Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American film and television review-aggregation and audience-information platform.
Last updated October 14, 2026
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Overview
Rotten Tomatoes is a U.S.-based digital entertainment brand best known for aggregating professional film and television reviews into its Tomatometer rating. It also publishes audience ratings, editorial consensus summaries, entertainment news and release information, and links users to reviews and ticketing or viewing options. The platform’s central idea is to make a large and sometimes contradictory body of criticism easier to scan: individual reviews are classified as broadly positive or negative, then converted into a percentage representing the share of favorable reviews. Titles meeting specified review-volume and consistency requirements may receive the Certified Fresh designation. The service began as a small web project created by Senh Duong in 1998. Duong, a fan of Jackie Chan, initially wanted to collect reviews of Chan’s films in one place, particularly around the anticipated U.S. release of Rush Hour. He developed the first version in roughly two weeks, and Rotten Tomatoes went online on August 12, 1998. The site soon expanded beyond Chan films and attracted early attention from major web portals and newspapers. Duong later joined fellow University of California, Berkeley classmates Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang, and the founders pursued the project full time. The name refers to the theatrical tradition of audiences throwing rotten produce at performances they dislike; the founders also cited a comparable scene in the 1992 Canadian film Léolo as a direct inspiration. Ownership changed several times as the site became a significant entertainment-information destination. IGN Entertainment acquired Rotten Tomatoes in 2004. After News Corporation acquired IGN in 2005, IGN sold the site to Flixster in 2010. Warner Bros. acquired Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes in 2011. In 2016, the properties were sold to Fandango Media, the ticketing company associated with Comcast, while Warner Bros. retained a minority interest in the merged businesses. Rotten Tomatoes remains part of Fandango’s digital entertainment portfolio. The brand’s main consumer product is its dual-rating framework. The Tomatometer reflects the percentage of counted critic reviews that are positive, while the audience metric reflects user sentiment. In 2019, Rotten Tomatoes introduced verified audience ratings tied to ticket purchases through Fandango, reducing the influence of unverified users on the displayed audience score. In August 2024, the audience score was renamed the Popcornmeter, and the Verified Hot badge was introduced for films reaching at least 90 percent among verified ticket purchasers. Rotten Tomatoes also maintains critic classifications, including Top Critics, and provides short Critics Consensus and Audience Says summaries in its What to Know section. The platform has expanded from feature-film criticism into television coverage, awards-oriented editorial programming, video content and discovery tools. Its TV Zone section launched in 2013, and the site has operated digital and broadcast-adjacent programs including The Rotten Tomatoes Show and See It/Skip It. The annual Golden Tomato Awards recognize highly rated films and other categories according to the site’s review data, without a traditional physical awards ceremony. Rotten Tomatoes has become influential in consumer decision-making and film marketing. A 2018 survey cited by the company’s reference material found that almost one-third of U.S. adult moviegoers had consulted the site before going to a cinema. The brand has also attracted criticism because its fresh-versus-rotten binary can flatten nuanced criticism, and because release strategies, review embargoes and selective early screenings may affect the pool of reviews available when a score first appears. These criticisms reflect broader debates about the power of aggregators, but Rotten Tomatoes continues to operate as one of the best-known public interfaces between professional criticism, audience response and commercial f…
History
Rotten Tomatoes was created in 1998 by Senh Duong, initially as a personal project for collecting and organizing film reviews. Duong’s interest in Jackie Chan movies provided the initial focus, while the planned U.S. release of Rush Hour supplied a timely reason to build a public review resource. He wrote the first site in approximately two weeks, and it launched on August 12, 1998. The service quickly expanded to include films beyond Chan’s work and gained attention from online portals and newspapers. Duong later joined Berkeley classmates Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang, with whom he had also worked at the web-design firm Design Reactor. The three founders developed Rotten Tomatoes as a full-time venture and formally relaunched it in April 2000. The site’s defining contribution was not merely collecting links to reviews, but translating qualitative judgments into a simple positive-versus-negative classification. That classification became the Tomatometer, a percentage based on the share of counted reviews judged favorable. The service developed additional editorial and community features during the 2000s. It introduced annual review-based awards in 2000, later known as the Golden Tomato Awards. It also experimented with user groups and discussion communities. Those groups were later discontinued after the Flixster acquisition. In 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired the business. News Corporation acquired IGN in 2005 through Fox Interactive Media, and IGN subsequently sold Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster in January 2010. Warner Bros. acquired Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes in 2011. The brand broadened its entertainment coverage during this period. Current Television produced The Rotten Tomatoes Show in 2009, a television adaptation hosted by Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox. The program later returned in a shorter form within InfoMania. Rotten Tomatoes established TV Zone in September 2013, making scripted television a more explicit part of the platform. In November 2017, the site launched the Facebook video series See It/Skip It, hosted by Jacqueline Coley and Segun Oduolowu. In February 2016, Fandango Media acquired Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster from Warner Bros.; Warner Bros. maintained a minority stake in the merged entities. The transaction aligned Rotten Tomatoes more closely with ticket discovery and purchase. Fandango and its websites moved to a Beverly Hills headquarters in December 2016. Editor-in-chief Matt Atchity, who had held the position since 2007, left the site in July 2017. The visual identity was refreshed in 2018, when Rotten Tomatoes presented a redesigned site, logo and icons at South by Southwest. The platform’s audience-review system also evolved. In May 2019, it introduced ticket-verified audience ratings, initially linked to Fandango purchases, while continuing to allow unverified users to submit written reviews that did not affect the displayed verified audience average. In 2021, the site added a What to Know area combining its Critics Consensus with Audience Says summaries and expanded the information shown in score boxes. In August 2024, the audience metric was renamed the Popcornmeter. Rotten Tomatoes also introduced Verified Hot for films with at least a 90 percent verified audience score, applying the badge retroactively to qualifying films dating from the launch of verified ratings. The platform’s critic-rating presentation continued to center on the Tomatometer and Certified Fresh designation, although the former numeric average on a 0-to-10 scale was removed in April 2025. Rotten Tomatoes has been influential because its scores are easy for audiences, distributors and marketers to reference. At the same time, critics have argued that the binary system can reduce complex criticism to a single directional signal. The platform has also faced recurring debate over review embargoes, selective access to advance screenings and the possibility that studios can shape early score environments. These issues have not displaced the brand’s central role as a widely recognized film and television discovery service.
- 2024
Popcornmeter and Verified Hot launch
[1]The audience score received a new name and a badge was added for highly rated verified audience responses.
- 2021
What to Know introduced
[1]Rotten Tomatoes added a combined presentation of critic and audience sentiment.
- 2019
Verified audience ratings introduced
[1]The platform began separating ticket-verified audience ratings from unverified user submissions.
- 2016
Fandango acquisition
[1]Fandango Media acquired Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster, integrating the brand into a ticketing-centered entertainment portfolio.
- 2013
TV Zone launches
[1]The platform created a dedicated section for scripted television.
- 2010
Sold to Flixster
[1]IGN sold Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster.
- 2004
Acquired by IGN Entertainment
[1]IGN Entertainment purchased Rotten Tomatoes for an undisclosed amount.
- 2000
Founders pursue the service full time
[1]Duong, Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang formally developed Rotten Tomatoes as a full-time business.
- 2000
First annual review awards
[1]The site introduced annual awards based on its ratings, later renamed the Golden Tomato Awards.
- 1998
Website launches
[1]Senh Duong launched Rotten Tomatoes on August 12 as a review-collection project that soon expanded beyond Jackie Chan films.
Products and positioning
A mass-market entertainment guide that translates professional criticism and verified audience opinion into accessible ratings and discovery tools.
Critic review aggregation · 1998
Tomatometer
The Tomatometer is Rotten Tomatoes’ principal professional-critic metric. It expresses the percentage of counted reviews classified as favorable. A title generally needs at least 60 percent positive reviews to be considered fresh, while Certified Fresh requires a higher score, sufficient review volume and consistency. The metric is designed as a directional summary rather than a replacement for reading the underlying criticism.
Audience rating · 2019
Popcornmeter
The Popcornmeter is the platform’s audience sentiment measure. It represents the share of users who rate a film positively, with verified ticket purchasers providing the audience score displayed prominently by the service. Rotten Tomatoes introduced verified audience ratings in 2019 and renamed the metric Popcornmeter in 2024.
Editorial certification
Certified Fresh
Certified Fresh is a higher-level critic designation for films and television titles meeting Rotten Tomatoes requirements for positive reviews, review volume and rating stability. The seal is intended to distinguish broadly and consistently well-reviewed titles from works that merely cross the basic fresh threshold with a small number of reviews.
Editorial discovery feature · 2021
What to Know
What to Know presents concise editorial summaries of critical and audience reaction on a title page. It combines the established Critics Consensus with Audience Says, giving visitors a quick comparison between professional reviews and user sentiment before they read individual reviews or decide what to watch.
Annual editorial awards · 2000
Golden Tomato Awards
The Golden Tomato Awards rank highly reviewed films and other eligible titles using Rotten Tomatoes’ aggregation system. Categories distinguish areas such as wide and limited releases, genres, British and Australian films, user favorites and poorly reviewed releases. Winners are announced editorially rather than through a conventional awards ceremony.
Controversies
Criticism of rating simplification and review manipulation risks
Rotten Tomatoes has been criticized for reducing nuanced reviews to a binary fresh-or-rotten classification. Commentators have also argued that studios may influence early aggregate scores through selective advance screenings, embargo timing or access strategies. These are recurring criticisms of the platform and film-marketing ecosystem rather than a single documented incident.
Marketing campaigns
- 2017See It/Skip It
United States · Digital
Rotten Tomatoes launched a Facebook video series hosted by Jacqueline Coley and Segun Oduolowu, extending its recommendation-oriented editorial voice into social video.
Outcome. Digital editorial programming
Brand decisions
2024
Rename audience rating as PopcornmeterOtherBackground
Rotten Tomatoes wanted to distinguish its audience-facing measure from the Tomatometer and emphasize verified moviegoer response.
Action taken
The service renamed the audience score Popcornmeter and introduced Verified Hot for films receiving at least 90 percent from verified ticket purchasers.
Aftermath
The brand created a separate audience identity and retroactively applied Verified Hot to qualifying films from the verified-rating period.
2021
Redesign score pages and add What to KnowOtherBackground
The platform sought to make rating context more visible instead of presenting a score without supporting information.
Action taken
Rotten Tomatoes added release year, genre, runtime and rating details to score boxes, improved score-detail views and introduced Audience Says alongside Critics Consensus.
Aftermath
Users received more information about review volume, critic distribution and the difference between professional and audience response.
2019
Introduce verified audience ratingsStrategyBackground
The earlier audience system allowed registered users to submit ratings without demonstrating that they had seen or purchased a film.
Action taken
Rotten Tomatoes introduced a verified rating system connected initially to ticket purchases through Fandango. Unverified users could still submit written reviews, but those submissions did not determine the displayed verified audience average.
Aftermath
The change was intended to make the audience score more representative of ticket purchasers and reduce manipulation concerns.
Recent events
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