How Do You Rate a Film?

For me personally, I tend to rate high. I'm really passionate about film, (as I know we all are on here), but for me there's just as much of a charm to a low-grade film as there is to something more high-brow. To me watching something like Fair Game or Scream of the Wolf proves just as valuable an experience as my experience as with something like Casablanca or something from "Second Cinema" like Bergman or Tarkovsky. In that too, experimental works prove to me very valuable. Seeing the works or Deren, Brakhage, or Baldwin and Menken are rejuvenating to me. It really makes me see beyond the limits of what cinema can and can't do. Plus it's just interesting to see, (at least for me anyway), what can be pushed outside the limits of narrative and even beyond non-narrative structures. As such, and this is just my own personal way, I can't really bring myself to rate too terribly low. Though there have been some exceptions, (like Black Devil Doll from Hell), the general rule for me is to give my lowest score a 2/5 Stars just on the merits of "mere existence."

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

That's a really good question. I mean I would give a movie like Gladiator a 5/10, because I felt it was very average and predictable for a big epic historical adventure. But I would rate Shoot 'Em Up, a 10/10, for being such a hilarious over the top action comedy. One succeeds more, even though it's aiming lower, if that makes sense?

So would you say that films that aim "High" are held to a higher standard and films that aim "Low" to a lower standard? That there isn't a consistency? Curious. For me, I tend to rate even a "bad" "High-brow" film to the same level as a "bad" "Low-brow" film. For me it's all about what I'm getting out of it. Whether I'm going into it for a laugh, a thrill, introspection, a "new way of looking," etc.

Oh okay. Well I guess I am just saying that if a movie has less bigger aspirations, it can sometimes succeed better, than a movie that has really big aspirations but may fall flat in it's execution in comparison if that makes sense?

For example, one movie I think is pretty overrated is Once Upon A Time In America. It's considered to be one of the greatest movies, of all time, and it's done by my most favorite director. But when I saw the movie, I felt it had problems, and didn't live up to it's big epic ambitions. Where as a movie like Zoolander let's say, doesn't have near as big of ambitions in comparison, but it's still better, because it managed to milk it's lower ambitions, for all they were worth, if that makes sense?

That makes perfect sense actually, and kind of what I was getting at. Sometimes I'll go into low-grade slop expecting low-grade slop... and when I get that and then some I feel rather satisfied. But when there's like a high-grade film that just is like "faux-emotional/intellectual" I just but that stuff to bed and rate it much lower.

I have a (bad) habit of giving (too) low ratings. I'm just a person who naturally focuses on the negative aspect of everything. I'm aware of this and (at least occasionally) I try to force myself to be more lenient (and to put the whole range to better use).

Numerically my ratings should be interpreted as follow:
or less means the film is bad. Going below the maximum of the range means I was truly suffering.
to means the film was OK. I didn't feel my time was wasted.
or more means the film was good. I use the upper range of this (too) rarely so consider anything above the minimum great.

Oh, and my ratings are based solely on my personal entertainment. I've been known to bash some classics and love some cheap B-movies.

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First off all I use the whole rating spectrum, because to me it doesn’t make sense to not use all you got since it’s already an impractical task to put a movie into a rating system of only 5 or 10 stars/popcorns/whatever.

But it’s a nice and simple way to get an overview - for yourself and others - how you like a film. One can always add a review to the rating and go more in depth.

As for how I rate, I always try to rate a film based on its own merits. To me anything else would be unfair. So it’s not far from what is being discussed already. Like, I wouldn’t try and see how Shoot Em Up matches the quality of The Godfather. I’d rather look and try to see what the intention of Shoot Em Up is - like what does it aim for, what does it try to do and does it accomplish that.

In the same way, I’m not judging Godfather as a potential big masterpiece. But judging it how I see it. A family mafia drama and the rise and fall of individuals and groups.

So to me it’s always important to judge a movie according to its intentions. For example, it would be unfair to judge Shoot Em Up for not being a serious action film. Of course, what sometimes can get in the way of a proper judgment, is yourself. There will always be some kind of personal opinion and taste even if you try your very best to be objective... so that’s always a factor too.

I try to be less analytical when rating movies, because I can still find a movie extremely rewatchable and enjoyable despite obvious flaws. As a result, I'd say my ratings can be more subjective than the average critic. So anything less than a is not something I'm going to recommend to others or ever watch again, while something that is a or higher will be something I'm definitely going to rewatch and recommend.

That's what I do more or less.

I kind of treat movies like I treat people: mostly look for the good aspects and give them a chance to make me fall in love (platonic-wise!) with them.

Most of my ratings reflect my enjoyment of the film, and I try to be upfront about where that comes from. Actors I like will boost a film's rating. Great costume design will boost a film's rating.

And I know a handful of people who are either directors or who work in different aspects of filmmaking (costuming, VFX, etc), so I know how much work goes into a film. It's why I mostly take a "praise the positive" approach. I think that most people who make movies are trying to create good art (or their version of good art). I tend to be very forgiving, for example, if a movie was working with a low budget or limited resources.

It isn't hard to tear a film down. Put any movie in front of me and I could probably find something to criticize or nitpick. As a viewer, really getting in tune with what I love and then seeking out more films like that has been a good strategy.

This.

This is precisely how I feel. Worded beautifully, thanks!

I rate a film on if I enjoy it and the effort put into the movie.

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“I really have to feel that I could make a difference in the movie, or I shouldn't be doing it.“
Joe Dante

Based on a 5 stars, If a film is watchable.. then it gets 3.5... its its very good, it gets 3.75.. rarely anything gets 4 or higher. If its suxs.. it gets 2.0 or lower.

If I were to revert to my one-time profession of psychometrics and look at my ratings, I'd detect a built-in bias since I rarely give a movie, at least ones I've seen in theaters, a downright bad review. That's mainly because I'm selective, don't pay for tickets to see a movie that's been panned or has an unappealing plot or characters. My reviews are biased toward better movies because I don't want to see bad ones.

In terms of making valid reviews, we should probably not even choose a movie to see, but have some mechanism that makes a random choice. We then go in, not knowing anything, maybe not even the title, genre or cast. We'd have some standard rating factors, with benchmarks for ratings and it would all be good science.

The problem with the "good science" approach is that I don't want to see movies that are crappy or in genres I don't like, e.g., the moment the spandex comes on screen and it's another superhero movie, the fifth star (of five) goes away, regardless of how good the rest of the movie is. If this were 1949, I'd do the same thing when cowboy hats showed up.

So, the outcome is that I tend to rate movies fairly high but it's at least partly because I already prejudged the movie when I picked it. As long as it satisfied my expectations, it gets a good rating and that's been most of the time. It doesn't do much for the validity of the reviews, but until someone chooses movies for me and buys me a ticket, that's the way it will be.

I don't have any kind of "system" for rating movies. It doesn't matter if it's a masterpiece movie like Spielberg's Schindler's List, (which I think is an amazing movie, but I have no desire to ever rewatch it), or a goofy movie like Seems Like Old Times with Chevy Chase, (which I think is one of the funniest movies ever made, and has endless rewatchability for me). Either way, I just base my ratings on how much I enjoyed the movie.

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

After my psychometric comment, I will at least reveal my standard on a scale of 0 - 5.

0 Stars - movie doesn't exist
1 Star - movie exists but is so bad that I can't see wasting any more time and don't finish it.
2 Stars - I watch to the end, but it either has bad production values, lame plot or characters, lousy dialog, or sloppy execution.
3 Stars - I watch to the end, production, cinematography, sound and acting all are good, enjoy it, but it's just the entertainment of the moment, on the same level as a new Law and Order episode on TV.
4 Stars - All of what goes into 3 stars plus something clearly additional about plot, content, acting, look and feel that definitely takes it way above generic Hollywood professionalism like Law and Order. The plot can not be simply recycled stuff like every Law and Order episode.
5 Stars - Shoot for the moon...all of the above and it's original material or it has an original approach or it's just damn great, and I come out of the theater wanting to pay for another ticket.

Deduct one star for Westerns, Musicals or Superheroes in leotards unless something transcendent happens there.

I rate each film based upon what it aims to be. For example I rate a cheesy 80s action movie on how well it succeeds as that. Likewise for a film that is aiming to be a landmark visual masterpiece. For that reason Commando and The Tree of Life might both be rated 4/5 even though objectively the latter is clearly a superior work.


1/5 - truly awful
2/5 - bad
3/5 - decent
4/5 - really good
5/5 - exceptional