If Critics Were King-Makers

Metacritic offers a nuanced perspective on what critics thought of a particular book, movie, or album. Unlike Rotten Tomatoes — which casts reviews merely as “fresh” or “rotten” — Metacritic measures the level of enthusiasm or hatred.

If movie critics chose Oscar nominations, then, here are two possibilities of what they might look like.

From Metacritic, starting from the best reviewed movie: Capote, Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Brokeback Mountain, Murderball, and Grizzly Man. (Note that I removed two movies — The Best of Youth and Nobody Knows — from consideration because neither ever showed in more than two-dozen theaters.)

From Rotten Tomatoes, from the best-reviewed movie: Good Night, and Good Luck, Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, March of the Penguins, Murderball, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

What we can deduce from this is that while critics were more generally favorable (in a dichotomous sense) to Good Night, and Good Luck, March of the Penguins, and Enron, they more passionately liked Capote, Brokeback Mountain, and Grizzly Man.

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