How To Rate a Movie: Movie Ratings Explained

Rating a movie is something that we all do, consciously or not.  It may be in the form of stating Film A is better than Film B or it may be something more involved like the compiling of a list.  Either way people ask why movies are rated, what the ratings mean and how to rate movies themselves.  Over at M+F Reviews we review and rate each film we have watched and we do this with our own rating system.  This feature will aim to look at why we rate movies to see if we really need to, what the ratings mean to the person rating them as an individual and also different ways to rate movies with some helpful tips along the way.

Why do people rate movies?

Movie ratings - you see them everywhere. Whenever a new film is released part of its promotion has ratings from various sources plastered over the movie posters and trailers - but why?  Nearly every film that is released will have a movie rating that claims that it is the best film in however long, or that it is excellent or tremendous.  However, you know as well as us that each and every film cannot be rated 5/5 stars or 10/10, or whatever format the film has been rated in.  It is quite obvious that these movie ratings have been chosen from the reviewers who did enjoy the film and gave those ratings. This is the problem with film reviews and it is one that is often overlooked and forgotten about - movie reviews and ratings are an individual opinion. They are not fact or universal.  It is this important factor which is imperial to anyone looking at movie reviews or looking to do there own.

Back to the question - why rate a movie? Why do we not just watch a film, accept it for what it is and move on? Why is there a need to rate the movie?  Many people would say, 'it's just what we do,' or 'it is an easy way to list films we have seen.'  As we rate movies ourselves we believe that both of these reasons are true but I also think there is a more biological reason - it's natural.  From anything to everything we always rate things and compare them to others eg. Car A is better than Car B. Of course it does not have to be rated on what is 'better' but it could be on what person is funnier - basically the scale of what you are using to rate something can change and this is no different to film ratings. 

So, is it essential to rate movies? No, we do not think it is but it is something that people will continue to do even if people tried to stop.  Not every person will compile lists or keep a record of their ratings but that's okay. As long as people are accepting film and forming an opinion on it then the film has in its most basic form been a success.  For us here, we love film discussion and talk and ratings form the basis of this.  It gives us an overview of what we think of a film or movie and if people ask us why we rated it like that we can then go into more details. We believe film ratings are good for movies. They provide a point of discussion. 

What do movie ratings mean?

This again is an open ended question.  To us, movie ratings can mean a lot of different things.  It can be as simple as ordering the films you have seen into a list with favourites first or it can be based on a much more sophisticated formula or rating system.  It really does depend on those who are giving the ratings. There is a difference between say a list of films in order of our favourite films compared to ones that are actually critically good films.  For instance, personally we really enjoyed the Transformers franchise films and would have them on our list of favourite films, however we would not rate them above 8/10. You would think that if they are on our list of favourite films then they would be rated highly (either 9/10 or 10/10) but for us there is a difference between enjoying a film and rating a film. We believe you can enjoy a film but still not rate it highly, otherwise each film we rate would be 8/10 or 9/10 as we enjoy a lot of films.  It is a difficult idea to understand.  Our ratings are based on what we think of a film and yes enjoyment plays a part of that but we do not solely base our reviews on our enjoyment of a film.

How should I rate a movie?

So how should you rate a movie then? Here we will look at the different ways to rate movies.  Now there are so many different ways we are unable to list them all but we will take some examples and show you.  If you are looking to rate a movie then you need to know what you are rating it out of. This can be a number of things from a percentage out of 100 to giving a film a number of stars.  The second thing that you need to do is to understand what each rating represents, for instance the difference between a good and bad film rating. 

 

What rating system should I use? 

Well this is completely up to you and how you find it best to rate a film.  Some sites and people use a rating out of 10.  This is what we use at M+F Reviews.  Similarly you can use a system that rates a film out of 5 or even 3.  Obviously the lower you go the harder it becomes to distinguish each film.  You can also do something not that different and give each film a percentage out of 100.  This can be very accurate but can be quite difficult to pin point exactly what each films movie rating should be.  There are other ways you can rate movies as well. Below you can see examples of different rating systems. 

 

Out of 10: Very simple and probably the most popular way of rating movies.  Once you have watched a film you can give the film what you think it deserves with 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.  For us at M+F Reviews we have stuck to whole numbers but you can go to decimal points if you wish.  This gives you more flexibility but we also suggest that if you are using decimal points that you have a clear structure on how you rate each movie as it is important that you stick by your rating after you have made it and not to change it once you have watched another film.  A great example of the "Out of 10" movie rating system can be seen at IMDb; they have the option for users to rate each movie out of 10 and they have compiled an overall Top 250 list of the top rated movies of all time.

 

Out of 5:  Again this a very popular way of rating a movie.  Rotten Tomatoes employ this rating system for their users but also use an "Out of 10" system for their critics ratings.  Users can rate each movie out of 5 stars and this includes half stars.  Another feature that they use is then giving an overall percentage of the audience who liked it.  The percentage they use is the amount of  people who have rated the movie 3.5 stars or more. 

 

An example of a film rated 4/5 stars.

 

Kids-In-Mind: Now this is a very specific way to rate movies.  As you can see they are rating films based on the suitability for children. By choosing three areas that they think films should be rated for children (but more so for the parents) they can get a three point score for the film and its suitability for children. 

MoovieBoozer: This rating system for us is great. Its fun and different.  The ratings are based on the amount of beers it would take to make a film enjoyable or good. The best rating is 'A Toast' also known as 'One Beer Movies.' The worst is called a 'Six-Pack' or a 'Six Beers Movies'.

 

Other ways: Of course there are hundreds of ways you can rate a film.  Some are very complicated as outlined  here by Sweet Popcorn and Late Nights.  Others can be kept very simple. 

 
 

An Example of a Movie Rating and System 

Example of M+F Rating of "The Wolverine" (2013) from Movie and Film Reviews

 

At M+F Reviews we use a simple "Out of 10" rating system.  Each film is given a number between 0 and 10. It works as we know what the difference is between each possible rating. We know that a film rated 5/10 is neither good or bad as for us it is completely average.  A film that is rated 0/10 is terrible in all aspects, storyline, acting, soundtrack etc.  Luckily we have not found a film that warrants this rating yet. 

 

Lets look at a film we reviewed recently, "The Wolverine" (2013).

 

We rated this film 5/10.  We felt the film was not as good as previous X-Men related films and that it could have been a lot better.  However, we felt that Hugh Jackman's performance was very good - he kept the movie from being a really terrible one.  For us the storyline was disappointing as well as the lack of other major characters. We did enjoy the film though.  For us this was a classic average film - some things were good and some were not and this is how we came to our rating of 5/10. The full review can be found here.

 

Ask yourself - "Does it work?"

 

At the end of the day the ratings system you choose to use should answer yes to both the these questions:

1. Does it work for you?
2. Does it work for your audience?

If you answer yes to both of these questions then you will have no problems with your movie ratings system.  It is important that your audience understands and can make sense of your ratings and that they are also something that you can stick to in the long run.

 

Things to remember:

• Decide on what rating system you want to use if at all
• Know the difference between each rating
• Stick to the rating you have given the film at the time
• It is personal, do not change your review because someone else disagrees with you

 

This concludes our movie ratings feature.  If you have any questions on how to rate a movie, or a question on how we rate movies please do not hesitate to ask.  If you have any comments on this feature please post them below as we would love to hear your own thoughts on how you rate movies yourself.