How often do you give 5 star ratings?

My ratings have obviously evolved down through the years. When I first started rating movies about 38 years ago, I used a 1-10 scale and had several 10/10 ratings, and believe it or not, nobody used 5-star ratings then. The scale went up to 4/4. Well, any movie I would give an 8 or higher would be worth a 4/4 (highest rating). When I came on the various movie forums in the 2000s, everyone was using a 5/5 scale, so I've adapted, and that's probably why I have so few 5/5s. However, most films I give here are still worth 4/4 (8-10/10) to me on the old scale (a few may be on the high end of 7.5/10). It's just that I've saved the higher ratings for films I'd rate above 8/10 (about 30 movies). Conversely, the many films I used to rate at 10/10 have dropped over the years, more because I've seen more movies multiple times than because I think somehow less of them. I'll admit there's nothing quite like watching a really good movie for the first time and laughing, crying or feeling blown away, but often that experience goes with the passion of youth. That's why I try to keep my ratings as objective as possible.

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My ratings are a combination of personal enjoyment; genre consideration (i.e. how good an example the film is - is it seminal, boundary busting, or just hackneyed), and technical proficiency. I also try and take into account the possibility that someone might look at my post and decide to watch a particular movie based on my rating. In other words I try and be as objective as possible where some of the trashier movies I like are involved.

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I don't know, I think on average maybe 1 five or close-to-five movie comes out in any given year. They may cluster a little bit unpredicatably but it might come out to about that many.

I will say that when I give a movie a "high five" I'm actually being even more relaxed about applying independent "objective" criteria ("does this movie balance its excellence in all the necessary filmic components?") than I usually am. The experience matters more than my reasoning about it. This has the curious side effect of making it harder to intellectualize the rating and consequently making it seem less justified, but if anything that just shows up the inherent pretense of this kind justification.

And I'm not knocking that "pretense". Generality definitely makes talking (and entertainingly disagreeing) about movies more possible, and there's a lot of fun in that. But it's good to be reminded that we're not really standing on solid ground once in a while.

I don't give them out too often. A couple a year at most. Sometimes I find a film personally relatable and base my rating on that more than the technicalities. For example, recently, I loved We Bought a Zoo so much that I gave it a perfect score. It wasn't a total critical success but I enjoyed how I felt the entire film and sometimes that is more important.

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If I had a dollar for every existential crisis I've ever had, does money really even matter?

None. Maybe that's why I very rarely rate films? Unless asked, of course.

I don't use stars, I just color code my ratings, so I guess the movies I write in my movie log in red would be tantamount to five stars. As there are not that many of them, they really do stick out on a page.

I don't give a film a "perfect" rating very often and I usually regret it later when I do.

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Where are ratings?

I'm with bouncingbrick (no homo), i rarely give 5 star films. In fact, long term members will remember my first few posts that banged on about only having TWO films I thought were genuinely 5 stars. Needless to say, I have changed my tune a bit since then

I still think that 5 stars should be rare though.

Star ratings are tricky, but I don't usually give 5 stars to a film. Before I had a legit critics gig, I was probably more willing to dole out 5 stars, mostly because it was a personal rating. To some extent this is still true, but if Im writing for an audience, Im tending to take in account if the film is meeting its audience, purpose, etc.

However, I think five stars just usually comes down to the fact a movie has made me fall in love with it so hard that I've thrown all issues of 'context' out and just go for it.

For example, the last film to get 5 stars from me personally was Tree of Life and that's a divisive movie and one I wouldnt recommend to every person. But, such was its effect on me personally that giving it anything less just felt wrong at some level.

I think ultimately, it should probably be less about context and more about our own reactions/responses to films. I think this is what is often confusing when we see mainstream critics give films five or four stars on the moment of their release, and we struggle to understand why. For me, I dont usually feel a film is worthy of '5 stars' the minute I see it, and need to see it at least twice before making that declaration. Critics have less time to make a decision regarding rating, and maybe deciding only a few hours after having seen it. Its why I ultimately prefer the five star system. It's easy to make four stars an 'it was great!' rating, indicating a superior film, and even push a particularly great film to 4.5, without breaking out the top scale every time. I'd say most opening day films get anything from 4.5 or lower, unless they really throw me for a loop. Upon returning to something, I have been known to award that elusive fifth star.

Very rarely...

Most of the time I do 1 to 10.. most films are around 6 to 6.75.. not many get higher than 7 and rarely above an 8.. dont think anything has touched a 9 or 10

~5% of the time.

Too often.

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Not often enough

I usually rate films on a 10 scale, and I have only rated 3 films 10/10.

Gideon which 3 are they?

What's the lowest you've ever given?

According to my rating stats this year, once every 3-3½ weeks.

I don't think there are more than 20 movies I'd give a 5 (or a 10 on my scale)

I've given 8 movies that I've reviewed a rating of 5/5

See for yourself, my list of 5/5 movies