Ryan McNeil
For a long time now, I’ve been fascinated by the way film reviews are capped off with some sort of rating. Tradition is to assign a film a quantity of star, or likewise to give it a numbered score. Some have boiled it down to “Go Out and See It”, “Stream It/Rent It”, and “Skip It”. Or to take the whole thing one cutthroat step further, there were the critics that inspired me who boiled it down to “Thumb’s Up” and “Thumb’s Down”.
On the surface, it seems like a quick way to sum up the entire discussion of a film. However, now and again, I find myself wondering if scores are more trouble than they’re worth. Roger Ebert (he of the “thumb’s up” in case you don’t recall), used to bemoan the way people would be fixated on ratings all the time. In the last few years of his syndicated television show, I remember several instances where he wondered aloud if people were so hung up on stars and thumbs that they were neglecting to actually listen to the logic that brought on said rating. He pointed out that not every rating is equal – that two films can both be rated 3 out of 5, but one is an affectionate 3, and one is a cautious 3.
To many (and this was ten years ago, so I can only imagine that now it is many more), the context didn’t matter. The high or low score was all they paid attention to.
About a year ago, I conducted a little experiment about the scoring of films on this very site, and I’ll wager that almost nobody noticed.
Last November, I stopped including the rating I gave a film in the review’s headline. I moved the rating down to the bottom of the page, forcing people at the very least to click-through on their feed readers if not from the main page to see what I thought of a film. At first I had the feeling that the switch had cost me a bit of traffic, but I’ve lived with the hit.
You see, including the star rating in the post title would do one of two things to the people who come and go. Either they would click on something because they deeply agreed with the score, or they clicked on something because they avidly disagreed. The resulting conversation would predictably turn into a circle-jerk or a brawl (ever give a film someone dug “Zero Stars”?). Now though, with the score being at the bottom, the stars simply punctuate my point instead of making my point for me.
I’m beginning to believe that stars are reductive, that no matter whether you rank on a scale of five, twenty, or one thousand, that they will never fully encapsulate what a film leaves us with. A piece of art – be it a movie, an opera, a novel, or an album – will often leave us with things we like and things we don’t. Sometimes we’re even left with things we like, but later don’t. There’s a level of technique that is tangible in the craft, and the intangible that we take away with us – every bit of it nuanced and subjective. So sure, if you’re hard up on time I guess I can give all that a letter grade between A and F.
If there’s an exception to this point, I believe it’s a high score given to a low-profile film. Raving about something others might not have known about can only benefit the artist, since it raises awareness of their work and gets people looking for something they didn’t even know they should be looking for five minutes ago. However, even those sorts of raves are tricky. For starters, there’s the question of how low-profile is low-profile, and for seconds there’s the possibility that too high a score could do more harm than good when people finally do catch up with a film with too-high expectations.
So there you have it – even a well-intentioned high-score can be a bad thing. I just believe that for the attention-deprived, the score becomes a sticking point. That no matter how much the would-be critics underlines their affections and dislikes, that it will be hard to ever get a debate opponent past “You gave that four stars?”. Sometimes it’s actually quite innocent, such as last week when a fellow film lover noted that sometimes it seems like I’m afraid to give perfect scores. He said that a piece I wrote seemed like it was fully in love with the film, and when he finished it with seeing a score of “only” 87.5%, that something felt amiss.
The person who brought it up is a good friend, so I don’t mean for this to single him out, but why not take away the fact that I loved the film I just reviewed, instead of wondering “where the other 12.5% went”?
Maybe we’ve all just become too attention-deprived to actually read someone’s critique and take it for its positives and negatives. Maybe we do need to reduce it all down to numbers, letters, thumbs, and tomatoes. Heck, maybe we should extend this out beyond movies. Could you imagine?
“How was work today, sweetheart?
“I owned the morning meeting, but the afternoon deadline felt really contrived. 3 out of 5”
Ratings aren’t going anywhere, I realize that. Hopefully though we can all start offering up something more substantial around them, and start to consider the score itself as something less substantial.
There has been a lot of discussion about scores through the years, also in other forms of entertainment. I used to read Edge magazine (about games) and it had one issue where it left out the scores to see what would happen and there were a lot of people not agreeing with that. They wanted to see a number. I have to admit that in general I do kind of only look at the score if I still have to see a movie (because I want to go in completely blank, but at least have an idea if I should watch something). If I’ve seen a movie though I will read a whole review to find out if there is a difference of opinion.
Loved your rating of the work day. Maybe we should start adding scores to our days, just so it makes us realise we could make them even more enjoyable and make each day we experience a 10/10.
If I haven’t seen something yet, I tend not to read too many opinions – especially since I don’t want to start parroting what someone else has said when time comes for me to write my own entry.
But I hear you, it’s a quick and easy way to see “What’d Ryan think?”.
After responding to all of these comments, I might have to start including a bullet point that can be read on-the-fly summarizing my take.
“…they will never fully encapsulate what a film leaves us with.” Bravo! Great piece!
I’ll be completely honest here, I rarely even look at your ratings at the end of your reviews much in the same way I rarely look at ANY ratings at the end of any reviews. Because you’re absolutely right, the words of the review will give us the true impression of the writer. The rating is just something to incite squabbling.
This is why I don’t even provide ratings on reviews on my own site.
Could your blog’s slogan then be something like “Star Free Since 2003”?
I’m happy to know that you don’t even look at the stars at the bottom of the post. Can I ask – did you even notice that I moved them? (I ask because I know you’ve been around my site for a while).
You know what, I did not notice. When you mentioned it in this post I kind of retroactively realized it but not at the time. I’m come for the content, my friend.
That’s funny that you asked what would happen if we did this in real life. My husband and I were doing that the other day. Like I’d cook a meal and say “4 stars.” Our baby went to bed on time; 5 stars. Boardwalk Empire was boring; 2 Stars. I can’t imagine doing that all the time.
You sorta started something on Twitter today. Simon COlumb dropped a few tweets akin to this tagged #ratemyday
I don’t have a rating on my reviews as I feel people won’t bother reading them but will just skip to the end to see what score I gave it and base their comments purely around the score rather than what I said about it. Having said that, having ratings does appeal to those who maybe don’t have the time or patience to read a whole review, which is fine as mine can be lengthy at times. I definitely agree with putting the rating at the end though if you’re going to have one. People will then at least be more likely to see how you arrived at that score.
See, but if we’re going to look after those who don’t have time, why not offer a one or two sentence thought summary?
“It’s a tough watch, but it moved me” tells me so much more as a reader than “4.5 Stars”
(PS – Good on ya for keeping the ratings out)
That’s a great idea, maybe sum up each review at the end in just a sentence for those who are lazy/busy/suffer from ADHD. *Steals idea*
Great article Ryan.
Good read Ryan. I just did a somewhat similar post (http://filmactually.blogspot.com/2012/10/discussion-0-star-rating.html) about the strangeness of the “0-star” rating. I’ve never included ratings in my post, but recently I’ve included a review index that shows the ratings for all my reviews.
As you said, there are good and bad things about the ratings system. I tend to like it as an easy way of understanding general consensus about a film. Even if people have different ways of determining their score, if a film has lots of perfect scores then it will be a good incentive for me to watch a film. Likewise, if it gets a lot of scores below the midpoint then I start getting wary about it.
Ah see, but in that line of thinking, you deny yourself something I have come to adore: The split vote.
Over the last ten years or so, there’s always two or three films a year that people either adore or despise. Those films often fascinate me since it means I need to “pick a side”. Films universally adored or universally loathed, not nearly as interesting (unless you’re the one brave salmon swimming against the current)
PS – Be not afraid of the Zero Star review. I’ve dished out a pair and it’s very liberating.
I have a very specific system when it comes to my rating. Each number from 1 to 10 corresponds to a specific opinion. For instance, my average rating is 8, which means I liked the film. That said, it’s easier to rate films I liked than films I don’t like (I rarely rate lower than 4).
Sure, but the problem there is that not every number is created equal. For instance the 9 you give CAFE DE FLORE isn’t equal to the 9 you give RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
You hit just about all the points I would’ve hit.
I’ll continue to do ratings because they have simply become necessary. I don’t put too much stock behind them — but I can’t control what readers read and don’t read.
Again, I think a rating can do some good. I know plenty of people (critics included) who will quickly look at a rating to see if a film is worth their time and money, or not. Many of those folks do come back afterwards and read my analysis – either agreeing or disagree with my take.
“Necessary” is a poor choice of word. Just because it’s what many want, doesn’t mean it’s “necessary”.
If someone only has five seconds to know what I thought of a film, then they don’t have the time to hear what I thought of a film. They might scroll to the end and see I gave something a 2 – but is it an affectionate two? A disappointed two? A two becasue the film does something that upsets *me* personally? There is SO much context that is being forsaken by tacking on a grade.
Riddle me this: If rating can do so much good, why are we putting in so much time and effort to write at all? Why not just put up a score and move on to the next title?
Here’s the disconnect: you’re misreading what I’m writing Ryan. I said ratings can do “some good” … not “so much” or “a lot”.
Quite frankly, I don’t put much stock into ratings. I do them because I’m comfortable with it and some readers enjoy it (not to mention I don’t particularly mind grading).
By the way, yes, ratings don’t contain context. What’s faulty in this argument however is that the said reader looking solely for a quick indicator to tell them whether the film is worth their $10, is not likely to – whether you have a rating or not – read your thoughtful analysis.
You can only hope people will read what you write. Nothing is a guarantee. I don’t think the general public (a demographic you, including many of our friends and colleagues, don’t write for) is any more inclined to carefully analyze and intake an article with or without a rating.
The person looking for a quick indicator of whether a film is worth his $10 is an idiot if he’s only going by a film’s grade.
Besides the fact that everyone’s opinion is different, how does he know that a 10 for him is also a 10 in the critical mass? What’s more, I’m a bit leery of people’s increasing need to have their every decision vetted by a collective. Look at Yelp – People used to just try a restaurant that looked good, now they have to pull out their smartphone and see what 100 other strangers thought of the place.
I don’t do ratings. When I started my site, I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to create a rating system or use a number system to rank films. I don’t know what the difference between a 7 and an 8 is. I might well give a 7 to a movie I like more than a movie I gave an 8 to earlier. That, at least, was my initial thought. Ratings are always arbitrary and mean different things to different people. Should Requiem for a Dream get a 10? Based on quality, skill, and a few other metrics, yes. Based on how much I enjoyed watching it? No.
And then I thought this–if you can’t tell if I recommend a film or not based on what I’ve written, then I’ve failed as a critic. The numbers, thus, became (for me) a way to slack off on the actual writing, and I didn’t want that to happen. Others can pull that off, but I know myself well enough to suspect that it would negatively affect the quality of what I was writing.
Beyond that…yeah, a number score or invented rating will never fully demonstrate my opinion on a film.
On top of all that, many of your posts are about classic film which I’m *doubly* against rating since there are a lot of contextual factors to them that often get overlooked!
Ultimately, I think it comes down to “recommend” or not. As the purveyor of online content, and de facto center of the community that listens to the podcast and reads your posts, you should have a pretty good grip on the like and dislikes of your followers. After all, no matter how different they are, they all have one thing in common: they read/listen to you.
You, like many online, are a curator. In the same way an art gallery curator chooses the pieces for an exhibition, they rarely, if ever, quantify their affection for a piece. By choosing the work, they’re really only saying “seeing this is valuable” in some way. All they, or you, should really need to say is “of all things you could choose to watch in this medium, this is one I would recommend.”
It’s one step removed from Eliot’s theory of his self-important literary Canon, but there is a major distinction. Where Eliot considered his canon “must reads”, and that works were part of the Canon before they were even written, a simple recommendation doesn’t even have to make that distinction. After all, what is really the difference between “go watch this now”, “you really need to see this”, or “this is worth watching”? Opportunity and circumstance will dictate viewing more than “stars” or rankings ever will.
The more I get to know you through your content, the better I will be able to relate to any value of your recommendations. Beyond that intrinsically subjective relationship, everything else is moot.
BTW, I give your post Gold Stars.
There’s not much I can say in response to this other than “well said”. Thanks for this.
In addition, thanks for the germ of an idea by mentioning currating. Now and then I think about what this site could evolve into when I tire of keeping it up in its current form, and that just gave me a great idea of what could potentially come next.
I give your comment platinum stars.
Or maybe we should have like a Video on Trial style of rating where it’s like ‘5 Americans Escaping Iran out of 6’ or ‘2 Crazy Murder Victims out of 5.’ In other words, every new movie deserves a different rating system the same way that it deserves a new review.
But you know me. I prefer to talk about how ridiculous a movie’s plot is even though I still liked it, or how great a supporting actress is in a movie I hated. Ratings are arbitrary. Objectively we should be looking at all criteria and different departments in a movie equally, but sometimes, certain departments and scenes stick out.
Heh – as much as I do love me some Video on Trial, I’ll never rate Terrence Malick films on a scale of “One to Five Windy Wheatfields”
This is a 5 stars post. ***** 🙂
I usually don’t pay much attention to ratings, I am going to watch what I want to watch (which is often a mistake, but that’s another story), and I never read reviews before going to a screening; I just want to know as little about the movie before watching it. I found reading the review after watching the film more fulfilling.
I do put ratings in my Letterboxd, just as a reference point of how I felt when I watched the film. The ratings do change in subsequent viewings if it’s warranted.
I pay attention to sites like Rotten Tomatoes if a film that I am not interested is getting a higher rating, then it may spike my interest. To me, a movie rating should only be a starting point of discussion. Unfortunately we are living in a world that wants everything instant. No one wants to take the time to read anymore.
See the funny thing is that while I’m like you in not wanting to know what others think about a film I’m about to watch, I *do* want to know about films I might not have heard of that are a worthwhile watch.
To that end, a certain word of mouth – something akin to “I think *everyone* should see HOLY MOTORS” – is a way to go.
I can’t disagree with you that so few people want to read anymore. I wonder why that is though?
Twitter is good to see which films are buzzing positively.
Ironically Twitter is one of the reason why people don’t want to read anymore. They get instant results, and they don’t care about why. We are so used to getting information right away, instead of waiting. People have no patience anymore. I sound like an old man here….
I’ve given up ratings. I just got tired of it. I’m terribly anal about something that’s meant to encapsulate the entirety of the opinion I just spent all those damned paragraphs spelling out.
I’ve often dreamed of having the balls to try an experiment with some reviews. Write a highly praising/terribly insulting opening and closing paragraph with respective score out of 10 (or 5). Then put what I really think in the middle paragraphs and see what sort of comments I get.
Then again, I’m quite the cynic these days. It’s my new thing.
Holy crap – who unleashed The Helms?
You and I have had a ratings conversation or two in the past. This time though, I’m curious about the habit on the whole, not the “too highs” or “too lows”.
See, while your social experiment interests me in a way of seeing who’s really paying attention, I also think the critic who screwed around on RT this summer linking a “Rotten” DARK KNIGHT RISES listing to a piece that wasn’t actually a negative review has proved that there might be even MORE downside to being a twerp about trying to buck the groupthink.
To be a bit rude I’ve come to the conclusion that RT is useless. Not entirely their fault but sites like metacritic and RT harvest so much negativity and put so much emphasis on mass approval that I can barely stand to be anywhere near them for fear of being sucked into that world… again
Really good post. Honestly, I don’t have a lot to add here because I’m not for or against ratings. I only really use them because that’s how I rate films on IMDb. But I do know the differences that lie within the numbers. For example, my top 100 could be filled with all the movies that I’ve rated 10/10, but it isn’t. Some are 8/10, some are 9/10. And they’re all that way for different reasons. For example, Black Swan is a film that I don’t deem to be perfect, but I loved it enough to put it in my Top 50 even though I only gave it 8/10, ahead of things I’ve given 10/10 like, I don’t know, American Beauty. The ratings don’t really matter – it is just *how* I love these films.
You sort of touch on something I didn’t even get to, which is the fact that a rating can change over time.
I just rewatched MOONRISE KINGDOM this weekend for the first time since the theatre. In watching it, I was even more smitten with it than I was on first watch. My review lists it as a 3.5/4, whereas no I’d probably bump it up to a 4 (Probably THE MASTER too if I’m being honest).
But that’s another thing – if the numerical system isn’t accurate, why do we use it as a system?
See the rabbit hole we’ve fallen down?
You are perfectly right… however, at the end of the day (with all things we do with our websites) we have to decide what practices we will adhere ourselves to. There is a different between rating film A and film B. The question a reader should ask themselves when seeing that A got a 10/10 and B got a 10/10 and questioning how A is ranked over B in a year end round up is whether those ratings are somewhat clinical or personal. Ratings can be reductive to a film because it becomes the period at the end of the review which can colour the last 800 words where you claimed you loved it all and ended up giving it 3.5/4 (when you really meant 4/4 :P), so the question is whether you want a rating to be your summation or a one line zinger bringing Lester Bangs back to life. Can art be quantified?
So riddle me this: If I were to ditch the star ratings on my reviews tomorrow, would you still read my reviews?
I can give you one clear answer: All of my reviews are personal over clinical. There are a lot of films that execute technically on every level. Unless they reach me on an emotional level, odds are that I can only praise it to a certain threshold. Coversely, there are films that are flawed that I can give top marks because of the overwhelming experiences they brought on (such a review is going up tomorrow!).
Your zinger has me amused (as they usually do). Yes, I’m the guy who said nothing about good things where SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS was concerned, but then handed it a 3.5 out of 5. The reason for that was because while I saw a flaw or two in the movie, I didn’t think they were worth rehashing in that forum, nor did I believe they’d add much to the discussion. Interestingly though, I *did* bring the flaw up when we discussed the movie on the podcast.
I guess what I’m saying is that where the thoughts meet the score, I want to pull focus on what I think is most important – and I believe extolling a film’s virtues are what’s most important in this cynical circle of nitpickers we find ourselves.
And no, Virginia – art cannot be quantified.
So… Would I still read your reviews? My response is yes (in as much as I do now)… I tend to read the reviews for movies (a. I’ve seen already, b. I’m unsure whether I’m going to watch it at all). But that’s me.
The people who read reviews for ratings are barely reading your reviews I find. They only read when the rating wildly disagrees with their own of the film. Take away the rating and they’ll say (too long didn’t read)…
I agree with highlighting the good over the bad in reviews. Mainly because it’s my belief that a film (theoretically) can only do (i.e.) 10 things right, but any one film usually only does about 5 of those things. The truly great films does those 5 things so well that we forget that the didn’t bother to address the other 5 on the list, but that doesn’t make the movie any less great. It’s just a question as to whether you put across the idea of how good/bad a movie is that it co-relates with your summarized quantifier.
I’ll now go jump really far. #VIRIGINIA
Agree completely! I don’t think many people realize that my scores are mostly bullshit, and I started doing them as a way for me to categorize movies for myself, as a quick way to search for films I loved or hated, and as a means to reflect upon the quality of films I’m watching at certain periods. I put thought into the reviews themselves, but the rating stems from me briefly thinking, “Did I like it? Yeah I liked it, ok, 4/5). Which is why my ratings always seem super high haha.
For what it’s worth, I always read reviews- on your site and others- based on the film being discussed and because I’m interested in the writer’s opinion. But I recognize a lot of people just look at a rating and take that as all they need to know, which is really too bad for them since they miss out on interesting writing and, you know, ACTUAL information. It is good if it gets someone to see the film, though.
Also as a footnote: Your joke about using ratings at the end is totally used in L.A. STORY! One character is a tv film critic and in his everyday life he rates every experience out of 5 stars, and asks his friends to do the same. It’s pretty silly.
Guess that means I need to finally get my ass in gear and watch L.A. STORY, huh?
I’m with you – I’m more interested in what you liked or disliked about a film than seeing quantifiably how much you liked or disliked it. Pity more people didn’t take five minutes to find that out.
I vote you go and screw with people and change your categories from numbers to colours, so what used to be a four is now vermillion. You could keep your system straight, but leave the casual reader with no idea what it means.
As I mentioned last week on twitter in your conversation with Sam, I stopped giving ratings over a year ago. The reasons are twofold. Firstly too many people skip the review and just look at the rating. Secondly; as you point out two movies can achieve the same star rating and be very different. For example, in 2010 the last year I gave ratings I gave 43 movies 4 out of 5 stars. It also makes a big difference as to the type of site you run. In 2010 I reviewed over a hundred movies. Now I only write occasional reviews the ratings seem less relevant.
I did notice that actually, and wonder to myself if that will happen here soon too. I’m alright with giving a lot of movies high scores if they are movies I’m choosing for myself. Were I assigned to cover everything on the other hand, I could see a lot more low scores creeping in as I saw films that I wouldn’t have paid to see.
Personally, because I like knowing as little as possible before hand, I almost never read reviews for films I haven’t yet seen but plan on seeing. So high and low ratings get my attention and make me remember to come back to read what we agreed on or didn’t.
Interesting.
For me I tend to just make mental note of who saw it and whose opinion I want to read after I see it for myself.
I stopped using stars to evaluate my reviews around the earlier part of May. The traffic hasn’t gone down, but the comments have, which makes me a little sad. I like the freeing ability to sit and write without the rating though, so I won’t stop.
Good for you! I might well do that at some point. Considering they aren’t in my headline anymore, I think I could probably get away with it. (My comments are down too, but I think there are other factors at play there).
Does any part of you “miss” putting the stars on the films?