Reliability of Ratings of Movies by Professional Movie Critics

Abstract

The ratings and narrative reviews for 3,144 motion pictures in Video Movie Guide 1989, by Mick Martin and Marsha Porter, were compared with those for the same movies in TV Movies and Video Guide, by Leonard Maltin. The correlation between these ratings was .67. The mean difference between these ratings was .55 points (stars) on a scale that ranged from zero stars to four stars. The critics' evaluations, as indicated by these ratings and reviews, differed markedly for approximately 6.3% of the 3,144 movies, but they showed good or acceptable agreement for the remaining 93.7% of the films. The critics' evaluations showed sufficient agreement to be of substantial value to viewers of movies. Critics showed the highest agreement for westerns.