# I've watched a LOT of movies; rating question.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-watched-a-lot-of-movies-rating-question/734012 "2015-10-09T10:52:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-watched-a-lot-of-movies-rating-question/734012/1 "2015-10-09T10:52:37Z")
I’ve been a member of IMDB since 2011, and have been taking an active approach to rating what I watch. My number of ratings has been steadily climbing, and was in the high 200s until this last week. I found this helped when looking for new productions to see, as my memory isn’t photographic and I would sometimes watch something and quickly realise I’d seen it before. Using my ratings as a quick reference would remind me if I’d seen a film before, and whether it was ‘worthy’ of watching again. After a discussion on one of the boards with a like-minded fan, I decided to look at their own viewing habits. It was a surprise to me to see that theirs was very like mine, as was their ratings, but they’d rated some orders of magnitude more than I had. I went through their ratings and gave my own, without regard to theirs, on each film that I had also watched. I repeated this with a few other people who’d rated a lot of films and now I’ve seen and rated 1,418! Of course I won’t remember, in detail, each and every one of those so I based my ratings on a ‘gut feel’. This is quite a fluid and subjective process, but I can define it as thus: 1 - Thoroughly disappointing, probably offensive 2 - Thoroughly disappointing 3 - Not worthy of discussion 4 - A poor effort, lacklustre, inoffensive 5 - Easily could’ve been improved upon 6 - Not completely unobjectionable but also has plenty of merit in some way/s 7 - Easily remembered, but not for any bad reasons, and probably worthy of a second viewing 8 - Fondly remembered, well-acted, very watchable 9 - An exquisite production, flawless, needs at least two viewings 10 - Mind blowing script, original, excellent production and acting, to be re-watched several times I expect this would be a similar ‘process’ others go by, but is it? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-watched-a-lot-of-movies-rating-question/734012/2 "2015-10-09T11:14:09Z")
That’s pretty close to how I would rate them. I think a 7 is reliably watchable, maybe not great but decent entertainment. Above that is incrementally better. Maybe 6 is “under the right circumstances.” Less than that is progressively weaker. I don’t rate many 5s and below because I just don’t bother watching them. I also just use a gut feel. Sometimes I find a movie I think I haven’t rated. I go to give it a rating and it turns out I have previously rated it. The rating will usually be the number I am thinking of giving it. This often happens with things like _Black Mass_. I go to rate it and then think have I rated all of\*\* Peter Sarsgaard\*\*'s movies? There were several of his older movies I wasn’t certain that I had rated, but in fact had. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-watched-a-lot-of-movies-rating-question/734012/3 "2015-10-09T13:48:53Z")
Pretty much how I view anything I rate. I rate video games on Steam, writing reviews. I’d say most of what you say applies there as well. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-watched-a-lot-of-movies-rating-question/734012/4 "2015-10-09T14:37:08Z")
I think I used something closer to a uniform distribution e.g., “1” means the bottom 10% of movies and “10” means the top 10% of movies. I’m definitely not in the camp that believes that giving a movie a 10/10 is something holy or precious. However…a while ago I looked back on the movies that I’d rated on IMDb and it surprised me. I have several movies there that I gave relatively good ratings to that I don’t even remember. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-watched-a-lot-of-movies-rating-question/734012/5 "2015-10-09T15:29:56Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > I think I used something closer to a uniform distribution e.g., “1” means the bottom 10% of movies and “10” means the top 10% of movies. I’m definitely not in the camp that believes that giving a movie a 10/10 is something holy or precious. > > However…a while ago I looked back on the movies that I’d rated on IMDb and it surprised me. I have several movies there that I gave relatively good ratings to that I don’t even remember. My bell curve is certainly skewed to the high end, peaking at 7. I was wondering if I was being ‘fair’ but realised I usually only watch films after I’ve read a review or two, plus they’re unlikely to garner my/the public’s/reviewers’ attention unless they’ve been marketed well, which means money, which means they’re probably decent quality. 2% (27) I’ve rated a ten, 32% (449) a seven, with quite a balanced, steep slope down either side (although obviously the lower ratings’ side has a longer tail).