How to Know If a Movie is Worth Seeing?

At one time in my life I really got into movies and for about a three year stretch went to see between 150 and 200 movies a year in theaters. I saw all kinds of movies from romantic comedies to action thrillers, independents, documentaries, Bollywood movies, foreign language films you name it I went to see it. I live in the New York City are and within 1 hour of my home I could see just about any movie that was in theaters at any given time.

Seeing that many movies every year taught me a lot about movies. I quickly learned that some actors and especially directors were well worth seeing in most of the movies they were involved with. That some directors with big names usually made pretentious overly long movies that were a real chore to sit through. I learned that the reputations certain actors and directors had in the media meant nothing as far as them making movies that were worth seeing.

Movie Critics Ratings are Generally Useless

The most important thing I learned from seeing so many movies is that movie critics were totally and completely unreliable in telling me whether a movie was worth seeing. A great example of how out of touch movie critics are is from the largest paper in the state I live in.

When Titanic came out in 1997 the paper's movie critic gave the film a one star rating. He said the love story between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet did not work. Give me a break. James Cameron just took me and put me on the Titanic and showed me what it must have been like to hit an iceberg and sink into the icy Atlantic in early April and this clown of a critic gives the film a one star because of a love story?

Titanic was not the greatest film of all time but that critic was not watching the same movie I was. The critic was criticized so badly by readers he was forced to write articles defending his review and then he did a mea culpa saying he was wrong. It did not work and the paper was forced to replace him because he had lost all credibility with readers.

So relying on critics was a waste of time in terms of telling me whether or not a movie was worth seeing. But I did learn of one simple method that worked superbly in telling me which movies were good and which were bad.

Yahoo Movies User Reviews Most Reliable Indicator of Good Movies

The user reviews on the Yahoo Movies website. Though not entirely perfect the users reviews were easily the most reliable indicators of whether I would like a movie or not. Anytime a movie had a B rating by users or better I usually liked the movie and had a good time seeing it. Anything below a B including a B- meant I would not like the movie.

An A or an A- and the movie was probably really worth seeing. Again this is all regardless of the critics ratings. Many times critics would rate a movie a C but users would rate the same movie a B or B+ and sure enough I would enjoy the film. Sometimes critics would rate a film as an A or A- but users would rate it B- or C and sure enough it would stink.

So if you want to know whether a movie is worth seeing or not check out the user review ratings on Yahoo Movies. Anything at or above a B is probably worth seeing and anything with an A is a winner. To test this out think of movies you have already seen and liked or hated. Type them in at Yahoo Movies and see what the ratings are and if you agree. I can almost guarantee you that you will agree with the users far more than the critics.