rotten tomatoes | a better best of 2010

In a previous post I linked to the list of the best films of 2010 which Rotten Tomatoes provided yesterday, but I was a bit puzzled about some of the selections (Harry Potter at #10, with at 78% freshness rating?), and the absence of others (no mention of The King's Speech, with a 96% rating?). A closer look at the list shows that it's not actually a list of the films that scored the highest on the Tomatometer. Maybe it incorporates the subjective judgment of the staff person who compiled the list, maybe it factors box office into a film's score, I don't know. But it's not the interesting list it could have been.

So here's the actual, statistical Rotten Tomatoes ranking of the top films of 2010, sticking to what Rotten Tomatoes does best -- assessing each review of a film for the percentage of positive vs negative response, then combining all those rated reviews into an aggregate Tomatometer score.  (There may be other 2010 films with similarly high ratings, but I restricted my survey to films that also placed in the top sixty or so on the Movie City News tally of critic top tens. The current MCN ranking is provided in parenthesis).

The Top Films of 2010
Rotten Tomatoes Ranking
as of January 2, 2010, 6:55 am
(ranking / tomatometer freshness rating / # reviews / avg rating / MCN ranking)

1 Of Gods and Men  100% 18 8.3
2 Toy Story 3  99% 247 8.8 ( 4 )
3 Exit Through The Gift Shop  98% 96 8.2 ( 11 )
4 How to Train Your Dragon  98% 157 7.9 ( 63 )
5 The Social Network  97% 258 9 ( 1 )
6 A Prophet  97% 143 8.3 ( 17 )
7 Inside Job  97% 91 8.3 ( 14 )
8 The King’s Speech  96% 146 8.7 ( 6 )
9 Animal Kingdom  96% 109 8.1 ( 32 )
10 Sweetgrass  96% 45 7.5 ( 24 )

11 True Grit  95% 175 8.3 ( 12 )
12 Blue Valentine  95% 73 8.0 ( 31 )
13 Mother (Madeo)  95% 108 7.9 ( 29 )
14 Winter's Bone  94% 143 8 ( 2 )
15 The Kids Are All Right  94% 193 7.9 ( 7 )
16 The Town  94% 201 7.7 ( 19 )
17 127 Hours  93% 147 8.3 ( 9 )
18 Carlos  93% 54 8.1 ( 8 )
19 The Secret in Their Eyes  91% 126 7.8 ( 51 )
20 Dogtooth  91% 47 7.7 ( 16 )

21 Another Year  90% 59 8.2 ( 13 )
22 The Fighter  89% 163 7.9 ( 15 )
23 Let Me In  89% 193 7.6 ( 20 )
24 Everyone Else  88% 33 7.6 ( 27 )
25 Please Give  88% 130 7.5 ( 22 )
26 White Material  88% 64 7.2 ( 26 )
27 Black Swan  87% 198 8.2 ( 5 )
28 Inception  87% 272 8 ( 3 )
29 Get Low  86% 112 7.5 ( 85 )
30 Red Riding Trilogy  86% 57 7.4 ( 36 )

31 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  86% 163 7.2 ( 61 )
32 Rabbit Hole  85% 96 7.7 ( 38 )
33 Me and Orson Welles  85% 142 7.2 ( )
34 The Ghost Writer  83% 187 7.4 ( 10 )
35 Catfish  82% 125 7.1 ( 68 )
36 Scott Pilgrim vs The World  81% 226 7.5 ( 35 )
37 I Am Love  81% 114 7.2 ( 21 )
38 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  78% 237 7.1 ( 40 )
39 Kick-Ass  76% 229 7.0 ( 44 )
40 Somewhere  76% 123 6.7 ( 30 )

41 Tiny Furniture  75% 56 6.6 ( 88 )
42 Greenberg  74% 151 6.6 ( 18 )
43 Enter the Void  70% 23 6.6 ( 28 )
44 Shutter Island  68% 231 6.6 ( 25 )
45 Never Let Me Go  67% 121 6.7 ( 39 )
46 Wild Grass  66% 77 6.2 ( 23 )
47 The American  65% 199 6.4 ( 59 )

It's worth keeping in mind the number of reviews whose ranking contributes to the Tomatometer score. For instance, Of Gods And Men ranks first with a 100% freshness rating, but note that the score is derived from only eighteen reviews, far fewer than most other films on this list. The more reviews a film receives, the more likely it is to receive divergent responses, which will somewhat diminish the score of a very highly rated film like the Cannes Festival Grand Jury prize-winner that's a surprise box office smash in France, but has yet to be widely seen in North America.  As more the film is moe widely seen, and more reviews appear, that percentage will drop.  But not a lot: it's an exquisite film.