An opaque popularity vote that gets review-bombed by opening weekend.
What it's really for A film and TV database with crowd ratings; the pro popularity 'meters' sit behind a paid IMDbPro tier.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its weighted-average 1-10 user title ratings, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
- Operating since
- 1990 (36 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- IMDb makes money from advertising on its free site, from IMDbPro subscriptions sold to industry professionals (~$19.99/mo) that unlock STARmeter and contact data, and from data/API licensing — all flowing to parent company Amazon.
- What they do
- IMDb publishes a weighted-average 1-to-10 user rating for nearly every film and TV title, alongside paid IMDbPro "meter" popularity rankings for actors, titles, and companies.
- What to watch for
- The public star rating is an opaque popularity vote that gets review-bombed within hours of release, and the professional STARmeter ranking measures page-view buzz (and is gameable by paid boost services), so neither number tells you whether something is actually good.
- Composite score
- 2.00 / 5.00 → grade C-
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- IMDb originated from Col Needham's USENET posting on October 17, 1990, was incorporated in the UK in 1996, and Amazon bought it outright in April 1998; it remains a wholly owned Amazon subsidiary. Source: Wikipedia — IMDb →
- IMDb states STARmeter/MOVIEmeter/COMPANYmeter rankings are built on the 'sum total of pageviews' and explicitly 'do not necessarily mean that something is good' — only that there is public awareness/interest; rankings are gated behind the paid IMDbPro Premium tier. Source: IMDb Help — STARmeter/MOVIEmeter FAQ →
- Third-party services openly sell STARmeter ranking boosts by manufacturing page views — one (IMDBPromo) quoted $999 — and IMDb concedes it must run safeguards to 'detect and neutralize attempts to influence and skew STARmeter,' indicating the ranking is gameable. Source: The Hollywood Reporter — Reports Claim IMDbPro's STARmeter Rankings Are Rigged →
- IMDb publishes a weighted (not arithmetic) average but deliberately does not disclose the criteria for a 'regular voter,' and has had to issue rare warnings about 'unusual voting activity' on review-bombed titles such as the live-action Snow White (rated 1.6/10 with ~91% one-star votes). Source: IMDb Help — Weighted Average Ratings →