The Metacritic 80+ indicator

We know better than to call anything a “rule” but one of the best indicators for Best Picture nominees is a Metacritic score over 80. Tonight’s raves for Milk place it as the 2nd best-reviewed feature film of the year with a score of 84 86. That number is still in flux until all the critics weigh in (we still have to wait for Stephanie Zacharek to bestow her worst-review-of-all, as she did for WALL-E and The Dark Knight) but Milk’s score is high enough for us assume to it’ll stay above 80. So here’s the current list of movies with metacritic scores over 80, followed by a handy comparison of last year’s Meta80+ titles. [Eventual Best Picture nominees in bold.]

2008

• 93 WALL-E
• 86 Milk
• 85 Slumdog Millionaire
• 84 Happy-Go-Lucky
• 83 Paranoid Park
• 82 The Dark Knight
• 82 Frozen River
• 82 Rachel Getting Married

2007

• 96 Ratatouille
• 92 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• 92 There Will Be Blood
• 91 No Country for Old Men
• 88 Once
• 88 Away from Her
• 85 Atonement
• 85 The Bourne Ultimatum
• 85 The Savages
• 85 Knocked Up
• 84 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
• 82 Michael Clayton
• 81 Juno

Meta80+ lists for 2006, 2005 and 2004 after the cut.

2006

• 98 Pan’s Labyrinth
• 91 The Queen
• 90 United 93
• 89 Letters From Iwo Jima
• 86 The Departed
• 85 Half Nelson
• 84 Children of Men
• 80 Little Miss Sunshine
• 69 Babel

2005

• 88 Capote
• 87 Wallace & Gromit / Were-Rabbit
• 87 Brokeback Mountain
• 82 The Constant Gardener
• 82 Pride & Prejudice
• 82 The Squid and the Whale
• 80 Good Night, and Good Luck
• 77 Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
  
• 74 Munich
• 69 Crash

2004

• 94 Sideways
• 90 The Incredibles
• 89 House of Flying Daggers
• 89 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• 86 Million Dollar Baby
• 83 Spider-Man 2
• 83 Kill Bill: Volume 2
• 77 The Aviator
• 73 Ray
• 67 Finding Neverland

One thing that stands out this year is the relative scarcity of movies scoring over 90, compared to last year and 2006.¬† 2004 and 2005 show that when there’s a lack of movies with 90+ scores it lowers the curve for the whole field, opening up hope for movies in the 70s — and even a high 60 or two.

Although the next thing I notice is subjective, it also seems that the lowest scoring nominees of the year will often suffer the dubious distinction of becoming that year’s most disparaged titles.¬† I’ll speculate that this might be due to the mobs of people who have favorite films that were numerically superior that same year. [This seems to expose another common distortion: the misconception that critics are highbrow elitists and out of touch with what the public appreciates.]

Of course, we still have a couple of significant titles as yet unreviewed — notably The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, Doubt, Frost/Nixon and The Reader.¬† If any of these break through the 90+ plateau, it’s very bad news for any movie that failed to make the meta80+ cut.

No doubt, no dodge, no debate. Reviews matter, and critics’ opinions are the first solid indicator of of film’s future Best Picture destiny.