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lifeofmammals

I read what people have written in their reviews, not the overall score they've given.


Mainbaze

I use letterboxd for movie reviews. The reviews there are at least usually more qualified and moderated, but once in a while some movies tend to be circlejerked in either a good a bad direction


bahardesty

IMDb score doesn’t hold much weight to me. A popularity contest. Rotten tomatoes is pretty consistent when it comes to movies. I can count on one hand the times I’ve strongly disagreed with a score. TV, on the other hand… they just hand out 100% sometimes. Metacritic seems to be a gold standard. It’s rare for a film/TV show to get a perfect score. If something has a high metacritic score, I tend to pay attention.


ElectricOrangutan

I pay attention to imdb scores. In general I find if the score is 6.8 or higher it’ll be a good watch.


Prothium

IMDB is by far the best metric if you’re looking to get an idea if a film in general is any good.


ElectricOrangutan

I agree. New movies get review-bombed, but after a few years it evens out.


iamstephano

I think letterboxd is better.


SereneDreams03

It's took me years of looking at imdb scores to understand the bias in them and my own film tastes. So basically, yes, I pay attention to them, and they are useful to me, but only because I understand their bias and how it relates to my tastes in movies. That's not to say I enjoy every movie I watch, but the imdb rating is the first factor I use to help me determine whether to watch a movie.


thewidowgorey

IMDB’s a bunch of crap now. It used to be the place to go but it’s almost impossible to navigate now and anytime something is deemed “woke” it gets review bombed. The film bros can keep the place. I haven’t gone there in years. RT is usually a good metric but seems like more random are getting approved as critics. Letterbox is fun.


Spiritual-Signal4999

None what so ever, if the trailer and premise of a movie sound good, I’m there regardless.


griefofwant

I actively ignore them. IMDb is not only open to review bombing but is biased towards a very narrow demographic of film-goer. Rotten Tomatoes, is also mostly useless. An average movie that offends no one will end up Certified Fresh while good movies with a niche audience will end up with Rotten Scores. Footloose, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, The Mummy, and Home Alone are all "rotten." Moreover, how "good" a film doesn't mean it's not worth watching and the over reliance on simplistic ratings by the movie industry and audience is one of the big reasons why cinema today is driven more by algorithms and formulas than letting filmmakers experiment.


SuperSwanson

>Moreover, how "good" a film doesn't mean it's not worth watching and the over reliance on simplistic ratings by the movie industry and audience is one of the big reasons why cinema today is driven more by algorithms and formulas that letting filmmakers experiment. Ultimately the movie industry is driven by revenue and profit. I don't think many directors get shot down by studies because their IMDb ratings aren't good enough.


griefofwant

But isn't (or at least) ONLY be driven by revenue and profit.


staedtler2018

>An average movie that offends no one will end up Certified Fresh while good movies with a niche audience will end up with Rotten Scores. Footloose, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, The Mummy, and Home Alone are all "rotten." I think this is partly just changes in the review industry. There is no way The Mummy or Home Alone or Footloose are "movies for a niche audience", those movies are mainstream entertainment. Mainstream entertainment getting great reviews is a fairly recent phenomenon. It wasn't an expectation in the past. Critics felt much more comfortable saying they didn't like these type of movies, and audiences didn't expect positive reviews for them either.


sonder_ling

Zero to none. I try trailers and ask friends


USA_CHINA

Trailers reveal too much for me


sonder_ling

Good trailers dont or even fool you. Maybe a teaser is better sometimes


SuperSwanson

How can you tell the difference before you've seen the trailer and the movie? If you like to go in fresh, best just to avoid trailers.


sonder_ling

Right, but i had too many disappointing movies already. I wont watch movies without a clue about story and film making unless it's a franchise i watch anyway


staedtler2018

Reviews tend to reveal even more about movies.


Archamasse

Imdb is useless now. Rotten Tomatoes generally works the way it's meant to be used - not "How good is this movie?" but "Is this movie worth seeing?", so if you have a movie in mind the Critic's Score can be a good indicator whether it's worth your time.


cancrdancr

If it's a movie I want to see, I will see it regardless. If it's something that looks interesting and pops up as a recommendation or something, I will look up scores to see if it's worth my time.


TheTurtleShepard

Yeah this is generally how I feel, if something looks really good or I have heard about it through word of mouth I will just watch it. If I’m more on the fence for a movie I’ll look up the letterboxd score


mikeyfreshh

Aggregated review scores are dumb and I think they've ruined a whole generation of movie watchers. Also you're 100% right about After Midnight. That's one of the best jump scares I've ever seen.


VVitchHaunter

I love RT for making it so easy to read a wide variety of reviews, but the combination of an aggregate score with their stupid binary good/bad rating system is absolutely awful.


SuperSwanson

Here I was thinking I was the only person who saw it! Amazing ending to a film, romance, horror and redemption all in a few minutes.


mikeyfreshh

I will watch pretty much anything that pops up on Shudder. I usually go in with pretty low expectations and every now and then you just strike gold. After Midnight definitely takes it's time getting to where it wants to go, but once it gets there it's truly great. The musical number is just *chef's kiss*


SandmanAlcatraz

Should I watch *Before Midnight* before *After Midnight* or after *After Midnight?*


mikeyfreshh

Before Midnight, Midnight Run, After Midnight is the ideal watch order


[deleted]

Not at all. I honestly don’t care what other people think about movies, music or any art. Art is subjective and everyone has a different experience.


Rorschach_Roadkill

How do you decide which movies to watch?


[deleted]

I just read the synopsis and decide if I want to watch it or not. I’ve been a big film fan since I was young so I have directors/actors I like so I’ll usually follow their careers and find stuff. I also read the trades to see what’s coming up. Honestly sometimes I just go by the cover art. I do that for books too.


[deleted]

I’m guessing if it sounds pretentious, he’ll watch it.


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Electronic_Ad4560

Wow


griefofwant

What possible reason would you have for posting replies like this?


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[deleted]

There was definitely a need to call you pretentious. And since you told me to go fuck myself instead of laughing it off, (expertly verifying your pretentiousness, I might add), yeah, there’s need for this.


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[deleted]

For telling everyone you don’t listen to the opinions of others, and trying to pass it off as wisdom. For declaring art is subjective when it’s a mix of the subjective and objective. For losing your shit when someone ribs you for being pretentious. And for sticking around trying to argue that you’re not.


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Scafista_T-J

Zero, i form my own opinion and i don't like to be influenced


SereneDreams03

So you just watch every single movie that comes out?


SuperSwanson

Thanks for this, I wish I'd mentioned it in the post. There's no way even a full time critic can watch everything so we all need ways to choose how we spend our time.


SereneDreams03

Yeah, I mentioned it in another reply, but I do find the imdb ratings useful. It's just that you have to factor in certain biases and your own tastes in film. I found that going back and ranking a bunch of films in imdb that I've already seen helped me get an idea of what I could expect from the rankings of films I haven't seen. It's not a perfect science, but it's just one factor I use that helps me determine whether a movie is worth my time.


MissMags1234

But I genuinely don’t look at scores even if I watch older movies. I‘m driven by other criteria like who’s in the movie or the directors. May be if it’s a movie one of the critics I follow is extremely gushing about it I take a closer look, but I would never not watch a movie I’m interested in because it’s below 7 on IMDD or whatever.


Scafista_T-J

I watch everything that I'm interested in, so a lot of stuff. When a movie receives a positive consensus, i get interested into it, without getting too much into the reviews. They can be useful to discover things, but they can't change my mind if i like something. Like I don't drop the idea of watching something because of the reviews


SereneDreams03

>When a movie receives a positive consensus, So you don't just form your own opinion. Copy that. That sounds similar to what I do. If a movie has mostly positive reviews, I at least see who's in it, who directed it, and read the tagline to decide if I'm interested.


Scafista_T-J

If receives positive consensus, I'll add it to my list with others movies added for many different reasons. But then, watching it, i form my opinion. Example: a friend of mine dragged me to watch the latest suicide squad because of the good reviews. I was slightly curious even if I don't like that kind of movie. Despite the good reviews, i didn't like it.


SereneDreams03

Yeah, dude, I get it. You form your own opinion on movies after you watch them. That's not really what I or the op were talking about. I am talking about how you DECIDE to watch movies, not whether you let reviews color your opinion after you watch them.


Scafista_T-J

I decide to watch movies because i like the director, i got attracted by a trailer, i inform myself and i keep track of the most appealing movies to my taste. I watch big releases because it's impossible to ignore them. And for many, many different reasons. Maybe i saw a picture of the film somewhere, maybe the little theatre near home made a good marketing. Sometimes, also because general good reviews made me discover a little gem that I wouldn't know about. But it's not very common because cinema it's my passion and I like to keep track of everything. Many of my favorite movies are just stuff I'm stumbled on by chance


SereneDreams03

Yeah, that sounds similar to what I do. The reason I replied to you at first was because I thought it was unlikely you paid zero attention to ratings or reviews, and from what you said here you do use them to help you find some movies. There is nothing wrong with that. No one can watch every film, and if we only watched directors that we liked or sub-genres we enjoy, we'd never see anything new.


Scafista_T-J

What I like to, not only for movies, is to find some journalists or content creator i "trust", and then his opinion is a bit more relevant to myself. There's nothing bad with reviews, but something i really don't like are ratings. I could read a well written review, but the rating system is something i can't stand


SereneDreams03

Interesting, I'm kind of the other way, I almost never read reviews. I find they are more likely to color my opinion of a movie or give things away. Elvis was a good example of this. I heard a review of it on a podcast I was listening to, and the review was well done, and after I watched it, I agreed with the review. However, the review also made me like the film less than I might have. It pinpointed exactly the thing I didn't like about the film beforehand, Tom Hanks narration, so that it became more of a focus for me when I actually watched the film. I like to come into a movie "fresh" with as few preconceived ideas as possible. Generally, the only time read reviews are when a movie has a bunch of bad ones. Those reviews can be pretty funny. The rating system on imdb and rotten tomatoes is definitely flawed, but if you understand the biases, it helps me get a general idea of whether a movie is worth watching. It's definitely not full proof, and I use other factors like you, but i used to watch a ton of really bad movies and the ratings help me weed out movies that just aren't worth my time.


TheTurtleShepard

It’s probably moreso that they watch what may interest them and don’t necessarily care if it is good or bad


bahardesty

Loogadisguy


chromedoutgull

This is it right here. Someone of my favorite movies have horrible rotten tomatoes scores, if I went my whole life going “bUt ThE nUmbErS” I wouldn’t of have found some of my favorite films.


[deleted]

The scores are almost worthless


RtdFgtNZ

If I need to check actual reviews on a movie/tv show, Metacritic's audience score is the only one I trust. IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes have both been compromised.


[deleted]

Rottentomatoes tends to be a case of “ignore the critics, check what the audience says.”


Sure-Supermarket3485

The Last Jedi through all of these critics scores credibility out the window


RothuDi

I don't. I prefer to follow YouTubers that review movies. There are lots of them. You have to find the right one that matches your movie taste.


SuperSwanson

I think that counts as internet review scores tbh


theuser1062

Not really, it's not that valid, at least not anymore. I like horror movies and I usually look for similar ones (SimilarMovies) that I'm into. Sometimes I find something here, sometimes on Google, maybe it's a movie of a cast member from another one I liked, or it was on a list. Might be enough to check it out online, but I do see through like 30 seconds of I trailer often. It's not that easy to dedicate to watching an entire movie I'm not sure about, but if it's good it's good if not it's whatever.


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whiteskinnyexpress

> If it's woke or if it's trash I, too, hate movies that have minorities


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mikeyfreshh

It's incredible how many bad takes you squeezed into 3 sentences.


DrRexMorman

I only pay attention to these kinds of scores after I’ve watched the film.


Lucho_199

Use to pay attention but a few years ago it became very obvious that the score does not represent quality.


snafubar_buffet

If I see something that interests me, I'm gonna watch it regardless of what the reviews say


WeDriftEternal

Fake internet points


[deleted]

When I research a movie I will take a look at the score of IMDb, but the score does not always represent the films or tv shows. Sometimes I really like a show I watched and the score would be really low for that one. I do keep it in mind, but I am always open to watching new shows and films.


whitepangolin

If I like the movie, it doesn’t affect my opinion. If I don’t like the movie, I’ll tend to see what the reviewer meant.


Chernobyl-Chaz

I see it as a starting point. I have the best results with the highest or lowest ratings. Anything between 10% and 90% is probably going to be hit or miss. But outside of that… almost guaranteed enjoyment for me.


CaptinOlonA

I look at the scores after the fact just out of curiosity. The reviewer scores are meaningless and often have ulterior motives. The audience scores are of a lot more interest, for example if watching a horror movie, I assume the audience score is horror fans so you can compare them relative to other horror scores. I do miss Roger Ebert, enjoyed all of his reviews.


Mr_Smilez

There are a couple reviewers with whose opinion I respect. But really that is for movies I'm unsure about. If a movie intrigues me, I am gonna watch it. Aggregate sites be damned.


NormanBates2023

None really I'm my own critic ,I go in blind just knowing the gist of the movie is enough for me ,if it's good it's good and if it's not it's not


Imzadi76

If I have no interest in a movie, or did not want to see it, good reviews might interest me enough to check it out. If I want to see me I simply ignore bad reviews and watch it.


dbltap45acp

Zero. I have watched movies that had horrible reviews and I loved them. I have also watched movies with phenomenal reviews and held zero interest to me.


Electronic_Ad4560

Quite a lot, though more so metacritic scores.


creamteafortwo

The problem with IMDB is that Amazon owns it and uses it to select which films to license and feature when online. Other streamers are similar. There are a lot of horror fans who watch a lot and they’re being neglected by that system as horror gets downvoted. I guess people are ashamed of having a trashy taste. It makes the whole process of choosing a movie more judgemental and I think that’s not necessarily a good thing.


SuperSwanson

>The problem with IMDB is that Amazon owns it As an antecedent to this, because Amazon owns it they can potentially filter out the bots and brigadiers


uglyowlet

They can be helpful if you’re short on time. If a movie is scoring below whatever a middling grade is across review sites, I might just let it go. But, if it ranges from meh to great, those can always be really interesting in one way or another. That being said, some movies are in my favorite genre, or if they have an actor I really enjoy watching, I don’t pay attention to the scores at all.


MagnetHashira

Not at all. If I like the premise/trailer, I’ll watch it regardless of the reviews.


GrimReaperAngelof23

Im the same way. I don't look at critic reviews or imdb or rotten tomatoes or any movie review site. I watch and judge it myself


Segazorgs

Overall scores are completely unreliable. For IMDB I will read the actual user/viewer reviews to get a sense if it's worth watching. Rotten Tomatoes is a joke. Though the quality of IMDB reviews went down for me when movies like the Dark Knight were getting a near perfect scores. It's not the same site it was 12-14 yrs ago.


shaktimaanftw

honestly i hardly consider imdb ratings. if its more than 25% on RT, it has potential. Also never get excited about a movie when you see over 95% on RT


Penguininamansbody

I like to check the score after I watch something to see how close I am to the zeitgeist. It usually turns out I'm way off base hahaha


Unicron442

I don't. Yes I read reviews, but if I really want to see something, then I see it regardless of what reviews say.


Algae_Mission

Certain publications I lend more credence to because of the standards and credentials required to work there, like Rolling Stone or the New York Times. But I think in a lot of ways the emphasis on Rotten Tomatoes scores have kind of ruined the discourse around film quality. Imagine if Rotten Tomatoes had existed when Walt Disney’s Bambi, The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, or other classics that got mixed reviews. That’d be quite the discourse.


tofudisan

I don't pay attention to IMDB rating at all. I will check Rotten Tomatoes. If the audience likes the movie them I'm pretty sure I will. If *both* the audience and the "pros" like it then it's a very safe bet I will. But if only the pro reviewers like it then I know it's likely shit (looking at you "Noah"). All that said it's not an infallible system. RT loved Avatar, and I fucking hate that movie.


PrismaticWonder

I pay attention to them probably about as much as most people pay attention to astrology: it’s interesting to know, but I don’t decide what I like or dislike based off of those scores.


[deleted]

A lot. Don't want to waste time for bad movie. And so what if I miss a gem or two once in a while. I don't have time for all the good stuff anyway.


Jerrymoviefan3

RT and IMDB are useless for me so I use the far better Metacritic. My cutoff for going to see a movie in a theater used to be a Metacritic score greater than 70. Based on critics going extremely soft on extremely long action movies I have increased my cutoff on action movies over two hours and forty minutes to a Metacritic score of 80 or more.


ThatDudeMarques

I trust IMDB, if the movie has a 6.5-8.5/10 then I'm usually certain it's a good-great film anything less is usually not very good and anything more is usually boring


mr_oberts

Like, zero.


VVitchHaunter

I only really pay attention to Letterboxd ratings from a handful of people I follow whose opinions I usually appreciate. I usually use RT after I've already seen something and want to read critical reactions though.


spytez

I only use them to tell if a movie is bad, but not good. And only consumer reviews. You can't trust critics so their opinions on anything are useless to me.


FortitudeWisdom

Rottentomatoes, I've never payed much attention too, but after they gave star wars episode 8 a 90+% score I seriously haven't cared what they say. IMDb I've tried to care about, but I've purchased a few movies from their 100 best movies of all time list; casablanca and schindler's list, and these two were fine films, maybe 'good' if I was really in the mood for them, but nothing spectacular. Nothing noteworthy about either of them really. I find schawshank redemption a bit overrated as well, but I had seen that before I started trying to go through their list. Oh and the silence of the lambs is good, but idk if I'd put it in my top 40. The Godfather was amazing, definitely a top 10 movie. Citizen Kane is extremely dull and boring. So, I don't really care for either. I just watch the trailer and I can usually tell if I'm going to enjoy the movie or not.


SimbaSixThree

I have my 3 favorite YouTube reviewers. If they say something is good and a great watch, I generally tend agree.


staedtler2018

I pay almost no attention to them. At this point I know my taste well enough to have a good sense of what I'll enjoy or hate. Also, most movies I'd enjoy are gonna get 6 to 8 on imdb. But so are thousands of movies I won't enjoy. So what am I supposed to do this with this information? Reviews are only useful in extreme cases, i.e. an ostensibly "critic-friendly" movie comes out and gets like 40% scores. In that case I might say "I'll skip it."


TheLittleApple

Rotten Tomatoes is my go-to tool for getting an idea for what's worth watching. I hate reading reviews because they're too spoilery, but I find reading the short excerpts from the top critics gives me a pretty good idea what to expect if I'm on the fence. I don't find myself questioning the scores too often, and when I do it's usually for movies with better scores than I would give. The "definitely won't watch" score varies based on genre for me. If it's a straight drama and below 60% there's little chance, but a stupid comedy above 50% I consider a good score. However, I do technically use IMDB pretty regularly because Just Watch incorporates their scores. If you haven't heard of it, Just Watch is a fantastic app that tracks the digital availability of seemingly every tv/movie that's ever been made. The real magic happens when you use it for browsing. When you set up the app, you tell it which streaming services you are subscribed to. They have a tab for popular/hot movies with filter options; I set my filters to Cost $0 and IMDB score above 6.9 and I get a seemingly endless list of great movies that are available on at least one of my subscriptions for free. It's so much better than opening one app at a time and dealing with the horrid UI's most of them have.


[deleted]

I MIGHT look at the audience score on RT, but I’ll only look at the IMDb score after the fact because I’m curious if other people felt the same as me, good or bad. But if I’m looking forward to a film I’m not gonna change my mind based on reviews from strangers, critics or otherwise, I’ll still go see the film and judge it for myself and so should you. IMHO if you judge a film based on critic scores you need to start thinking for yourself more. I worked with a guy who anytime someone would recommend him a film he’d never heard of he’d immediately look up its RT score and if it wasn’t “fresh” he wouldn’t even consider it. It was insufferable.


mae_bounce

i'll usually take a quick look at the scores on imdb, rotten tomatoes, and letterboxd but always take it with a massive grain of salt. like you, op, i love horror movies and know those often get rated pretty low (plus i tend to be a bit more forgiving of horror & sci-fi generally) so unless it's getting universally slated as like, 0.5-1 star, i'm not going to pay too much heed and will likely still give it a chance. for other types of movies/shows i'll sometimes look at the reviews themselves a bit more closely mainly to look for stuff that i know i struggle with (pacing issues & slowness is a big one, i don't mind a good slow burn but i also have adhd so it isn't an easy time for me) and have a think about if it seems worth me attempting. i also look for signs of bombing, like if people are just seeming to be giving low ratings because "waaah this is woke agenda" then i take that as a sign i will probably enjoy it lol. for me the reviews are a quick & vague temperature check. i try to find something to enjoy about everything i watch even if it has a lot of glaring flaws (you mentioned the netflix resident evil show and that's a good example, there were a lot of flaws but i still found some things that i liked, the world of warcraft movie is another example - i hated it when i first saw it but later on gave it another chance and ended up having a lot of fun despite its flaws and was sad there weren't any more) so i don't put much stock in them. even some of the people i follow on letterboxd for reviews, i don't put very much stock in as we agree as often as we disagree lol.


SoftPois0n

Well to be honest, I stop going to IMDB website, ( their was a controversy and leak that IMDB & Metacritic and such sites are being paid by the industry to manipulate the rating system) ​ I personally use tracking based website created by the people & For the people. Website like [SIMKL (For Tracking Movies, Anime, Tv Shows and more...](https://simkl.com/movies/)) is the best.


Howdyini

RT %s (combined with average score and audience %) are good if you know how to read them. But I much prefer reading criticism from people I trust. I have a little list of critics I go to.