ends up shilling for that app, but it makes some useful points, confirmed by my years of poking around:
Trust Metacritic most for prestige drama, arthouse cinema, and Oscar contenders.
Trust IMDb most for genre films.
Use the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer as a quick pass/fail for critical reception.
Use the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score cautiously.
Full disclosure: I don’t have the app, don’t want the app, and don’t care about the app. Also, I skimmed the article in 2 minutes while watching my kids bounce on a trampoline.
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I usually use metacritic. Not as harsh as IMDB and not as easy going as RT.
wait till you find about filmaffinity
I use them by genre. A drama or action movie needs a very high score for my tastes.
Comedies usually a 6 or 7 is going to be good for me and a very high score usually means it’s a dramery.
Horror movies with very high scores are usually mainstream over produced like the conjuring. Good horror movies usually are 6-7 like the witch or hededitary
And also, if a movie has a very high meta critic but a very low user rating it usually means the movie will be weird af
IGN 6/10 review for Mouse: PI
