IMDb vs Rotten Tomatoes vs Metacritic: What's the Best Movie Ratings Site? (2023)

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Thanks to online ratings, it's easier than ever to know if a movie is worth watching or not. A quick Google search reveals many sites that offer their take on the latest movies.

The three most popular are IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. But how are these sites different and which ones should you trust when it comes to movie information? Here's everything you need to know.

IMDb

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a massive compendium of movies, TV shows and video games. Its main use is to find detailed information about actors, producers or media content.

When you open a movie, you'll see a synopsis, trailers, photos, cast, fun facts and much more. What makes IMDb so useful is its cross references. If you open an actor's page, you'll see their most famous roles. So IMDb is great for those I've seen them? moments

The IMDb mobile app goes one step further. If you create an account and rate movies and other media, you'll seeYou can meet them fromCheckbox on an actor's page when you rate something they've appeared in.

You can also create one with a free IMDb account.watch listof movies you want to see. In addition to contributing to the 10-point rating scale with other users,IMDb has many other useful resources to offer.if you are interested.

Benefits of IMDb

Unlike the other two sites, IMDb reviews come exclusively from users. It only takes a minute to register with IMDb and leave a comment, so there are almost no barriers to entry.

Therefore, the greatest strength of IMDb is that the results give a good idea of ​​what ordinary consumers think about it. Professional reviewers have no influence on IMDb scores.

IMDb has a weighted average system to prevent users from tampering with scores, but the service isn't clear on exactly how this works. On any movie page, click on the rating count next to the star icon to see the breakdown of ratings.

Below the overall star average, you can see how the ratings are broken down by certain demographics, including age and gender.

See Also

These 8 movies are way better than their Rotten Tomatoes scores

Disadvantages of IMDb

The biggest problem with IMDb is that, as with other platforms, most people only leave comments if they love or hate a movie. So this skews the score in favor of fanboys or haters.

People who want to improve a movie's perception will likely give it a rating of 10, while those who didn't like it will likely give it a rating of 1. That means you have to read a handful of reviews to get the full picture of it. the quality of the film.

rotten tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a trusted source of movie reviews by critics. Every film uses the "tomatometer" to assess the quality of a film. If the critic liked the movie, a red tomato will appear next to the comment. If they don't like it, you'll see a green dot.

As long as 60% or more of critics like the movie, it deserves an overall rating.Frischmark with a red tomato. If less than 60% of critics rate the film positively, it deserves aRottenpunctuation with a green symbol.

meanwhile acertified freshThe seal appears next to titles of particularly high quality. They must have a positive rating of at least 75 percent after 80 reviews, including at least five from top critics.

Open any movie's page and you'll see the total score and number of reviews at the top. clickView score detailsfor a deeper division. This onecritics consensus, which is present in most of the films, is a great summary of why the film earned this soundtrack.

Rotten Tomatoes also offers a user rating, indicated by the bucket of popcorn. If at least 60 percent of users rated it 3.5 stars (out of 5) or higher, it shows a full bucket. An overturned bucket means that less than 60% of users gave less than 3.5 stars. Since you can use half star ratings, this is close to the IMDb score.

In 2019, Rotten Tomatoes made some changes to curb the barrage of movie reviews. There is no moreI want to seePercentage, and you'll also see a tick next to User Ratings if the site has verified that the person actually purchased a ticket to the movie.

At the bottom of a movie's page, you can read snippets of reviews, filter by new, bad, or see only the best critics. Search for your favorite actors and you'll be able to consult the scores of the movies they appeared in.

Related:Sites like Rotten Tomatoes to find average ratings and reviews for anything

Benefits of Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes has the advantage of receiving reviews from credible critics.The Rotten Tomatoes criteria pagestates that the site only accepts reviews from newspapers, podcasts, and trusted sites. In theory, this means that only the opinions of the most credible film critics influence the Rotten Tomatoes review.

The Top Critics badge lets you filter by the absolute best critics, if you prefer. You cannot get a more professional opinion than these people.

In general, Rotten Tomatoes does a good job of quickly telling you whether or not a movie is worthwhile. It only takes a moment to scan the easily recognizable icons, total score and consensus summary.

Disadvantages of Rotten Tomatoes

The biggest problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that it divides complex opinions into aYonoPunctuation. Rate a critic who found the film decent but with a few flaws (say, a 59 percent rating) as well as one who thought the film was absolute rubbish (a zero percent rating).

You will notice this withaverage scoreunder the score Take Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle as an example. Of the 232 reviews, 177 are positive. The film thus achieved a score of 76 percent. However, critics gave the film an average rating of 6.2/10, well below the 76 percent shown on the website.

Of course, that doesn't mean the Rotten Tomatoes results are worthless. However, it's important to remember that individual ratings are differentiated and the Fresh/Rotten system effectively converts each rating into a score of 100 or 0.

Metacritic collects reviews of movies and TV shows, as well as video games and music albums. It is one ofThe best sites for gamers., but it can also give you a good idea of ​​the quality of the movies.

The site collects reviews from various sources and aggregates them into a "metascore" from 0 to 100. It displays a color and one-line quality indicator based on the total score, using the following for Movies, TV and Albums:

• 81-100:Universal approval (green)
• 61-80:Generally positive feedback (green)
• 40-60:Mixed or average ratings (yellow)
• 20-39:Generally unfavorable reviews (red)
• 0-19:Crushing Heartbreak (Red)

Unlike Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic uses a weighted average system. No one knows the exact details, but the service places more importance on some sources than others. Like the other two sites, Metacritic also contains a separate user rating that does not affect the critics' rating.

The Metacritic Advantage

Metacritic avoids the Rotten Tomatoes problem of simply rating each review as "good" or "bad". A score of 50 percent is mixed with the remainder to create the Metascore. So the score you see on Metacritic is closer to the average rating, as opposed to the percentage of critics who simply liked the movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

Also, among these three sites, Metacritic is the only one that offers comprehensive user reviews alongside critics' reviews. This makes it easy to compare the opinion of the general public with that of professionals.

Os contras do Metacritic

While it's easy to translate a score from a five-star or 10-point scale, Metacritic's way of translating the lyric grade is questionable. We can see how this works inThrough the Metascores page:

By scoring aONESince 100 percent makes sense, write down the values ​​forB-yF, for example. A score of 67 percent for aB-it looks a little difficult. In most schools, a score of 67% is closer to one.Fhow is aB-.

and scored aFbecause 0% seems unfair. Something like 20 percent to an F might be more appropriate. As each site has different rating scales (some may not even use plus and minus signs), this can confuse a reviewer's original meaning.

Also, unlike Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic seems to have few public standards. There is no detailed information on where he gets his reviews from. As such, the score may not carry as much weight as Rotten Tomatoes.

What is the best movie rating site?

Now, we've taken a look at IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic and listed its main pros and cons. As you might have guessed, there is no one best site for everything.

However, we can recommend each of these sites for different reasons:

• IMDbIt's great to see what the general public thinks of a movie. If you don't care what the critics say and want to see what people like you think of a movie, then you should use IMDb. Keep in mind, however, that fans often skew voting with 10-star ratings, which can bump the score up a bit.
• rotten tomatoesgives the best overall picture of whether a movie is worth watching at a glance. If you only trust the opinions of the best critics and just want to know if a movie is at least decent, you should check out Rotten Tomatoes. While the Frisch/Rotten binary can oversimplify critics' often complex opinions, it should still help you weed out bad movies.
• metacriticalgives the most balanced overall score. If you don't care about the critics' opinions included in the final score and prefer to see an overall average, use Metacritic. Its standards are largely unknown, but Metacritic makes it easy to compare professional and user reviews side by side.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with checking these three sites whenever you're thinking of watching a movie. Over time, you need to figure out which side suits you best; Then you will know what is best for you personally.

Personal taste is still the most important

Remember that movie music isn't everything. These three sites, for example, don't paint an accurate picture of movies that are so bad they're good. Because these films are objectively awful, they score poorly despite having ironic value.

Furthermore, it is impossible to summarize complex opinions of dozens of people in a single number. And no matter what critics or the general public think, their preferences could be completely different anyway. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a movie that most people think is silly. While these pages are helpful, don't take them too seriously.