How Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, an important metric in entertainment, became erratic and reductive as some PR firms hack its score by paying obscure “critics”

In 2018, a movie-publicity company called Bunker 15 took on a new project: Ophelia, a feminist retelling of Hamlet starring Daisy Ridley.

Vulture 2023-09-07 Lane Brown

Context & Ripple Effects

Rotten Tomatoes already relied on a curated pool of approved critics, with its Tomatometer process handled by a small curator team in the platform's critic-review curation system. This report challenges whether that gatekeeping is sufficient when publicity firms can pay marginal outlets for reviews.

The company had previously tightened its separate audience metric through verified ticket-purchase ratings. The contrast matters: integrity controls for one side of a scorecard do not address incentives affecting the critic side.

First-order effects

Paid reviews can distort the Tomatometer results attached to films promoted by firms such as Bunker 15, weakening the score's usefulness as a shorthand for critical reception.
Rotten Tomatoes faces a direct credibility and moderation problem: its approved-critic roster and review-selection practices become central to whether users trust the metric.

Second-order effects

Studios and distributors that use the Tomatometer in marketing may face greater scrutiny over how review coverage was obtained, while legitimate critics' work is harder to distinguish from paid placements.
Competing entertainment-discovery services have an opening to emphasize provenance, reviewer standards, or audience verification as differentiators.

Third-order effects

If score manipulation proves repeatable, entertainment's reliance on a single aggregated percentage becomes more fragile, pushing platforms toward greater disclosure of reviewer eligibility and review provenance.
The episode fits a broader governance problem for reputation systems: a metric becomes commercially valuable enough to attract optimization tactics, forcing its operator to choose between scale and stricter quality controls.

The trend: As entertainment discovery becomes increasingly metric-led, platforms are under pressure to make the sources and incentives behind their ratings more auditable.

Discussion

@samuelaadams Sam Adams on x
great @LaneBrown investigation of Rotten Tomatoes, most importantly laying out how the site cynically used a push for inclusivity as cover to flood the ratings with subpar outlets https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
@projectseestra Gayle Sequeira on x
So a PR film has been paying “critics” to write positive reviews of its films or “quarantine their bad reviews on smaller blogs” in the hopes of skewing the movies' Rotten Tomatoes score. Great piece https://www.vulture.com/...
@huginspl @huginspl on x
Vulture's article on Rottentomatoes is very good & I love Schrader's blunt quote. Many will take offense to him but anyone who has ever gotten upset that their favorite movie (this week) didn't get a high score on RT doesn't care about film as art. https://www.vulture.com/... [im…
@_zeets Zito on x
Universal Pictures owning Rotten Tomatoes is such a funny thing that I didn't realize. But also how broadly they aggregate scores is pretty much the worst way to rate a movie. https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
@leask @leask on x
the flashy part in this article is details about how studios game rotten tomatoes but honestly of course they do! the article gets at it quite nicely, but: it's a terrible site and scoring system! it's designed to be gamed! it hurts art! https://www.vulture.com/...
@sicrook Simon Crook on x
Any review aggregation site that thinks Event Horizon is 34% rotten isn't worth listening to. Good read on why R*tten T*matoes matters when it really shouldn't https://www.vulture.com/...
@milkman__dead @milkman__dead on x
This article doesn't mention but the Rotten Tomatoes problem is most clearly seen with Netflix movies https://www.vulture.com/...
@mikeryan Mike Ryan on x
A PR firm has been manipulating the Rotten Tomato scores of movies for at least five years by paying some “critics” directly. Truly depressing stuff here by @LaneBrown https://www.vulture.com/...
@tomilaffly @tomilaffly on x
These last 2 weeks (like all critics in the fest circuit), I've been killing myself to thoughtfully engage w/ the films I've been seeing, be honest about my read, formulate arguments readers can consider. That's the job I signed up for. This...this sucks. https://www.vulture.com/…
@luke_winkie Luke Winkie on x
I was in the early stages of reporting out this Rotten Tomatoes story before I moved over to Slate. @LaneBrown took the reigns, hugely expanded on what I had, and knocked it out of the park. A very compelling report on why the site is so fucked up now! https://www.vulture.com/...
@nathanpester Nate Pester on x
As someone who posted on the RT forums back in 2002, I have a strong nostalgic connection to the site that introduced me to cinema and how to write about films. However the site has degraded to a horrible corporate-shilled void. https://www.vulture.com/...
@chrisecrowley Chris Crowley on x
so much to say about yelp (a tidal wave) and instagram/tiktok, which presents a curation of the city's restaurants/food culture through influencer-marketers and (especially on tiktok?) an extremely wide-eyed naivete https://www.vulture.com/...
@moviedeathblows @moviedeathblows on x
50 Bucks for a positive review? Seems like chump change lol prolly have to offer me at least 500$ to lie about a shit movie lol https://www.vulture.com/...
@hamrahrama @hamrahrama on x
This first-volley piece on Rotten Tomatoes wisely points out the site is owned by the studios. In my own experience, RT overscores reviews as “fresh” by about 25%. https://www.vulture.com/...
@seanmburns Sean Burns on x
“But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don't go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do."https://www.vulture.com/ ...
@boringdrew @boringdrew on x
😏🍿 Metacritic stonks rising 📈https://www.vulture.com/ ...
@ipreferpi314 Marshall Flores on x
There's is nothing in here that is necessarily new, but it still serves as a necessary reminder: Rotten Tomatoes is a very crude, superficial gauge of critical opinion prone to studio manipulation (esp. since it's under actual studio ownership) https://www.vulture.com/...
@sonnybunch Sonny Bunch on x
I'm glad Rotten Tomatoes delisted the films in question, I guess, but they also should have kicked out the critics taking payola. A stern warning doesn't cut it here; this should be career-ending stuff. https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
@nick_field90 Nick Field on x
'Before you post your review, don't you want to know what Ulysses S. Grant thinks?' https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
@walthickey Walter Hickey on x
love this shoutout, i was hella proud of that piece, and i know it was a different time but tbh i'm still kind of shocked everyone just let them off the hook for systematic score inflation https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
@katiewalshstx Katie Walsh on x
How about the time I was asked by PR to change a Rotten review to a Fresh one... just because... they wanted me to? The movie was already Fresh and got nominated for an Oscar! I said no of course. https://www.vulture.com/...
@themanfromrio2 @themanfromrio2 on x
RT always sucked. Not representative of any real metrics, no way to filter a middling review, rando places I have never ever heard of have just as much weight as professional reviewers in major newspapers, and I always thought it was an ugly ass design https://www.vulture.com/...
@bealoayza Beatrice Loayza on x
Rotten Tomatoes has always been an embarrassment to the profession; the certified critic designation, the equivalent of a participation trophy; the grading format, a total sham! It weaponizes the illusion of “diverse voices” against basic standards of good criticism. Burn it!
@mattzeitlin Matthew Zeitlin on x
what's more grim: that film marketers are paying off critics to boost rotten tomatoes scores or that they have to pay so little https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
@leadergrev @leadergrev on x
I am so glad somebody reported this out. https://www.vulture.com/... [image]
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