So many people do not understand how Rotten Tomatoes works.
The “Tomatometer” number attached to films on the site is not a test score, the most common misinterpretation I hear. If a film — say Gymkata — receives a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, that is not the equivalent of an “A” grade. That is the equivalent of 95 out of 100 critics giving it a positive review. Those reviews could be raves; they could also be the equivalent of a shrug. If 95 critics all say a movie is basically okay, then that movie gets a 95 percent, receives a “Certified Fresh” badge, and looks at a glance like a critical juggernaut. (Maybe this isn’t the best example; obviously every critic who reviewed Gymkata gave it an enthusiastic 10/10 review, don’t bother looking it up just trust me.)
That Rotten Tomatoes number indicates consensus — and while most of your favorite films do have very high scores on Rotten Tomatoes, almost none of them received true universal agreement from every critic. The Godfather holds a 97 on Rotten Tomatoes. Moonlight sits at 98 percent. The original Star Wars only has a 93!
That said, there are a handful of movies across the 25+ years of Rotten Tomatoes’ existence that have managed to receive only positive reviews from critics. Today we’re going to look at 25 of them. There are more, but for the purposes of this list I made a few guidelines. I only picked movies that were released after Rotten Tomatoes was founded in 1998. (The list of reviews of movies released years or decades prior are not always complete. Those titles might have gotten some negative reviews but they just haven’t been retroactively added to Rotten Tomatoes.)
I also tried to emphasize fiction films with perfect Rotten Tomatoes scores as much as I could. There are far more documentaries with 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes than narrative features. Why that might be the case is an interesting question to ask, but one that’s best left for another article.
In the meantime, here are 25 examples that prove that while getting 100 people to agree on anything these days is almost impossible, it can be done.
Movies With 100 Percent on Rotten Tomatoes
These movies did the nearly impossible: They got film critics to agree on something.
READ MORE: Famous Movies That Got a 0 Rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Movies With Surprising Rotten Tomatoes Scores
You might be shocked by the scores that these movies got from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.