I would prefer a 1-10 system. Does anyone have other ideas?
I’m not personally a big fan of a 1-10 system, but I know there are others who do prefer that.
Personally, I think ratings are a bad idea in general. A verbal explanation of your feelings illuminates, treating it as a math problem does not.
Ah, I think ratings are fun, but obviously a more detailed review is preferred. For films I like very much I usually do both, but I find the five stars to be nearly meaningless.
I think they should just have ‘Awful’ ‘Really bad’ ‘bad’ ‘Okay’ ‘Good’ ‘Really Good’ and then ‘Great’
So I guess seven stars
and ‘Masterpiece’ perhaps
….and then supreme masterpiece
Ratings don’t reveal much. Five star rating is just fine the way I see it. If you want to really flush out your opinion of a film then it’s probably better to write a review of it then it is to give it a 3.5 instead of 3 or 4.
1-terrible
2-bad
3-average
4-good
5-great
No matter what scale you choose to rate films on they’re all going to follow that same basic idea.
I prefer 1-10 scale. The rating scale is just a short-hand way to tell people the degree to which you like/disliked a film, and I think it has value as such. But it doesn’t replace a review. They should complement each other.
What I would really love to see is a way to find the people who have the most similar ratings as you do, but that’s a whole ’nother story.
ya i wish that to Jazzaloha
Ugh, I don’t even want to talk about the 10 star system. It’s kind of overkill, and the one they have in place at imdb gets on my nerves. I think 5 stars is perfect, but with the ability to do 1/2 stars.
David maybe the criterion guys are working on it. One can hope.
Laika,
Isn’t allowing for 1/2 stars pretty similar to a ten point scale?
Personally, 4.5/5 and 9/10 are the same thing…
Ratings are overrated.
I give the Auteurs rating system a 2.8.
It’s definitely somewhere between 2.7 and 2.8. I can’t quite justify a 2.8 and 2.7 is a little low so I will start with a 2.75 And because they take this very seriously and have the customers’ best interests at heart I will tack on another .02 and give it 2.77
@Laika “Ugh” is right, a 10 star system is just so many levels of wrong and no SERIOUS cinephile would even consider such a travesty.
@Marc Think carefully about what you are implying here, Marc. This is not a frivolous issue.
This is what we need, I’ve got the perfect scale worked out.
8 point scale:
I’m a 5 star scale kind of guy-and I do the half-star thing, so I suppose its really a ten point scale.
That being said, on my 5 star(.5 increments) scale, I find it very hard to distinguish between a 1 star movie and a 2 star movie, and I never give out a zero or 0.5. I can see the difference between a 2 and a 2.5, a 3 and 3.5, etc. so I guess if you let that play itself out all the way up to 5, I have 7 scores that I give out. I don’t think I have ever given a film a 1.5, and if a film was worthy of a 1, its not worthy of reviewing, and I guess I can make that the bottom of my new 8 point scale.
So I have an 8 point scale now:
1: Beerfest
2: Color Purple(formerly a 2 star film)
3: Matrix 2(formerly a 2 1/2 star film)
4.: Sahara(formerly a 3 star film)
5: Breathless(formerly a 3 1/2 star film)
6: Young Mr. Lincoln(formerly a 4 star film)
7: Das Boot(formerly a 4 1/2 star film)
8: Ran(formerly a 5 star film)
8 point scales are the best. no half points, or stars.
Let me just say that I don’t really understand the whole rating movies thing. Giving stars to any movie seems to belittle it more than anything else. And, whenever I try to do it, I feel like I’m trying to objectively arbitrary. I mean, really, am I going to say that Grand Illusion is an 8 or an 8.5? How do I make this distinction? I guess I’m just not sure what rating really accomplishes for me in the long run.
For me, Nathan, its about recognizing what class a film belongs in. This is kind of why I have put together this 8 tier system. I think that you can see a film and recognize if it is on par with a film like The Matrix 2, or if it is on par with a film like Das Boot or Taxi Driver.
I used to try to rate things, and eventually found that I grew less and less concerned with classifying them. Not that it’s wrong to want to, but I just reached a point where I felt that some of the ratings were to arbitrary to mean anything at all. Instead, I’m happy just knowing what I like and don’t like, and I have a loose way of knowing where something sort of ranks for me.
I can’t believe some people take this classification so seriously. 5 stars, 10 stars, 8 points. Either you like a film or you don’t. Some you will like more than others. But this rating/classifying debate is essentially an exercise in bullshit. I see something like this…
“I’m a 5 star scale kind of guy-and I do the half-star thing, so I suppose its really a ten point scale.
That being said, on my 5 star(.5 increments) scale, I find it very hard to distinguish between a 1 star movie and a 2 star movie, and I never give out a zero or 0.5. I can see the difference between a 2 and a 2.5, a 3 and 3.5, etc. so I guess if you let that play itself out all the way up to 5, I have 7 scores that I give out. I don’t think I have ever given a film a 1.5, and if a film was worthy of a 1, its not worthy of reviewing, and I guess I can make that the bottom of my new 8 point scale.”
…and I think this guy can’t be serious, it’s a joke. But he is serious and I have to laugh. This whole thread is an unintentional self-parody…pretentious cinephile bullshit at its finest.
@Jason Trochesset – You realize this “class system” you have developed means nothing to anyone other than yourself, right?
I think the fewer “stars” we have or the less range there is to rate movies, it kinda sucks. I’m hesitate to give extreme ratings or mellow ratings even. So therefore, I just tend to promote the films I like to remain positive here (except I have given some films low ratings). But whatever.
I much prefer rating on a scale from 1-10.
Id like to see this scale: A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, F
Sekzee- so what criteria do you have for a film to get a certain grade?
David, I’ve always wanted them to put .5’s, because that would make it easier to rate films. It just seemed like the most logical thing to do.
Savvy
Rossoneri U If I were to use my scale I would rate a film like Dr. Strangelove an A+.
Here would be a good criteria:
A+: worthy of Cannes
A : almost perfect
A- : outstanding
B+: monumental
B : admirable
B- : memorable
C+: flawed but worthy
C : mediocre
C- : dissapointing
D+: shameful
D : disastrous
D- : Transformers 2
F : ASS!
i dont really think it needs to change
David Block
I know sometimes I’m torn between giving a film 3 or 4 stars when I really want to give it a 3.5 star rating and I’m not able to. Does anyone ever feel the same way? Instead of having a 1,2,3,4,5 star rating system, I wish it were a No star,1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5 star rating system. Maybe it’s just me who feels that way.