Rotten Tomatoes announces huge change to way films are rated

Change has been criticised by many users of the popular review aggregation website

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has overhauled its rating system with a major new addition.

The popular platform amalgamates reviews from critics and members of the public to give films and TV shows an overall percentage number.

Traditionally, the primary focus of the site has been critics’ reviews, with films being deemed “Fresh” or “Rotten” depending on the proportion of positive reviews they receive.

However, Rotten Tomatoes has now launched a new designation, in which films are branded “Verified Hot”, “Hot”, or “Stale”, depending on the feedback of the “Verified Audience”.

The “Verified Hot” distinction is being awarded only to films that achieve a 90 per cent positive score among users who attended screenings of the film.

Rotten Tomatoes is owned by US ticketing platform Fandango, which is how the website will determine who has actually purchased tickets to the film in question. According to IndieWire, the website is also in the process of collaborating with other ticketing websites to verify users who purchased tickets elsewhere.

Historically, the website’s score system has been vulnerable to manipulation, with some films being targeted with an influx of negative reviews in a deliberate attempt to drive the rating down, a practice known as “review bombing”.

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ is among the films to be deemed ‘Verified Hot’, despite mixed critical reviews (Jay Maidment)

Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters, and It Ends With Us, are among the summer releases to receive the new “Verified Hot” badge, with hundreds of older films dating back to 2019 also retroactively receiving the rating.

These include movies such as Top Gun: Maverick, Parasite, Oppenheimer, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Films will need to achieve a 90 per cent positive rating to be included in the “Verified Hot” category, with the cutoff between “Stale” and “Hot” sitting at 60 per cent.

“On Rotten Tomatoes, fans love to consult our verified audience score, in addition to the Tomatometer critics’ score, when discovering new movies and deciding what they want to watch next,” said Amanda Norvell, the senior vice president of direct-to-consumer services at Fandango.

“With the addition of Verified Hot, we are excited to celebrate and shine a spotlight on the theatrical films that fans have unanimously embraced and have taken the time to share their incredible moviegoing experience with other fans.”

However, responses to the change have been mixed on social media, with some fans suggesting that the new prominence given to members of the public devalues the original purpose of the website.

“The worst thing Rotten Tomatoes has done is gradually elevating the importance of audience scores alongside critic scores. That’s not what the site was ever supposed to be,” one person wrote on X/Twitter.

‘Top Gun: Maverick’ has retroactively received the honour (© 2022 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All rights reserved.)

“If there’s anything a site allegedly for film critics needs it’s more vindication for audiences that have historically review[ed] bombed movies and tv shows,” commented another.

“This sucks. even more incentive for weirdos to review bomb/boost the audience score,” someone else wrote, while another person remarked: “It’s like a participation award for people who complain participation awards and have bad taste in movies.”

Others, however, were more optimistic, with one person commenting: “LOVE this and they’ve been needing something like this. Too many times there are fantastic films that the people love but get terrible Rotten Tomatoes score. This will definitely help balance out the uneven scores that often occur.”