IMDB Negative Reviews

I think this thread is stupid. I'm not closing it if someone wants to reply though.



My title probably didn't explain a lot so I'll do all of that now.

If you look at my IMDB account, you'll see I have been a member for nine months. However I didn't start posting ratings till about a month ago, and for the first time I started to read IMDB reviews. Before I only used Rotten Tomatoes as my source to find movies. What I noticed from IMDB is that a lot of movies that tend to get critical acclaim have mostly negative reviews if you filter the reviews by best and movies that tend to get critical smack have mostly positive reviews if you filter the reviews by best. Here are some examples I found (along with my ranking if I seen it.)

Critical Acclaim, Mostly Negative Reviews
Gravity http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/reviews?start=0
No Country For Old Men http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Avengers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Skyfall http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
American Hustle http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1800241/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

Critical Smack, Mostly Positive Reviews
Beaches http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094715/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Bushwhacked http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112602/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
A Walk in the Clouds http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114887/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Paint your Wagon http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064782/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

Movies I thought would have mostly negative but didn't
Grand Budapest Hotel http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2278388/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Christmas Story http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Adaption http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268126/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Game of Thrones http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/reviews?ref_=tt_urv (I know GoT is a television series but I thought it would have mostly negative as Goodreads is mostly negative https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...ame_of_Thrones

So do you have a hypothesis on why certain movies that get critical acclaim have mostly negative reviews when filtered best and vice versa? My only guess is that certain well written reviews get more votes than other reviews and hence, regardless of what they said about the movie, will get it up there.

If you have some other examples please post them.

PS-Same thing is for Goodreads.

People feel like they have to redress the balance. There's no point spending effort on writing a negative review of a film everyone knows is rubbish, but if everyone else seems to love it and they hated it, they feel like they have to tell everyone. The same on goodreads and imdb, the top rated reviews will almost always be the extremes, the loved it and hated it, rather than more balanced reviews with mid-way ratings. People love to click 'like' on a negative review that validates their feelings of disappointment or frustration.

The huge flaw with IMDB is any moron with a wifi connection can rate movies and write reviews. That's probably not the case with the "best" reviews though. Those just have more helpful votes. But I guarantee if someone hated it, they would go and upvote all the bad reviews.
The other thing I hate is people so stupid they can only rate movie's 1 or 10/10. Check out the statistical breakdown of votes sometime, you rarely see people vote from 2-7. But for whatever reason, no matter how flawed the system is, I find myself agreeing with most of the user ratings (the overall average for the film).

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"Oh, so you'd be General, huh? If you were General, I'd be Emperor, and you'd STILL get the sake! So shut up and get the sake!" -Hattori Hanzo

"#GAMEOVER420BLAZIT" -bluedeed

But, the link you posted to Goodreads has that book sitting at 4.44/5.

That is quite possibly the highest Goodreads ranking I have run across after aggregation. Game of Thrones is one of the most popular dark fantasy series of all time, is ridiculously popular, and has basically won the entire world over in regards to a genre that was previously looked upon as niche. Between the books and the show, legions of new fantasy fans have been created. The Red Wedding episode is one of the most talked about TV events of all time...

I must ask: Just what are you talking about? Are you posting the opposite of facts in an effort to troll the site or...

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But I guarantee if someone hated it, they would go and upvote all the bad reviews.

You have NO way of knowing that happens. I've panned a couple of movies I hated at IMDB with a 1 vote. I did not upvote any other bad reviews.

If a film either sucks or rules, people will respond in like fashion. You shouldn't be surprised at that, nor should any one person apply their standards of voting/reviewing to others.

I bet it happens a lot. I didn't say I do that either.

The great thing about humanity, art and the internet is, we all get to say what we feel. I'm pretty sure all those people who panned films, were being honest in how they felt. It would be disigensious for them to adopt some 'middle ground' reviewing style just to appease other people.

Besides if one doesn't want to read the 'Hated it' reviews, then don't read them.

I feel like this thread is stupid now

I don't think it really went anywhere.

Since I started this thread, I came up with another hypothesis. Even though all movies are different, a lot of movies share similar problems that critics point out in negative reviews. Some of these problems may be seen by people who liked or didn't like the film and when a reviews criticizing the movie for that problem, people will up vote the review because it talked about a problem they had with the film.

My point above in short is, Certain elements of a film may cause certain movies IMDB have mostly negative reviews on the top.

Sorrow I wasn't clear on that. I was referring to the fact the top three most liked reviews of Game of Thrones were one star. Which goes along with some of the movies. Not the overall rating of it.

I have not read or watched A Game of Thrones so I have no opinion on the matter. I just putted it out there as an example of the Movies I thought would have mostly negative but didn't.

I think the issue is that you are conflating whether or not a reader finds a review entertaining, interesting, or funny - therefore liking the post - with the quality of the film being reviewed or commented on. These things are not mutually inclusive.

Also, your OP says this:

"So do you have a hypothesis on why certain movies that get critical acclaim have mostly negative reviews when filtered best and vice versa? My only guess is that certain well written reviews get more votes than other reviews and hence, regardless of what they said about the movie, will get it up there."

So yeah, my reply about the Goodreads review seems valid. You are stating that these films and books receive, and I quote, "mostly negative reviews", but then you go on to list a book that has one of the highest review aggregations of all time. Finding three total reviews that are negative, and attempting to isolate those in a vacuum as an example of "mostly negative reviews" (again I quote your post) just didn't, and still doesn't, make sense to me.

In other words, I don't think your original point is true. The titles you list don't have mostly negative reviews - that very fact is what makes them critically acclaimed in the first place. These issues are mutually exclusive, in that "critically acclaimed" means precisely that the film or book has mostly positive reviews, otherwise, it would be critically panned.

This take this example from the opening post:

Critical Acclaim, Mostly Negative Reviews
Gravity http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/reviews?start=0

OK, so I read some of the '1 star negative reviews' for Gravity. The reviewers were mostly, well spoken and had clear precise reasons for not liking the film.

I would say highly acclaimed films have more negative reviews than a lesser known film, because it has more over all reviews.