Whose rating should you trust? IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes or Meta Critic

Deciding which movie to watch or even after watching a movie we often use the Internet to search for it. Mostly we are just seeking suggestions, looking for a synopsis, the critical response or just simply browsing through trailers. For our specific purpose, we often seem to see the ratings of IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic or follow a particular critic’s review before watching a movie. Here is a guide about which rating you should trust and what they actually tell you.

1. IMDB

Perhaps the most influential website for movies. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) gives you almost any information you need about movies, or movie personalities. It is the best if you want to check the rating of a movie according to the majority of audience. Every movie in IMDb contains a rating based on public opinions and not on critics. All registered IMDb users can submit a rating, which is then adjusted, based on algorithms to omit outliers to provide the final rating. This is a great place to check how well or of what standard the movie is. You can also filter movies like top rated movies, popular by genres, etc.

2. Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes provide a rating based on review-aggregation. Various listed critics provide their critical rating on 100. Good movies are denoted by a good fresh tomato, which received more than 60%, while a bad movie is represented by a rotten green tomato, which received less than 60%. The tomato meter is a much different measure of rating, it states how many people likes it, or how likely it is that you will like the movie. It is more like how much you would like the movie rather than how critically good the movie is.

3. Metacritic

Metacritic shows the weighted aggregate average of movies in the site by critics. It is more critics based and less of other angles of a movie like entertainment and box office success. The critics rate the movies based on different aspects of the movies. The more the rating the more critically acclaimed and well made the movies are.

4. Box Office Mojo

Box Office Mojo tracks the box office revenues in a systematic way. It helps you to determine how commercially successful a movie is. A movie, which is critically below average, might be commercially successful and vice-versa.

5. Individual Critics

If you follow an individual critic, they are more likely to rate a movie with scores or grades like 1-10 or A, B, Cs. They are going to rate a movie based on their personal opinion and in many cases it will be biased. Most of the critics would rate a well-made and sensible movie more than a movie which is entertaining but lacks depth in plot or characterization. There will always be some biased opinion, rating or personal preference varying between all individual critics.

The Dilemma and Contrast

Different critics’ opinions are most likely to differ. Most people are likely to follow a particular critic when they share similar viewpoints for a movie. However, it is also a common scenario where you love a movie and the critic you are following hates it. The major plus points and negative points that contribute to the rating of a movie vary from person to person. For example, I do follow and adore Chris Stuckmann and Roger Ebert but in many scenarios, I have found myself not in agreement with their movie judgment. But that does not mean I am wrong and neither are they according to me.

A Movie with a good score on Rotten Tomatoes generally means that the movie is is a must watch disregarding IMDb or meta critic rating. For example a lame horror comedy that is not very well directed would receive less score on MetaCritic or IMDb but if it’s a must watch movie because its entertaining, it is likely to have a good score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Which one to follow?

Well there is no bottom line and you cannot choose one. Sometimes a movie that you like may be poorly rated and a movie that won a lot of awards might not be entertaining to you. I do follow all of the above listed media but that does not mean one is wrong and the other is right. Here is how I reach my own judgment.

I rarely watch a trailer but recommend you should. I just read the synopsis whatever comes up on google and take the overall rating of IMDb rotten tomatoes, metacritic and box office mojo into consideration. IMDb to understand the overall audience, metacritic for the critics, rotten tomatoes for how likely I should watch it and box office mojo for how commercially successful it is. Sum the value up in mind and then just decide on the overall vibe which mood are you on.