Metacritic versus Rotten Tomatoes

Cafe Society
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For those unfamiliar with these sites, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are review sites. But instead of reviewing (movies, games, TV, etc.) they aggregate reviews, creating a “score” for a film and linking to the individual reviews.

Metacritic

Rotten Tomatoes

I’ve always used both sites to assess the movies playing in town. Not the big releases. I usually know whether or not I’m going to see the latest blockbuster well before it shows up on the local theater schedules. But for the indies and foreign releases, these sites are very useful. If I had not used these sites the week films like Mogul Mowgli, Settlers, or Coda hit the screens, they would have slipped right by me.

I always thought of Metacritic as the site with higher, stricter standards, with a wider range of films on its list, while Rotten Tomatoes was more the “people’s choice” site and seemed not to list as many obscure films as Metacritic. But lately, it seems like Metacritic has cut way back on the films it lists, and if it lists an obscure film, it is likely to have no score, even if Rotten Tomatoes has a bunch of reviews listed. As an example, try finding the newly released (in America) Only The Animals on both sites. 97% on Rotten Tomatoes with 32 reviews listed. Nonexistent on Metacritic.

So, is Metacritic slipping? Do use either of these sites? Is there a better way to sort out the gems in independent and foreign films?

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I’ve been a longtime fan of Metacritic, going all the way back to the days when they had book reviews up, and when Julie Roberts was managing the movie pages and would respond personally to feedback or questions.

It’s true that the narrow stable of publications they list means that some films do get missed by MC, and the one you listed is a good example – when I look at the reviewers that Rotten Tomatoes lists for Only the Animals, I see only one or two that MC follows. So it’s maybe not a surprise that there’s no page up yet for it.

But I wouldn’t go so far as to say they don’t cover indie or small small films, I’m just scrolling down the list of current releases, and I see some fairly obscure ones.

Aaaall that said, I do think that the acquisitions of movie sites is slowing down the production of content, perhaps as fewer resources get allocated to them. Metacritic definitely seems slower in getting data up, and they’ve been acquired, what, twice? And box office mojo has become a trainwreck after IMDb bought it.

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Only the Animals Reviews - Metacritic

And there we go…

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Thanks!

Finally. Looks pretty highly regarded ( I always figure a Rotten Tomatoes 90’s score is a Metacritic 70’s score)’

I guess I’ll check it out.