7 out 10. That’s the key. That’s the difference between life and death.

7 out of 10 means that I like a film, TV series, etc. enough to want to see it again.

7 out of 10 also means that I think said film or TV series is good.

If I rate something 7 out of 10 it means I keep it, literally. If I rate it 6 or lower, I erase from my computer so getting to 7 is the difference between staying with me or being 1 and done.

So, in effect, the most important ratings are 7 and 6. 7, 8, 9 and 10 just denote how much I liked said film or series. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 on the other side describe how much I disliked it.

Now, this is a gradient, rating something 6 isn’t the same as rating something a 1 or a 2. 6 probably means “worth watching”. There is no equivocation with 5, 5 means bad.

On the other hand, 8 means great, 9 means superb and 10 means excellent. That about sums it up.

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Did I like this film? Yes or no?

That’s the question I’m trying to answer when I’m rating a movie.

And that’s was basically what Roger Ebert (with his partner Gene Siskel) was doing when he distilled all this reviewing business with a simple “thumbs up/thumbs down”.

As I have commented before Ebert was a big influence on me early on when I got into movies. Another influence on me was the website Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB), specifically, their Top 1000’s ratings.

7 I like it, 6 I didn’t like it (but it might be worth watching). There, that’s what it comes down to. That’s my version of thumb up or thumb down. But why 7 and 6? Why not 6 and 5 or 8 and 7? Good question, this is where IMDB influence shows up.

I created my IMDB on July 2006, from the beginning I noticed that it was a wonderful site which summarized relevant information (director, writers, actors etc.) on each movie, with what it seems an infinite catalog, forums for each movie (now defunct) and of course, I could rate my movies. I realized the most important useful use of this wasn’t rating any individual film but the fact that rating films allowed me to keep track of which movies I had seen and when I had seen them. After browsing and familiarizing with the ratings and the community one starts to peg what each rating meant: 7’s were good, 8’s were rare and only 2 movies, if I recalled correctly, were rated 9 or above (The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather: Part I). 6’s were bad.

Then there was the Top 1000’s voters on IMDB. According to IMDB the Top 1000’s voters consist of: “the 1,000 people who have voted for the most titles in our ratings poll”. 99% of the time these voters’ ratings are lower than the overall rating you see on each film page, and in many instances significantly lower. These ratings are closer to my ratings.

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Hopefully this has clarified what my ratings mean and informs you about my train of thought when evaluating a film or a series.