"Ratings" is one word doing two very different jobs. One is an age or content rating, such as PG-13 or TV-MA, which tells you who a film or show is suitable for. The other is a quality score, such as a Rotten Tomatoes percentage or an IMDb star rating, which tells you what critics or audiences thought of it. Mixing them up is how people end up surprised on movie night. Here's how each system actually works.
Part 1: Age and content ratings
Content ratings are set by a rating board or by broadcasters themselves, and they vary by country. They don't judge whether a film is good, only whether its content, such as violence, language, sexual content or drug use, is appropriate for certain ages.
United States: MPA film ratings
In the US, films are rated by the Motion Picture Association's rating board:
- G (General Audiences): suitable for all ages.
- PG (Parental Guidance Suggested): some material may not be suitable for children.
- PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned): some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
- R (Restricted): under-17s must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
- NC-17 (Adults Only): no one 17 or under admitted.
Ratings come with a short descriptor, such as "for sequences of action violence and some language," which is often more useful than the letter itself. Two PG-13 films can be very different: one may earn its rating through language, another through intense scares.
United States: TV Parental Guidelines
American television uses a separate scale: TV-Y (all children), TV-Y7 (ages 7 and up), TV-G (general audience), TV-PG (parental guidance suggested), TV-14 (parents strongly cautioned, may be unsuitable for under-14s) and TV-MA (mature audiences only). Streaming services commonly show these labels too, and many let you set profile restrictions based on them.
United Kingdom: BBFC ratings
The British Board of Film Classification uses U (universal), PG, 12A (in cinemas, under-12s may watch if accompanied by an adult), 12 (the home-video equivalent), 15, 18 and R18, a restricted category for specially licensed venues.
Elsewhere
Many countries have their own boards and age bands, so the same film can carry a different rating in different places. If you are choosing for children, check the local rating and, ideally, a content guide that explains exactly what is in the film.
Part 2: Critic and audience scores
Quality scores try to summarise opinion. The main sources measure different things, which is why they sometimes disagree.
Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer)
The Tomatometer is the percentage of approved critics who gave the film a positive review. It is not an average score. A film where every critic thought it was "pretty good" can score close to 100%, while a daring film that critics either loved or hated might score much lower. Rotten Tomatoes also shows a separate audience score.
Metacritic (Metascore)
Metacritic converts each critic's review into a number from 0 to 100 and calculates a weighted average. Because it reflects how positive reviews are, not just whether they are positive, it can separate a masterpiece from a film that was merely fine.
IMDb user rating
IMDb shows a score out of 10 calculated from ratings by its users, using a weighting method designed to reduce manipulation. Its scores reflect the views of a large general audience, and genre fans can push some titles higher than critics would.
TMDB user score
The Movie Database, which provides the film information on 123Movies, shows a community user score based on ratings from its members. Like IMDb, it reflects audience opinion and is most reliable for titles with a lot of votes. A score based on a handful of ratings can swing widely.
Why critics and audiences disagree
This is where things get interesting. Critics watch a huge number of films and often reward originality, craft and ambition. General audiences may care more about whether a film delivered what its trailer promised. Neither view is wrong. Horror and comedy often show the biggest gaps, because taste matters so much in those genres. When critic and audience scores are both high, that's a strong signal. When they diverge, read a few reviews to see why.
How to use ratings to pick a film
- Start with the content rating if you are watching with family, then read the descriptor for specifics.
- Look at more than one score. A high Tomatometer plus a strong audience score is a safe bet.
- Check the number of votes. A 9.0 from 40 people means much less than an 8.0 from 400,000.
- Read the reasons. A review that dislikes a film for being "too slow" may be exactly what you want on a quiet evening.
- Watch the trailer. It's the fastest way to judge tone. Our guide to reading trailers without spoilers has some tips.
Explore highly rated titles
The bottom line: no single number can tell you whether you'll like a film, but used together, ratings are a very good filter. If you want somewhere to start, browse the top-rated titles on 123Movies, or explore by genre, such as drama, animation or family. Each page shows ratings, release details and official trailers, so you can decide what to watch before you look for a legal place to stream it. See how to find where a movie is streaming legally for the next step.
