The 5 Biggest Critic-vs-Audience Blowouts In Rotten Tomatoes History

Star Wars: The Last Jedi — Critics Called It Art. Fans Called For A Refund.

This is the widest gap on this whole list: <cite index="43-1">the 39-percent gulf between the film's critics and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 93 percent versus 54 percent, only seemed to keep widening</cite> in the weeks after release. Director Rian Johnson didn't dodge the backlash either, acknowledging that <cite index="43-9">fans "care so deeply — sometimes they care very violently at me on Twitter"</cite>. Honestly? Hindsight favors the audience here — the franchise itself course-corrected hard in the very next installment, which is about as clear an admission as Hollywood ever gives that the fans had a point.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — Critics Buried It. Audiences Bought Tickets Anyway.

Critics were borderline savage about this one, while regular moviegoers just... weren't as mad. As Rotten Tomatoes' own editorial team put it, <cite index="23-7">BvS is "Rotten at 29% on the Tomatometer – critics largely thought it was overwrought and over-long – but Fresh at 62% according to the Audience Score, with users loving the epic battles and the chance to see several of their favorite characters duking it out on the big screen"</cite>. We're siding with the critics on this one — Warner Bros. essentially agreed too, scrapping the Snyder-verse direction not long after.

Joker — The Movie Critics Side-Eyed And Audiences Turned Into A Billion Dollars

Some critics genuinely worried about what the film was saying — one review pointedly noted <cite index="10-2">"what the film wants to say — about mental illness or class divisions in society — is not as interesting as what it accidentally says about whiteness"</cite>. Audiences, meanwhile, could not have disagreed more: <cite index="15-14,15-16">Joker sat at a 69% Tomatometer based on 330 critical reviews, while its Audience Score was a stellar 93%, based on nearly 2,800 verified ratings</cite>. Given the Oscar win and the billion-dollar box office that followed, this is one where the crowd's read aged better than the skeptics'.

mother! — Critics Called It Ambitious. Audiences Called It A Nightmare.

This is the reverse of the Joker situation: <cite index="7-1">mother! received a neutral 69% from critics, but a poor 51% from audiences</cite>, and one Rotten review went further, dismissing it as <cite index="4-5">"what happens when a dude has an idea he thinks is brilliant and no one checks him on it"</cite>. Martin Scorsese himself jumped to its defense — <cite index="7-2">writing an op-ed that criticized Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore for how they treated the film</cite>. We're on Team Critics here: this is exactly the kind of divisive, symbol-heavy swing that tends to get reappraised as a misunderstood favorite once the initial shock wears off.

Vice — A Best Picture Nominee Nobody Could Actually Agree On

Vice is the rare case where neither side loved it, but critics were still measurably kinder: <cite index="35-5">the Dick Cheney biopic managed "a mediocre 64 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, and an awful 54 percent from the audience"</cite>. Newsday didn't hold back either, dismissing it as <cite index="35-2">"not really a biopic but a two-hour hate-fest that stoops lower than necessary and rarely scores a laugh"</cite>. This is one where audiences probably had the sharper read — a film this openly political was always going to alienate the exact crowd it was aimed at converting.