IMD ratings are stupid. I almost never see a rating even as high as 9 for anything no matter how much people love a movie or consider it one of the greatest ever made:
Citizen Kane: 8.3
The Maltese Falcon: 7.9
Star Wars: 8.6
No Country for Old Men: 8.2
The Shining: 8.4
Lawrence of Arabia: 8.3
Psycho: 8.5
Here’s a few 9s.
Schindler’s List: 9.0
The Godfather: 9.2
The Shawshank Redemption: 9.3
That’s how rare it is. Even The Shawshank Redemption couldn’t get a 10.
Edit: Whooosh for me on the joke. And I love This is Spinal Tap too. I love it so much I sat through the terrible 4-hour rough cut on the Internet Archive.
I honestly don’t find any number rating especially useful.
What I have found useful is to follow 3 or 4 specific movie critics, get to know their opinions and contrast them with my own. We’re never going to agree on every movie, but at least I’ll know why they liked or didn’t like it as a way to figure out if it’s worth my time.
They’re about general critic and public sentiment.
And for that, no movie should ever get a perfect 10. No movie could ever get a perfect 10.
They are useful for evaluating a movie’s actual quality. But quality has nothing to do with any individuals enjoyment of a movie.
They are useful for evaluating a movie’s actual quality.
Sometimes. When they don’t get brigaded. Movies that star women and minorities or, heaven forbid, queer people bizarrely tend to have much lower scores on the IMDB than movies that star heteronormative white men.
Maybe instead of 1-dimensional number scales, we should move to something like 4 quadrants, where different movie qualities are represented?
Because rating a movie isn’t just like shit - meh - ok - great, but should be much more detailed.
This could represent something like how well it was done in different scales in one view, and I can choose what matches my mood.
Really good rated movies are sometimes also hard to follow/process, and a movie with a light mood won’t get those good ratings, but would still be exactly the thing I’m currently looking for.
So, I haven’t really thought this through, but if we create a more dimensional rating system, it would be maybe easier to find, what I’m really looking for.
This is more or less a shower thought, but I really think, that the problem lies in the one dimensional rating system, which cannot represent the multitude of experiences I want from a movie
Currently- Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times), Justin Chang (L.A. Times) and J. Hoberman (Village Voice), although admittedly these days since I just sail the high seas most of the time, I often just go by the description and turn it off if I don’t like what I’m watching.
I used to know older critics better though. I was usually able to figure out whether or not a movie was worth watching by paying attention to Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Pauline Kael (if she liked it, I probably wouldn’t).
I find Rotten Tomatoes much more useful. Knowing that 90% of critics gave a favorable review is infinitely more helpful for my decision to watch a movie than its IMDB score.
As long as you know what it is, consensus as to okay-ness or better, then it’s still a decent metric. Still, “universally okay” is not always what I’m after, nor is it quite the achievement the studios will proclaim.
If you’re inclined to take reviews seriously (and it’s a whole other discussion, but I very much believe criticism and analysis are worthwhile when done well in their own right) , still better to find a few sources whose takes tend to line up with your own.
That’s the thing, I don’t want to invest that time. If I’m looking at the rating of a movie, I’m already interested, I just need to know if I’m likely to enjoy it or not. Whether it’s rated 5.8, 6.1 or 6.4 doesn’t do anything for me at that point, whereas the RT score answers that question perfectly.
I don’t want ratings from imdb. I want facts about the film from imdb.
I really like movies that were critically panned. I hate movies that are very popular. I’ll watch terrible movies for the MST3K of it all. Ratings are worthless.
I want to know who played Guy With Grocery Bag in the scene in The Clampertons when Glenn Clamperton was running down the street chasing the demon giraffe that stole his pocket watch, you know the guy who says “What in the neck is going on?” Because is he the same guy as the pilot in Club Paradise?
Agreed. Critics hate Zardoz. They are incorrect. In fact, all Zardoz-haters are incorrect.
I hate movies that are very popular.
I really do not like Rogue One. I know everyone else thinks it’s the best Star Wars movie. I didn’t like it in the theater and then I watched it again to see what I must have missed and I still didn’t like it. (I did like Andor.)
I’ll watch terrible movies for the MST3K of it all.
I like IMDb ratings as a broad gauge of quality. 99% of movies under 5.5 or so are not something I enjoy. Beyond that it’s just taste. Although I like most movies in the top 250, the order of movies (x is better than y) is useless to me.
IMD ratings are stupid. I almost never see a rating even as high as 9 for anything no matter how much people love a movie or consider it one of the greatest ever made:
Citizen Kane: 8.3
The Maltese Falcon: 7.9
Star Wars: 8.6
No Country for Old Men: 8.2
The Shining: 8.4
Lawrence of Arabia: 8.3
Psycho: 8.5
Here’s a few 9s.
Schindler’s List: 9.0
The Godfather: 9.2
The Shawshank Redemption: 9.3
That’s how rare it is. Even The Shawshank Redemption couldn’t get a 10.
Edit: Whooosh for me on the joke. And I love This is Spinal Tap too. I love it so much I sat through the terrible 4-hour rough cut on the Internet Archive.
Rotten Tomato ratings are stupid.
With every review being either a 👍 or 👎, the most simple meh movie that nobody hates (or loves), gets a 100% fresh.
IMDb and Metacritic are much better.
I honestly don’t find any number rating especially useful.
What I have found useful is to follow 3 or 4 specific movie critics, get to know their opinions and contrast them with my own. We’re never going to agree on every movie, but at least I’ll know why they liked or didn’t like it as a way to figure out if it’s worth my time.
They’re about general critic and public sentiment.
And for that, no movie should ever get a perfect 10. No movie could ever get a perfect 10.
They are useful for evaluating a movie’s actual quality. But quality has nothing to do with any individuals enjoyment of a movie.
Sometimes. When they don’t get brigaded. Movies that star women and minorities or, heaven forbid, queer people bizarrely tend to have much lower scores on the IMDB than movies that star heteronormative white men.
Maybe instead of 1-dimensional number scales, we should move to something like 4 quadrants, where different movie qualities are represented?
Because rating a movie isn’t just like shit - meh - ok - great, but should be much more detailed.
This could represent something like how well it was done in different scales in one view, and I can choose what matches my mood.
Really good rated movies are sometimes also hard to follow/process, and a movie with a light mood won’t get those good ratings, but would still be exactly the thing I’m currently looking for.
So, I haven’t really thought this through, but if we create a more dimensional rating system, it would be maybe easier to find, what I’m really looking for.
This is more or less a shower thought, but I really think, that the problem lies in the one dimensional rating system, which cannot represent the multitude of experiences I want from a movie
What movie critics do you follow?
Currently- Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times), Justin Chang (L.A. Times) and J. Hoberman (Village Voice), although admittedly these days since I just sail the high seas most of the time, I often just go by the description and turn it off if I don’t like what I’m watching.
I used to know older critics better though. I was usually able to figure out whether or not a movie was worth watching by paying attention to Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Pauline Kael (if she liked it, I probably wouldn’t).
I find Rotten Tomatoes much more useful. Knowing that 90% of critics gave a favorable review is infinitely more helpful for my decision to watch a movie than its IMDB score.
As long as you know what it is, consensus as to okay-ness or better, then it’s still a decent metric. Still, “universally okay” is not always what I’m after, nor is it quite the achievement the studios will proclaim.
If you’re inclined to take reviews seriously (and it’s a whole other discussion, but I very much believe criticism and analysis are worthwhile when done well in their own right) , still better to find a few sources whose takes tend to line up with your own.
That’s the thing, I don’t want to invest that time. If I’m looking at the rating of a movie, I’m already interested, I just need to know if I’m likely to enjoy it or not. Whether it’s rated 5.8, 6.1 or 6.4 doesn’t do anything for me at that point, whereas the RT score answers that question perfectly.
That’s only because the FilthyCritic quit.
Well at least it’s not as broken as games rating, nowadays almost every game is 8-9.9
I don’t want ratings from imdb. I want facts about the film from imdb.
I really like movies that were critically panned. I hate movies that are very popular. I’ll watch terrible movies for the MST3K of it all. Ratings are worthless.
I want to know who played Guy With Grocery Bag in the scene in The Clampertons when Glenn Clamperton was running down the street chasing the demon giraffe that stole his pocket watch, you know the guy who says “What in the neck is going on?” Because is he the same guy as the pilot in Club Paradise?
That’s what I want imdb for.
Agreed. Critics hate Zardoz. They are incorrect. In fact, all Zardoz-haters are incorrect.
I really do not like Rogue One. I know everyone else thinks it’s the best Star Wars movie. I didn’t like it in the theater and then I watched it again to see what I must have missed and I still didn’t like it. (I did like Andor.)
IMDB ratings are meaningless. I base this on the fact that firefly isn’t rated 10/10.
I want all the comments to be “thanks for giving it a shot, Fox. The second season was amazing!”
I like IMDb ratings as a broad gauge of quality. 99% of movies under 5.5 or so are not something I enjoy. Beyond that it’s just taste. Although I like most movies in the top 250, the order of movies (x is better than y) is useless to me.
Rotten tomatoes is pretty bad too
ThanksKilling was peak cinema. Gobble gobble, motherfucker!
It’s a better reference to how good a movie might be to a broad audience than most other sources.
Honestly citizen Kane is a 5 for me, tops. Same with Lawrence of Arabia, which is beautiful but not my cup of tea in terms of story