Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hombre_fatal 2669 days ago
Interesting, because I've found imdb ratings to be the best because it's based on user votes.

Movie critics, on the other hand, seem to vote the complete opposite of regular viewers (and each other) to set themselves apart. Or voting some awful art house movie a 10/10 to signal that they, too, understood the high brow nuances that the groundlings could not. I end up agreeing with the user votes far more often than the critic scores on RT and Metacritic, and the user scores tend to line up with imdb anyways.
3 comments
untog 2669 days ago
IMO IMDB has a big problem with recency. #3 in their top movies list is The Dark Knight, which is frankly absurd (it's a great movie, but #3 of all time? Come on)

> Or voting some awful art house movie a 10/10 to signal that they, too, understood the high brow nuances that the groundlings could not.

I think this just speaks to a divide in movie reviews. Those critics are reviewing the movies as art, whereas many user reviews are reviewing movies as a consumer product. Neither approach is incorrect, but they have very different outcomes.

link
selflesssieve 2669 days ago
RT has Black Panther as their #1 movie of all time. The fact is, people have learned to inherently train themselves to use certain review websites. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/

My current rules - Anything over an 8 on imbd is a must watch if over a year old. If a comedy/action movie over a 7 is fine. For less than a year old I read reviews, and decide how invested I am in watching it. Fantastic Beasts 2 tanked, but I watched it anyway and enjoyed it.

link
eythian 2669 days ago
Similar for me, but more forgiving. Especially for horror which I enjoy but IMDb raters don't seem to the same. In general, anything below a 6 I'll maybe reconsider, or 5 or so for horror.
link
darkpuma 2669 days ago
It's not so much a question of who is correct or incorrect, but rather which will be more relevant to consumers. Probably the "consumer product" reviews. Not always, but for the most part.
link
clydethefrog 2669 days ago
IMDB ratings are easily manipulated. See the recent case of a Brazilian movie that was heavily voted down.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=https:/...

link
PunchTornado 2669 days ago
so you accept that you are a simple man and don't wish to impress anyone?
link