Rotten Tomatoes

A renowned American film review website

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Rotten Tomatoes: An In-Depth Look at the Professional Film & TV Rating Platform

Official website: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/

Rotten Tomatoes is a well-known American film and TV review website founded in 1998. Built around its unique “Tomatometer” system, it offers professional reviews, ratings, trailers, release dates and ticketing information. There is currently no official Chinese version; users can view the content in Chinese via their browser’s translation feature or a translation extension.

• Highly trusted platform: Regarded as the most trusted measure of film and TV quality worldwide, delivering authoritative verdicts through the Tomatometer system.
• Certified Fresh honour: A special badge awarded to top-rated titles, subject to strict requirements such as a minimum number of reviews and a positive ratio.
• Distinctive rating mechanism: Rather than relying on average scores, it calculates the percentage of positive reviews from professional critics — 60% or more positive means “Fresh”, otherwise “Rotten”.
• Audience rating rules: Only the percentage of ratings of 3.5 stars or above is shown, presented as a ratio rather than a specific value, highlighting genuine word of mouth.
• Origins and background: Created by three students at the University of California, Berkeley, and now owned by the parent company of IGN Entertainment.
• Influence in China: In recent years it has become an important reference for Chinese critics and film lovers, and remains widely popular despite having no Chinese site.
• Advantages over rivals: Unlike IMDb (mainly user ratings) and Metacritic (composite scores), it focuses more on the collective opinion of professional critics.
• Social features: Users can create watchlists, follow content and interact with the community, creating a space for film lovers to connect.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating system covers both professional critic scores and audience scores: the critic score carries strong authority, while audience scores require verified viewing records to ensure authenticity. Its ratings are frequently cited by media worldwide and serve as an important benchmark for the film and TV industry, earning widespread global recognition for their uniqueness and professionalism.