Talk:Rotten Tomatoes

Wouldn't it be fair to say that Metacritic's way of averaging reviews and giving a total score is a superior system to Rotten Tomatoes, in that Metacritic does not simply categorize things into negative/positive, but rather, a true numerical value? So in other words, Metacritics system seems more accurate and less prone to accidents (also, rotten tomatoes lacks a middle-ground for reviews; there is no "mediocre"), and is thus superior -- would anyone else agree, or am I missing something? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.23.6.222 (talk • contribs) .

• It falls in line with the thumbs-up/thumbs-down manner of judgement. Rotten Tomatoes simply determines the percentage of thumbs-up (or, in their case, "fresh tomatoes") reviews amongst all the reviews collected for each movie.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that Metacritics way of averaging reviews and giving a total score is a superior system to Rotten Tomatoes, in that Metacritic does not simply categorize things into negative/positive, but rather, a true numerical value?

Not necessarily. In particular, under Metacritic's system it is possible for a single reviewer to bias the aggregate score by giving the movie a rating more extreme than they believe it actually deserves. For example, say that the Metacritic rating for a given film is a 4, and a new reviewer believes that it deserves a 6. They could either give the film a 6, shifting the average to (say) 4.2, or give it a 10, shifting the average to 4.6, and closer to the value of 6 that they feel it truly deserves.

The same problem applies to user ratings on IMDB, only more so, because they don't have so much of a reputation to protect as a professional reviewer, who would lose credibility if they gave ridiculously extreme ratings. Nonetheless, Rotten Tomatoes bypasses this problem by only permitting the reviewer to give a single positive or negative vote, and I believe that this makes it a superior system. I was mildly surprised that there wasn't a note to this effect in the article, but I suppose that the explanation is a bit on the lengthy side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.136.185.68 (talk • contribs)

According to the current page, there are only 43 films that have garnered a 0% freshness rating, but this is not true. There are 43 action/adventure films that have garnered a 0% freshness rating. In reality the number is much higher, with more than 120 in comedy alone. Did the person who originally wrote that make a mistake or am I just missing something?

Hello! Jeff Giles here. I appreciate the longtime shout-out on RT's page; it's given me numerous smiles over the years. Just sticking my head in to say thank you, and also to note that as of 5/16/24, I've been dismissed and my nearly 19-year tenure with Rotten Tomatoes is over. I did write the majority of the film CCs (and all of the ASes) between probably 2010 and 2024, but that won't be the case going forward.

Thanks again!

I edited this page to change a statement that was likely to become outdated, however the tag for that is still there. Can someone remove it? IHaveNoIdea25 (talk) 14:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be mistaken. I added the tag because of the information posted above which suggests the longtime writer is no longer writing the review summaries. You changed this to say he still writes them as of June 2024, which appears to not be true. And we do not have a source to confirm the opposite either. So leave the tag until we have a source to confirm as much. Οἶδα (talk) 07:31, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes appears to have deleted the critic score average rating on movie and TV pages. They also appear to have swapped the placement of "All Critics" and "Top Critics", with "All Critics" now being the default when clicking on the Tomatometer. Οἶδα (talk) 20:11, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

For those interested:

"The Average Rating is an average of the individual critic scores, based on a 1-10 scale. Each critic's original rating scale (e.g. star, letter grade, numeric) is converted to a number between 1 and 10, and then the numbers are averaged. Reviews without individual ratings are not counted in the Average Rating calculation, and a minimum of five reviews with individual ratings is required for an Average Rating to be calculated. The Average Rating measures the overall quality of a film or TV show based on an average of individual critic scores. The Tomatometer simply measures the percentage of positive reviews for a given film or TV show."

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/faq Οἶδα (talk) 20:12, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, looks like other people have noticed too:

• https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2025/4/24/rotten-tomatoes-removes-critics-average-rating
• https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1k6w1f5/the_actual_movie_average_seems_to_be_gone_on/

For now, the average is still available in JSON hidden on the page in a <media-scorecard-manager> element (search for "averageRating" in the Inspector). Iiii I I I (talk) 07:18, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

In my opinion the "Average Rating" should be removed from Rotten templates. Note that before, Rotten already "hid" this score, requiring one more click to view it. Now it's much worse. What is 'JSON' and '<media-scorecard-manager>' that Iiii I I I quoted above? Anyway, I haven't updated this score anymore. It's a lot of work to highlight and update a score that RT itself doesn't care about, and why should Wikipedia? An example is in the RT editorial lists that are published. Only the tomatometer mentioned.Theys York (talk) 10:06, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

@M.Billoo2000: OK. I tried using the Rotten Tomatoes Average Rating Finder in Chrome on the Desktop on my phone and it didn't work. Anyway, I will no longer update Rotten scores that have an 'Average Rating'. Tks. Theys York (talk) 12:23, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

• I do not see good reason to completely stop using it. I use this tool and Find/Search the term "averageRating". It works as of now. M. Billoo 12:29, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

@Medxvo: Please do not mind on pinging, due to Special:Diff/1316133773. Thank you! M. Billoo 18:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for letting me know! I agree with Theys York and other editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Archive 87#Rotten Tomatoes average rating that we should not use an HTML source viewer tool to look for information hidden by RT themselves. Most of the recent film articles no longer feature average ratings (at least, none of the highest grossing films do). I also agree that adding information not present in the source violates the WP:V policy. Medxvo (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

• It worked. But in the end it's the same thing: a lot of work to research and update something that RT itself doesn't care about highlighting. Tks. Theys York (talk) 12:46, 7 September 2025 (UTC)