The Wisdom of the Well-Informed

Over the years, I’ve come to trust Metacritic as a barometer of whether or not I’ll like a film. While it’s not perfect, I find that far more often than not, the aggregate score they give a film is at least directionally in line with my own thoughts.

Maybe this simply means I have more mainstream tastes. But I really like the way they get their scores. While many people swear by Rotten Tomatoes, I’m a Metacritic guy all the way because I appreciate that they limit the reviews they aggregate to a more select group of professional reviewers.

Instead of the wisdom of the masses, it’s the wisdom of the well-informed.

It seems to me that this is a good way to do things. While everyone may have an opinion on something, I’ve learned that I much prefer to know what someone who is an “expert” on something thinks. And while my own opinion will often differ from any one expert on something like a movie, the experts’ opinions in aggregate, I find to be extremely useful. And again, often in line with what I think as well.

Conversely, I often find Rotten Tomatoes scores to be far too high. And it feels like that’s a direct result of their inclusion of far more ratings into their scores. While the audience (masses) scores may be separated out, some of the glowing reviews from sites/publications included seem suspect at best, perhaps for psychological reasons…

I read with great interest last week that France is actually making a new list of the best restaurants in the world based on the aggregate ratings of food critics/experts. Granted, they’re doing this because they’re upset about the ranking of their restaurants in another list. But I think it’s fair to push back against the vague opinion of one (or a few) — Michelin Guide, anyone? — in favor of the collective opinion of experts.

Now, I doubt this works across all fields. For example, I’m not sure I trust Metacritic’s ratings for video games and music. It seems to me that those mediums are either less refined in terms of criticism (video games) or far too subjective (music).¹ But I’m curious to know where else this could work.