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CinemaScore

Market research firm based in Las Vegas From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For music in film, see film score.

CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data.

Quick Facts Company type, Industry ...
CinemaScore
Company typePrivate
IndustryMarketing research
Founded1979; 46 years ago (1979)
FounderEd Mintz
Headquarters
Las Vegas, Nevada
,
U.S.
ProductsMovies ratings
Websitecinemascore.com
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Background

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Ed Mintz, who majored in math at the University of Wisconsin-Madison[1] and founded dental billing software company Dentametics,[2] with wife Rona attended The Cheap Detective in June 1978. He had read a positive review by a movie critic but disliked the film despite being a fan of Neil Simon, and heard another disappointed attendee wanting to hear the opinions of ordinary people, not critics. Mintz had not worked with polls or the entertainment industry, but decided to use his math and computer skills for a business surveying the opinions of hundreds of film viewers.[3][4]

A Yom Kippur donation card with tabs inspired the survey cards given to audience members. [3] The company conducts exit polls of audiences who have seen a film in theaters, asking them to rate the film and specifying what drew them to the film. Its results are published in Entertainment Weekly. CinemaScore also conducts surveys to determine audience interest in renting films on video, breaking the demographic down by age and sex and passing along information to video companies such as Fox Video Corporation.[5]

After employees of Mintz's dental company tested the survey cards at theaters, polling began in 1979.[1] CinemaScore at first reported its findings to consumers, including a newspaper column and a radio show. After 20th Century Fox approached the company in 1989, it began selling the data to studios instead.[3][1] By the mid-1980s AMC Theatres used CinemaScore data when choosing films for its locations.[2] A website was launched by CinemaScore in 1999,[6] after three years' delay in which the president sought sponsorship from magazines and video companies. Brad Peppard was president of CinemaScore Online from 1999 to 2002.[7] The website included a database of nearly 2,000 feature films and the audiences' reactions to them. Prior to the launch, CinemaScore results had been published in Las Vegas Review-Journal and Reno Gazette-Journal. CinemaScore's expansion to the Internet included a weekly email subscription for cinephiles to keep up with reports of audience reactions.[8]

In 1999, CinemaScore was rating approximately 140 films a year, including 98–99% of major studio releases. For each film, employees polled 400–500 moviegoers in three of CinemaScore's 15 sites, which included the cities Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Dallas, Atlanta, Tampa, Phoenix, and Coral Springs.[8]

In the summer of 2002, CinemaScore reported that the season had the biggest collective grade since 1995. In the summer of 2000, 25 out of 32 films received either an A or B grade. Twenty-six of the summer of 2001's 30 films got similar grades, while 32 of the summer of 2002's 34 films got similar grades, the latter being the highest ratio in a decade.[9]

Since July 2014, CinemaScore reports its results also on Twitter.[10]

Usually, to maintain comparable sample sizes, only films that open in more than 1,500 screens are polled and reported on CinemaScore's website and social media. The distributor of a film that opens in fewer screens can also contract with CinemaScore for a private survey, whose result would be disclosed only to the client.[11] Some of these privately contracted surveys' results have nevertheless been publicly touted, such as the "A+" ratings for films including Courageous and A Question of Faith (both released by faith-based distributor Pure Flix Entertainment).

Rating

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A CinemaScore survey card

CinemaScore describes itself as "the industry leader in measuring movie appeal".[12] There are 35 to 45 teams of CinemaScore representatives present in 25 large cities across North America. Each Friday, representatives in five randomly chosen cities give opening-day audiences a small survey card.[13][14][15] The card asks for age, gender, a grade for the film ("A", "B", "C", "D" or "F"), whether they would rent or buy the film on DVD or Blu-ray, why they chose the film and whether or not they felt the film lined up with its marketing.[14] CinemaScore typically receives about 400 cards per film;[16] the company estimates a 65% response rate and 6% margin of error.[15]

An overall grade of "A+" and "F" is calculated as the average of the grades given by responders. In this case, grades other than "F" are qualified with a plus (high end), minus (low end) or neither (middle). The ratings are divided by gender and age groups (under 21, 21–34, 35 and up).[8] Film studios and other subscribers receive the data at about 11 pm Pacific Time. CinemaScore publishes letter grades to the public on social media and, although the detailed data is proprietary, the grades become widely shared in the media and the industry. Subsequent advertisements for highly ranked films often cite their CinemaScore grades.[16][15][4] Studios use the demographic data when marketing films.[1] A studio might hope that a high grade helps the box office of a film with a disappointing opening weekend,[2] or adjust a future film's marketing based on survey results for one with a similar demographic.[14]

CinemaScore pollster Dede Gilmore reported the trend in 1993, "Most movies get easily a B-plus. I think people come wanting the entertainment. They have high expectations. They're more lenient with their grades. But as (moviegoers) do it more and more, they get to be stronger critics". In 1993, films that were graded with an A included Scent of a Woman, A Few Good Men and Falling Down. Films graded with a B included Sommersby and Untamed Heart. A C-grade film for the year was Body of Evidence.[5] As opening-night audiences are presumably more enthusiastic about a film than ordinary patrons, a "C" grade from them is – according to the Los Angeles Times – "bad news, the equivalent of a failing grade".[14] According to Ed Mintz, "A's generally are good, B's generally are shaky, and C's are terrible. D's and F's, they shouldn't have made the movie, or they promoted it funny and the absolute wrong crowd got into it". Horror films consistently score lower; The Conjuring's "A−" was the first time a horror film scored better than "B+". CinemaScore's Harold Mintz said that "An F in a horror film is equivalent to a B− in a comedy".[17]

An "A+" typically predicts a successful box office. From 1982 to August 2011, only 52 films (about two a year) received the top grade, including seven Academy Award for Best Picture winners.[13] From 2000 to January 2020, there were 53 movies with "A+".[18][19] As of July 15, 2020, about 90 films have received "A+".

From 2004 to 2014, those rated "A+" and "A" had multiples of 4.8 and 3.6, respectively, while C-rated films' total revenue was 2.5 times their opening weekend.[15] Ed Mintz cited Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise as the "two stars, it doesn't matter how bad the film is, they can pull (the projections) up".[3] (DiCaprio's Shutter Island had a 3.1 revenue multiple despite a "C+" grade, and Cruise's Vanilla Sky had a 4 multiple with a "D" grade.)[15]

As of 2020, 22 films have received an "F" grade.[20][6][21][22][23] Vulture wrote that besides horror,[17]

Another type of movie features prominently on the list: let's call it "Misleading Auteurism". These are movies made by prominent, often Oscar-nominated directors that investigate risky and controversial subject matters and receive both praise and pans. But because of how the movie industry works — the name of a director alone not being enough to get most people to go see something — they tend to be marketed as more straight-ahead genre films, resulting in a whole bunch of misled and pissed-off audience members.

Vulture cited as examples of such F-graded films Steven Soderbergh's Solaris with George Clooney, Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly with Brad Pitt, and Darren Aronofsky's mother! with Jennifer Lawrence.[17]

In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, Martin Scorsese strongly criticized this type of approach by writing: "The brutal judgmentalism that has made opening-weekend grosses into a bloodthirsty spectator sport seems to have encouraged an even more brutal approach to film reviewing. I'm talking about market research firms like CinemaScore [...]. They have everything to do with the movie business and absolutely nothing to do with either the creation or the intelligent viewing of film. The filmmaker is reduced to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer."[24] Ed Mintz rejected being connected to Rotten Tomatoes, and defended CinemaScore methodology of polling select audiences on the opening night, to see if the film meets the expectations of the people who most want to see it. He further defended the accuracy of their data and the correlation to box office results.[25]

CinemaScore's forecasts for box-office receipts based on the surveys are, according to the Los Angeles Times, "surprisingly accurate" as "most of [the company's] picks...are in the ballpark", in 2009 correctly predicting the success of The Hangover and the failure of Land of the Lost.[14] Hollywood executives are divided on CinemaScore's accuracy. Rob Moore, formerly of Paramount Pictures, said Ed Mintz had an "absolute connection with the pulse of moviegoers".[4] Jeff Goldstein of Warner Bros. described CinemaScore as "essential ... for the entertainment industry",[2] and Dan Fellman of Warner said that the studio discontinued its own exit polling because of CinemaScore.[1] Another Hollywood executive said "It's not always right, but it's a pretty good indicator. I rely on it". Another said that competitor PostTrak was "much better...more thorough and in-depth".[15][26]

CinemaScore also conducted surveys for product placements, Anheuser-Busch, and Las Vegas casinos.[2]

List of "A+" films

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As of April 2025, a total of 128 films have received an A+ rating from American audiences polled by CinemaScore.

More information Count, Title ...
Count Title Director Year
1 Kramer vs. Kramer[27] Robert Benton 1979
2 The Black Stallion[27] Carroll Ballard
3 The Empire Strikes Back[28] Irvin Kershner 1980
4 Fame[27] Alan Parker
5 Ordinary People[29] Robert Redford
6 The Elephant Man[29] David Lynch
7 The Jazz Singer[29] Richard Fleischer
8 Raiders of the Lost Ark[30] Steven Spielberg 1981
9 Superman II[30] Richard Lester
10 This Is Elvis[31] Malcolm Leo
Andrew Solt
11 On Golden Pond[32] Mark Rydell
12 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial[13][19] Steven Spielberg 1982
13 Gandhi[13][19] Richard Attenborough
14 Rocky III[13][19] Sylvester Stallone
15 Return of the Jedi[33] Richard Marquand 1983
16 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home[13][19] Leonard Nimoy 1986
17 The Princess Bride[13] Rob Reiner 1987
18 Die Hard[13] John McTiernan 1988
19 Dead Poets Society[13] Peter Weir 1989
20 Driving Miss Daisy[13] Bruce Beresford
21 A Dry White Season[13] Euzhan Palcy
22 Lean on Me[13] John G. Avildsen
23 Lethal Weapon 2[13][19] Richard Donner
24 When Harry Met Sally...[13][19] Rob Reiner
25 Dances with Wolves[13][19] Kevin Costner 1990
26 Beauty and the Beast[13][19] Gary Trousdale 1991
Kirk Wise
27 Terminator 2: Judgment Day[13][19] James Cameron
28 Aladdin[13][19] John Musker 1992
Ron Clements
29 A Few Good Men[13][19] Rob Reiner
30 The Fugitive[13][19] Andrew Davis 1993
31 Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey[13] Duwayne Dunham
32 The Joy Luck Club[13] Wayne Wang
33 Schindler's List[13] Steven Spielberg
34 Forrest Gump[13][19] Robert Zemeckis 1994
35 Iron Will[13] Charles Haid
36 The Lion King[13][19] Roger Allers
Rob Minkoff
37 Mr. Holland's Opus[13] Stephen Herek 1995
38 Soul Food[13] George Tillman Jr. 1997
39 Star Wars (1997 re-release)[13][19] George Lucas
40 Titanic[13] James Cameron
41 Mulan[13][19] Barry Cook 1998
Tony Bancroft
42 Music of the Heart[13] Wes Craven 1999
43 Toy Story 2[13][19] John Lasseter
44 Finding Forrester[13][18] Gus Van Sant 2000
45 Remember the Titans[13][18] Boaz Yakin
46 Monsters, Inc.[13][18][19] Pete Docter 2001
47 Antwone Fisher[18] Denzel Washington 2002
48 Drumline[13][18] Charles Stone III
49 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets[13][18][19] Chris Columbus
50 Finding Nemo[18][19] Andrew Stanton 2003
51 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King[18][19] Peter Jackson
52 The Passion of the Christ[13][18][19] Mel Gibson 2004
53 The Incredibles[13][18][19] Brad Bird
54 The Polar Express[13][18] Robert Zemeckis
55 Ray[13][18] Taylor Hackford
56 Dreamer[13][18] John Gatins 2005
57 Diary of a Mad Black Woman[13][18] Darren Grant
58 Cinderella Man[13][18][19] Ron Howard
59 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe[13][18][19] Andrew Adamson
60 Akeelah and the Bee[13][18] Doug Atchison 2006
61 Why Did I Get Married?[13][18] Tyler Perry 2007
62 Up[13][18][19] Pete Docter 2009
63 The Blind Side[13][18] John Lee Hancock
64 The King's Speech[13][18] Tom Hooper 2010
65 Tangled[13][18][19] Nathan Greno
Byron Howard
66 Soul Surfer[13][18] Sean McNamara 2011
67 Courageous[18][19] Alex Kendrick
68 Dolphin Tale[18] Charles Martin Smith
69 The Help[13][18] Tate Taylor
70 The Avengers[18][19] Joss Whedon 2012
71 Argo[18][19] Ben Affleck
72 42[18][19] Brian Helgeland 2013
73 Instructions Not Included[18][19] Eugenio Derbez
74 The Best Man Holiday[18] Malcolm D. Lee
75 Frozen[18][19] Chris Buck
Jennifer Lee
76 Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom[34] Justin Chadwick
77 Lone Survivor[18][19] Peter Berg
78 America: Imagine the World Without Her[35] Dinesh D'Souza 2014
John Sullivan
79 The Good Lie[36] Philippe Falardeau
80 The Imitation Game[37] Morten Tyldum
81 Selma[18][19] Ava DuVernay
82 American Sniper[18][19] Clint Eastwood
83 War Room[19][38] Alex Kendrick 2015
84 Un gallo con muchos huevos[39] Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste
Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste
85 Woodlawn[18][19] Erwin Brothers
86 Miracles from Heaven[18][19] Patricia Riggen 2016
87 Queen of Katwe[18][19] Mira Nair
88 Hidden Figures[18][19][40] Theodore Melfi
89 Patriots Day[18][19][41] Peter Berg
90 The Case for Christ[42] Jon Gunn 2017
91 Girls Trip[18][19][43] Malcolm D. Lee
92 A Question of Faith[44] Kevan Otto
93 Wonder[18][45] Stephen Chbosky
94 Coco[18][19][46] Lee Unkrich
95 Black Panther[18][19][47] Ryan Coogler 2018
96 I Can Only Imagine[18][19][48] Erwin Brothers
97 Love, Simon[18][19][49] Greg Berlanti
98 Incredibles 2[18][19][50] Brad Bird
99 The Hate U Give[19][51] George Tillman Jr.
100 Green Book[19][52] Peter Farrelly
101 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse[18][19][53][54] Bob Persichetti
Peter Ramsey
Rodney Rothman
102 Unplanned[19][55][56] Chuck Konzelman 2019
Cary Solomon
103 Avengers: Endgame[18][19][57] Anthony Russo
Joe Russo
104 The Peanut Butter Falcon[58] Tyler Nilson
Michael Schwartz
105 Overcomer[18][59][60] Alex Kendrick
106 Harriet[18][61][62] Kasi Lemmons
107 Ford v Ferrari[18][63][64] James Mangold
108 Just Mercy[18][65][66] Destin Daniel Cretton
109 Summer of Soul[67] Questlove 2021
110 Show Me the Father[68] Rick Altizer
111 Spider-Man: No Way Home[69] Jon Watts
112 Sing 2[70] Garth Jennings
113 American Underdog Erwin Brothers
114 Top Gun: Maverick[71] Joseph Kosinski 2022
115 The Woman King[72] Gina Prince-Bythewood
116 Till[73] Chinonye Chukwu
117 Jesus Revolution[74] Jon Erwin 2023
Brent McCorkle
118 Sound of Freedom Alejandro Monteverde
119 Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour[75] Sam Wrench
120 Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé[76] Beyoncé
121 Ordinary Angels Jon Gunn 2024
122 Unsung Hero Richard Ramsey
Joel Smallbone
123 Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot Joshua Weigel
124 The Forge Alex Kendrick
125 Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story[77] Ian Bonhôte
Peter Ettedgui
126 White Bird[78] Marc Forster
127 Bob Trevino Likes It Tracie Laymon 2025
128 The King of Kings Seong-ho Jang
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As of August 2024, two directors have made the list four times: Jon Erwin (thrice with his brother Andrew—in 2015, 2018, and 2021—and once with Brent McCorkle in 2023), and Alex Kendrick (2011, 2015, 2019, and 2024). Three directors have made the list three times: Steven Spielberg (1981, 1982, 1993), Rob Reiner (1987, 1989, 1992), and Andrew Erwin (2015, 2018, 2021). The following directors have appeared on the list twice: James Cameron (1991, 1997), Robert Zemeckis (1994, 2004), Pete Docter (2001, 2009), Malcolm D. Lee (2013, 2017), Peter Berg (2013, 2016), Brad Bird (2004, 2018), George Tillman Jr. (1997, 2018), and Jon Gunn (2017, 2024).

Between 2011 and 2024, 19 of the 59 films (32%) to receive an A+ Cinemascore were either faith-based or specifically aimed at conservative audiences. In 2023, eight films achieved the top score, six of which targeted right-wing audiences; the other two films were concert fan films from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.[79]

List of "F" films

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As of May 2024, a total of 23 films have received an F rating from American audiences polled by CinemaScore.

More information No., Title ...
No. Title Director Year
1 Homework[80] James Beshears 1982
2 Bolero[81][82][83] John Derek 1984
3 Eye of the Beholder[6][17][21][22][23] Stephan Elliott 1999
4 Dr. T and the Women[6][17][21][22][23] Robert Altman 2000
5 Lost Souls[6][17][21][22][23] Janusz Kamiński
6 Lucky Numbers[17][6][21][22][23] Nora Ephron
7 Darkness[6][17][21][22][23] Jaume Balagueró 2002
8 Fear Dot Com[6][17][21][22][23] William Malone
9 Solaris[6][17][21][22][23] Steven Soderbergh
10 In the Cut[6][17][21][22][23] Jane Campion 2003
11 Alone in the Dark[6][17][21][22][23] Uwe Boll 2005
12 Wolf Creek[6][17][21][22][23] Greg McLean
13 Bug[6][17][21][22][23] William Friedkin 2006
14 The Wicker Man[6][17][21][22][23] Neil LaBute
15 I Know Who Killed Me[6][17][21][22][23] Chris Sivertson 2007
16 Disaster Movie[6][17][21][22][23] Jason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer		 2008
17 The Box[6][17][21][22][23] Richard Kelly 2009
18 Silent House[6][17][21][22][23] Chris Kentis
Laura Lau		 2011
19 Killing Them Softly[6][17][21][22][23] Andrew Dominik 2012
20 The Devil Inside[6][17][21][22][23] William Brent Bell
21 mother![6][17][21][22][23][84] Darren Aronofsky 2017
22 The Grudge[6][21][22][23][85] Nicolas Pesce 2020
23 The Turning[6][21][22][23][86] Floria Sigismondi
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