City Weekly · Film
Inside the way a critic thinks about a numerical rating system
What’s the difference between a 2-1/2-star movie and a 3-star movie? Maybe less than you think.
Courtesy photo If you’re a regular reader of this space, and you immediately looked down the page for a star rating, I have some bad news for you: There’s no movie review, and hence no star rating. As a follow-up, some even worse news: The entire purpose of this feature is to let you know how much I would prefer there never to be a star rating in this space.
When I started writing film criticism more than 30 years ago, I didn’t think too much about numerical ratings. It was just something I did because it’s what everybody did.
This is a 600 character excerpt. Read the full story at City Weekly, where it was published on April 1, 2026.
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