Ellipsis
Asked 6 years ago
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What makes a 5-star movie?
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[archived]
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While perusing the "How many movies have you rated" threads, I noticed that folks were also citing how few of their thousands of ratings were 5-stars. For one of you in particular, only nine films got that rating, which means fewer than 1% of the movies you see deserve the highest rating. Out of my 1465 ratings, 16% are 5-star ratings, so I'm curious to compare philosophies.
To me, a 5-star movie need not be perfect. It need only be as good as it realistically could have been. For example Tora Tora Tora does not have anywhere near the special effects that Pearl Harbor did, but they were as good as 1970 allowed, so I don't penalize it for that. (Meanwhile Pearl Harbor could have had much better writing (among many other things) so it never stood a prayer of getting 2-stars, let alone 5.)
Another (off-the-wall) example is Driving Miss Daisy. It's on no top-100 lists, but I cannot imagine that film being done any better than it was. It was funny, it was emotional, it was well-acted, and I would feel guilty giving it less than 5-stars.
Maybe I'm rating incorrectly--perhaps I should change my standards and rate fewer movies 5-star to get more accurate predictions from ML. What does everyone think about this?
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Answers
memasa
Answered 6 years ago
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There's no such thing as an incorrect way of rating. In fact, your rating philosophy seems very similar to mine (and I guess we're not the only ones here). I find the never-ending discussion about the correct/incorrect way to rate so unnecessary that I just decided to take part in one of those discussions.
I have rated only 159 so far, of which even 17 are 5-star movies. Those movies include Three Colors: White, Microcosmos, Ikiru, Barry Lyndon, Amores Perros, to name a few of my personal favorites. My guess is that as I rate more movies the percentage of my 5-star movies will settle somewhere around 10%.
Not all of my 5-star movies are "The Best Movies of All Time" and they don't have to be. I guess I rate movies more on the emotional level than some people, but this doesn't mean I won't take artistic merits into account at all.
PS. All that matters is consistency, no matter the quota of each rating.
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tonks
Answered 6 years ago
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Interesting discussion
I think I use two methods to give 5 (31 over 986, 3.14%) (a lot of movies are 4.5)
1) movies I really liked that I consider important in the movie's history. From Metropolis to Matrix (only the first one).
2) the movies which I just loved, and this is totally emotional. From The Philadelphia story to Chorus, The (Les Choristes)
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Sumytra1
Answered 6 years ago
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Another (off-the-wall) example is Driving Miss Daisy. It's on no top-100 lists, but I cannot imagine that film being done any better than it was. It was funny, it was emotional, it was well-acted, and I would feel guilty giving it less than 5-stars.
Maybe I'm rating incorrectly--perhaps I should change my standards and rate fewer movies 5-star to get more accurate predictions from ML. What does everyone think about this?
I gave Driving Miss Daisy 5 stars. It is a perfect film. It was also a play before it was a movie which accounts for the excellent dialogue.
I agree, 5 stars is only for perfect movies. Of course, there is always argument about what "perfect" means. For me, it means the entire package--acting, directing, photography, setting, costumes, makeup, special effects--are all tightly knitted together to serve the whole. It is a Gestalt which means "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
--Sumytra
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redcatbiker
Answered 6 years ago
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A five-star movie is one that I want to see again and again and again--in the theatre.
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Sumytra1
Answered 6 years ago
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A five-star movie is one that I want to see again and again and again--in the theatre.
Is personal experience your only criteria?
--Sumytra
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baa
Answered 6 years ago
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A five-star movie is one that I want to see again and again and again--in the theatre. Is personal experience your only criteria? --Sumytra
It is for me. Specifically, I can tell that there are excellent movies that rub me the wrong way, and there are horrible movies that I take delight in. The movielens rating is based entirely on my personal feelings for a movie because that will influence, hopefully, the nature of the movies that get recommended to me. Similarly, my ratings will hopefully help best those whose personal experiences with the movies coincide with mine.
A 5-star rating from me simply means: "Tell me about more movies that are like this one"
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LordofDance
Answered 6 years ago
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I only rate movies highly that I want to watch over and over again. A Five Star rating pretty much means that I could watch the movie countless times and never get sick of it. The more stars I give a movie, the more I want to rewatch it. I never factor in historical importance. I don't care how great all the critics think a movie is. Only if I personally love it will it get a bunch of stars.
One Star = I never want to see it again.
Two Stars = I avoid the movie most of the time, but I may watch it if I'm really bored or in a very forgiving mood.
Three Stars = Enjoyable time passer, but I don't seek it out that often.
Four Stars = Genuinely entertained by the movie and willing to watch it more often than not.
Five Stars = The movie is part of my very being. It actually improves my life by existing.
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PolarisDiB
Answered 6 years ago
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A five star movie.... Let's see...
1) Highly original and/or stands alone
Whereas a genre movie or a movie that follows a typical storyline can be a 5 star rating, it helps if it doesn't feel like other movies, that it stands alone, or simply that it isn't derivative. Derivative is annoying.
2) Extremely well structured
If something could have been added or taken away to make the movie stronger, then it should have been added or taken away. If you can't possibly imagine that movie with anything different in it, then it deserves praise. This is why Hitchcock is so popular, because he has complete command of structure. Also, this is why the four-hour-plus "Dr. Mabuse, Der Speiler" is amazing, because every moment of its lengthy duration has all the excitement and intrigue of a movie half an hour through it's playtime.
3) Memorable
Always something that makes me go back and rethink my ratings, I realize that there's a milllion and a half movies out there, that I want to see, that I want to own, but that when I pare it down only the really really really amazing movies stick with me, and those deserve to be received above the rest.
4) Fun
Shocking coming from me, Mr "I don't like narratives!" and "Why aren't there more useless and self-indulgent experiments out there!"? Well, but it's true... sadly... but it's true. But hey, "fun" to me doesn't mean happy giggly smiley stuff. It means the movie is able to affect. That means a horror film can be fun because it horrifies, so in the same way Irreversible can be fun because it disturbs. John Waters films can be fun because they're absolutely disgusting, and Cassavetes films can be fun because they make you feel like you're listening to your parents arguing all night long.
5) Optional: introduces something new
Again, some movies are just really good examples of the form. See Bergman films. But sometimes movies are noteworthy because not only are they good, but they introduce something. This something could be stuff like CG animation (Toy Story), bullet time (The Matrix), or particular editing devices (DW Griffith's films to the mainstream).
Those are the things that help. I can't think of a movie I've rated five stars that doesn't have at least some of those things, but then again I'm sure they could exist. Why not? Couldn't a movie that does the exact opposite of those things in some weird way manage to be noteworthy because of it?
--PolarisDiB
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Gazzard
Answered 6 years ago
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Totally hear what your saying, but just to throw something into the equation, this database is really used in 'helping YOU find the right movies' and therefore matches what you like with those of others and gives you recommendations based on this.
So in conclusion, keep the 5 stars coming mate (Yes I am an Aussie) and then we can continue to ride the forever moving merry go-round.
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PolarisDiB
Answered 5 years ago
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Right, and I imagine that the people I'd share ratings with most were those who approached movies from the same general structural standpoint as I do, in theory.
--PolarisDiB
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This question is closed to new answers.
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