what are rotten tomatoes in movie reviews

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings — How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work?

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How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work?

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T he Rotten Tomatoes ratings system―good or bad? Well, I’d say it’s a bit better than the original way tomatoes were used to judge entertainment. Because even if we want to throw fruit at the screen, 21st century technology reminds us we don’t have to. Rotten Tomatoes will provide us with a fair Critic consensus before we even get to the theatre (saving us a ton of food and money).

So how does Rotten Tomatoes work, exactly? Is it a reliable judge of… characters … Okay, okay, hold your tomatoes please. Let’s get a behind the scenes look at how it all works.

What do the Rotten Tomatoes symbols mean? Read on

Rotten tomatoes ratings system.

Rotten Tomatoes started in 2000 and it quickly became moviegoers go-to for reviews. But ever since Fandango acquired the company, it’s become even more well-known adding something called a “Tomatometer” score next to every movie and ticket listing. 

Critics have suggested that there is much more nuance and complication when it comes to the correlation between a Rotten Tomatoes rating and ticket sales. And while we will not get into that in this article, I think there is something to be said psychologically about seeing a rating right before you make your choice.

But I digress. 

I know for me, the ubiquitous nature of a Rotten Tomatoes score has made me feel like they hold more weight than they once did. But do they really hold more weight? How is the score actually calculated? And how are critics curated? 

Let's break it down.

Tomatometer Breakdown

Rotten tomatoes rating system, how does the tomatometer work.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating system uses a scale better known as the “The Tomatometer.” This represents the percentage of positive reviews for a given film or show. The Tomatometer score is calculated after five reviews.

As the reviews come in, The Tomatometer measures the positive reviews against the negative ones and assigns either an overall score of fresh or rotten rating to the film or television show. 

A red tomato score indicating its fresh status, is designated when at least 60% of the reviews are positive. 

A green splat indicating rotten status, is displayed when less than 60% of the reviews are positive. 

If there is no score available, it usually just means the movie or show hasn’t been released or there aren’t enough reviews yet. So, now that we know how they’re calculated, who’s doing the reviewing? 

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How Does Rotten Tomatoes Rate Their Movies

How is rotten tomatoes rated .

Rotten Tomatoes is careful in its Critic curation. It won’t include just any critic’s review. It aggregates those who have been regularly putting out movie reviews over the last two years, and those who are considered active by Rotten Tomatoes standards. This just means they’ve published a review within the last year. While there are about 3,000 accepted reviewers (see the Tomatometer-approved critics criteria), usually only several hundred are actively reviewing for any given film. 

Many times, it’s much less. And Top Critics are counted with a separate score. So while the the Rotten Tomatoes rating system is really just general consensus, you can see some of the more renowned critics in a different space.

But it’s not just about the critics! You also get a fully rounded out review because you can also see how the audience feels. 

What is the Tomatometer?

Popcorn rating explained, rotten tomatoes audience score.

This is a great feature of the site because it provides information from everyday moviegoers but also gives you some insight to see how close this score is to the critics’ scores. It can help you gauge if it’s truly a must-see or probably-pass. And it’s calculated similarly to critic reviews.

The Audience Score is designated by a popcorn bucket.

The score is the percentage of users who have rated the movie or show positively. There is also a section for Verified Ratings which includes those that have actually bought tickets. 

To receive a full popcorn bucket , at least 60% of users give a film or show a star rating of 3.5 or higher.

A tipped over popcorn bucket indicates that less than 60% of users have given it a 3.5 or higher. 

The most interesting finds are the ones that have a green splat for critics, and a full bucket of popcorn from the audience. 

While it’s rarely ever vice-versa, it happens, and it’s then when Rotten Tomatoes ratings may seem more subjective, and we wonder if the system works. And while reviews are opinion to some extent, the site boasts something called Certified Fresh, which brings a little more objectivity to the critique. 

Audience Score Breakdown

Certified rotten tomatoes score, what is certified fresh.

What does Rotten Tomatoes mean by Certified Fresh?

If a film or television show is awarded a Certified Fresh status, it’s being acknowledged that it’s met these requirements:

• It has at least five reviews from Top Critics
• A steady Tomatometer score of at least 75%
• Limited release films must have at least 40 reviews
• Wide release films must have at least 80 reviews
• TV shows are eligible by season and must have at least 20 reviews per season

Of course these stats could fluctuate, especially within the first few days or weeks of a film’s release. If it meets these requirements, it is automatically flagged for review.

When the Rotten Tomatoes staff can determine the movie or show is unlikely to fall below these numbers, it achieves its Certified Fresh status.

Similarly, if the Tomatometer score ever falls below 70%, it will lose this status. Because the Rotten Tomatoes ratings system is so general, RT certified fresh consideration gives the site more objective credibility. 

What does Rotten Tomatoes mean for movies

Is rotten tomatoes good for movies.

So, what's the bottom line? With the movie theater business under constant assault from the rise of streaming services, audiences are less and less likely to venture out to the movies. If they do happen to make it outside the house, they'll likely be extra picky about how they spend their money.

Will they choose an "untested" wildcard movie or one that has general approval from fans and critics? The answer is self-evident. On its surface, the Rotten Tomatoes rating system and Tomatometer seem to be a legitimate resource for the discerning consumer. 

However, there is also a legitimate concern for low-budget indie movies who already have the cards stacked against them in distribution. Since they don't have the marketing budget of the Hollywood tentpoles, curious moviegoers have little else to go on besides the Tomatometer. These "little fish" movies live or die by this system, which is ultimately opinion-based and subjective.

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What is a Cliche? Learn from Examples

If you’re a filmmaker or just love the movies, using cliches are a sure fire way to get awarded a nice big green splat, or a tipped over popcorn bucket.  Next up, are some examples of these tired situations and ways to avoid them.

Up Next: Cliche explained →

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Rotten Tomatoes, explained

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office returns? And six other questions, answered.

by Alissa Wilkinson

In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes — the site that aggregates movie and TV critics’ opinions and tabulates a score that’s “fresh” or “rotten” — took on an elevated level of importance. That’s when Rotten Tomatoes (along with its parent company Flixster) was acquired by Fandango , the website that sells advance movie tickets for many major cinema chains.

People had been using Rotten Tomatoes to find movie reviews since it launched in 2000, but after Fandango acquired the site, it began posting “Tomatometer” scores next to movie ticket listings. Since then, studio execs have started to feel as if Rotten Tomatoes matters more than it used to — and in some cases, they’ve rejiggered their marketing strategies accordingly.

It’s easy to see why anyone might assume that Rotten Tomatoes scores became more tightly linked to ticket sales, with potential audiences more likely to buy tickets for a movie with a higher score, and by extension, giving critics more power over the purchase of a ticket.

But that’s not the whole story. And as most movie critics (including myself) will tell you, the correlation between Rotten Tomatoes scores, critical opinion, marketing tactics, and actual box office returns is complicated. It’s not a simple cause-and-effect situation.

My own work is included in both Rotten Tomatoes’ score and that of its more exclusive cousin, Metacritic . So I, along with many other critics , think often of the upsides and pitfalls of aggregating critical opinion and its effect on which movies people see. But for the casual moviegoer, how review aggregators work, what they measure, and how they affect ticket sales can be mysterious.

So when I got curious about how people perceive Rotten Tomatoes and its effect on ticket sales, I did what any self-respecting film critic does: I informally polled my Twitter followers to see what they wanted to know.

Here are seven questions that many people have about Rotten Tomatoes, and review aggregation more generally — and some facts to clear up the confusion.

How is a Rotten Tomatoes score calculated?

The score that Rotten Tomatoes assigns to a film corresponds to the percentage of critics who’ve judged the film to be “fresh,” meaning their opinion of it is more positive than negative. The idea is to quickly offer moviegoers a sense of critical consensus.

“Our goal is to serve fans by giving them useful tools and one-stop access to critic reviews, user ratings, and entertainment news to help with their entertainment viewing decisions,” Jeff Voris, a vice president at Rotten Tomatoes, told me in an email.

The opinions of about 3,000 critics — a.k.a. the “Approved Tomatometer Critics” who have met a series of criteria set by Rotten Tomatoes — are included in the site’s scores, though not every critic reviews every film, so any given score is more typically derived from a few hundred critics, or even less. The scores don’t include just anyone who calls themselves a critic or has a movie blog; Rotten Tomatoes only aggregates critics who have been regularly publishing movie reviews with a reasonably widely read outlet for at least two years, and those critics must be “active,” meaning they’ve published at least one review in the last year. The site also deems a subset of critics to be “top critics” and calculates a separate score that only includes them.

Some critics (or staffers at their publications) upload their own reviews, choose their own pull quotes, and designate their review as “fresh” or “rotten.” Other critics (including myself) have their reviews uploaded, pull-quoted, and tagged as fresh or rotten by the Rotten Tomatoes staff. In the second case, if the staff isn’t sure whether to tag a review as fresh or rotten, they reach out to the critic for clarification. And critics who don’t agree with the site’s designation can request that it be changed.

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten. To earn the coveted “designated fresh” seal, a film needs at least 40 reviews, 75 percent of which are fresh, and five of which are from “top” critics.

What does a Rotten Tomatoes score really mean ?

A Rotten Tomatoes score represents the percentage of critics who felt mildly to wildly positively about a given film.

If I give a film a mixed review that’s generally positive (which, in Vox’s rating system, could range from a positive-skewing 3 to the rare totally enamored 5), that review receives the same weight as an all-out rave from another critic. (When I give a movie a 2.5, I consider that to be a neutral score; by Rotten Tomatoes’ reckoning, it’s rotten.) Theoretically, a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating could be made up entirely of middling-to-positive reviews. And if half of the critics the site aggregates only sort of like a movie, and the other half sort of dislike it, the film will hover around 50 percent (which is considered “rotten” by the site).

Contrary to some people’s perceptions, Rotten Tomatoes itself maintains no opinion about a film. What Rotten Tomatoes tries to gauge is critical consensus.

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Critics’ opinions do tend to cluster on most films. But there are always outliers, whether from contrarians (who sometimes seem to figure out what people will say and then take the opposite opinion), or from those who seem to love every film. And critics, like everyone, have various life experiences, aesthetic preferences, and points of view that lead them to have differing opinions on movies.

So in many (if not most) cases, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score may not correspond to any one critic’s view. It’s more like an imprecise estimate of what would happen if you mashed together every Tomatometer critic and had the resulting super-critic flash a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Rotten Tomatoes also lets audiences rate movies, and the score is often out of step with the critical score. Sometimes, the difference is extremely significant, a fact that’s noticeable because the site lists the two scores side by side.

There’s a straightforward reason the two rarely match, though: The critical score is more controlled and methodical.

Why? Most professional critics have to see and review many films, whether or not they’re inclined to like the movie. (Also, most critics don’t pay to see films, because studios hold special early screenings for them ahead of the release date, which removes the decision of whether they’re interested enough in a film to spend their hard-earned money on seeing it.)

But with Rotten Tomatoes’ audience score, the situation is different. Anyone on the internet can contribute — not just those who actually saw the film. As a result, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score can be gamed by internet trolls seeking to sink it simply because they find its concept offensive. A concerted effort can drive down the film’s audience score before it even comes out, as was the case with the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters .

Even if Rotten Tomatoes required people to pass a quiz on the movie before they rated it, the score would still be somewhat unreliable. Why? Because ordinary audiences are more inclined to buy tickets to movies they’re predisposed to like — who wants to spend $12 to $20 on a film they’re pretty sure they’ll hate?

So audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes (and other audience-driven scores, like the ones at IMDb) naturally skew very positive, or sometimes very negative if there’s any sort of smear campaign in play. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But audience scores tend to not account for those who would never buy a ticket to the movie in the first place.

In contrast, since critics see lots of movies — some of which they would have gone to see anyhow, and some of which they would’ve never chosen to see if their editors didn’t make the assignment — their opinion distribution should theoretically be more even, and thus the critical Rotten Tomatoes score more “accurate.”

Or at least that’s what Rotten Tomatoes thinks. The site displays a movie’s critics’ scores — the official Tomatometer — at Fandango and in a more prominent spot on the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes landing page. The audience score is also displayed on the Rotten Tomatoes page, but it’s not factored into the film’s fresh or rotten rating, and doesn’t contribute to a film being labeled as “certified fresh.”

Why do critics often get frustrated by the Tomatometer?

The biggest reason many critics find Rotten Tomatoes frustrating is that most people’s opinions about movies can’t be boiled down to a simple thumbs up or down. And most critics feel that Rotten Tomatoes, in particular, oversimplifies criticism, to the detriment of critics, the audience, and the movies themselves.

In some cases, a film really is almost universally considered to be excellent, or to be a complete catastrophe. But critics usually come away from a movie with a mixed view. Some things work, and others don’t. The actors are great, but the screenplay is lacking. The filmmaking is subpar, but the story is imaginative. Some critics use a four- or five-star rating, sometimes with half-stars included, to help quantify mixed opinions as mostly negative or mostly positive.

The important point here is that no critic who takes their job seriously is going to have a simple yes-or-no system for most movies. Critics watch a film, think about it, and write a review that doesn’t just judge the movie but analyzes, contextualizes, and ruminates over it. The fear among many critics (including myself) is that people who rely largely on Rotten Tomatoes aren’t interested in the nuances of a film, and aren’t particularly interested in reading criticism, either.

But maybe the bigger reason critics are worried about the influence of review aggregators is that they seem to imply there’s a “right” way to evaluate a movie, based on most people’s opinions. We worry that audience members who have different reactions will feel as if their opinion is somehow wrong, rather than seeing the diversity of opinions as an invitation to read and understand how and why people react to art differently.

Plenty of movies — from Psycho to Fight Club to Alien — would have earned a rotten rating from Rotten Tomatoes upon their original release, only to be reconsidered and deemed classics years later as tastes, preferences, and ideas about films changed. Sometimes being an outlier can just mean you’re forward-thinking.

Voris, the Rotten Tomatoes vice president, told me that the site is always trying to grapple with this quandary. “The Rotten Tomatoes curation team is constantly adding and updating reviews for films — both past and present,” he told me. “If there’s a review available from an approved critic or outlet, it will be added.”

What critics are worried about is a tendency toward groupthink, and toward scapegoating people who deviate from the “accepted” analysis. You can easily see this in the hordes of fans that sometimes come after a critic who dares to “ruin” a film’s perfect score . But critics (at least serious ones) don’t write their reviews to fit the Tomatometer, nor are they out to “get” DC Comics movies or religious movies or political movies or any other movies. Critics love movies and want them to be good, and we try to be honest when we see one that we don’t measures up.

That doesn’t mean the audience can’t like a movie with a rotten rating, or hate a movie with a fresh rating. It’s no insult to critics when audience opinion diverges. In fact, it makes talking and thinking about movies more interesting.

If critics are ambivalent about Rotten Tomatoes scores, why do moviegoers use the scores to decide whether to see a movie?

Mainly, it’s easy. You’re buying movie tickets on Fandango, or you’re trying to figure out what to watch on Netflix, so you check the Rotten Tomatoes score to decide. It’s simple. That’s the point.

And that’s not a bad thing. It’s helpful to get a quick sense of critical consensus, even if it’s somewhat imprecise. Many people use Rotten Tomatoes to get a rough idea of whether critics generally liked a film.

The flip side, though, is that some people, whether they’re critics or audience members, will inevitably have opinions that don’t track with the Rotten Tomatoes score at all. Just because an individual’s opinion is out of step with the Tomatometer doesn’t mean the person is “wrong” — it just means they’re an outlier.

And that, frankly, is what makes art, entertainment, and the world at large interesting: Not everyone has the same opinion about everything, because people are not exact replicas of one another. Most critics love arguing about movies, because they often find that disagreeing with their colleagues is what makes their job fun. It’s fine to disagree with others about a movie, and it doesn’t mean you’re “wrong.”

(For what it’s worth, another review aggregation site, Metacritic, maintains an even smaller and more exclusive group of critics than Rotten Tomatoes — its aggregated scores cap out around 50 reviews per movie, instead of the hundreds that can make up a Tomatometer score. Metacritic’s score for a film is different from Rotten Tomatoes’ insofar as each individual review is assigned a rating on a scale of 100 and the overall Metacritic score is a weighted average, the mechanics of which Metacritic absolutely refuses to divulge . But because the site’s ratings are even more carefully controlled to include only experienced professional critics — and because the reviews it aggregates are given a higher level of granularity, and presumably weighted by the perceived influence of the critic’s publication — most critics consider Metacritic a better gauge of critical opinion.)

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office earnings?

The short version: It can, but not necessarily in the ways you might think.

A good Rotten Tomatoes score indicates strong critical consensus, and that can be good for smaller films in particular. It’s common for distributors to roll out such films slowly, opening them in a few key cities (usually New York and Los Angeles, and maybe a few others) to generate good buzz — not just from critics, but also on social media and through word of mouth. The result, they hope, is increased interest and ticket sales when the movie opens in other cities.

Get Out , for example, certainly profited from the 99 percent “fresh” score it earned since its limited opening. And the more recent The Big Sick became one of last summer’s most beloved films, helped along by its 98 percent rating. But a bad score for a small film can help ensure that it will close quickly, or play in fewer cities overall. Its potential box office earnings, in turn, will inevitably take a hit.

Yet when it comes to blockbusters, franchises, and other big studio films (which usually open in many cities at once), it’s much less clear how much a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score affects its box office tally. A good Rotten Tomatoes score, for example, doesn’t necessarily guarantee a film will be a hit. Atomic Blonde is “guaranteed fresh,” with a 77 percent rating, but it didn‘t do very well at the box office despite being an action film starring Charlize Theron.

Still, studios certainly seem to believe the score makes a difference . Last summer, studios blamed Rotten Tomatoes scores (and by extension, critics) when poorly reviewed movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Baywatch , and The Mummy performed below expectations at the box office. ( Pirates still went on to be the year’s 19th highest-grossing film.)

2017’s highest grossing movies in the US

But that correlation doesn’t really hold up. The Emoji Movie , for example, was critically panned, garnering an abysmal 6 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. But it still opened to $25 million in the US, which put it just behind the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk . And the more you think about it, the less surprising it is that plenty of people bought tickets to The Emoji Movie in spite of its bad press: It’s an animated movie aimed at children that faced virtually no theatrical competition, and it opened during the summer, when kids are out of school. Great reviews might have inflated its numbers, but almost universally negative ones didn’t seem to hurt it much.

It’s also worth noting that many films with low Rotten Tomatoes scores that also perform poorly in the US (like The Mummy or The Great Wall ) do just fine overseas, particularly in China. The Mummy gave Tom Cruise his biggest global opening ever . If there is a Rotten Tomatoes effect, it seems to only extend to the American market.

Without any consistent proof, why do people still maintain that a bad Rotten Tomatoes score actively hurts a movie at the box office?

While it’s clear that a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score and box office earnings aren’t correlated as strongly as movie studios might like you to think, blaming bad ticket sales on critics is low-hanging fruit.

Plenty of people would like you to believe that the weak link between box office earnings and critical opinion proves that critics are at fault for not liking the film, and that audiences are a better gauge of its quality. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, co-star of Baywatch , certainly took that position when reviews of the 2017 bomb Baywatch came out:

Baywatch ended up with a very comfortably rotten 19 percent Tomatometer score , compared to a just barely fresh 62 percent audience score. But with apologies to The Rock, who I’m sure is a very nice man, critics aren’t weather forecasters or pundits, and they’re not particularly interested in predicting how audiences will respond to a movie. (We are also a rather reserved and nerdy bunch, not regularly armed with venom and knives.) Critics show up where they’re told to show up and watch a film, then go home and evaluate it to the best of their abilities.

The obvious rejoinder, at least from a critic’s point of view, is that if Baywatch was a better movie, there wouldn’t be such a disconnect. But somehow, I suspect that younger ticket buyers — an all-important demographic — lacked nostalgia for 25-year-old lifeguard TV show, and thus weren’t so sure about seeing Baywatch in the first place. Likewise, I doubt that a majority of Americans were ever going to be terribly interested in the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which notched a 30 percent Tomatometer score and a 64 percent audience score), especially when they could just watch some other movie.

A pile-up of raves for either of these films might have resulted in stronger sales, because people could have been surprised to learn that a film they didn’t think they were interested in was actually great. But with lackluster reviews, the average moviegoer just had no reason to give them a chance.

Big studio publicists, however, are paid to convince people to see their films, not to candidly discuss the quality of the films themselves. So when a film with bad reviews flops at the box office, it’s not shocking that studios are quick to suggest that critics killed it.

How do movie studios try to blunt the perceived impact when they’re expecting a bad Rotten Tomatoes score?

Of late, some studios — prompted by the idea that critics can kill a film’s buzz before it even comes out — have taken to “ fighting back ” when they’re expecting a rotten Tomatometer score.

Their biggest strategy isn’t super obvious to the average moviegoer, but very clear to critics. When a studio suspects it has a lemon on its hands, it typically hosts the press screening only a day or two ahead of the film’s release, and then sets a review “embargo” that lifts a few hours before the film hits theaters.

Consider, for example, the case of the aforementioned Emoji Movie. I and most other critics hoped the movie would be good, as is the case with all movies see. But once the screening invitations arrived in our inboxes, we pretty much knew, with a sinking feeling, that it wouldn’t be. The tell was pretty straightforward: The film’s only critics’ screening in New York was scheduled for the day before it opened. It screened for press on Wednesday night at 5 pm, and then the review embargo lifted at 3 pm the next day — mere hours before the first public showtimes.

Late critics’ screenings for any given film mean that reviews of the film will necessarily come out very close to its release, and as a result, people purchasing advance tickets might buy them before there are any reviews or Tomatometer score to speak of. Thus, in spite of there being no strong correlation between negative reviews and a low box office, its first-weekend box returns might be less susceptible to any potential harm as a result of bad press. (Such close timing can also backfire; critics liked this summer’s Captain Underpants , for example, but the film was screened too late for the positive reviews to measurably boost its opening box office.)

That first-weekend number is important, because if a movie is the top performer at the box office (or if it simply exceeds expectations, like Dunkirk and Wonder Woman did this summer), its success can function as good advertising for the film, which means its second weekend sales may also be stronger. And that matters , particularly when it means a movie is outperforming its expectations, because it can actually shift the way industry executives think about what kinds of movies people want to watch. Studios do keep an eye on critics’ opinions, but they’re much more interested in ticket sales — which makes it easy to see why they don’t want risk having their opening weekend box office affected by bad reviews, whether there’s a proven correlation or not.

The downside of this strategy, however, is that it encourages critics to instinctively gauge a studio’s level of confidence in a film based on when the press screening takes place. 20th Century Fox, for instance, screened War for the Planet of the Apes weeks ahead of its theatrical release, and lifted the review embargo with plenty of time to spare before the movie came out. The implication was that Fox believed the movie would be a critical success, and indeed, it was — the movie has a 97 percent Tomatometer score and an 86 percent audience score.

And still, late press screenings fail to account for the fact that, while a low Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t necessarily hurt a film’s total returns, aggregate review scores in general do have a distinct effect on second-weekend sales. In 2016, Metacritic conducted a study of the correlation between its scores and second weekend sales , and found — not surprisingly — that well-reviewed movies dip much less in the second weekend than poorly reviewed movies. This is particularly true of movies with a strong built-in fan base, like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , which enjoyed inflated box office returns in the first weekend because fans came out to see it, but dropped sharply in its second weekend, at least partly due to extremely negative press .

Most critics who are serious about their work make a good-faith effort to approach each film they see with as few expectations as possible. But it’s hard to have much hope about a movie when it seems obvious that a studio is trying to play keep-away with it. And the more studios try to game the system by withholding their films from critics, the less critics are inclined to enter a screening devoid of expectations, however subconscious.

If you ask critics what studios ought to do to minimize the potential impact of a low Rotten Tomatoes score, their answer is simple: Make better movies. But of course, it’s not that easy; some movies with bad scores do well, while some with good scores still flop. Hiding a film from critics might artificially inflate first-weekend box office returns, but plenty of people are going to go see a franchise film, or a superhero movie, or a family movie, no matter what critics say.

The truth is that neither Rotten Tomatoes nor the critics whose evaluations make up its scores are really at fault here, and it’s silly to act like that’s the case. The website is just one piece of the sprawling and often bewildering film landscape.

As box office analyst Scott Mendelson wrote at Forbes :

[Rotten Tomatoes] is an aggregate website, one with increased power because the media now uses the fresh ranking as a catch-all for critical consensus, with said percentage score popping up when you buy tickets from Fandango or rent the title on Google Market. But it is not magic. At worst, the increased visibility of the site is being used as an excuse by ever-pickier moviegoers to stay in with Netflix or VOD.

For audience members who want to make good moviegoing decisions, the best approach is a two-pronged one. First, check Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to get a sense of critical consensus. But second, find a few critics — two or three will do — whose taste aligns with (or challenges) your own, and whose insights help you enjoy a movie even more. Read them and rely on them.

And know that it’s okay to form your own opinions, too. After all, in the bigger sense, everyone’s a critic.

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Daniel Choi is a writer who’s currently pursuing a BA in Film & Television from New York University. With a background in amateur film production, Daniel is fascinated by how artists’ cultural backgrounds inform their work, subconsciously or not, and how that work is then perceived by different audiences across time and space. He joined Hollywood Insider to promote its mission statement of substantive entertainment journalism, and hopes to enrich readers’ understandings of cinema through insightful analysis.

Dec 28, 2020

Table of Contents

Photo: Rotten Tomatoes

Before we waste our time and money sitting through an entire feature film or television series, we go online to check its ratings. Many of us probably have a mental threshold for what’s worth seeing–80%, maybe 70%. 60% is right on the cusp–that’s a film you might approach with dampened expectations. But is this the right way to go about things?

Like many modern fixtures of the internet, Rotten Tomatoes was once a novelty–it quickly became such an authoritative denominator of a film’s quality that a bad rating can tank box office performance. Good ratings, on the other hand, are now often featured in trailers.

Aggregate review sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are excellent and useful tools for getting an idea of a work’s critical reception at a glance, but they’ve also shaped our ideas of what it means for a piece to be “good” or “bad,” for better or for worse. Ratings were never meant to be a conclusive evaluation of a film’s quality, but that seems to be the way that the general public looks at it. 

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For the most part, they tell you what you need to know. If a film has a rating of 17%, it’s probably not going to impress. Nevertheless, their percentage scores hide a lot of nuances that has simultaneously bolstered the collective power of critics while undermining the significance of the individual voice. In this article, I’m going to discuss the reasons why a percent rating shouldn’t be taken at face value, specifically in terms of Rotten Tomatoes, as that has become the most powerful locus of critical discussion of film and television.

Rotten Tomatoes: Thumbs-up or Thumbs-down

Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer score is calculated by simple division–the number of positive reviews over the total number of reviews. Becoming a Tomatometer-approved critic is an application-based process and no critic’s opinion is given more weight than any other. 

However, in order to calculate this basic percentage, Rotten Tomatoes simplifies each critic’s reviews–in the same way that a film is either “fresh” (exceeds 60% approval) or “rotten,” a critic’s review is either favorable or unfavorable. Hypothetically, a film to which every critic gives a rating of 3.5/5, for instance, would attain a Rotten Tomatoes score of 100%. It’s unlikely that this would occur outside of this hypothetical scenario, but is plausible nonetheless. 

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On the other end of the hypothetical spectrum is a film that garners deific praise from half of those who saw it, and abject disdain from the other half–a polarised reception. This film would receive an ultimate rating of 50%, which is commonly interpreted as a bad rating. 

If you look at contemporary reviews of what are now legendary films, many received polarised critical reception. 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly , for instance, would probably have received around 50% if Rotten Tomatoes were around, but are now considered exemplars of their genre. 

Their current Tomatometer ratings reflect the result of their re-evaluations, but will films of the present be granted the same amnesty moving forward? In this way, Rotten Tomatoes has solidified the film canon while casting immediate judgment on new releases, coloring their public perception prematurely.

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The Illusion Of Objectivity

Additionally, the fact that ratings are presented in the form of a percentage necessitates the comparison with schoolyard letter grades . With no evidence to back up this statement, I postulate that our deeply-ingrained concept of letter grades contributes to the ease with which we accept percentage ratings as indicators of quality.

Educators and pundits have long expressed the inadequacies of measuring student performance through summative assessment–causing students to focus more on earning a grade rather than learning the material, for instance, not to mention the impossibility of a subjective evaluation being translated objectively into a numerical value.

If it’s impossible for a teacher to objectively evaluate a 500-word essay, it’s impossible to put an objective numerical value on the quality of a film. However, that was never Rotten Tomatoes’ goal. Aggregating critical reviews is just a good way to get a finger-in-the-wind type of reading, but many people don’t care to look beyond that convenient, monolithic percentage. Its democratic approach to rating a film has contributed to a sense of objectivity, but the value of film criticism has always come from more than an objective, ultimate indictment.

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Pauline Kael , one of the most influential film critics of all time, is famous for her derision of the “ideal critic’s” aim of achieving objectivity, calling it “saphead objectivity.” Her reviews were grounded in her personal experience of the film, as opposed to the commonplace approach of technical, esoteric didacticism. Her style and philosophy were pivotal in the landscape of criticism and analysis, proving that a film couldn’t just be reduced to a technical examination of its craft.

Why Critics Aren’t As Credible

Today, fewer people read individual reviews than ever before. The open forum of the internet has done much to dispel classic notions of elitism, and people have shied away from critics who tell them what’s good and what’s bad–Pauline Kael was rebelling against the same thing decades ago. 

Furthermore, there has been a greater outcry in recent years about the lack of diversity among professional film critics, a point justly made. The opinion of the white male is less valuable in a world of film and television offering greater diversity and stories thereof.  

To read an individual review reveals these underlying issues, but taking that plethora of opinions and turning them into nameless “yays” or “nays” depersonalizes them. People aren’t trusting of singular opinions, but amass a bunch and it becomes a poll. The fact that Rotten Tomatoes offers an audience score furthers the idea that this is simply a populist approach to judging films. The question of what a film does right and what it does wrong is no longer relevant–the question is- how many people out of 100 liked it?   

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In his review of Spirited Away , Roger Ebert wrote, “Movies made for “everybody” is actually made for nobody in particular.” This quote has always stuck with me and seems to repudiate the philosophy that Rotten Tomatoes have nurtured–a “good” film is one that’s palatable to most people. 

It’s important to note that it was never the intention of Rotten Tomatoes to be a barometer of “quality,” but it seems to me that the Tomatometer score is often interpreted by the average person as such. In turn, it seems like studios make a greater effort to cater to their audience before the film even comes out.

It’s unfortunate that a website which aggregates reviews of films has wound up affecting the works that it only meant to discuss–it reminds me of an actor becoming self-conscious because a mirror is held up to their face. While ratings are certainly a useful tool, I only want to emphasize how it shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of critical discussion.

By  Daniel Choi

Click here to read H ollywood Insider’s  CEO Pritan Ambroase’s love letter to Black Lives Matter,  in which he tackles more than just police reform, press freedom and more – click here.

An excerpt from the love letter:  Hollywood Insider’s  CEO/editor-in-chief  Pritan Ambroase  affirms,  “Hollywood Insider  fully supports the much-needed Black Lives Matter movement. We are actively, physically and digitally a part of this global movement. We will continue reporting on this major issue of police brutality and legal murders of Black people to hold the system accountable. We will continue reporting on this major issue with kindness and respect to all Black people, as each and every one of them are seen and heard. Just a reminder, that the Black Lives Matter movement is about more than just police brutality and extends into banking, housing, education, medical, infrastructure, etc. We have the space and time for all your stories. We believe in peaceful/non-violent protests and I would like to request the rest of media to focus on 95% of the protests that are peaceful and working effectively with positive changes happening daily. Media has a responsibility to better the world and  Hollywood Insider  will continue to do so.”

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Daniel Choi is a writer who's currently pursuing a BA in Film & Television from New York University. With a background in amateur film production, Daniel is fascinated by how artists' cultural backgrounds inform their work, subconsciously or not, and how that work is then perceived by different audiences across time and space. He joined Hollywood Insider to promote its mission statement of substantive entertainment journalism, and hopes to enrich readers' understandings of cinema through insightful analysis.

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15 Notable Divides Between Audience and Critic Scores on Rotten Tomatoes

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Love it or hate it, the movie and TV review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has become somewhat of a boogeyman in Hollywood, compiling both audience and critic opinions of a given title and evaluating its quality in a binary system as either "rotten" or "fresh." Often, the consensus among both regular movie-goers and critics is mostly unified, save for a small percentile difference on either side.

In the years since its inception, however, Rotten Tomatoes has played host to its fair share of divisive films, made evident through a misaligned gap between each demographic’s respective score. So, while critics' opinions often inform that of the general audience (and vice versa), films with divided Tomatometers like Venom and Us prove that in some cases, it’s best to agree to disagree.

15 'Don't Look Up' (2021) — 23% Divide

Directed by adam mckay.

The divisiveness in the discourse surrounding the allegorical satire Don’t Look Up was replicated in the Tomato-verse, where the Adam McKay film currently holds a 22% divide. While the sheer spectacle of Don’t Look Up ’s cast may have won most audiences over (earning a 78% score), McKay’s heavy-handed and overly ambitious messaging was critiqued by reviewers with a 55% Tomatometer. It may not be the biggest Rotten Tomatoes gap, but it sure is significant.

Despite the debate (or maybe because of it), Don’t Look Up became one of the lowest-rated Best Picture Oscar nominees on Rotten Tomatoes, an occurrence that undoubtedly didn't surprise its naysayers . That's the thing about these kinds of satires: As long as their themes and sense of humor fit audiences' tastes, it all works out; but it's just as easy for people to find them off-putting.

Don't Look Up

Not available

14 'We're the Millers' (2013) — 28% Divide

Directed by rawson marshall thurber.

The comedic tale of a would-be drug dealer and his fake family found its star power in Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis , with enough zingy one-liners to compensate for a somewhat predictable third act. While audiences seemingly took comfort in We're the Millers ' formulaic take on the road movie, giving it a 76%, the film’s inability to make better use of its comedic talent left something to be desired among critics, with a 48% Tomatometer to prove it.

In any case, Jennifer Aniston’s rightful place as America’s sweetheart remained intact among both audiences and critics alike . The problem with the movie doesn't lie in the jokes or the cast, just in the lazily plotted storyline and the way it sort of squanders whatever potential the star-studded cast had .

Rent on Apple TV

13 'The Greatest Showman' (2017) — 29% Divide

Directed by michael gracey.

Dazzling choreography and costume design were enough to win over general audiences in 2017's The Greatest Showman , only enhanced by energetic performances from the likes of Hugh Jackman , Zac Efron , and Zendaya . It's a feel-good tale of acceptance, with a few fun musical numbers thrown in for extra measure, which 86% of viewers loved. However, only 57% of critics were as approving.

While one of Hugh Jackman ’s great performances was enjoyed by both demographics, some were displeased with the depiction of the historical figure he portrayed: P.T. Barnum , a less-than-ethical entertainer and businessman that engaged in lots of shady practices during the course of his career. The film’s inaccurate take on its real-life showman was largely debunked by critics , though audiences didn't seem to mind nearly as much.

The Greatest Showman

12 'Sausage Party' (2016) — 32% Divide

Directed by conrad vernon and greg tiernan.

Comedy is perhaps the most subjective movie genre. The kinds of humor that work for some may be entirely unappealing to others. So, when Seth Rogen ’s anthropomorphized groceries came to life in Sausage Party , they left critics salivating at an 82% Tomatometer score, but audiences with a bad taste in their mouths at a 50% rating.

Acclaimed by cinephiles for its raucously profane gags and unexpected intellectual depth , the film faced harsher criticism by general movie-goers, who perhaps sought the kind of thoughtless fun promised by Rogen’s less abstract films. Perhaps, then, this polarizing supermarket comedy is best left on the shelf.

Sausage Party

11 'us' (2019) — 32% divide, directed by jordan peele.

Perhaps it was the curse of the sophomore slump that steered audiences away from Jordan Peele ’s Us. The follow-up to Get Out promised all the popcorn-friendly trappings of its predecessor, but Us ' take on the home invasion genre may have been too subversive for horror-seeking movie-goers. They gave it a 61%, as opposed to critics' 93%.

The film's high concept was appreciated by cinephiles, who praised the film’s chess-like attention to detail and its particular comedic flair . Divisive as it might’ve been, critics and audiences found common ground in their equal appreciation of the award-worthy yet criminally snubbed lead performance by Lupita Nyong'o .

Watch on Fubo

10 'Passengers' (2016) — 33% Divide

Directed by morten tyldum.

While neither demographic was particularly fond of Passengers (audiences only scored it a wanting 63%), critics seemingly had a harder time getting past the film’s problematic central premise (giving it 30% approval). For general movie-goers, Passengers ' big-budget sets and the natural chemistry of its leads might have compensated for Chris Pratt ’s concerningly flawed character.

Among more critical audiences, however, the protagonist’s decision to wake up Jennifer Lawrence ’s character was almost universally panned. Many claimed that, through a simple change of perspective, Passengers could have achieved "Fresh" status . Frankly, this is a story that warrants a better-written remake , because its premise could make for a tantalizing psychological thriller.

9 'Noah' (2014) — 34% Divide

Directed by darren aronofsky.

Darren Aronofsky has dipped his toes in all sorts of genres, including the Biblical epic, though he didn't really have as much success there as he had in others. His Noah stars Russell Crowe as the Biblical figure, a man chosen by God to undertake a momentous mission before an apocalyptic flood cleanses the world. Critics responded relatively well to the film, giving it a 75%, while less-receptive audiences earned it a score of 41%.

Arguably the strangest project of Aronofsky's career thus far, Noah was praised by most critics for its unique approach to the material and willingness to explore complex themes in quasi-surrealistic ways. But while critics found the film's weirdness to be a strength, viewers thought it made it absurd and confusing, brought down by an annoying sense of self-seriousness.

8 'Captain Marvel' (2019) — 34% Divide

Directed by anna boden and ryan fleck.

A rare case in which the usually satisfying formula of a superhero film was lost on the general audience but lauded by critics, Captain Marvel will have a hard time recuperating from her lackluster debut . Unable to meet the expectations of its Marvel viewership, fans gave the movie a 45% rating, while critics went for a much more lenient 79%.

What was perceived as miscasting on one end of the spectrum was, among critics, considered a progressive move within a male-dominated genre. This infused Captain Marvel with enough cultural relevance to offset its clichés and stand on its own within the broader MCU canon, becoming a surprise box office hit .

Captain Marvel

7 'the super mario bros. movie' (2023) — 36% divide, directed by aaron horvath and michael jelenic.

In a year that in many ways defined the future of video game movie adaptations , a lot of pressure was resting on the shoulders of The Super Mario Bros. Movie , Illlumination's attempt at translating the adventures of the iconic jumping plumber into the silver screen. While critics were indifferent to the result (giving it a 59% score), audiences and their impressive 95% score were much more receptive.

Colorful, breezily paced, and filled to the brim with Easter eggs that Nintendo fans were delighted to see, the film certainly earned its rightful place in the hearts of families around the world , even if critics found the writing way too hollow to enjoy.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

6 'spy kids' (2001) — 46% divide, directed by robert rodriguez.

Somewhat unprecedented for a film that includes life-sized animated thumbs and flashy CGI, Spy Kids was a surprise critical hit upon its initial release in 2001, receiving a glowing score of 93% among professional reviewers. Audiences, much more unimpressed, gave it a score of 47%. It's not the worst audience score Rotten Tomatoes has seen, but it's certainly nothing commendable, either.

While it was the film’s main strength among critics, Spy Kids ' sheer absurdity was lost on general audiences . The Island of Lost Dreams , the first sequel, scored the franchise its second certified "Fresh" rating. However, the kids seemingly lost their mojo by the third film , which was later deemed "Rotten" by both critics and audiences.

Watch on Paramount+

5 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' (2017) — 49% Divide

Directed by rian johnson.

The Last Jedi 's measly audience score of 42%, comparable to that of critics’ 91%, can perhaps be explained by the lofty expectations of its die-hard fanbase, who just two years prior were treated to an almost-universally loved film in the nostalgia-filled The Force Awakens . General cinephiles praised director Rian Johnson ’s filmmaking prowess, while years-long fans rejected the direction that the film took its characters in.

What resulted, in a rare case where a blockbuster swayed the oft-disapproving critic pool , was The Last Jedi receiving one of the lowest audience scores of any film in the Star Wars franchise. While the divide is stark, Disney’s eighth entry into the galaxy-spanning universe managed to perform well economically, scoring one of the biggest openings of any film in box office history.

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

4 'uncharted' (2022) — 50% divide, directed by ruben fleischer.

Action movies based on video games don't have a great track record, and Uncharted was certainly not the one to break that pattern, as the 40% Tomatometer score for critics corroborates. Audiences would disagree, though, considering that they gave the film a 90% approval rating.

While the adaptation failed to capture the sense of scale and adventure of the games it's loosely based on, its abundance of eye-popping action set pieces and fun throwbacks to old adventure films was enough to make it a worthy audience darling. Though some more demanding viewers and die-hard fans of the series would go so far as to call it one of the weakest efforts in video game adaptation filmmaking in recent years, others would be much more generous.

3 'Venom' (2018) — 50% Divide

Directed by ruben flesicher.

While critics have grown increasingly tolerant (maybe even fond) of superhero movies, Tom Hardy ’s outing as Venom proved that their acceptance has limits. What was a pulpy popcorn treat for audiences (shown in their 80% score), filled with fan-service origin stories and Marvel-adjacent cameos, was for critics on the other end of the spectrum: an overstuffed mess worthy of a 30% Tomatometer score.

Perhaps the audience’s enjoyment of the film is what translated as depthless to a more analytical audience, but it’s a difference of opinions that nonetheless resulted in one of the Tomatometer’s most hotly-debated discrepancies. Venom may not have Rotten Tomatoes' biggest gap between audience and critic scores, but it comes surprisingly close . With Venom 3 already filming , only time will tell if it will receive a different response.

2 'Super Troopers' (2001) — 54% Divide

Directed by jay chandrasekhar.

As derided by critics as it is adored by its cult following, the 2001 crime comedy Super Troopers is about five Vermont state troopers who try to save their jobs and outdo the local police by solving a crime before them. Its deplorable critic score sits at only 36%, but the much-more-positive audience score that made it a timeless classic is at a whopping 90%.

The movie's Tomatometer critic consensus reads that it "will most likely appeal to those looking for something silly," and that's certainly what most of its fans love about it. Critics thought that its lowbrow humor and excessive length made for a somewhat unappealing time, but audiences think that it's irresistibly charming, outstandingly funny, and a blast of fun.

Super Troopers

1 'the boondock saints' (1999) — 65% divide, directed by troy duffy.

The era-defining cult classic The Boondock Saints , about two Irish Catholic brothers who become vigilantes wiping out Boston's criminal underworld, has Rotten Tomatoes' biggest difference between critics' and audiences' scores for a major motion picture. Its Tomatometer is a measly 26%, while audiences raving about this action thriller in the style of Quentin Tarantino gavie it a fantastic 91% score.

Despite a star-studded cast featuring the likes of Norman Reedus and Willem Dafoe , the movie couldn't avoid being noteworthily divisive. While critics found it charmless and ugly, viewers thought that the humor complemented the film's exciting action scenes spectacularly .

The Boondock Saints

NEXT: Family Movies That Critics Loved, But Audiences Hated, According to Rotten Tomatoes

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Rotten Tomatoes can make or break a film's success — is that a problem?

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Rotten Tomatoes has been a go-to source for movie reviews for years - and its ratings can make or break a film's success. But some say the site has major flaws in its ratings system.

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Screen Rant

Alien: romulus rotten tomatoes score smashes into all-timer territory.

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Where To Watch Alien Romulus: Showtimes & Streaming Status

Why alien: romulus is rated r: how scary & violent the movie is, alien: romulus is doing something the alien movies should've done over 40 years ago, alien: romulus’ amazingly practical xenomorph effects revealed in bts video of creature’s development.

• Alien: Romulus earns a solid 82% initial critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, placing it third in the franchise behind Alien and Aliens .
• The film, directed by Fede Álvarez, is set between Alien and Aliens , featuring scavenging space colonists facing Xenomorph horrors.
• Despite not matching the scores of the first two films, Alien: Romulus is a return to form for the franchise in terms of its score.

The Rotten Tomatoes score for Alien: Romulus is in, with initial reviews placing the movie as the franchise's third best film, right behind the first two ever made. The story of Alien: Romulus takes place between the events of Alien and Aliens , following space colonists who stumble across an abandoned space station. Determined to gather supplies, the group soon learns they've stumbled across the home of a Xenomorph living on the ship. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez, best known for 2013's Evil Dead and the 2016 thriller Don't Breathe .

Now, Rotten Tomatoes has indicated positive reviews for Alien: Romulus , with a critics score of 85% based on 68 reviews as of writing. This puts the movie just behind the critics score of Alien , which is 93%, and that of Aliens , which sits at 94%. This makes it the third highest-rated movie in the franchise on the site, indicating just how much of a return to form it is, even if it's a slightly lower score than the first two installments.

Ridley Scott's prequel movies Prometheus and Alien: Covenant also have fresh scores on Rotten Tomatoes, holding a 73% and 65% respectively.

Why Alien: Romulus Is (Almost) As Good As The First Two Movies

Gore & easter eggs triumph in the sequel.

Reviews for Alien: Romulus have been extremely positive, with many praising it or having a similar aesthetic to Ridley Scott’s original movie. Many critics have praised it for putting the horror of the franchise first , including terrifying kill scenes and plenty of references to previous movies. Others still praise Cailee Spaeny as lead character Rain, marking her performance as a key standout within all the gore and terror onscreen. These elements indicate the movie is just as memorable as the originals that defined the franchise.

However, the film isn't without criticisms, as some have pointed out a reliance on Easter eggs and references to previous movies that make it feel less standalone than previously thought. While some of these could involve story elements that have yet to be revealed, some critics indicate there are many familiar elements and kills that make it feel like a retread of the movies that came before. Since this is the seventh installment of the series, it's unsurprising for this to be the case. However, repeated elements of the Alien movie timeline could be a deal-breaker for some interested viewers.

Alien: Romulus marks the return of the Alien movie franchise, and there are options for where to watch it in theaters or at home on streaming.

Nonetheless, the high score indicates that, while some elements from past films are present, Alien: Romulus manages to stand on its own thanks to strong characters and thrilling horror. Since the movie is clearly a return to form for the franchise, its references might instead be exciting for eagle-eyed viewers as the film unfolds. With a high score praising the horrors in store, it seems the film is a proper entry in the franchise that does justice to all that's come before.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new young group of characters who come face to face with the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is a stand-alone film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.

Alien: Romulus - Release Date, Cast, Story, Trailer & Everything We Know

3 free movies added to Tubi in August with 94% and higher on Rotten Tomatoes

Treat yourself to three of the most entertaining movies ever made

The free streaming service Tubi added lots of new movies at the start of this month, including some of our favourites: Predator, Big Trouble in Little China, Menace II Society, Bring It On, The Mask, Bram Stoker's Dracula and many more. 

But if you're looking for guaranteed entertainment then there are three movies in particular that stand out in August. Here are three of our favourite films that are always worth watching, or watching again.

Ghostbusters

• RT score: 95%
• Age rating: PG
• Runtime: 105 minutes

The original and, for many reviewers, the best in the now sprawling Ghostbusters franchise is as fun today as it was way back in 1984 – even if the special effects are showing their age. 

The key is the casting: Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis are perfect as the motley crew of pest controllers taking on everything the spirit world can throw at them, and the gag-packed script takes full advantage of their comedic gifts. And it's impossible not to smile when Ray Parker Jr's theme song kicks in. If there's something strange in the neighbourhood, who you gonna call?

Available to stream for free on Tubi in the US, while those in the UK can find it on Netflix or on Binge or Stan in Australia.    

Groundhog Day

• RT score: 94%
• Runtime: 101 minutes

Didn't I post this yesterday? I kid! This tale of a man trapped in a day that keeps repeating is "the perfect comedy," The Guardian says. Bill Murray even says it's "probably the best work I've done". It's a more modern take on the Scrooge story, a nineties take on Frank Capra with Murray as the grumpy weatherman apparently destined to live the same day over and over again. 

Groundhog Day is very funny, but it would be a very different film if it weren't for Murray: there's an edge to his performance that prevents the film from becoming too sweet. 

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Available to stream for free on Tubi in the US, while those in the UK and Australia can find it on Prime Video. 

• Age rating: R
• Runtime: 98 minutes

This is one of my very favourite films, largely due to the spectacular performances of Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, William H Macy and more. It's one of the Coen Brothers' best-loved movies, a dark-hearted comedy centring on a desperate salesman (Macy) and his attempts to stage a fake kidnapping. Everything goes spectacularly wrong and you'll never look at a wood chipper in the same way again. 

As Empire said at the time, "it is a deliciously convoluted tale of crime, punishment and a cowardly used-car salesman set in a white-out snowscape of Minnesota, written and directed with the verve, painstaking nuance and outrageously black humour that have become the mainstay of a Coen movie." Its five out of five stars are well deserved and if you're in the US, it's one of three new 90s crime movies coming Prime Video in August .

Available to stream for free on Tubi, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV or Freevee in the US, while those in the UK and Australia can find it on MGM Plus.   

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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man , is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind .

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Love Lies Bleeding Reviews

[Director Rose] Glass creates a visceral cinematic world to match the overheated emotions and erotic fantasies. The bleary saturated colors evoke the era and the area while a surreal quality seeps in...

Full Review | Aug 9, 2024

The fact remains, though, that this is very much a Rose Glass feature, and the filmmaker shows a firm and playful grip on genre storytelling that isn’t afraid to go to some strange, yet captivating places that are impossible not to admire.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 5, 2024

The revenge story, besides being archetypal, is tremendously familiar. The good thing, and what makes it shine, is that it has rarely been brought to the screen in such a special, unbound, and unique way.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2024

An extremely engaging, stylized, and watchable experience that makes excellent use of all of its assets.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 27, 2024

Love Lies Bleeding reaches engrossing levels in its connective thematic tissue, which is the interplay between love and violence.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2024

The film is immersive and funny, walking up to the chasm of obnoxiousness and looking over the edge and hocking a chunky loog down there without throwing itself in.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2024

An overheated neo-noir with two queer women at the center, Love Lies Bleeding blurs all barriers, resulting in an ecstatic—and sometimes nauseating—vision of liberation.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 19, 2024

Gnarly and hair-raising, yet also intense and thought-provoking, it’ll leave viewers stunned from its intriguing opening to its darkly bizarre climax.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 19, 2024

Glass’ sophomore picture is not as masterfully visceral as Saint Maude, but the rising filmmaker reveals herself as a gifted portrayer of emotional intimacies and wrenching acts of violence.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 12, 2024

I love noir and have forgiven even stupider plots than the one that Glass unleashes here, but I resent the way that she holds herself above the material.

Full Review | Jul 10, 2024

The fact that Love Lies Bleeding made every moment count, is the true strength of the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 5, 2024

Katy O'Brian dominates the screen as Jackie, and Ed Harris is the most revolting that he's ever been.

Full Review | Jul 5, 2024

a film that is as alluring as it is bruising, as ruthless as it is romantic. A provocative and potent Molotov cocktail of brawn, lust, and rage that is as intoxicating as the chartreuse drug injected throughout

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 4, 2024

Punchy neo-noir... deliciously lurid, grainy butch opus... Sweat is viscous, not wet; when eyes meet, eyes match, as in the breath-stopping moment Lou first glimpses Jackie—Stewart watches, breathless, a caught breath, smile, stilled eyes.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Jul 4, 2024

You can practically smell the sweat and feel the steroid needle prick your skin.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 4, 2024

This is only the second feature for Rose Glass, yet she’s already one of our most exciting new voices. She has an innate understanding of desperation, passion, and the human body, and a fearlessness in depicting each of them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 2, 2024

Kristen Stewart surprises in this violent and delirious erotic thriller directed by Rose Glass. Great (and sick) fun! [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 1, 2024

Its neo-noir story features solid performances by Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian, as well as some stylized scenes on the visual side, but, as a thriller, its plot often gets lost in a far-fetched horizon. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 23, 2024

In a season when theaters are saturated with formulaic media, it’s a rare thing to have an experience where you believe in something this bonkers... where you’re leaning forward moment to moment with no idea what will happen next.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 23, 2024

Glass does well to color things with a nightmarish sheen, but there's also a really fun strain of black humor throughout—mostly on behalf of Lou constantly being put out and made to solve crazy problems for other people.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 21, 2024

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Weekend Box Office

Weekend box office: deadpool & wolverine crosses $1 billion, meanwhile, it ends with us almost ended deadpool's reign with an impressive debut of its own..

TAGGED AS: Box Office , movies , news

Blake Lively has enough to deal with from her on-screen significant other this week, let alone trying to draw audiences away from her real-life husband. But that is exactly what she did this weekend. Even if the Colleen Hoover fans weren’t going to (or already saw) the big movie in theaters right now, Lively & Co. have given August a second big movie, one that may end up being the month’s biggest success (and one of the year’s as well).

King of the Crop: Deadpool & Wolverine Crosses $1 Billion

Not often do spouses compete with each other movie-to-movie in the same weekend, but Ryan Reynolds certainly faced some major competition from his. Deadpool & Wolverine still just managed to stay afloat with $54.1 million in its third weekend. That’s a very respectable 44% drop for the 13th-best third weekend in history, just behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($56 million), Marvel’s The Avengers ($55.6 million), and Jurassic World ($54.5 million), and just ahead of Barbie ($53 million). That brings its running total to $494 million, the seventh-best 17-day total ever, just behind Black Panther ($501.7 million) and, again, Jurassic World ($500.3 million) while being ahead of this year’s Inside Out 2 by over $24 million. But Disney/Pixar’s sequel had a $57.5 million third weekend, so we have a horse race on our hands right now. Those weekday numbers are going to start to go down this week with schools getting back in session. But D&W is clearly locking in somewhere north of $600 million domestic, and with $550 million internationally, the film has joined the billion dollar club ($1.029 billion), marking the 11th for the MCU (and the 31st for Disney) and will be in the Top 50 of all time this upcoming week.

Rotten Returns: Nobody Cared to Visit the Borderlands

There is no spin for the numbers of Eli Roth’s Borderlands . Whether or not it is fair to give him full label credit for the film, which began filming in 2021 and had selective reshoots without him (courtesy of Deadpool director Tim Miller), the numbers are disastrous all around. Reportedly coming in with a budget as high as $120 million, the video game adaptation grossed just $8.8 million this weekend while also posting one of the lowest Tomatometer scores of any wide release this year. It has settled lower than that of Madame Web (11%), Not Another Church Movie (11%) and Tarot (18%). It also received a D+ Cinemascore, the second lowest of the year above The Exorcism’ s D.

As for its box office numbers, it is below even the video game adaptations of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within ($11.4 million), Assassin’s Creed ($10.2 million) and 2007’s Hitman ($10.2 million). At best, the film may hope to get over $20 million domestic, but a big drop next weekend could jeopardize even that. The film now belongs to a less-than-elite class of summer films that cost over $100 million and opened to less than $10 million. Borderlands now joins The Adventures of Pluto Nash , Around the World in 80 Days (2004), Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (released in 2021, the second summer of the pandemic), and this year’s Fly Me to the Moon .

The Top 10 and Beyond: It Ends with Us Scores Impressive Debut,  Trap Falls to Sixth

Despite seven games, comic series and various novels, all the players of Borderlands could not match the readers of It Ends With Us . Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 domestic abuse/rom-drama novel may have gotten mixed reviews from critics, but its supporters dished out another $50 million over the weekend. That is the 11th-best opening ever for a film in August, and it is the highest ever to be headlined by a woman, namely Blake Lively. Annabelle: Creation ($35 million) and Crazy Rich Asians ($26.5 million) were the previous highs. August has also been the home of previous late summer adaptations like The Help , which grossed over $169 million, and Eat Pray Love , which got just over $80 million. It Ends With Us is going to fly by the latter, and there is unlikely to be another film opening this month that will surpass it. Could it be the end-of-summer, word-of-mouth success that joins the likes of The Help and Crazy Rich Asians’ $174+ million haul? The film also grossed another $30 million overseas.

Third place belongs to Twisters this week, still doing well in its fourth weekend, at least domestically. Its 24-day total with another $15 million comes to $222.2 million. The film is actually in some pretty good company, just about $5 million off the pace of Inception , though that film had a higher $18.7 million fourth weekend. Nolan’s film also opened on the third weekend of July and cruised through August to over $281 million. Small drops over the next several weeks could find Twisters following suit and getting over $270 million. If only the film was doing as well overseas. It has earned just $87.8 million to date, putting it over $300 million globally, but it is still about $140 million away from reaching its goal of squeaking out a theatrical profit. Tornadoes were popular overseas in 1996 (or maybe it was just Bill Paxton). It’s rare to have such a major success in North America come up short like that.

Fifth place belongs to a true global success story and one that’s no surprise. Universal/Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 remained in the top five for its sixth straight week with $8 million. That puts its domestic total at $330.1 million and worldwide over $807 million. It is also now making a play to become the highest-grossing domestic release of not just the franchise but all of Illumination’s films. At 40 days of release, DM4 is only about $8 million off the pace of both The Secret Life of Pets ($338.9 million) and Despicable Me 2 ($338.4 million). The latter had just a $5.7 million sixth weekend, while the former was just over $9 million. DM4 is headed somewhere in the vicinity of $365-370 million, and while it may come up short of a billion that the third film and Minions both hit, it is without question one of the most profitable films of the year by far.

Dropping from third down to sixth this week is M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap . While the film does have its fervent defenders, reviews on the not-screened-for-press film are still middle-of-the-road, and its $6.7 million second weekend is the second lowest of his career. Behind Lady in the Water ($7.14 million) and Old ($6.86 million) and ahead of only Knock at the Cabin ($5.42 million), Trap is now at $28.6 million and still likely headed for over $40 million, but it will be Shyamalan’s third straight film to finish under $50 million. With just $16.6 million overseas so far, his latest still needs about another $45 million to break even.

However the final domestic numbers play out, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is still likely to be the biggest success of the year. Another $4.9 million this weekend puts the film at $636.4 million and completely ahead of Jurassic World’ s pace. Besting that film’s ninth weekend ($1.94 million), Inside Out 2 has also passed its total at the end of the exact same weekend ($635.6 million). That should guarantee it ninth place among all-time first-run releases. Avengers: Infinity War is a bit out of its range, even with its $2.58 million ninth weekend. It had $669.5 million by the end of its second-to-last June weekend and finished with $678.8 million. Worldwide the film is $1.594 billion, the 10th best in history. Jurassic World is eighth with $1.67 billion. Inside Out 2 would need about another $70 million to catch 2019’s The Lion King for ninth.

Neon did not exactly give the kind of marketing campaign to Tillman Singer’s Cuckoo that they did for Oz Perkins’ Longlegs . It had itself a festival run that included Berlin, SXSW, and the Chicago Critics Film Festival (which I produce), but opened this weekend to just $3 million in 1,500 theaters, which only looks low compared to Longlegs’ big $22 million start, when in reality it’s the third-best start ever for Neon for its eighth initial wide release. The $7 million production opened just a bit less than Immaculate ($5.33 million) did this year. Only 17 of Neon’s platformed releases grossed as much as Cuckoo did in just three days of nationwide release. This is the way.

Speak of the devil – or the guy played by Nicolas Cage – Longlegs hung around for one last go in the top 10. Another $2 million in its fifth weekend puts the $10 million production over $71 million. It is over $90 million globally, but even if Parasite’ s $254 million global haul is unmatched for Neon, this is still quite the winner for them, as they plan on being in the Oz Perkins business in the future. Far less a success is one of Sony’s few misfires this summer in Harold and the Purple Crayon . Delayed from its original release date more than 18 months ago, the $40 million production drew up $3.1 million in its sophomore weekend for a total of $12.8 million. Sony’s victory with the $25 million production It Ends With Us this weekend, plus the $400 million line just crossed by Bad Boys: Ride or Die , practically makes this an afterthought on their books though.

A24 expanded Sing Sing again this weekend (barely) to 39 theaters where it grossed $227,000. It has grossed $822,000 in five weeks of release, but its per-theater average is falling and is now at just $5,820. A big window may have been missed here. Meanwhile, Focus got its festival-tested film Didi from Sundance into 200 theaters this weekend, where it grossed $650,000. Granted, that’s just a $3,250 PTA, but its gross is already twice that of Sing Sing with $1.63 million. Another Sundance entry this year, Kneecap , was grabbed by Sony Classics and grossed $103,000 for a total of $819,000 in its second weekend. India Donaldson’s Good One (also a part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, along with Sing Sing ) also debuted at Sundance this year and made $30,000 in just three theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

On the Vine: Alien: Romulus Bursts into Theaters

The film that hopes to ultimately take the top spot away from Deadpool & Wolverine is Alien: Romulus . The Fede Alvarez addition to the sci-fi/horror franchise opens next weekend hoping for something closer to Prometheus rather than Covenant numbers.

Full List of Box Office Results: August 9-11, 2024

Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on  Business First AM  with Angela Miles and his  Movie Madness Podcast .

[box office figures via  Box Office Mojo ]

Thumbnail image by ©Marvel Studios

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