Fresh Off the Vine

A user wrote in recently with this observation:

“Battle: LA gets a 70% positive feedback rating from the public and a 30% rating from your critics. What’s the practical use of reading reviews from this site when so many others, like myself, severely disagree with Rotten Tomatoes submissions?”

This is an excellent question, and gets to the heart of what makes Rotten Tomatoes so unique. Our goal is to provide our users with all of the information they need to find movies they’re sure to like, while steering them away from them ones that will make them want to hide under a bucket of popcorn.

On each movie page you’ll find three ways to assess the film:

• Tomatometer: this appears at the left in the yellow box at the top of the page, and tells you how critics feel about the movie. Our talented editorial team sifts through reviews from a curated list of approved critics, and declares each Fresh or Rotten based on many factors, including the critic’s grade and the general tone of the review. They then tally the results to create a freshness score out of 100% – the Tomatometer. Movies with 60% or greater positive ratings are considered Fresh; anything below that is Rotten. If a film is especially acclaimed by critics – over 75% with 40 or more critics’ reviews, 5 of which are from Top Critics – it is Certified Fresh and gets a fancy badge next to the Tomatometer score. Snippets of a movie’s critics’ reviews can be found just below the Photos and Videos section.

• Audience Score: this appears to the right of the Tomatometer. We aggregate ratings and reviews from across the Flixster network of sites and apps – Flixster.com; Flixster on Facebook; Flixster mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android; and, of course, Rotten Tomatoes. Before a movie is released, you’ll see the percentage of people who Want to See the movie; post-release we show the percentage of users who rated the movie 3.5 stars or above. Individual audience reviews are listed under the critics’ reviews, so you can check these out if you want to see what people have to say.

• Friends’ Ratings: if you are logged in via Facebook Connect or Facebook Instant Personalization, you’ll see a section for posting your own rating directly under the Tomatometer/Audience Score box. Under that you’ll see ratings and reviews from your Facebook friends.

In other words, when you’re planning Movie Night, you’ve got all the information you need on one page. Maybe you have one friend who always recommends great films; perhaps you just rely on Roger Ebert‘s opinion. Or, like the user noted above, you might generally disagree with critics and prefer the wisdom of the crowds. No matter who you count on to determine your moviegoing habits, you’ll find a trustworthy source on Rotten Tomatoes.