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In our world of massive entertainment options, who’s got time to waste on the below-average? You’ve got a subscription, you’re ready for a marathon, and you want only the best movies no Netflix to watch. With thousands of choices on the platform, both original and acquired, we’ve found the 100 top Netflix movies with the highest Tomatometer scores! Time to get comfy on the couch!

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Rotten Tomatoes, explained

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office returns? And six other questions, answered.

by Alissa Wilkinson

In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes — the site that aggregates movie and TV critics’ opinions and tabulates a score that’s “fresh” or “rotten” — took on an elevated level of importance. That’s when Rotten Tomatoes (along with its parent company Flixster) was acquired by Fandango , the website that sells advance movie tickets for many major cinema chains.

People had been using Rotten Tomatoes to find movie reviews since it launched in 2000, but after Fandango acquired the site, it began posting “Tomatometer” scores next to movie ticket listings. Since then, studio execs have started to feel as if Rotten Tomatoes matters more than it used to — and in some cases, they’ve rejiggered their marketing strategies accordingly.

It’s easy to see why anyone might assume that Rotten Tomatoes scores became more tightly linked to ticket sales, with potential audiences more likely to buy tickets for a movie with a higher score, and by extension, giving critics more power over the purchase of a ticket.

But that’s not the whole story. And as most movie critics (including myself) will tell you, the correlation between Rotten Tomatoes scores, critical opinion, marketing tactics, and actual box office returns is complicated. It’s not a simple cause-and-effect situation.

My own work is included in both Rotten Tomatoes’ score and that of its more exclusive cousin, Metacritic . So I, along with many other critics , think often of the upsides and pitfalls of aggregating critical opinion and its effect on which movies people see. But for the casual moviegoer, how review aggregators work, what they measure, and how they affect ticket sales can be mysterious.

So when I got curious about how people perceive Rotten Tomatoes and its effect on ticket sales, I did what any self-respecting film critic does: I informally polled my Twitter followers to see what they wanted to know.

Here are seven questions that many people have about Rotten Tomatoes, and review aggregation more generally — and some facts to clear up the confusion.

How is a Rotten Tomatoes score calculated?

The score that Rotten Tomatoes assigns to a film corresponds to the percentage of critics who’ve judged the film to be “fresh,” meaning their opinion of it is more positive than negative. The idea is to quickly offer moviegoers a sense of critical consensus.

“Our goal is to serve fans by giving them useful tools and one-stop access to critic reviews, user ratings, and entertainment news to help with their entertainment viewing decisions,” Jeff Voris, a vice president at Rotten Tomatoes, told me in an email.

The opinions of about 3,000 critics — a.k.a. the “Approved Tomatometer Critics” who have met a series of criteria set by Rotten Tomatoes — are included in the site’s scores, though not every critic reviews every film, so any given score is more typically derived from a few hundred critics, or even less. The scores don’t include just anyone who calls themselves a critic or has a movie blog; Rotten Tomatoes only aggregates critics who have been regularly publishing movie reviews with a reasonably widely read outlet for at least two years, and those critics must be “active,” meaning they've published at least one review in the last year. The site also deems a subset of critics to be “top critics” and calculates a separate score that only includes them.

Some critics (or staffers at their publications) upload their own reviews, choose their own pull quotes, and designate their review as “fresh” or “rotten.” Other critics (including myself) have their reviews uploaded, pull-quoted, and tagged as fresh or rotten by the Rotten Tomatoes staff. In the second case, if the staff isn't sure whether to tag a review as fresh or rotten, they reach out to the critic for clarification. And critics who don't agree with the site’s designation can request that it be changed.

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten. To earn the coveted “designated fresh” seal, a film needs at least 40 reviews, 75 percent of which are fresh, and five of which are from “top” critics.

What does a Rotten Tomatoes score really mean ?

A Rotten Tomatoes score represents the percentage of critics who felt mildly to wildly positively about a given film.

If I give a film a mixed review that’s generally positive (which, in Vox’s rating system, could range from a positive-skewing 3 to the rare totally enamored 5), that review receives the same weight as an all-out rave from another critic. (When I give a movie a 2.5, I consider that to be a neutral score; by Rotten Tomatoes' reckoning, it's rotten.) Theoretically, a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating could be made up entirely of middling-to-positive reviews. And if half of the critics the site aggregates only sort of like a movie, and the other half sort of dislike it, the film will hover around 50 percent (which is considered “rotten” by the site).

Contrary to some people’s perceptions, Rotten Tomatoes itself maintains no opinion about a film. What Rotten Tomatoes tries to gauge is critical consensus.

Why people are freaking out over Wonder Woman’s stellar Rotten Tomatoes score

Critics’ opinions do tend to cluster on most films. But there are always outliers, whether from contrarians (who sometimes seem to figure out what people will say and then take the opposite opinion), or from those who seem to love every film. And critics, like everyone, have various life experiences, aesthetic preferences, and points of view that lead them to have differing opinions on movies.

So in many (if not most) cases, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score may not correspond to any one critic’s view. It’s more like an imprecise estimate of what would happen if you mashed together every Tomatometer critic and had the resulting super-critic flash a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Rotten Tomatoes also lets audiences rate movies, and the score is often out of step with the critical score. Sometimes, the difference is extremely significant, a fact that's noticeable because the site lists the two scores side by side.

There’s a straightforward reason the two rarely match, though: The critical score is more controlled and methodical.

Why? Most professional critics have to see and review many films, whether or not they’re inclined to like the movie. (Also, most critics don’t pay to see films, because studios hold special early screenings for them ahead of the release date, which removes the decision of whether they’re interested enough in a film to spend their hard-earned money on seeing it.)

But with Rotten Tomatoes’ audience score, the situation is different. Anyone on the internet can contribute — not just those who actually saw the film. As a result, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score can be gamed by internet trolls seeking to sink it simply because they find its concept offensive. A concerted effort can drive down the film’s audience score before it even comes out, as was the case with the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters .

Even if Rotten Tomatoes required people to pass a quiz on the movie before they rated it, the score would still be somewhat unreliable. Why? Because ordinary audiences are more inclined to buy tickets to movies they’re predisposed to like — who wants to spend $12 to $20 on a film they’re pretty sure they’ll hate?

So audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes (and other audience-driven scores, like the ones at IMDb) naturally skew very positive, or sometimes very negative if there’s any sort of smear campaign in play. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But audience scores tend to not account for those who would never buy a ticket to the movie in the first place.

In contrast, since critics see lots of movies — some of which they would have gone to see anyhow, and some of which they would’ve never chosen to see if their editors didn’t make the assignment — their opinion distribution should theoretically be more even, and thus the critical Rotten Tomatoes score more “accurate.”

A screenshot of the Rotten Tomatoes page for Wonder Woman

Or at least that’s what Rotten Tomatoes thinks. The site displays a movie’s critics’ scores — the official Tomatometer — at Fandango and in a more prominent spot on the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes landing page. The audience score is also displayed on the Rotten Tomatoes page, but it’s not factored into the film’s fresh or rotten rating, and doesn’t contribute to a film being labeled as “certified fresh.”

Why do critics often get frustrated by the Tomatometer?

The biggest reason many critics find Rotten Tomatoes frustrating is that most people’s opinions about movies can’t be boiled down to a simple thumbs up or down. And most critics feel that Rotten Tomatoes, in particular, oversimplifies criticism, to the detriment of critics, the audience, and the movies themselves.

In some cases, a film really is almost universally considered to be excellent, or to be a complete catastrophe. But critics usually come away from a movie with a mixed view. Some things work, and others don’t. The actors are great, but the screenplay is lacking. The filmmaking is subpar, but the story is imaginative. Some critics use a four- or five-star rating, sometimes with half-stars included, to help quantify mixed opinions as mostly negative or mostly positive.

The important point here is that no critic who takes their job seriously is going to have a simple yes-or-no system for most movies. Critics watch a film, think about it, and write a review that doesn't just judge the movie but analyzes, contextualizes, and ruminates over it. The fear among many critics (including myself) is that people who rely largely on Rotten Tomatoes aren't interested in the nuances of a film, and aren't particularly interested in reading criticism, either.

But maybe the bigger reason critics are worried about the influence of review aggregators is that they seem to imply there's a “right” way to evaluate a movie, based on most people's opinions. We worry that audience members who have different reactions will feel as if their opinion is somehow wrong, rather than seeing the diversity of opinions as an invitation to read and understand how and why people react to art differently.

A screenshot of the Rotten Tomatoes score for Fight Club.

Plenty of movies — from Psycho to Fight Club to Alien — would have earned a rotten rating from Rotten Tomatoes upon their original release, only to be reconsidered and deemed classics years later as tastes, preferences, and ideas about films changed. Sometimes being an outlier can just mean you're forward-thinking.

Voris, the Rotten Tomatoes vice president, told me that the site is always trying to grapple with this quandary. “The Rotten Tomatoes curation team is constantly adding and updating reviews for films — both past and present,” he told me. “If there’s a review available from an approved critic or outlet, it will be added.”

What critics are worried about is a tendency toward groupthink, and toward scapegoating people who deviate from the “accepted” analysis. You can easily see this in the hordes of fans that sometimes come after a critic who dares to “ruin” a film's perfect score . But critics (at least serious ones) don't write their reviews to fit the Tomatometer, nor are they out to “get” DC Comics movies or religious movies or political movies or any other movies. Critics love movies and want them to be good, and we try to be honest when we see one that we don't measures up.

That doesn't mean the audience can't like a movie with a rotten rating, or hate a movie with a fresh rating. It's no insult to critics when audience opinion diverges. In fact, it makes talking and thinking about movies more interesting.

If critics are ambivalent about Rotten Tomatoes scores, why do moviegoers use the scores to decide whether to see a movie?

Mainly, it’s easy. You’re buying movie tickets on Fandango, or you’re trying to figure out what to watch on Netflix, so you check the Rotten Tomatoes score to decide. It’s simple. That’s the point.

And that’s not a bad thing. It's helpful to get a quick sense of critical consensus, even if it's somewhat imprecise. Many people use Rotten Tomatoes to get a rough idea of whether critics generally liked a film.

The flip side, though, is that some people, whether they’re critics or audience members, will inevitably have opinions that don't track with the Rotten Tomatoes score at all. Just because an individual's opinion is out of step with the Tomatometer doesn't mean the person is “wrong” — it just means they're an outlier.

And that, frankly, is what makes art, entertainment, and the world at large interesting: Not everyone has the same opinion about everything, because people are not exact replicas of one another. Most critics love arguing about movies, because they often find that disagreeing with their colleagues is what makes their job fun. It's fine to disagree with others about a movie, and it doesn't mean you're “wrong.”

(For what it’s worth, another review aggregation site, Metacritic, maintains an even smaller and more exclusive group of critics than Rotten Tomatoes — its aggregated scores cap out around 50 reviews per movie, instead of the hundreds that can make up a Tomatometer score. Metacritic’s score for a film is different from Rotten Tomatoes’ insofar as each individual review is assigned a rating on a scale of 100 and the overall Metacritic score is a weighted average, the mechanics of which Metacritic absolutely refuses to divulge . But because the site’s ratings are even more carefully controlled to include only experienced professional critics — and because the reviews it aggregates are given a higher level of granularity, and presumably weighted by the perceived influence of the critic’s publication — most critics consider Metacritic a better gauge of critical opinion.)

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office earnings?

The short version: It can, but not necessarily in the ways you might think.

A good Rotten Tomatoes score indicates strong critical consensus, and that can be good for smaller films in particular. It’s common for distributors to roll out such films slowly, opening them in a few key cities (usually New York and Los Angeles, and maybe a few others) to generate good buzz — not just from critics, but also on social media and through word of mouth. The result, they hope, is increased interest and ticket sales when the movie opens in other cities.

Get Out , for example, certainly profited from the 99 percent “fresh” score it earned since its limited opening. And the more recent The Big Sick became one of last summer's most beloved films, helped along by its 98 percent rating. But a bad score for a small film can help ensure that it will close quickly, or play in fewer cities overall. Its potential box office earnings, in turn, will inevitably take a hit.

Yet when it comes to blockbusters, franchises, and other big studio films (which usually open in many cities at once), it’s much less clear how much a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score affects its box office tally. A good Rotten Tomatoes score, for example, doesn't necessarily guarantee a film will be a hit. Atomic Blonde is “guaranteed fresh,” with a 77 percent rating, but it didn‘t do very well at the box office despite being an action film starring Charlize Theron.

Still, studios certainly seem to believe the score makes a difference . Last summer, studios blamed Rotten Tomatoes scores (and by extension, critics) when poorly reviewed movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Baywatch , and The Mummy performed below expectations at the box office. ( Pirates still went on to be the year’s 19th highest-grossing film.)

2017’s highest grossing movies in the US

But that correlation doesn’t really hold up. The Emoji Movie , for example, was critically panned, garnering an abysmal 6 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. But it still opened to $25 million in the US, which put it just behind the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk . And the more you think about it, the less surprising it is that plenty of people bought tickets to The Emoji Movie in spite of its bad press: It's an animated movie aimed at children that faced virtually no theatrical competition, and it opened during the summer, when kids are out of school. Great reviews might have inflated its numbers, but almost universally negative ones didn't seem to hurt it much.

It's also worth noting that many films with low Rotten Tomatoes scores that also perform poorly in the US (like The Mummy or The Great Wall ) do just fine overseas, particularly in China. The Mummy gave Tom Cruise his biggest global opening ever . If there is a Rotten Tomatoes effect, it seems to only extend to the American market.

Without any consistent proof, why do people still maintain that a bad Rotten Tomatoes score actively hurts a movie at the box office?

While it’s clear that a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score and box office earnings aren't correlated as strongly as movie studios might like you to think, blaming bad ticket sales on critics is low-hanging fruit.

Plenty of people would like you to believe that the weak link between box office earnings and critical opinion proves that critics are at fault for not liking the film, and that audiences are a better gauge of its quality. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, co-star of Baywatch , certainly took that position when reviews of the 2017 bomb Baywatch came out:

Baywatch ended up with a very comfortably rotten 19 percent Tomatometer score , compared to a just barely fresh 62 percent audience score. But with apologies to The Rock, who I’m sure is a very nice man, critics aren't weather forecasters or pundits, and they’re not particularly interested in predicting how audiences will respond to a movie. (We are also a rather reserved and nerdy bunch, not regularly armed with venom and knives.) Critics show up where they’re told to show up and watch a film, then go home and evaluate it to the best of their abilities.

The obvious rejoinder, at least from a critic’s point of view, is that if Baywatch was a better movie, there wouldn’t be such a disconnect. But somehow, I suspect that younger ticket buyers — an all-important demographic — lacked nostalgia for 25-year-old lifeguard TV show, and thus weren't so sure about seeing Baywatch in the first place. Likewise, I doubt that a majority of Americans were ever going to be terribly interested in the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which notched a 30 percent Tomatometer score and a 64 percent audience score), especially when they could just watch some other movie.

A pile-up of raves for either of these films might have resulted in stronger sales, because people could have been surprised to learn that a film they didn’t think they were interested in was actually great. But with lackluster reviews, the average moviegoer just had no reason to give them a chance.

Big studio publicists, however, are paid to convince people to see their films, not to candidly discuss the quality of the films themselves. So when a film with bad reviews flops at the box office, it’s not shocking that studios are quick to suggest that critics killed it.

How do movie studios try to blunt the perceived impact when they’re expecting a bad Rotten Tomatoes score?

Of late, some studios — prompted by the idea that critics can kill a film’s buzz before it even comes out — have taken to “ fighting back ” when they’re expecting a rotten Tomatometer score.

Their biggest strategy isn’t super obvious to the average moviegoer, but very clear to critics. When a studio suspects it has a lemon on its hands, it typically hosts the press screening only a day or two ahead of the film's release, and then sets a review “embargo” that lifts a few hours before the film hits theaters.

The Emoji Movie’s terrible RT score doesn’t seem to have affected its box office returns.

Consider, for example, the case of the aforementioned Emoji Movie. I and most other critics hoped the movie would be good, as is the case with all movies see. But once the screening invitations arrived in our inboxes, we pretty much knew, with a sinking feeling, that it wouldn’t be. The tell was pretty straightforward: The film’s only critics' screening in New York was scheduled for the day before it opened. It screened for press on Wednesday night at 5 pm, and then the review embargo lifted at 3 pm the next day — mere hours before the first public showtimes.

Late critics’ screenings for any given film mean that reviews of the film will necessarily come out very close to its release, and as a result, people purchasing advance tickets might buy them before there are any reviews or Tomatometer score to speak of. Thus, in spite of there being no strong correlation between negative reviews and a low box office, its first-weekend box returns might be less susceptible to any potential harm as a result of bad press. (Such close timing can also backfire; critics liked this summer's Captain Underpants , for example, but the film was screened too late for the positive reviews to measurably boost its opening box office.)

That first-weekend number is important, because if a movie is the top performer at the box office (or if it simply exceeds expectations, like Dunkirk and Wonder Woman did this summer), its success can function as good advertising for the film, which means its second weekend sales may also be stronger. And that matters , particularly when it means a movie is outperforming its expectations, because it can actually shift the way industry executives think about what kinds of movies people want to watch. Studios do keep an eye on critics’ opinions, but they’re much more interested in ticket sales — which makes it easy to see why they don’t want risk having their opening weekend box office affected by bad reviews, whether there’s a proven correlation or not.

The downside of this strategy, however, is that it encourages critics to instinctively gauge a studio’s level of confidence in a film based on when the press screening takes place. 20th Century Fox, for instance, screened War for the Planet of the Apes weeks ahead of its theatrical release, and lifted the review embargo with plenty of time to spare before the movie came out. The implication was that Fox believed the movie would be a critical success, and indeed, it was — the movie has a 97 percent Tomatometer score and an 86 percent audience score.

And still, late press screenings fail to account for the fact that, while a low Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t necessarily hurt a film’s total returns, aggregate review scores in general do have a distinct effect on second-weekend sales. In 2016, Metacritic conducted a study of the correlation between its scores and second weekend sales , and found — not surprisingly — that well-reviewed movies dip much less in the second weekend than poorly reviewed movies. This is particularly true of movies with a strong built-in fan base, like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , which enjoyed inflated box office returns in the first weekend because fans came out to see it, but dropped sharply in its second weekend, at least partly due to extremely negative press .

Most critics who are serious about their work make a good-faith effort to approach each film they see with as few expectations as possible. But it's hard to have much hope about a movie when it seems obvious that a studio is trying to play keep-away with it. And the more studios try to game the system by withholding their films from critics, the less critics are inclined to enter a screening devoid of expectations, however subconscious.

If you ask critics what studios ought to do to minimize the potential impact of a low Rotten Tomatoes score, their answer is simple: Make better movies. But of course, it’s not that easy; some movies with bad scores do well, while some with good scores still flop. Hiding a film from critics might artificially inflate first-weekend box office returns, but plenty of people are going to go see a franchise film, or a superhero movie, or a family movie, no matter what critics say.

The truth is that neither Rotten Tomatoes nor the critics whose evaluations make up its scores are really at fault here, and it’s silly to act like that’s the case. The website is just one piece of the sprawling and often bewildering film landscape.

As box office analyst Scott Mendelson wrote at Forbes :

[Rotten Tomatoes] is an aggregate website, one with increased power because the media now uses the fresh ranking as a catch-all for critical consensus, with said percentage score popping up when you buy tickets from Fandango or rent the title on Google Market. But it is not magic. At worst, the increased visibility of the site is being used as an excuse by ever-pickier moviegoers to stay in with Netflix or VOD.

For audience members who want to make good moviegoing decisions, the best approach is a two-pronged one. First, check Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to get a sense of critical consensus. But second, find a few critics — two or three will do — whose taste aligns with (or challenges) your own, and whose insights help you enjoy a movie even more. Read them and rely on them.

And know that it’s okay to form your own opinions, too. After all, in the bigger sense, everyone’s a critic.

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IMDb vs. Rotten Tomatoes vs. Metacritic: Which Movie Ratings Site Is Best?

IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic are the three most popular ratings sites for movies, but they aren't all equal.

Thanks to online ratings, it's easier than ever to know whether or not a movie is worth watching. A quick Google search brings up plenty of websites offering their opinions on the latest films.

The three most popular are IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic. But how do these sites differ, and which should you trust for information on movies? Here's everything you need to know.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a gigantic compendium of movies, TV shows, and video games. Its primary use is to find detailed information about any actor, producer, or piece of media content.

When you pull up a movie, you'll see a synopsis, trailers, photos, a cast list, trivia, and much more. What makes IMDb so useful is its cross-referencing. Upon opening the page for an actor, you'll see their best-known roles. Thus, IMDb is great for those "what else have I seen her in?" moments.

The IMDb mobile app takes this a step further. If you create an account and give ratings to movies and other media, you'll see a You may know them from field on an actor's page if you've rated something they appeared in.

With a free IMDb account, you can also create a Watchlist of movies you want to see. Along with contributing to the 10-point rating scale with other users, IMDb has many other useful features to offer if you're interested.

Pros of IMDb

Unlike the other two sites, IMDb's reviews come solely from users. It only takes a minute to sign up for IMDb and leave a review, so there's little barrier to entry.

Thus, IMDb's biggest strength is that its scores gives you a good idea of what normal consumers think of it. Professional critics have no influence on IMDb scores.

IMDb has a weighted average system to prevent users from rigging the score, but the service doesn't make it clear exactly how this works. Click the review count next to the star icon on any movie's page to see a breakdown of how people rated it.

Below the overall star average, you can see how the ratings break down by a few demographics, including age and gender.

Cons of IMDb

IMDb's biggest problem is that like other platforms, most people only leave reviews if they love or hate a film. Thus, this skews the scores in favor of either fanboys or haters.

People who want to boost a movie's perception will likely rate the movie a 10, while those who didn't like it will give a rating of one. This means you should read a handful of reviews to get a full picture of the movie's quality.

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a trusted source for movie reviews sourced from critics. Every movie uses the "Tomatometer" to score the quality of a film. If the critic liked the movie, a red tomato appears by their review. When they don't like it, you'll see a green splat instead.

As long as 60 percent or more of critics like the movie, it earns an overall Fresh score with a red tomato. If under 60 percent of critics rate the movie favorably, it earns a Rotten score with a green splat.

Meanwhile, a Certified Fresh badge appears next to titles that are of particularly high quality. They must hold at least a 75 percent favorable score after 80 reviews, including at least five from top critics.

Open any movie's page, and you'll see the overall score plus its number of reviews at the top. Click See Score Details for a deeper breakdown. The Critics Consensus , present for most movies, is a great summary of why the movie received its score.

Rotten Tomatoes also providers a user score, shown by the popcorn bucket. When at least 60 percent of users rated it 3.5 stars (out of 5) or higher, it shows a full bucket. A tipped-over bucket represents that under 60 percent of users gave it under 3.5 stars. Since you can use half-star ratings, this is close to the IMDb score.

In 2019, Rotten Tomatoes made some changes to reduce "review bombing" of movies. There's no longer a Want to See percentage, and you'll also see a check next to user reviews where the site has confirmed that the person actually bought a ticket to the movie.

At the bottom of a movie's page, you can read excerpts from the critic reviews, filter by fresh or rotten, or only show top critics. Search for your favorite actors, and you can check the scores of films they appeared in.

Related: Sites Like Rotten Tomatoes to Find Average Ratings and Reviews for Anything

Pros of Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes has the advantage of sourcing its reviews from trusted critics. The Rotten Tomatoes criteria page explains that the site only takes reviews from trusted newspapers, podcasts, and websites. In theory, this means that only the opinions of the most-trusted movie critics influence the Rotten Tomatoes review.

The Top Critic designation lets you filter by the absolute best critics if you prefer. You can't get a more professional opinion than from these folks.

Overall, Rotten Tomatoes does a good job of letting you know at a glance whether or not a movie is worth your time. The easily identifiable icons, overall score, and consensus summary only take a moment to scan.

Cons of Rotten Tomatoes

The biggest issue with Rotten Tomatoes is that it breaks down complex opinions into a Yes or No score. It scores a critic who thought the movie was decent but had some flaws (say, a 59 percent rating) the same as one who thought the movie was absolute garbage (a zero percent score).

You'll notice this with the Average Rating under the score. Take Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle as an example. Of the 232 critic reviews, 177 of them are positive. This gives the movie a score of 76 percent. However, the critics rated the movie an average of 6.2/10---quite a bit under the 76 percent displayed on the page.

This doesn't mean the scores on Rotten Tomatoes are useless, of course. But it's important to remember that there's nuance in individual reviews, and the Fresh/Rotten system effectively turns every rating into a 100 or 0 score.

Metacritic aggregates reviews of movies and TV shows, plus video games and music albums. It's one of the best sites for gamers , but it can give you a good idea on the quality of movies too.

The site collects reviews from many sources and aggregates them into one "metascore" from 0 to 100. It displays a color and one-line indication of quality based on the overall score, with the following used for movies, TV, and albums:

81-100: Universal Acclaim (Green)
61-80: Generally Favorable Reviews (Green)
40-60: Mixed or Average Reviews (Yellow)
20-39: Generally Unfavorable Reviews (Red)
0-19: Overwhelming Dislike (Red)

Unlike Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic uses a weighted average system. Nobody knows the exact details, but the service assigns more importance to some sources than others. Like the other two sites, Metacritic also includes a separate user score, which does not influence the critic score.

The Pros of Metacritic

Metacritic avoids the Rotten Tomatoes problem of scoring every review as simply "good" or "bad." A review of 50 percent gets mixed in with the rest to create the metascore. Thus, the score you see on Metacritic is closer to the average review, as opposed to the percentage of critics who simply liked the movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

Additionally, among these three sites, Metacritic is the only one to feature full user reviews right next to critic reviews. This makes it easy to compare what the general public thinks compared to the professionals.

The Cons of Metacritic

While it's easy to translate a score from a five-star or 10-point scale, Metacritic's way of translating letter grade is questionable. We can see how this works on the About Metascores page :

While scoring an A as 100 percent makes sense, note the scores for B- and F , for instance. A 67 percent score for a B- seems a bit harsh. In most schools, a score of 67 percent is closer to an F than it is a B- .

And scoring an F as 0 percent seems unfair. Something like 20 percent for an F might be more appropriate. Because every site has different scales for scoring (some might not even use pluses and minuses), this could skew a reviewer's original meaning.

Also, unlike Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic seems to have few public standards. There's no detailed information on where it sources it critics from. Thus, the score potentially doesn't have as much weight behind it as Rotten Tomatoes does.

What Is the Best Movie Rating Website?

So we've now taken a look at IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic, and listed their major pros and cons. As you might have guessed, there's no one website that's best for everything.

However, we can recommend each of these sites for different reasons:

IMDb is great for seeing what general audiences think of a movie. If you don't care what the critics say and want to see what people like yourself thought of a film, then you should use IMDb. Just be aware that fans often skew the vote with 10-star ratings, which may inflate scores somewhat.
Rotten Tomatoes offers the best overall picture of whether a movie is worth seeing at a glance. If you only trust the opinions of top critics and just want to know if a movie is at least decent, you should use Rotten Tomatoes. While the Fresh/Rotten binary can oversimplify the often complex opinions of critics, it should still help you weed out lousy films.
Metacritic offers the most balanced aggregate score. If you don't mind which critics' opinions go into the final score and prefer seeing a general average, then you should use Metacritic. Its standards are mostly unknown, but Metacritic makes it easy to compare professional and user reviews side-by-side.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with checking all three of these sites every time you're thinking of seeing a movie. Over time, you should figure out which site's tastes most match yours; then you'll know which is best for you personally.

Personal Taste Still Matters Most

Remember that movie scores aren't everything. All three of these sites don't, for instance, paint an accurate picture of movies that are so bad they're good. Because those movies are objectively terrible, they carry low scores even though they have ironic value.

Plus, it's impossible to sum up complex opinions from dozens of people into a single number. And no matter what the critics or general public think, your preferences might be totally different anyway. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a movie that most people find stupid. So while these sites are helpful, don't take them too seriously.

Poor Things director's new movie with an all-star cast earns a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, but not everyone agrees

Kinds of Kindness debuts to an excellent Rotten Tomatoes score

The new movie from Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos, Kinds of Kindness, has debuted to a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.

The film recently premiered at Cannes and has garnered an impressive 92% critics score from 25 reviews so far.

"This long, scaldingly original film enthralls even as it frustrates, defying conventional logic while presenting an absurdist riff on modern society. It's never boring, and yet, Lanthimos' outré sensibility demands a special brand of patience," writes Variety , while Collider 's take is: "Small gripes aside, the film is still a more unrestrained version of the filmmaker than we’ve seen of late, and all the better for it. It's a reminder that he's still got the heater to throw at us and knock us off our balance."

"Here it is, the new Lanthimos: puzzling, brilliant and, in all honesty, not easy to like. What is this teasingly unfathomable filmmaker telling us? We may never know," is Deadline 's verdict.

But, not everyone is convinced. Our own Kinds of Kindness review is 2 stars: "All the set-ups are intriguing, and wouldn't look out of place in the twist-driven series The Twilight Zone, which may or may not be an inspiration, along with the works of Franz Kafka. But the tone is so bleak, the dialogue so off-kilter (even for Lanthimos), that it's hard to enjoy the film in between its comical moments. You might care to see this as an allegory about power, sex and control, but it doesn't feel like it's saying anything particularly profound."

"But Kinds of Kindness, which Lanthimos wrote with his frequent collaborator Efthimis Filippou, is stiff, plodding, and soporific, even as it seeks to wow us with its deadpan shockeroos," says TIME Magazine .

The film is an anthology of three tales, and it stars the likes of Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer.

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The film releases on June 21 in the US and June 28 in the UK. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming major movie release dates to get planning the rest of your theater trips.

I'm an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.

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‘Megalopolis’ Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s Wild and Delirious Fever Dream Inspires New Hope for the Future of Movies

David ehrlich.

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After more than 40 years of idly fantasizing about the project (and more than 20 years of actively trying to finance it), Coppola is bringing “ Megalopolis ” to screens at a moment when his chosen medium is struggling to find a way forward, and the world around it seems teetering on the brink of collapse. Just as in 63 B.C., when an evil patrician named Catiline appealed to a coalition of malcontents in a bid to overthrow the Republic, we are choked by the grip of delusional aristocrats and vertically integrated conglomerates whose lust for power and profit is only matched by their lack of foresight. Even with the past as our guide, we are at imminent risk of allowing the now to destroy the forever. Related Stories Lana Del Rey Says She Originally Wrote the ’24’ Chorus for 2015 James Bond Film ‘Spectre’ ‘Civil War,’ ‘The Fall Guy,’ and J.Lo Take #1 Spots in Home Viewing

Coppola has always believed in America, but his faith is eroding by the second, and “Megalopolis” is nothing if not the boldest and most open-hearted of his many bids to stop time before it’s too late (an effort that has informed so much of his career, from “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” to “Youth After Youth” and “Jack”). As ever, he recognizes the futility in the attempt, even if his characters are sometimes a bit slow on the uptake.

With “Megalopolis,” he crams 85 years worth of artistic reverence and romantic love into a clunky, garish, and transcendently sincere manifesto about the role of an artist at the end of an empire. It doesn’t just speak to Coppola’s philosophy, it embodies it to its bones. To quote one of the sharper non-sequiturs from a script that’s swimming in them: “When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free.”

Like Cesar, it might be for the best if we take a step back. Let’s start with New Rome, which is pretty much just downtown Atlanta cosplaying as a modern-day Manhattan that’s been artificially saturated with a vanilla skyline and set-dressed to resemble a Joel Schumacher Batman movie (complete with the same faux-debauched energy, and a host of glaring digital flourishes that also locate “Megalopolis” somewhere in the vicinity of Vera Drew’s “The People’s Joker,” the only other movie so far this year that can match the go-for-broke visual exuberance on display here).

Cesar’s great hope for the future of this hodgepodge city is a new element he invented called Megalon, which glows yellow, does whatever is most convenient for the scene at hand, and may or may not have played a role in the tragic death of his wife. “Megalopolis” is of course dedicated to Coppola’s late wife Eleanor, who died after the completion of the film , but whose loving memory nevertheless casts a long shadow over this story about a self-involved iconoclast whose mind is always obsessively preoccupied with his work.

The DA who prosecuted the city’s failed homicide case against Cesar is now the mayor of New Rome, and our hero’s rival in the bid to control the megalopolis’ levers of power; his name is Franklyn Cicero (natch), he’s played by a game and jowly Giancarlo Esposito, and his beautiful daughter Julia will soon become Cesar’s closest advisor and most intimate muse (credit to Nathalie Emmanuel, doing her best with a wooden character in a film that reduces all of its women to cartoons in the face of male genius). Cesar envisions a New Rome that “people can dream about,” while Cicero hopes to build “a fun casino” with more practical dividends.

That sort of creatively unbound approach may not have resulted in a surplus of dramatically coherent scenes, but it undergirds the entire movie with a looseness that makes it almost impossible to look away. You never know when Grace VanderWaal might split into five identical clones of herself while singing an original pop anthem about her virginity, or when Laurence Fishburne — back for more of the fun he had with Coppola on the set of “Apocalypse Now” — might invoke some more wisdom via his voiceover narration, or when Aubrey Plaza’s gold-digging seductress/news anchor might shift her overt sexual attention to a different member of New Rome’s ruling class. Her character’s name is Wow Platinum, because every generation gets the “Southland Tales” it deserves. First she’s hot for Cesar, then for his gazillionaire banker uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), and finally for Crassus’ sociopathic court jester of a son, Clodio Pulcher (a palpably malevolent Shia LaBeouf).

The story is sustained by the sheer force of Coppola’s enthusiasm for it, and it hardly seems to matter that each scene feeds into the next with the grace of a wave crashing into a jetty — not when it’s so exciting to see what might happen next, and stray moments of transcendent surprise can be found hiding in even the flattest stretches. Two people connected by an invisible rope as they run through a hallway. A fallen rose suspended in mid-air. A rain-slicked noir chase sequence melting into a vision of eternal devotion.

So while it might be tempting to see this kooky, nepotistically cloistered, and unconscionably expensive magnum opus as the self-involved work of a fading artist who’s lost whatever was left of his ability to tell good ideas from bad, “Megalopolis” does everything in its power to remind the audience that we share in the outcome of its demented fever dream. Which isn’t to say that we’re obligated to make this particular movie a success, only that we’d do well to examine the source of whatever hostility it might reflexively produce within us. Why does change scare us so much that we’d sooner forfeit our freedom to imagine a better world than reckon with the possibilities such freedom allows? Quoth Marcus Aurelius again: “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make of it.”

“I will not let time have dominion over my thoughts,” Cesar repeats to himself as a compulsive mantra. “Artists can never lose their control of time,” Julia tells him. “Painters freeze it, poets sing of it, musicians rhythmatize it…,” she trails off. What do filmmakers do? They stop it to remind us that we can’t. With the profoundly moving final shot of “Megalopolis,” Coppola insists that’s all the more reason to fight for the future.

“Megalopolis” premiered in Competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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The 15 Best Chris Hemsworth Movies, Ranked According to Rotten Tomatoes

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One of the most recognized and significant movie stars of the 21st century, Chris Hemsworth has cemented himself in the annals of cinematic immortality with his brilliant portrayal of Thor Odinson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alone. However, his wider filmography, consisting of everything from biographical dramas to stylized crime thrillers, horror-comedies, and, of course, record-breaking superhero blockbusters, has featured the Australian actor at his entertaining and surprisingly versatile best.

Capable of handling dramatic depths while also having a natural talent for comedy, Hemsworth has been able to lend his talents to a range of pictures while playing many different roles , from dashing and roguish heroes to diabolical and dastardly villains. Using Rotten Tomatoes' critics adjudged aggregate scores, the Tomatometer, as a metric, these are Chris Hemsworth's best films across his career thus far.

15 'Thor: Love and Thunder' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes score: 63%.

Thor: Love and Thunder , directed by Taika Waititi , is the latest MCU movie focused on the Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth), this time following his experiences as he searches for inner peace amidst the chaos of the universe. This journey is abruptly halted by the arrival of Gorr the God Butcher ( Christian Bale ), who is determined to exterminate all gods. To confront this formidable enemy, Thor teams up with Valkyrie ( Tessa Thompson ), Korg (Waititi), and his former flame Jane Foster ( Natalie Portman ), who has taken up Mjolnir and transformed into the Mighty Thor.

Their adventure highlights the formulaic combination fans have come to expect from the franchise, with the film packed with humor, heart, and spectacular battles – Waititi's quirky charm adds a layer of something new all throughout. Chris Hemsworth's charismatic portrayal of his iconic character is both introspective and humorous, though many argue this was not enough to elevate the film beyond being typical superhero fare.

Thor: Love and Thunder

*Availability in US

Not available

14 'Thor: The Dark World' (2013)

Rotten tomatoes score: 67%.

An ambitious follow-up to a strong first outing, Thor: The Dark World introduces the ancient Dark Elves, led by the vengeful Malekith ( Christopher Eccleston ), who seeks to harness the power of the Aether and plunge the universe into eternal darkness. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) accidentally becomes the Aether's host, prompting Thor to whisk her away to Asgard for protection. With the cosmos hanging in the balance, Thor must team up with his cunning brother Loki ( Tom Hiddleston ) to thwart Malekith's apocalyptic plans.

Thor: The Dark World received mixed reviews but earned praise for its visual effects and action sequences. Hemsworth's portrayal of Thor stands out, with his ability to blend the character's godly bravado with a grounded, human vulnerability making him easy to root for. Plus, his chemistry with Tom Hiddleston continues to be a highlight, with their dynamic being a source of humor and entertainment in what is overall a forgettable movie.

Thor: The Dark World

13 'extraction' (2020).

Standing as one of Netflix's most striking and successful original releases , Extraction is an action-packed, adrenaline-pumping spectacle that sees Hemsworth bolster his action-hero credentials as the ruthless black market mercenary, Tyler Rake. The film follows him as he accepts an assignment to rescue the son of an Indian crime lord who has been kidnapped, but the job throws up several unexpected issues as international weapons dealers and drug traffickers become embroiled in the crime.

Defined by its technical excellence, the action thriller flaunts captivating and brutal fight scenes, gripping chase sequences, and plenty of explosions to be a pure, heart-racing hit for lovers of the genre. While some critics took issue with the movie for its weak character moments and, at times, jumbled intentions, the solid 67% score on the Tomatometer is a testament to its action punch and Hemsworth's impressive starring performance .

12 'Bad Times at the El Royale' (2018)

Rotten tomatoes score: 75%.

Stylistically rich with an enthralling narrative of greed, violence, and honor among thieves that functions as an engrossing and entrancing thriller, Bad Times at the El Royale is pure popcorn fun with an ensemble cast and plenty of heart-pounding suspense to boot. Set in 1969, it follows seven sketchy strangers who arrive at the once great El Royale hotel. Over the course of one fateful night, their secrets spill out as they each try to outwit everyone else while navigating towards a brighter future.

Director Drew Goddard puts forth a feast for the sense, with the film’s enrapturing visual display beautifully complemented by a stellar soundtrack and some outstanding performances. Lingering as the ominous big bad for much of the film, Hemsworth’s criminally underrated Billy Lee arrives to dominate the final act, with the actor thriving in a far darker role than usual .

Bad Times at the El Royale

11 'avengers: age of ultron' (2015), rotten tomatoes score: 76%.

While it may be the least popular of the four Avengers movies , Avengers: Age of Ultron still qualifies as a monumental box office success and a rollicking action blockbuster that is underrated as a pivotal point in the larger narrative of the MCU. The major crossover film sees the titular superhero team having to unite when Tony Stark's ( Robert Downey Jr. ) efforts to protect the world lead to a robotic evil seeking to destroy all humanity. All the while, the group must face new threats in the form of the Maximoff siblings.

Thor's role is perhaps less prominent in Age of Ultron than it was in prior MCU installments that he appeared in, a trend which carried on in the franchise for some time, but Hemsworth still finds plenty of moments to make his own with his brilliant knack for comedy and his portrayal of Thor's inner turmoil . The film itself was widely regarded to be a serviceable action blockbuster, though some critics highlighted that formulaic storytelling was beginning to show in the MCU.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

10 'thor' (2011), rotten tomatoes score: 77%.

Undoubtedly the most pivotal film in Chris Hemsworth's career, Thor served as his major breakout into superstardom while also launching Tim Hiddleston 's career on a similar trajectory. The origin movie follows the Norse God of Thunder as he is exiled from Asgard by his father, Odin ( Anthony Hopkins ), for defying his orders and re-igniting a war that had long been resolved. Forced to live as a mortal on Earth, Thor struggles to prove he is worthy of wielding Mjölnir and reclaiming his godly powers until an enemy known as the Destroyer jeopardizes the planet after being sent by the deceptive Loki (Hiddleston) to kill Thor.

Realizing its vast scope and its mythological allure with striking drama and plenty of comedic zest, Thor is an underrated triumph of the MCU that helped kick-start the franchise's immense success to come. Even upon reflection, it stands tall as an exciting and sweeping, yet intelligently contained action adventure that brilliantly humanizes the immensely powerful Thor while still presenting a clear and unambiguous portrayal of the almighty Norse God.

9 'Extraction 2' (2023)

Bolder, bigger, and better than its predecessor, Extraction 2 manages to soar from the platform set by the original 2020 thriller to be one of the best and most sincere examples of over-the-top action fun released in recent years. While he has retired from mercenary work, Tyler Rake reluctantly agrees to one more job when he learns that the sister of his ex-wife and her kids have been locked in a violent prison with her husband, a ruthless gangster who rules over the Georgian underworld with an iron fist.

With chaos and carnage aplenty as Rake battles to save his extended family from the murderous gang, Extraction 2 has higher stakes than its predecessor to be a riveting and engulfing action thriller. Admittedly, its story isn't terrifically complex nor are its characters completely mystifying, but its breathtaking action sequences and combat set pieces are sure to have an effect on viewers, as evinced by its strong 79% score on Rotten Tomatoes. More Extraction movies appear to be on the way as well.

Extraction 2

8 'avengers: infinity war' (2018), rotten tomatoes score: 85%.

Marking ten years since Iron Man saw the MCU get off to a flying start, Avengers: Infinity War burst onto the scene as one of the most hyped up releases in cinematic history, a hysteria it more than earned as one of the best and most rewatchable Marvel movies . Wasting no time in establishing its story, it picks up immediately where Thor: Ragnarok concluded, with Thanos ( Josh Brolin ) dismantling the Asgardian refugees before setting his sights on Earth and humanity as he traverses the universe looking for the infinity stones.

As the Avengers, scattered and still reeling from the events of Captain America: Civil War , muster what strength they can to oppose Thanos, Thor arises as Earth's mightiest and most powerful savior. In addition to having possibly the best moment in the franchise when Thor arrives on Earth, Hemsworth is also given more opportunity to command the screen with both his natural comedic strengths, but also his portrayal of the overbearing grief that Thor is experiencing . Sealed with a shocking cliffhanger, Infinity War remains one of the greatest superhero movies ever made and an enduring glory for the MCU.

Avengers: Infinity War

7 'furiosa: a mad max saga' (2024), rotten tomatoes score: 86%.

The long-awaited successor to the barnstorming action sensation that was 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road , Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga serves as a prequel film that focuses on Furiosa’s ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) journey that led her to Immortan Joe ( Tom Burke ). After being snatched from her home, the Green Place of Many Mothers, Furiosa finds herself entangled with a biker gang, led by Dementus (Hemsworth), which is soon at war with Immortan Joe and his war boys.

While it flaunts the same feverish and frenzied appetite for action as Fury Road , stacked with stunning stunt choreography and explosive set pieces, Furiosa also strives to have more of an emotional core to it as well. The end result is an awe-inspiring spectacle that enriches its predecessor. It also casually features Chris Hemsworth as one of the greatest and most infectious action villains of recent times , marking what is sure to be a much-enjoyed highlight of his stellar career.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Watch in Cinemas

6 'Rush' (2013)

Rotten tomatoes score: 89%.

A decisive shift away from the action hero roles he established himself in, Rush is a biographical sporting drama that sees Hemsworth co-star alongside Daniel Brühl to bring one of Formula 1's greatest rivalries to the screen. He portrays English champion James Hunt , a renowned playboy aggressive driver who, in the 1976 season, vies for the World Championship against Niki Lauda (Brühl), an Austrian-born legend of the sport who races for Scuderia Ferrari.

Depicting Lauda's infamous and horrific crash at the Nürburgring, the film explores both Lauda's struggle to recover from his burns and the guilt that Hunt experiences for pushing for the race to go ahead even in poor conditions. Praised for its incredible racing sequences and the stellar performances from the main duo , Rush is one of the best sporting dramas of the 21st century, and offers one of the best dramatic turns from Chris Hemsworth to date.

5 'The Avengers' (2012)

Rotten tomatoes score: 91%.

The Avengers is Marvel's first foray into what would become cinematic gospel for superhero team-ups . Thor, Captain America ( Chris Evans ), Black Widow ( Scarlett Johansson ), Iron Man, Hawkeye ( Jeremy Renner ), and Hulk ( Mark Ruffalo ) band together to stop Loki from conquering Earth. Assembled by Nick Fury ( Samuel L. Jackson ) as a task force designed to protect the world from catastrophic threats, the Avengers must put aside their differences in order to fight off an alien invasion.

Hemsworth plays as vital a role as the other members of the original six, bringing not only otherworldly power to the table but also the villain responsible for the heroes' alliance. Thor scratches the surface of his complicated relationship with Loki in this film, while also establishing and developing the foundations of family the Avengers find in each other as the MCU grows. The start of an era, The Avengers is not only one of Hemsworth's best works, but one of Marvel's as well .

The Avengers

4 'the cabin in the woods' (2011), rotten tomatoes score: 92%.

A cult classic horror comedy that excels as both a parody of teen horror movies and a genuinely intriguing spin on the horror genre in earnest, The Cabin in the Woods is adored by both horror aficionados and casual genre fans alike. Running with a formulaic premise, it follows five college friends who travel to a remote cabin to enjoy a little getaway only to find themselves being hunted by vicious monsters. However, while they fight to survive, two scientists manipulate the nightmare going on around them.

While he wasn't quite a global star at the time, Hemsworth occupies the leading role of the film with aplomb, portraying the stereotypical horror hero jock with a self-aware bite that perfectly complements the movie's humorous tone and genre-mixing appeal. The Cabin in the Woods has come to be viewed as one of the best and most intriguing horror films of this century so far with its ambitious narrative and its intriguing exploration of genre tropes.

The Cabin in the Woods

3 'thor: ragnarok' (2017), rotten tomatoes score: 93%.

A film that came at the perfect time not only for Chris Hemsworth's portrayal of Thor, but for the MCU as well, Thor: Ragnarok was a reinvigorating breath of fresh air for the franchise and its fans . With Taika Waititi directing the film , it flaunted a brilliant comedic punch that managed to play to the character's strengths while simultaneously re-inventing him in the eyes of fans, re-establishing him as one of the marquee heroes of the superhero saga.

With his hammer shattered and his evil sister Hela ( Cate Blanchett ) overtaking Asgard, Thor finds himself lost as he winds up on a mysterious trash planet known as Sakaar where he competes as a gladiator while gathering allies to reclaim his homeland. A wild and fun-fueled space odyssey bursting with color and laughs aplenty, Thor: Ragnarok is Hemsworth's defining film in the MCU and remains one of the franchise's most lively and vibrant entries.

Thor: Ragnarok

2 'star trek' (2009), rotten tomatoes score: 94%.

While Chris Hemsworth is renowned for his work in the MCU, he has also featured in another major blockbuster sci-fi property in the form of the Star Trek movies. The 2009 reboot of the famous television and movie saga opens with a frantic fight for survival as Captain George Kirk (Hemsworth) makes a heroic sacrifice to spare the lives of his crew, including his pregnant wife, Winona ( Jennifer Morrison ).

The film proved to be a smash hit sensation, winning the praise of critics while also becoming a commendable commercial success. Despite only briefly appearing, Hemsworth’s performance helped set the tone of both the film itself and Chris Pine’s Captain James Tiberius Kirk . It also offered a glimpse at the star power that would be unearthed two years later when Hemsworth became a genuine A-lister off the back of Thor .

Star Trek (2009)

1 'avengers: endgame' (2019).

A film that served as the culmination of 11 years of blockbuster cinema and effectively defined a generation of American film in the process, Avengers: Endgame can only be viewed as one of the greatest events in the history of movies. Set five years after Thanos' snap in Avengers: Infinity War , it follows what remains of Earth's mightiest heroes as they travel through time to gather the infinity stones for themselves to launch a desperate last attempt to undo the horrors of Thanos' victory, leading to a decisive battle for the fate of the universe.

Hemsworth's return as the mighty Thor, while not quite being the God of Thunder that audiences may have expected to see, still achieves a deft balance between easy comedy and exploring the character's guilt concerning his wasted opportunity to defeat Thanos . Avengers: Endgame as a whole delivers a spellbinding and emotionally rousing finale to some of the original characters' arcs while still offering an immense spectacle that can be revisited time and time again.

Avengers: Endgame

NEXT: The Most Underrated Robert Downey Jr. Movies, Ranked

Chris Hemsworth

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Jennifer lopez's new netflix action movie with 17% rotten tomatoes tops global chart.

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Atlas Ending & AI Twist Explained

Who voices smith in netflix's atlas, the iron claw: kerry von erich’s real feud with ric flair explained.

Despite a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score, Jennifer Lopez's Netflix film Atlas is #1 globally.
Atlas had 56.3 million hours viewed, surpassing other Netflix hits like Thelma the Unicorn .
Audiences are flocking to Lopez's action movies on Netflix, disregarding bad reviews from critics.

Atlas , Jennifer Lopez's new Netflix action movie with a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score, tops the streamer's global chart. From Brad Peyton (known for directing the Dwayne Johnson star vehicles Journey 2: The Mysterious Island , San Andreas , and Rampage ) with a script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, Netflix's new sci-fi action film follows a data analyst who partners with an AI to confront a renegade robot bent on eradicating humanity. Other than Lopez in the lead role, the Atlas cast also includes Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and Mark Strong.

Now, a few days after its release, Lopez's new action movie has topped Netflix 's global chart. For the week of May 20-26, Atlas ranked #1 on Netflix's Global Top 10 chart with 56.3 million hours viewed and 28.2 million total views . It finished well ahead of the second place Thelma the Unicorn which, in its second week in the Top 10, received 10.7 million views. Rounding out the rest of the Top 10 are Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs , Mother of the Bride , Disturbia , Sing 2 , Ice Age: Collision Course, A Simple Favor , Madame Web , and Security .

Netflix's Atlas sees Jennifer Lopez battle evil robots with the help of her AI-powered mech suit, and the twist ending may set up a future sequel.

Why Atlas Reviews Are So Bad

Atlas is the latest Lopez movie to become popular on Netflix despite bad reviews. Her first collaboration with the streaming service was The Mother , which was released in May 2023. While The Mother reviews raised Lopez's refreshing return to her action roots, the movie was deemed disappointing by critics for its heavy reliance on typical genre tropes, resulting in a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score. However, The Mother was a massive hit on Netflix, scoring the streaming service's biggest opening weekend of the year at the time with 83.7 million hours viewed and nearly 43 million total views.

Now, Atlas is the latest Netflix action movie to continue this trend for Lopez. While Atlas reviews once again recognize that Lopez makes an admirable effort to carry the movie's immense scale, it is ultimately a sci-fi spectacle that collapses under the burden of its poorly written and superficial script. The bad reviews resulted in a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics, one of the worst scores of Lopez's career, alongside The Boy Next Door (11%) and Gigli (6%). It doesn't seem like audiences have enjoyed Atlas much either, indicated by its 51% audience score, which is also rotten.

Atlas continues a larger Netflix trend, not just for Lopez, as subscribers will generally watch whatever new release happens to be on the streaming platform that weekend, with little regard for its quality. It's an especially disappointing trend in light of this past Memorial Day weekend as Furiosa , George Miller's prequel to his 2015 masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road , underperformed at the box office despite rave reviews. However, as audiences become increasingly hesitant about heading out to theaters, the Netflix trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Atlas is streaming on Netflix.

Source: Netflix

Atlas (2024)

Atlas is a 2024 Netflix original movie starring Jennifer Lopez as Atlas Shepherd. Atlas, a data analyst who doesn't trust AI, who sets out to recover a rogue robot. But when things don't go according to plan, she is forced to trust AI in order to save humanity.

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