Wondered how the tastes of movie critics differ from the general audience? Well, I did! This past weekend, between fleeting moments of idleness, I delved into a little data analysis project around the IMDB’s Top 100 Movies of all time (by user rating). The crux of my investigation was to identify which movie from this revered list bore the most significant disparity in ratings from the audience and critics. I picked this list because all of these movies have a significant number of ratings from both critics and audiences.
Armed with the data of audience and critics’ ratings of the said films, extracted from Rotten Tomatoes, it was time to put my analysis cap on! Now it’s important to note that Rotten Tomatoes audience and critics ratings are not the same. Critics rating is simply a measure of the percentage of critics that think that it is a “Fresh” movie. While audience rating denotes the percentage of people who gave the movie a score of 3.5/5 or higher. So this comparison is a proxy of the relative gap between audience and critics' ratings of the movies. For more information about Rotten Tomatoes ratings, see here.
After comparing the scores, I had the answer to one question, which movie had the most significant gap between audience and critic ratings? It was the beloved ‘Forest Gump’. While audiences gave it a towering 95 rating, critics weren’t as generous, settling at a mere 71% of the critics certifying it as “Fresh”. Other fan favorites that some critics didn’t have an appreciation for are: “Leon The Professional”, “Joker”, “Untouchable” and “Fight Club”.
Looking at the bar chart below, it is clear that, on average, critics tend to be sterner with their ratings than audiences. Perhaps not that surprising?
“Joker” with its haunting performance by Joaquin Phoenix, turned out to be the least favorite among critics from IMDB’s Top 100, with surprisingly only 69% labeling it as “Fresh” while 31% labeled it as “Rotten”. Joker also has one of the lowest scores in the list from Metacritic at 59 (only two movies in the list have lower Metacritic scores). However, critics can also have perfect consensus, with 100% of critics rewarding eight movies, including “Toy Story,” “12 Angry Men,” and the Bollywood favorite “3 Idiots” a “Fresh” status! See the bar chart below for more information.
Among the audience, “Braveheart” and “The Matrix,” had the lowest rating at 85. Interestingly, no movie achieved a perfect audience score on Rotten Tomatoes from within the IMDB’s Top 100 list. However, two did come close — the timeless “The Shawshank Redemption” and the evergreen “The Godfather” both boasting the highest audience rating with 98% of the audience giving them a 3.5/5 score or above. See the bar chart below for more information.
Two lists, two different sets of ratings — pretty fascinating, isn’t it? Let me know what you guys think about these findings!
