IMDb is the dominant platform for movie ratings globally, displaying a weighted average score out of 10 based on millions of user votes. It's owned by Amazon and covers virtually every film ever released, along with TV shows, making it the go-to reference for mainstream audiences and industry professionals alike. Rotten Tomatoes takes a different approach by aggregating professional critic reviews into a percentage-based Tomatometer, plus a separate Audience Score, which creates the Fresh (60%+) or Rotten (below 60%) designation you see everywhere. Metacritic is the third major player, converting critic reviews into a 0–100 Metascore using a weighted average that gives more influence to top-tier publications. Letterboxd has become the cinephile's choice, offering a 5-star rating system with strong social features and curated lists, though its user base skews younger and more film-literate than IMDb's general audience. From a web design perspective, these platforms succeed because they solve the trust problem differently. IMDb wins on volume and comprehensiveness, Rotten Tomatoes wins on the binary simplicity of Fresh/Rotten for quick decisions, and Letterboxd wins on community and discovery. If you're building any kind of review or rating system, study how each handles: - Vote weighting to prevent manipulation - Visual hierarchy that surfaces the rating without burying context - Mobile-first design since most users check ratings on their phones before buying tickets - Schema markup so ratings appear in Google search results At Ottawa SEO, when clients want to add rating features to their sites, we prioritize schema implementation first because a 5-star snippet in search results dramatically improves click-through rates. The rating system itself matters less than making it visible where decisions happen. Most e-commerce sites that add reviews see 15–30% conversion lifts, and the same psychology applies whether you're rating movies or marketing services.