We analyzed Rotten Tomatoes Movie Ratings and discuss our findings. The scraped dataset has data on 1.1 million reviews from 17.7k movies from 1914–2020.

Here’s a sample of our findings:

• Documentaries were the highest rated movie genres, followed by “Art House & International, Drama”. Horror genres were ranked lowest.
• “Action & Adventure, Drama” and “Comedy” movies were the only genres that audiences liked more than critics.
• G-rated movies had the highest median ratings. As maturity ratings increased (PG, PG-13, R) movie ratings generally decreased.
• Older movies (1920-1960) were rated higher than more recent movies (1990-2010).

Here are some of our takeaways and suspicions:

• People have different expectations for different movie genres and these influence ratings: Documentaries and art house films might be evaluated based on their informative and artistic qualities, respectively, while genres like horror may be judged more on entertainment value and elicited emotional reactions (I also suspect documentaries attract viewers who are already interested in the subject matter).
• Action (eg, 300, Fast & Furious) and comedy (eg, Scary Movie, American Pie) movies are generally considered “lower-brow” and prioritize excitement, humor, and escapism. This immediate gratification may be more appealing to audiences compared to critics.
• Audiences and critics evaluate movies differently. Audiences evaluate movies based on entertainment value, while critics judge more on artistic merit.

Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.