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.