ramblings of joe / links / 2022 / 07

Rating movies on a seven-point scale

Years ago, my friend Dave introduced me to a different way to rate movies: a seven-point scale using whole numbers only (no half stars). He goes into detail breaking down exactly why he advocates for it on his blog.

I recently updated my personal site to use the seven-point scale for my movie ratings, and part of the challenge was mapping Letterboxd ratings to a representative number on the seven point scale. So I briefly wanted to note down how I reasoned about the mapping and what I settled on.

5-star 7-star Reason
0.5-1 1 Point for trying I guess?
1.5 2 Not great
2-2.5 3 A below average movie
3-3.5 4 Average
4 5 An above average movie
4.5 6 A great movie
5 7 A perfect movie

I have found that I’m a little on the generous side when it comes to rating movies on a 5-star scale, so I wanted to lower the curve and have a bit more variation at the top of the scale. While 4/5 doesn’t say the same thing about a movie as 5/7, it feels right.