How do you rate movies?

[bollemanneke 3,338]

So I discovered Letterboxd a week ago and am totally crazy about it. I’ve been logging all the films I’ve ever watched in it and find it really interesting to see information like my most watched actor, composer etc. (obviously Williams).

 

But the site also allows you to rate movies on a five-star scale. Does anyone have any experience with that?

 

I tried several things: start with 5 stars and then remove one after every negative point I wrote about it and add another one after every positive note, but that doesn’t work since films I turned off ended up getting four stars.

 

I’ve also tried the opposite: start with zero stars, but then good movies get bad ratings.

 

Anyone any ideas?

 

[Taikomochi 1,136]

I generally start between 2.5 and 3 and then go from there. If I feel meh then it goes down. If I feel the film is successful, it goes up. Ultimately, I think it comes down to emotional response.
 

I wouldn’t start at either extreme personally because they are just that, extremes. When I look at other profiles and see they rarely give out 5 stars, it makes it a lot more meaningful when they do. 

 

I wouldn’t rate films you didn’t finish.

[Chen G. 3,944]

I just feel my way through rating films.

[Thor 7,478]

I don't use Letterboxd, but I use MUBI for my lists. It also has a ranking system from 1-5. I have all kinds of lists there, but most importantly two annual ones ("all feature films seen in [year]" and "[year] films ranked"). You can see my profile if you're interested: https://mubi.com/users/151472

[mrbellamy 6,272]

I rate on Letterboxd and kinda just gauge how I feel. I don't put that much thought into it, don't write reviews, mainly just put a star rating as a way to log and so I can filter movies together in broad preferential groups which is useful sometimes.

 

I think if I had to reason it out it'd be 5-4 are movies that really stir up some enthusiasm or feeling in me and/or have some exceptional craft to them. The 5s I do sort of curate as the things I like to remember and associate together as favorites. Sometimes there's no big objective difference to me between a 5 and a 4. 

 

3.5-3 are sort of my average "that was fine" with things I like and a lot of flaws I don't really care about, by far the ratings I use the most. That's my average reaction to a movie, feeling positive but in no special way, the 0.5 difference just puts it closer to good or bad. Sometimes if an okayish movie like this makes me cry or has one brilliant sequence I'll bump it to 4.

 

2.5 starts getting into "bad" territory (which I guess makes me a "glass half empty" person!) I can usually acknowledge there's some level of competence going on, or if it's poor all-around but endearing to me, a lot of the crap of my childhood goes in the 2.5-2 category. 2/5 is about as bad as it gets before I would actually start to say I hated something. 

 

1.5-0.5 gets to the embarrassing levels of incompetence or if it's offensive or whatever. 

[Marian Schedenig 8,178]

1 hour ago, bollemanneke said:

How do you rate movies?

 

As with all things, each according to its merits.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

How do I rate movies?

I either like them, or I don't.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

★   Good   

   ★★   Very Good

★★★   Excellent  

★★★★   Awesome     

★★★★★   Extraordinary

 

The highest rating would apply to perhaps three films per year on average (probably slightly more during the 1950s-1970s); four stars to around twice as many. I don't see the point in wasting stars on films I wouldn't even describe as "good" because I see very few of them.

[Thor 7,478]

39 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

★   Good   

   ★★   Very Good

★★★   Excellent  

★★★★   Awesome     

★★★★★   Extraordinary

 

The highest rating would apply to perhaps three films per year on average (probably slightly more during the 1950s-1970s); four stars to around twice as many. I don't see the point in wasting stars on films I wouldn't even describe as "good" because I see very few of them.

 

But how would you know before you watch them? You've never stumbled into a film you thought were good, but turned out bad?

[A24 4,327]

16 hours ago, Taikomochi said:

 Ultimately, I think it comes down to emotional response.

 

I agree. I'm always surprised when people give extra points because a movie is professionally made. 

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

You've never stumbled into a film you thought were good, but turned out bad?

 

Certainly I have, but a reasonably low proportion of the time. As an intuitive estimate, I'd say somewhere between 10% and 20% of the films I watch don't meet the (rather modest) standard needed to be called "good" and, in most of those cases, I wouldn't go so far as to call them "bad". (Of the films released this year that I've seen, there are between four and eight that I feel don't merit a star, and I don't think I'd say any one of those is flat-out bad as a film). If my selection process ever begins to fail and that percentage goes up significantly, I'll stop watching so many of them; life's too short to spend much time on bad films... 

[A24 4,327]

17 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

... life's too short to spend much time on bad films... 

 

Certainly with so many options available today. 40-50 years ago, before the abundance, it was much easier to finish a 'bad' movie, certainly in Belgium where TV only showed 1 movie per week.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

14 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

...life's too short to spend much time on bad films... 

Define "bad".

[Marian Schedenig 8,178]

3 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Define "bad".

 

Neither good enough nor bad enough to be entertaining.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

7 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Define "bad".

 

Adjective: Not merely not good, but even worse.

 

7 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Define "bad".

 

Although, I could (and probably should) have said "Life's too short to spend much time on bad or mediocre films".

[Holko 9,499]

My solution for the rating problem was that I gave up rating things. Not the most helpful for the discussion but I like not worrying about arbitrarily assigning a number to things.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

I hope you're not suggesting that our rating habits are arbitrary, subjective, changeable, inconsistent and hugely reductive ways of recording a complex set of experiences!

[Holko 9,499]

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I rate movies for nothing but my own later reference so arbitrary and subjective is exactly what my rating habit should be.  Just want to remember my general feelings about the movie.

[Richard Penna 3,676]

I was into rating movies in a big way back in the late 90s/early 00s, particularly when the Radio Times (the BBC's schedule magazine - still a physical publication today!) had its own 5 star methodology.

 

Essentially it didn't go down to the finer grained critique of films, but looked more at its entertainment value in comparison to the average film, and whether it was at least worth your time. It went from one star being 'poor', two being 'average', and three through five being good/very good/outstanding. Essentially 3 stars meant it was at least worth your time, and anything above that meant it was being singled out in some way.

 

Nowadays I couldn't give a flying toss what a film is rated, partly as I think that preconceptions can affect how much you like a film.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Just want to remember my general feelings about the movie.

 

Same here.

 

1 minute ago, Richard Penna said:

...the Radio Times (the BBC's schedule magazine - still a physical publication today!) had its own 5 star methodology.

 

Yeah, the Radio Times film section was my first experience with the star-rating phenomenon too. I can remember when they first started it (in the early 90s, I think). Back then they took a slightly more serious attitude and were reasonably sparing with their five-star ratings; later they slipped into a more populist style similar to Empire magazine. The old classifications, as far as I remember, were Awful / Passes the Time / Worth Watching / Good / Excellent.

 

They brought out a compendium of reviews, The Radio Times Film and Video Guide, which also had a zero star category (so that most ratings were reduced by one, and the five-star category became more exclusive). But not long after that it was discovered that some information in the guide had been taken directly from Halliwell's guide; the book was withdrawn from publication and its author, Derek Winnert, was fired as the Radio Times' film reviewer. I think it essentially ended his career, though he still has his own film review blog.

[Richard Penna 3,676]

4 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

The old classifications, as far as I remember, were Awful / Passes the Time / Worth Watching / Good / Excellent.

 

Ah, I was never aware of the older ones - a little bit before my time. They certainly were fairly sparing with 5-star ratings - most films that had something in them worth watching were 3 or 4, and I found that most action/thriller/suspense films, no matter how popcorny, were rated such. Anything that really was properly dreadful then went into 1/2 territory.

 

It's a good methodology as it's focusing purely on the entertainment value, and being 'glass half empty' with popcorn films.

[Thor 7,478]

54 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

I hope you're not suggesting that our rating habits are arbitrary, subjective, changeable, inconsistent and hugely reductive ways of recording a complex set of experiences!

 

He, he. That's one of the reasons for why we don't do ratings on the film website I occasionally work for. But I like to do them on my own elsewhere, like on MUBI.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

6 hours ago, Thor said:

...we don't do ratings on the film website I occasionally work for.

 

That's pretty rare nowadays. One of my favourite critics was Philip French, who steadfastly held out against the ratings trend during his long tenure at The Observer. In recent years his successors (including Mark Kermode) have succumbed to the pressure...

 

6 hours ago, Thor said:

But I like to do them on my own elsewhere, like on MUBI.

 

How do you interpret your MUBI ratings? E.g., should three stars be taken as a positive endorsement or just a "Meh!"?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

One of my favorite current critics, David Sims who writes for The Atlantic, thankfully does not assign ratings.  See for instance his recent Candyman review: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/08/candyman-sequel-movie-review-nia-dacosta/619884/

[Thor 7,478]

1 hour ago, Glóin the Dark said:

How do you interpret your MUBI ratings? E.g., should three stars be taken as a positive endorsement or just a "Meh!"?

 

1 star is bad, 2 stars is lacking but with some redeeming values, 3 is good, 4 is great and 5 is excellent. Or something. I haven't really made any "translations" of them.

 

It's not perfect. There should be "half stars", like I do on my own website Celluloid Tunes, just to catch some nuances.

 

In Norway, we use a dice in mainstream media for ratings, i.e. 1 to 6. Yes, I'm aware it's weird to use a dice -- being such a random thing at all -- but that's established by now.

[Edmilson 7,398]

4 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Define "bad".

The Transformers and Twilight movies are the definition of bad movies for me.

[bollemanneke 3,338]

20 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

1 star is bad, 2 stars is lacking but with some redeeming values, 3 is good, 4 is great and 5 is excellent. Or something. I haven't really made any "translations" of them.

 

It's not perfect. There should be "half stars", like I do on my own website Celluloid Tunes, just to catch some nuances.

 

In Norway, we use a dice in mainstream media for ratings, i.e. 1 to 6. Yes, I'm aware it's weird to use a dice -- being such a random thing at all -- but that's established by now.

I think I'm going with this!

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,429]

How am I rating movies?

If I have five stars to give, I would give 1 star for direction, 1 for acting, 1 for script, 1 for production Design/Costumes/VFX and 1 for music (obviously) depending on how I found each.

It gives me a more objective point of view than rating the film in general especially when on aspect stands out (after all, all Williams' movies can't be five stars!!!)

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Order your movies from best to worst.

 

Assign the lowest one a 1, and increase each consecutive by 1.

 

Divide the highest number by 5.

 

Divide all the numbers by that number. You're done.

 

 

(Personally I prefer doing the log way where 2.5/5 stars has the most films, then 2/5 and 3/5 has exponentially less, etc until 5/5 is just one or two films. If you want to know the log way, it's simple I can post that.)

[A24 4,327]

12 hours ago, May the Force be with You said:

How am I rating movies?

If I have five stars to give, I would give 1 star for direction, 1 for acting, 1 for script, 1 for production Design/Costumes/VFX and 1 for music (obviously) depending on how I found each.

 

 

You're expecting all movies to fit a certain mold? What if a movie isn't about acting, story, music or VFX/costumes? 

 

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,429]

1 hour ago, AC1 said:

You're expecting all movies to fit a certain mold? What if a movie isn't about acting, story, music or VFX/costumes?

Minus one star.

But more seriously for now it's the only way I found to rate them although I have to say that when I come to compare movie I'm always doing it according to their genre so usually they have a bit the same mold

[A24 4,327]

It could imply that if all 5 criteria are professional or of a high level it's a 5 star movie ... but it doesn't mean that I will enjoy it. 

 

 

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,429]

Agreed, some of the highly leveled movies aren't one I would enjoy seeing every time in a while although knowing that I'm not widely objective I usually grant stars according of how much I enjoyed watching it

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

6 hours ago, Oomoog the Ecstatic said:

Assign the lowest one a 1...

 

0 would be preferable, for the sake of symmetry...

[Marian Schedenig 8,178]

7 hours ago, Oomoog the Ecstatic said:

Order your movies from best to worst.

 

Assign the lowest one a 1, and increase each consecutive by 1.

 

Divide the highest number by 5.

 

Divide all the numbers by that number. You're done.

 

That assumes you've already seen the best and the worst film you're ever going to see.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

Not if you're willing to admit ratings greater than 5 and ratings less than 0!

 

(Or re-rate everything after each new addition...)

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

8 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

That assumes you've already seen the best and the worst film you're ever going to see.

 

There is a mathematical proof of interest against this need. Meaning, one can never assume what the worst is, because it can never be within the scope of human psychological attention, even if you strive to find a good marker, it won't do. Art diminishes its impact the worse you go, so worst is always an impossible assumption.

 

Short-hand, we can't measure how bad art is, we can only measure how good.

 

This is additionally why people who argue what art is are in the wrong. Anything can be art to someone. (It won't mean I like it.)

[mstrox 6,647]

I use the rating system they graded me on in school.  100-90% (4.5-5 stars) is an A/excellent, 80-89% (4 stars) is a B/good, 70-79% (3.5 stars) is a C, which is average.  60-69% (3 stars) is a D, below average.  59% and below (2.5 stars or fewer) is failing/bad.  It’s not a very balanced scale, but it makes sense to me and my broken brain.