Yes, I Like Movies: Rating Schemes, Intriguing Themes, and the Hunt for Cinematic Gold

Sometimes people look at my Letterboxd rating curve, which has a huge peak at half a star and then the bulk of the ratings at 2.5 or lower, and accuse me of not liking movies. There are two problems here: the assumption that we all rate things the same way, and the assumption that we all watch movies for the same reasons.

I began rating films long before I was even aware of the existence of Letterboxd, mostly as a means to manage my collection of physical media. I gave half a star to films I had no interest in owning, meaning that if I’d purchased it I would list it on eBay to try and get rid of it or if I’d watched it via streaming or television I would not purchase the disc. Anything rated higher than that, I had some level of interest in owning. As a result, my system uses the entire ratings range on films I like, whereas most people have varying degrees of ‘bad’ up to 2.5-3 stars. Not only did this not fit the system as originally designed, I also find little value in having granularity at the low end of the scale. I can do a ranked top-100 list pretty easily, especially as under the hood my system rates films from 1-100, and all my least favorite films are clumped together and I don’t really care.

The other sentiment I often see is “most of my ratings are four stars or higher, because why would I watch a film I’m not going to like?” This makes the granularity situation even more absurd: you’re reserving 80% of the scale for 5% of your viewing activity. Why? It also betrays a horrendously narrow taste in film: if you’re locking yourself in to only films you know you’re going to love, how do you discover new things?

I don’t watch films to enjoy them. I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy less than enjoying a film, as ridiculous as that may seem. What I love in film is discovering something new, and being confronted by interesting ideas and themes, even if that means wading through a lot of garbage to find the occasional nuggets of gold. I’m trying to complete the “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” list. It told me to watch Nosferatu. That led me to discover F.W. Murnau, and a love of Weimar-era film. I’ve dived headfirst into this area of study, to the point of learning German in order to more fully engage with it. Without the willingness to engage with unfamiliar material, I never would have made this discovery.

I was moved to write this by my observation in my Letterboxd review of The Substance that “I’m really not a huge fan of horror, especially body horror, so I could’ve done without all of that and the last 40 minutes or so, which dives heavily into that, dragged as a result.” The obvious rejoinder is “why, knowing you don’t like body horror, would you watch a body horror film?” I didn’t feel like going on that tangent in that review, as unlike me as it is to try and focus solely on the film I’m reviewing, but I nonetheless felt the need to put down some thoughts on it.

The answer is, at the end of the day, fairly simple: I was intrigued by the themes the film was addressing. I saw Joker: Folie à Deux for similar reasons: I don’t like musicals, but seeing some positive reviews about the way it handled mental illness and social disaffection, I was intrigued enough to check it out. Similarly, though I knew I was going to dislike the body horror elements of The Substance, I wanted to see how it handled the thematic issues, and I wanted to engage with the text on that front.

As I come to a close on my journey through the imposed watchlist of the 1,001 films, as well as lists like They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? and the Sight & Sound polls, I fully expect that my average rating will climb, as I subject myself to fewer films I expect not to resonate with me in the slightest and further iron out exactly which areas of cinema most interest me. But if I ever reach a point where most of my ratings are positive, that will reflect a more sheltered viewing activity, and a lack of willingness to engage in confronting media or thematically engaging media that takes forms I’d generally be disinclined to enjoy. That’s an experience I don’t expect I would find fulfilling, even if it is on the surface more enjoyable.