On the weekend, I went to my bookclub and was asked to rate a book out of 10. This was at the very beginning, before any discussion had taken place. I refused to award a rating. This is because I am obstinate in my hatred of numerical/star ratings in reviews for cultural artifacts, be they books, television shows and yes, films. ESPECIALLY films.

In my view, scoring in film reviews is largely useless, arbitrary and it detracts from whatever the reviewer is saying in the actual review…if indeed they are saying anything of consequence at all. In addition to this, star ratings/numerical scores privilege a specific type of cinema consumption, that of the “quality, well-made film.”

Basically, if it has a cracking plot, well-realised characters and a good visual style (although this last one is neglected so much by reviewers who should know better), it will get a 8 or 9 or 10 out of 10, or stars or pandas or whatever ridiculous glyph you choose to put up there in lieu of real critical discernment. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a quality, well-made film that ticks all the boxes. In fact, there’s a lot right with it.

However, the issue I have is that some films—actually, many films—are not enjoyed through this “quality, well-made” prism. A lot of people go to see films knowing full well that they are trash, and get particular pleasures out of that trashiness. Innumerable rom coms are terrible. And people KNOW they are terrible. But they still get a lot out of it. What use, in this situation, is a star rating?

Let’s say there’s a new rom com coming out. Christopher Walken and Kirsten Stewart are the leads. Walken plays a dementia patient and Stewart, his nurse. Somehow, they fall in love. Of course, it’s a creepy premise, and it ends up being poorly acted and terribly written. But it has something about it (perhaps its trainwreck quality) that makes you derive a certain kind of pleasure from its terribleness. In short, you enjoy it.

You enjoy it more than the relatively bland, unadventurous film which goes through the motions of adherence to the quality, well-made cinema mode. In most cases, you would feel compelled to give the better-made, yet less entertaining film a better “score.”

This is fundamentally wrong-headed and unfair. It also shows quite clearly that people (even the most crotchety of reviewers), draw different kinds of pleasures from different kinds of movies. A “score” based on “quality” severely limits the myriad ways in which an individual and a mass audience consume a piece of cinema.

In addition to this, a lot of people go and see incomprehensible art films that do not fetishise story and character, that are attempting to do something more with the medium. Some reviewers may alter their critical mode to reflect the different intentionality of the arthouse film, because they recognise that it was created not merely to entertain. The audience is invited to pay attention and work harder to derive meaning and pleasure from the film. This means that such a film, if you were to review it based on the idealistic criteria of the “quality, well-made film,” would fail to generate a decent rating. But most reviewers don’t fail such films. They recognise that the audience is meant to modify their viewing practice in order to comprehend and enjoy the film. A non-narrative film such as Samsara can be rated highly, even if does not possess a strong central conflict, a compelling protagonist and a solid script, or any other of those reviewing cliches.

In short, if a film is not aiming to be a “quality, well-made film,” why judge it on that basis?

This, I think, is where ratings are especially unhelpful. With what yardstick are you rating it? Are there certain subcategories (performance, cinematography, script, general feel/vibe, etc) that are apportioned points and then tallied up? If you DO alter your critical mode and requirements for each film, isn’t a score redundant since you cannot fairly compare it to other films that you have or will have reviewed?

Good criticism is about responding to a film in an articulate way. This means you should be able to put your thoughts about a film into words and make a judgment about its qualities, pleasures and the extent to which the film succeeds in conveying these things. It should be clear within your criticism what you have thought about a film.

You do not need ratings.

Your words and your thoughts on the film are the rating.

Lastly, you have probably anticipated this, but…

I give numerical ratings 0/10.