It’s not uncommon for me to head straight to the cinema after work most days. Today was no exception. The port of call was QFT, to see Hunt for the Wilderpeople re-released in cinemas for a short run. I’ve seen it many times before, but never on the big screen. It was, of course, tremendously joyful.
My cinema-going experience does not end when the credits roll. The crucial next step is Letterboxd. I have to compulsively log everything I watch. (Similarly, I use Trakt to log TV shows). Until quite recently, the compulsion extended to rating the film I watched out of 5. Previously, I had rated Hunt for the Wilderpeople 5 stars, but today’s diary entry had no rating attached to it. I simply wrote, “RIP Sam Neill.”
The star rating system is a key feature of Letterboxd as a review aggregator. Users are encouraged to deploy it to tell the world what they thought of the films they’ve watched. Back when I was still on Instagram, I used to share my rating as a story, too. Like most acts we perform on social media, it had all the markings of a performative display, a signalling perhaps of my supposedly superior taste, or in some cases, a defiance (as if I was right and everyone else was wrong—surely, no one in their right mind would rate *insert film* anything other than 5 stars?).
Lately I’ve been questioning the rating system. How do I objectively and quantifiably measure the quality of a work of art (if “quality” is indeed what we’re measuring here)? Is there a discernible difference between 3.5 stars and 4 stars? Does a film deserve a 5-star rating on the basis of exceptional technical merit alone? How do I rate a film (like The Odyssey) I have complicated thoughts on?
The film critic Mark Kermode, who famously dislikes the star rating system, likes to give the following example to demonstrate its dubious credibility. Imagine two critics watch a film. One finds it irredeemably awful and rates it 1 star. The other has the time of their life and rates it 5 stars. A platform such as Letterboxd will process these two ratings, spit out the average, and label the film 3 stars. When in reality, neither critic rated it 3 stars. (The actual Letterboxd rating algorithm is more complex than this, but the point stands).
Kermode’s influence and my own inquiry have led me to completely abandon the star rating system for good. My last rating was on 7 April 2026. I endeavour now to express my thoughts in writing, which allows for more nuance (even when the “writing” in question is a pithy one-liner). I don’t want to be a film critic, but I want to be able to talk intelligently about this artform that I so enjoy, and writing helps me do that.
Reference this post: When referencing this post, I prefer to be called Thamara, Thamara Kandabada, or Thamara's Notebook. URL:
