IMDb is the default. When someone says a movie is "8.5," they almost certainly mean IMDb. It's the world's largest movie database, with over 200 million monthly users.
But IMDb ratings have some well-known blind spots.
The Demographic Skew
IMDb's user base skews heavily male, young, and Western. This means:
- Action and sci-fi movies tend to rate higher than they arguably deserve
- Romance and drama films — especially those centered on women — often rate lower
- Non-English films get fewer votes, making their ratings less reliable
- Recent popular movies often see rating inflation from fan campaigns
The Review Bombing Problem
IMDb ratings can be manipulated. Coordinated review bombing — where groups deliberately rate a movie 1/10 — has affected films like Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and several Indian films. This distorts the rating for everyone.
What Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and TMDB Add
Rotten Tomatoes gives you the professional perspective. If 95% of critics recommend a film, that means something different from a 7.2 user average.
Metacritic weights critics by publication quality. A review from The New York Times counts more than a blog post. This creates a more "elite" but often more discerning score.
TMDB has a more international user base than IMDb, giving better signal for non-English films.
Why Composite Ratings Work Better
No single rating platform is perfect. But when four different platforms — with different audiences, methodologies, and biases — all agree a movie is great? That's a signal you can trust.
That's exactly what GoodScore does. By combining IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and TMDB, we neutralize individual biases and give you a rating that's more representative, more reliable, and more useful.
Next time someone says "it's an 8 on IMDb," ask: "What's its GoodScore?"
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