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The heart has its reasons, said the French philosopher Pascal, quoted by the American philosopher Woody Allen . It is a useful insight when no other reasons seem apparent. Connie Sumner's heart and other organs have their reasons for straying outside a happy marriage in "Unfaithful,'' but the movie doesn't say what they are. This is not necessarily a bad thing, sparing us tortured Freudian explanations and labored plot points. It is almost always more interesting to observe behavior than to listen to reasons.

Connie ( Diane Lane ) and her husband, Edward ( Richard Gere ), live with their 9-year-old son, Charlie ( Erik Per Sullivan ), in one of those Westchester County houses that has a room for every mood. They are happy together, or at least the movie supplies us with no reasons why they are unhappy. One windy day she drives into New York City, is literally blown down on top of a rare book dealer named Paul Martel ( Olivier Martinez ), and is invited upstairs for Band-Aids and a cup of tea. He occupies a large flat filled with shelves of books and art objects.

Martel is your average Calvin Klein model as a bibliophile. He has the Spanish looks, the French accent, the permanent three-day beard, and the strength to suspend a woman indefinitely in any position while making love. He is also cool in his seduction methods. Instead of making a crude pass, he asks her to accept a book as a gift from him, and directs her down an aisle to the last book on the end of the second shelf from the top, where he tells her what page to turn to, and then joins her in reciting the words there: Be happy for this moment, for this moment is your life.

Does it occur to Connie that Martel planted that book for just such an occasion as this? No, because she likes to be treated in such a way, and soon she's on the phone with a transparent ruse to get up to his apartment again, where Martel overcomes her temporary stall in bed by commanding her: Hit me! That breaks the logjam, and soon they're involved in a passionate affair that involves arduous sex in his apartment and quick sex in restrooms, movie theaters and corridors. (The movie they go to see is Tati's "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday'' which, despite its stature on my list of The Great Movies, fails to compete with furtive experiments that would no doubt have Hulot puffing furiously at his pipe.) Edward senses that something is wrong. There are clues, but mostly he picks up on her mood, and eventually hires a man to shadow her.

Discovering where Martel lives, he visits there one day, and what happens then I will not reveal. What does not happen then, I am happy to reveal, is that the movie doesn't turn into a standard thriller in which death stalks Westchester County and the wife and husband fear murder by each other, or by Martel.

That's what's intriguing about the film: Instead of pumping up the plot with recycled manufactured thrills, it's content to contemplate two reasonably sane adults who get themselves into an almost insoluble dilemma.

"Unfaithful" contains, as all movies involving suburban families are required to contain, a scene where the parents sit proudly in the audience while their child performs bravely in a school play. But there are no detectives lurking in the shadows to arrest them, and no killers skulking in the parking lot with knives or tire-irons. No, the meaning of the scene is simply, movingly, that these two people in desperate trouble are nevertheless able to smile at their son on the stage.

The movie was directed by Adrian Lyne , best known for higher-voltage films like " Fatal Attraction " and "Indecent Proposal.'' This film is based on "La Femme Infidele" (1969) by Claude Chabrol , which itself is an update of Madame Bovary. Lyne's film is juicier and more passionate than Chabrol's, but both share the fairly daring idea of showing a plot that is entirely about illicit passion and its consequences in a happy marriage. Although cops turn up from time to time in "Unfaithful," this is not a crime story, but a marital tragedy. Richard Gere and Diane Lane are well-suited to the roles, exuding a kind of serene materialism that seems happily settled in suburbia. It is all the more shocking when Lane revisits Martel's apartment because there is no suggestion that she is unhappy with Gere, starved for sex, or especially impulsive. She goes back up there because--well, because she wants to. He's quite a guy. On one visit he shows her The Joy of Cooking in Braille. And then his fingers brush hers as if he's reading The Joy of Sex on her skin.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Unfaithful (2002)

Rated R For Sexuality, Partial Nudity, Language and A Scene Of Violence

123 minutes

Diane Lane as Connie Sumner

Richard Gere as Edward Sumner

Olivier Martinez as Paul Martel

Erik Per Sullivan as Charlie Sumner

Directed by

• Adrian Lyne
• Alvin Sargent
• William Broyles Jr

Based on the film by

• Claude Chabrol

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Unfaithful (2002)

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Common sense media reviewers.

Not for kids, but some adults will like it.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

One graphic violent confrontation.

Intense and graphic sex scenes; adultery.

Strong language.

Drinking and smoking.

Parents need to know that this movie contains a number of elements that may be upsetting to children. The theme of infidelity runs through the movie, and it creates some tense scenes of home life. Connie's seduction is quite overwhelming, and the sex scenes are intense and graphic. There is also one pretty violent…

Violence & Scariness

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this movie contains a number of elements that may be upsetting to children. The theme of infidelity runs through the movie, and it creates some tense scenes of home life. Connie's seduction is quite overwhelming, and the sex scenes are intense and graphic. There is also one pretty violent scene. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 4 parent reviews

Excellent. But NOT for kids.

Glorified porn movie is all this one is, what's the story.

Based on Claude Chabrol's La Femme Infidel , this story of obsession, betrayal, and jealousy centers on happily married Edward ( Richard Gere ) and Connie ( Diane Lane , who seem to have everything until the wife is drawn into an affair. After a chance encounter with Paul (Oliver Martinez), Connie finds she can't stay away from the seductive Frenchman. At home, Edward knows something is wrong. As his wife primps in private and shies away from his advances, his suspicions mount. Finally, after Connie is spotted in a restaurant with Paul, he cannot avoid the truth. A private detective produces all the details, and Edward goes, broken-hearted, to the apartment of his rival.

Is It Any Good?

Adults may consider Unfaithful a worthwhile portrayal of emotional suspense, told with director Adrian Lyne's characteristic visual flair. But it's not for kids -- it's a shocker. None of the plot elements are novel, but the seduction is handled very smoothly, without a lot of the emotional short-hand that would leave the story hollow. In fact, the strength of this film is its very down to earth emotional perceptiveness.

The movie makes us constantly aware of the currents of affection that run between the characters, yet the best scene in the film is the confrontation. Neither knows exactly what to do, and it's in this strange emotional limbo that a tragic choice is made.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the title. The film is symmetrical -- the wife is unfaithful in the first half, the husband in the second. To whom is the husband unfaithful? What "happens" in their final conversation? What is forgivable?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 10, 2002
• On DVD or streaming : May 20, 2003
• Cast : Diane Lane , Olivier Martinez , Richard Gere
• Director : Adrian Lyne
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 124 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : sexuality, language, and violence
• Last updated : July 25, 2023

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Rotten Tomatoes® Score

A dark, delusional piece of sultry fantasia that doesn’t condemn or condone Connie or Ed’s choices. It simply presents people surprised by the ease with which they transgress and allow little white lies to fester into gigantic, tumorous deceptions.

Diane Lane anchors the movie: she plays real and she looks real, with just enough lines and hints of wrinkles; a beautiful woman who's been distracted by too many school runs and charity committees.

A film at once romantic and sensual and agonizing.

...an erratically-paced and distinctly overlong drama that nevertheless manages to pack a punch here and there...

This is a great movie, and so many of the things being written about it are just plain FACTUALLY wrong.

Not for kids, but some adults will like it.

Works precisely because it is so upsetting, unusually so for a studio film, and so empathetic for Connie at the hands of her attractive manipulator. [Blu-ray]

Unfaithful is not so much about the conventions of a typical bored housewife falls for exotic foreigner with disastrous results story, but in fact plumbs the depths of what really constitutes intimacy, and how complacency, rather than the melodramatic ups

[Diane Lane] is more than enough reason to see "Unfaithful."

Additional Info

• Genre : Drama, Thriller
• Release Date : May 8, 2002
• Languages : English
• Captions : English, Spanish
• Audio Format : 5.1

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Unfaithful Review

By David Levine

Facts and Figures

Year : 2002

Run time : 124 mins

In Theaters : Friday 10th May 2002

Box Office USA : $52.7M

Box Office Worldwide : $119.1M

Budget : $50M

Distributed by : 20th Century Fox

Production compaines : Intertainment

Contactmusic.com : 2 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes : 49% Fresh: 79 Rotten: 82

IMDB : 6.7 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director : Adrian Lyne

Producer : Adrian Lyne , G. Mac Brown

Screenwriter : Alvin Sargent , William Broyles Jr.

Starring : Diane Lane as Connie Sumner, Richard Gere as Ed Sumner, Olivier Martinez as Paul Martel, Erik Per Sullivan as Charlie Sumner, Chad Lowe as Bill Stone, Myra Lucretia Taylor as Gloria, Michelle Monaghan as Lindsay, Kate Burton as Tracy, Margaret Colin as Sally

Also starring : Myra Taylor , Adrian Lyne , Alvin Sargent

• Unfaithful Movie Site
• Rotten Tomatoes

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Connie Sumner (Diane Lane, "Hardball") is living a perfect life with her handsome, attentive husband Edward (Richard Gere) and young son in an affluent New York City suburb. After a chance encounter with a mysterious Frenchman (Olivier Martinez, "Before Night Falls"), though, Connie is lured into a passionate affair. One of her lies makes Edward suspicious and he's shocked at the magnitude of his rage when he discovers that Connie is "Unfaithful."

Laura's Review: A-

Director Adrian Lyne ("Fatal Attraction") once again explores marital fidelity, but with the more artistic and insightful flair he brought to "Lolita." Loosely based on one of his favorite films, Claude Chabrol's "La Femme Infidele," Lyne's "Unfaithful" is a stylish reflection on passion, guilt and marriage.

Connie and Ed have one of those comfortable, still somewhat sexy marriages that has become focused on its offspring, in this case 8 year old Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan, "Wendigo"). The Sumners live in a big, white, sprawling White Plains farmhouse (a twin to the home in "What Lies Beneath"). He commutes into the city to run his armored car firm. She does too, occasionally, as she dabbles in volunteer fundraising activities. One extremely windy day, Connie's in the city buying supplies for Charlie's birthday party when she literally bumps into and tumbles with a stranger. Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez, "Before Night Falls") is a beguiling younger Frenchman who lures Connie up to his Soho loft to attend to her wounded knee. She flees the first time, but his magnetism keeps drawing her back.

As evidence of Connie's affair mounts, Ed decides to have her followed. With his suspicions confirmed, he decides to confront his wife's lover, but to his horror finds he must confront something far more unsettling within himself.

While Alvin Sargent ("Spider-Man") and William Broyles Jr.'s ("Cast Away") screenplay does not provide any back story for Connie and Ed, Lane and Gere's performances establish the two as individuals and as a marriage. Lane is an affectionate and satisfied housewife who finds a part of herself she'd forgotten at the touch of a mysterious and dangerous stranger. Returning home on the train, Lane's Connie recalls her first time with Paul. Lane's face tells the story as she shows arousal, incredulity and finally shame at her actions. Gere is serene and contented before becoming increasingly troubled and watchful. He becomes unhinged quietly, revealing a desperate need for his wife that rekindles their passion, tinged now with guilt on either side. The two former "Cotton Club" costars share great chemistry, communicating without words.

Martinez amply fills the bill as the reckless romantic used to getting his way with women. His shaggy charm is a convincing temptation. His dark almond eyes are similar to Gere's, too, which make him all the more interesting a choice for Connie's dalliance. Kate Burton ("Celebrity") and Margaret Colin ("The Devil's Own") make strong impressions in one amusing scene where they unwittingly interrupt Connie's assignation with Paul, then ogle the man.

Lyne masterfully uses foreshadowing and suggestive symbolism in "Unfaithful." The windswept, swirling papers and debris of the fateful meeting are present again in a city dump drop off, as well as being suggested by the snow globes Connie collects. The gusty conditions suggest another fateful day in Kansas that took Dorothy Gale to a wondrous new world but found her only wanting to return home, just as Connie does here. Lyne cuts from Connie's tormented train trip to Charlie's birthday party, where horseplay with water pistols alludes to the sexual encounter that preceded it. Ed's trip to a car wash recalls Connie's Amtrak sink sponging.

The story is all charged undercurrents. Ed notes the new lingerie that Connie's laid out with a weight of sadness. When he slips into her sexy bath, she tells him she's cold. Ironically, the couple reconnect with a lie, this time presented jointly to an outside party. As with "Fatal Attraction," Lyne fought the studio to maintain his film's ending. Luckily, this time test audiences smartly agreed with an ambiguous finale that let's one draw one's own conclusions. Lyne's only misstep is a heavy handed display of Ed's desire for loyalty when he fires an employee (Chad Lowe, "Driven") for entertaining other offers.

Cinematographer Peter Biziou ("Mississippi Burning") and editor Anne V. Coates ("Lawrence of Arabia") serve Lyne's film well. Production Designer Brian Morris ("The Insider") creates spaces that characterize their inhabitants. Music by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek ("Lost Souls") is integral to the overall mood.

"Unfaithful" is a complex adult drama, stylishly told, that may finally catapult Lane onto the A list.

Robin's Review: B

Edward and Connie Sumner (Richard Gere and Diane Lane), with their son Charlie (Eric Per Sullivan), are the quintessentially happy family. They live in a rambling 19th century home in Westchester County, own a thriving armored car company and all is right with their world. Until, one windy day, when Connie is, quite literally, blown into the arms of a handsome, hunky Frenchman in Adrian Lyne's "Unfaithful."

This romantic triangle potboiler could have been mishandled and come across as tawdry in the hands of less skillful hands than Lyne's. Instead, we get a high quality romantic triangle potboiler that combines good, at times great, acting by the stars and a fascinating study in guilt.

Diane Lane gives one of her best performances to date, this time as the star instead of her usual supporting roles. Following her inadvertent collision in the streets of Soho with saucy Frenchman Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez), she is obviously attracted to the good looking charmer when he invites her in to take care of her injured knee, but resists the temptation of those soulful eyes and strong arms - though, not for long. When she gives in to the temptation of an erotic tryst, what follows is some of the tightest, on the edge acting as Connie heads home on the commuter rail. We watch the emotions wash over her as she is initially warmed by the thoughts of lovemaking, then the even stronger surge of guilt over her infidelity hits her. It is a powerful, richly emoted scene and probably the best in the film. The actress also goes out on a limb with the strong physically sexual performance opposite Martinez.

Richard Gere has moved from the young stud roles into a more mature stage in his acting career and is convincing as Edward. His marriage to Connie has been routine but happy, so when the affair begins, he is sensitive to the waning signs. Connie is distracted all the time and, as her affair intensifies, she pushes her husband away sexually. He notes that her outfits for going "in town" for her charity fundraising work include new, sexy underwear. When he catches her in a lie, he sets the wheels of investigation into motion. What Edward finds out proves too much for the man.

Olivier Martinez is the boy toy of the flick and fits the bill. He's good looking in a way that harkens back to Gere's early days and Connie's attraction to the younger man makes sense, in a seductive way. Paul is used to having his way with women and it proves his downfall. Erik Per Sullivan doesn't do anything special as the Sumner's vacuous son, Charlie, not even looking particularly cute.

The screenplay by Alvin Sargent and William Broyles, Jr. moves along at a brisk pace as Connie begins her fling, loses the sense of risk and begins to appear in public with her amour. Becoming more brazen, she even has an assignation with Paul in a restaurant bathroom while her friends chat amiably only feet away. The paths of guilt and deceit twist midway through "Unfaithful" as it becomes much more than an affair to remember, but that's enough said.

Techs are solid with cinematographer Peter Biziou utilizing tight close ups, especially during the intimate scenes, so there is a good deal of style rather than titillation. Costumes, designed by Ellen Mirojnick, are subtle but entirely suitable. Lane is dressed to the nines when seeing Paul and loose and baggy when at home with the family. Gere is decked out in frumpy attire as befits a middle-aged guy comfortable with himself and his family.

"Unfaithful" may attract a predominantly female audience but is well done and makes a good date flick for more mature young adults and beyond.

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"Titillation and Devastation Go Hand in Hand"

What You Need To Know:

(PaPa, Ro, BB, C, LLL, V, SSS, NN, A, D, Re, C, M) Mixed pagan worldview with some positive elements, with two characters, one married, consumed by physical attraction and sensual pleasure (including graphic sex scenes), one character controlled and driven by emotions; moral, redemptive scenes of restoring marriage and family and father leads prayer over meal, with the value of family, loyalty and trust strongly emphasized; at least 21 obscenities and 7 profanities; one very brief scene where a man is hit over head with heavy object and bleeds profusely; very strong depiction of adultery with 10 sex scenes, three of which are lengthy and very graphic, perverse sexual activity including slapping, spanking, forcing sex, one scene of man and wife attempting sex in bath tub, and one scene of woman masturbating; scene of woman’s dress blown up to reveal upper thighs and underwear, legs and breasts revealed in bath, breasts revealed in several sex scenes, nude rear view of woman, woman and man viewed in skimpy underwear, view of woman’s abdomen almost to pubic area, woman’s private area seen vaguely under bath suds; several scenes of alcohol, mostly light social drinking and one scene of drinking to impairment; two scenes of smoking as result of tension; themes of deception of spouses and legal authorities, covering up evil actions, mild disrespect of mother by young son.

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UNFAITHFUL is a powerful story of sexual and emotional betrayal in a marriage that graphically and often shockingly depicts the terrible damage such betrayal brings. Ed (Richard Gere), a successful, handsome and loving husband and father, obviously cherishes his wife, Connie (Diane Lane), who is often ironically called her full name, Constance, as she quickly becomes anything but a constant in the family. Ed and Connie have a precocious young son, Charlie, and a beautiful home in the suburbs outside New York City.

UNFAITHFUL begins with a cozy, family scene, but also with a tense, dangerous undercurrent, brilliantly depicted by a bitter wind and the damage it causes outside of their home and in the city nearby. As things are toppled and torn by the wind, there is a sense of great foreboding that this happy family will soon be toppled, too.

Ed leaves for work, Charlie for school, and Connie goes into the city to buy decorations for Charlie’s upcoming ninth birthday party. The wind continues to rage through the city and Connie is literally blown down in the street and on top of a book dealer (Oliver Martinez) who is hurrying home. They struggle to get up and gather their things, but realize that Connie’s knees are bleeding. The young book dealer, Paul, invites Connie upstairs to his apartment to clean her wounds. Connie is at first reluctant, but concedes and begins a clandestine relationship with Paul that begins to destroy everyone she holds dear.

UNFAITHFUL is artistically very good. The images of a cold, damaging wind, juxtaposed shots of family innocence and betrayal, characters vigorously washing themselves after crimes and passion to rid themselves of the stain of sin, decorations blown apart and scattered like a ruined party, all underscore the serious and dangerous themes in UNFAITHFUL.

The characters are complex and terrifically performed. Connie struggles with the immoral choices she makes, but buys into the prattle her lover offers her. “There is no such thing as a mistake, “ he tells her; “only what you do and what you don’t do.” He gives her poetry that advises, “drink wine, this is life eternal . . . be happy for this moment; this moment is your life.” Connie gives into this empty philosophy and the excitement without noticing that Paul cares little for her beyond the sexual pleasure she provides him. She becomes physically and emotionally addicted to him, sneaking off to meet with him constantly, and her marriage and friendships begin to crumble because of the deception she embraces. Connie changes from an assured, loving wife to a nervous, careless, out of control woman.

Gere is a devoted husband whose confidence in his wife and her affection for him begins to unravel bit by bit as she sinks deeper and deeper into her other life. Lies are told, inconsistencies turn up, and Gere is transformed from confusion, to hurt, to distrust, to revenge. Much of Gere’s transformation is nonverbal, as is much of the communication between Connie and Ed, and is masterfully acted.

UNFAITHFUL could have been an important movie about fidelity and the dangerous consequences of betrayal, but the inclusion of so many graphic and titillating sex scenes send a mixed message to the audience. The sex isn’t necessary to see – the audience understands Connie is having an affair and understands the physical and emotional consequences this will have on her relationship with Ed. If the movie had focused more on that damage, and less on the perverse and repetitive sex, it would have been more consistent and serious. Instead, the movie takes on a seedy peep-show quality.

Another big problem with UNFAITHFUL is that the loss of one character’s life is viewed as a problem only because, if the killer is caught, the consequences will be unpleasant. Little regard is shown for the seriousness of the crime and the life that was lost. In fact, the killer is curiously detached from the crime itself and completely absorbed in the cover up.

The ending of UNFAITHFUL was changed slightly after initial screenings to make a moral choice seem more ambiguous. This ending, while a good discussion generator, could contribute to the notion that perhaps it is possible to cover up our sins and move on as though it never happened. UNFAITHFUL leaves no doubt, however, that the consequences of infidelity damage all in their path. As a friend of Connie’s warned her, “It always ends disastrously. It is the one thing in my life I would undo . . . if I could.”

More From Forbes

Netflix’s best new movie arrives with a near-perfect 98% on rotten tomatoes.

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When I first saw the poster for Netflix’s Hit Man, it looked like something you might find on Amazon Prime Video’s digital store after scrolling over eight times past a bunch of other films.

Then, reviews started coming in. The movie currently stands at a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes with 175 reviews from critics, a stunning achievement for any movie, especially a comedy, and of course there is one magic ingredient here. No, not Glen Powell, though I’m sure he helps. But rather this is a film from Richard Linklater.

Linklater is the exceptionally famous director of movies like School of Rock, Boyhood, Before Sunrise/Sunset and way back in 1993, the forever-classic Dazed and Confused. Now, he’s back with what will no doubt be the most-watched movie in America when it tops Netflix, and these reviews are simply stunning. Audience scores are also coming in and currently sit at a 95%, indicating it will be a hit among viewers as well.

Hit Man stars Powell as a professor who pretends to be a hit man for the police department, but things get dangerous when a woman (Andor’s Adria Arjona) enters his life and enlists his “services.”

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Powell is currently the hottest male talent in Hollywood after his turn on Top Gun: Maverick and his blockbuster romcom with Sydney Sweeney, Anyone But You. He is absolutely everywhere right now, and has another big project coming up in the form of Twisters. He’s also attached to a Running Man remake. Arjona, meanwhile, is perhaps an underused part of Andor, but I absolutely knew she was going to be a star while watching that show. And here she is, plus she’s about to lead the upcoming Criminal series for Amazon.

It’s just so exceedingly rare to see a comedy review this well in this day and age, but if anyone was going to pull it off, it was going to be Linklater. I have no doubt at all that this will soon become the #1 movie on Netflix after its debut today, and will likely stay there a while. I’m not sure if it’s designed to have a sequel, though Linklater almost never does those, and one should certainly not happen without him.

I’ll give Hit Man a watch over the weekend and render my own verdict later. My colleague Erik Kain was one of the rare critics that didn’t like it , but I’m going to wait to read why until after I can make my own initial judgement.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .

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Unfaithful (2002)

There is so much detail in this Movie, it's like a work of art. Besides the nostalgic tone of the movie, I now see how Crimes of Passion manifest. In a blink of a eye, your whole world change...Did this movie receive any awards? If not then I recommend a second look.

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Rotten Tomatoes, explained

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office returns? And six other questions, answered.

by Alissa Wilkinson

In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes — the site that aggregates movie and TV critics’ opinions and tabulates a score that’s “fresh” or “rotten” — took on an elevated level of importance. That’s when Rotten Tomatoes (along with its parent company Flixster) was acquired by Fandango , the website that sells advance movie tickets for many major cinema chains.

People had been using Rotten Tomatoes to find movie reviews since it launched in 2000, but after Fandango acquired the site, it began posting “Tomatometer” scores next to movie ticket listings. Since then, studio execs have started to feel as if Rotten Tomatoes matters more than it used to — and in some cases, they’ve rejiggered their marketing strategies accordingly.

It’s easy to see why anyone might assume that Rotten Tomatoes scores became more tightly linked to ticket sales, with potential audiences more likely to buy tickets for a movie with a higher score, and by extension, giving critics more power over the purchase of a ticket.

But that’s not the whole story. And as most movie critics (including myself) will tell you, the correlation between Rotten Tomatoes scores, critical opinion, marketing tactics, and actual box office returns is complicated. It’s not a simple cause-and-effect situation.

My own work is included in both Rotten Tomatoes’ score and that of its more exclusive cousin, Metacritic . So I, along with many other critics , think often of the upsides and pitfalls of aggregating critical opinion and its effect on which movies people see. But for the casual moviegoer, how review aggregators work, what they measure, and how they affect ticket sales can be mysterious.

So when I got curious about how people perceive Rotten Tomatoes and its effect on ticket sales, I did what any self-respecting film critic does: I informally polled my Twitter followers to see what they wanted to know.

Here are seven questions that many people have about Rotten Tomatoes, and review aggregation more generally — and some facts to clear up the confusion.

How is a Rotten Tomatoes score calculated?

The score that Rotten Tomatoes assigns to a film corresponds to the percentage of critics who’ve judged the film to be “fresh,” meaning their opinion of it is more positive than negative. The idea is to quickly offer moviegoers a sense of critical consensus.

“Our goal is to serve fans by giving them useful tools and one-stop access to critic reviews, user ratings, and entertainment news to help with their entertainment viewing decisions,” Jeff Voris, a vice president at Rotten Tomatoes, told me in an email.

The opinions of about 3,000 critics — a.k.a. the “Approved Tomatometer Critics” who have met a series of criteria set by Rotten Tomatoes — are included in the site’s scores, though not every critic reviews every film, so any given score is more typically derived from a few hundred critics, or even less. The scores don’t include just anyone who calls themselves a critic or has a movie blog; Rotten Tomatoes only aggregates critics who have been regularly publishing movie reviews with a reasonably widely read outlet for at least two years, and those critics must be “active,” meaning they've published at least one review in the last year. The site also deems a subset of critics to be “top critics” and calculates a separate score that only includes them.

Some critics (or staffers at their publications) upload their own reviews, choose their own pull quotes, and designate their review as “fresh” or “rotten.” Other critics (including myself) have their reviews uploaded, pull-quoted, and tagged as fresh or rotten by the Rotten Tomatoes staff. In the second case, if the staff isn't sure whether to tag a review as fresh or rotten, they reach out to the critic for clarification. And critics who don't agree with the site’s designation can request that it be changed.

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten. To earn the coveted “designated fresh” seal, a film needs at least 40 reviews, 75 percent of which are fresh, and five of which are from “top” critics.

What does a Rotten Tomatoes score really mean ?

A Rotten Tomatoes score represents the percentage of critics who felt mildly to wildly positively about a given film.

If I give a film a mixed review that’s generally positive (which, in Vox’s rating system, could range from a positive-skewing 3 to the rare totally enamored 5), that review receives the same weight as an all-out rave from another critic. (When I give a movie a 2.5, I consider that to be a neutral score; by Rotten Tomatoes' reckoning, it's rotten.) Theoretically, a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating could be made up entirely of middling-to-positive reviews. And if half of the critics the site aggregates only sort of like a movie, and the other half sort of dislike it, the film will hover around 50 percent (which is considered “rotten” by the site).

Contrary to some people’s perceptions, Rotten Tomatoes itself maintains no opinion about a film. What Rotten Tomatoes tries to gauge is critical consensus.

• Why people are freaking out over Wonder Woman’s stellar Rotten Tomatoes score

Critics’ opinions do tend to cluster on most films. But there are always outliers, whether from contrarians (who sometimes seem to figure out what people will say and then take the opposite opinion), or from those who seem to love every film. And critics, like everyone, have various life experiences, aesthetic preferences, and points of view that lead them to have differing opinions on movies.

So in many (if not most) cases, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score may not correspond to any one critic’s view. It’s more like an imprecise estimate of what would happen if you mashed together every Tomatometer critic and had the resulting super-critic flash a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Rotten Tomatoes also lets audiences rate movies, and the score is often out of step with the critical score. Sometimes, the difference is extremely significant, a fact that's noticeable because the site lists the two scores side by side.

There’s a straightforward reason the two rarely match, though: The critical score is more controlled and methodical.

Why? Most professional critics have to see and review many films, whether or not they’re inclined to like the movie. (Also, most critics don’t pay to see films, because studios hold special early screenings for them ahead of the release date, which removes the decision of whether they’re interested enough in a film to spend their hard-earned money on seeing it.)

But with Rotten Tomatoes’ audience score, the situation is different. Anyone on the internet can contribute — not just those who actually saw the film. As a result, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score can be gamed by internet trolls seeking to sink it simply because they find its concept offensive. A concerted effort can drive down the film’s audience score before it even comes out, as was the case with the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters .

Even if Rotten Tomatoes required people to pass a quiz on the movie before they rated it, the score would still be somewhat unreliable. Why? Because ordinary audiences are more inclined to buy tickets to movies they’re predisposed to like — who wants to spend $12 to $20 on a film they’re pretty sure they’ll hate?

So audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes (and other audience-driven scores, like the ones at IMDb) naturally skew very positive, or sometimes very negative if there’s any sort of smear campaign in play. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But audience scores tend to not account for those who would never buy a ticket to the movie in the first place.

In contrast, since critics see lots of movies — some of which they would have gone to see anyhow, and some of which they would’ve never chosen to see if their editors didn’t make the assignment — their opinion distribution should theoretically be more even, and thus the critical Rotten Tomatoes score more “accurate.”

Or at least that’s what Rotten Tomatoes thinks. The site displays a movie’s critics’ scores — the official Tomatometer — at Fandango and in a more prominent spot on the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes landing page. The audience score is also displayed on the Rotten Tomatoes page, but it’s not factored into the film’s fresh or rotten rating, and doesn’t contribute to a film being labeled as “certified fresh.”

Why do critics often get frustrated by the Tomatometer?

The biggest reason many critics find Rotten Tomatoes frustrating is that most people’s opinions about movies can’t be boiled down to a simple thumbs up or down. And most critics feel that Rotten Tomatoes, in particular, oversimplifies criticism, to the detriment of critics, the audience, and the movies themselves.

In some cases, a film really is almost universally considered to be excellent, or to be a complete catastrophe. But critics usually come away from a movie with a mixed view. Some things work, and others don’t. The actors are great, but the screenplay is lacking. The filmmaking is subpar, but the story is imaginative. Some critics use a four- or five-star rating, sometimes with half-stars included, to help quantify mixed opinions as mostly negative or mostly positive.

The important point here is that no critic who takes their job seriously is going to have a simple yes-or-no system for most movies. Critics watch a film, think about it, and write a review that doesn't just judge the movie but analyzes, contextualizes, and ruminates over it. The fear among many critics (including myself) is that people who rely largely on Rotten Tomatoes aren't interested in the nuances of a film, and aren't particularly interested in reading criticism, either.

But maybe the bigger reason critics are worried about the influence of review aggregators is that they seem to imply there's a “right” way to evaluate a movie, based on most people's opinions. We worry that audience members who have different reactions will feel as if their opinion is somehow wrong, rather than seeing the diversity of opinions as an invitation to read and understand how and why people react to art differently.

Plenty of movies — from Psycho to Fight Club to Alien — would have earned a rotten rating from Rotten Tomatoes upon their original release, only to be reconsidered and deemed classics years later as tastes, preferences, and ideas about films changed. Sometimes being an outlier can just mean you're forward-thinking.

Voris, the Rotten Tomatoes vice president, told me that the site is always trying to grapple with this quandary. “The Rotten Tomatoes curation team is constantly adding and updating reviews for films — both past and present,” he told me. “If there’s a review available from an approved critic or outlet, it will be added.”

What critics are worried about is a tendency toward groupthink, and toward scapegoating people who deviate from the “accepted” analysis. You can easily see this in the hordes of fans that sometimes come after a critic who dares to “ruin” a film's perfect score . But critics (at least serious ones) don't write their reviews to fit the Tomatometer, nor are they out to “get” DC Comics movies or religious movies or political movies or any other movies. Critics love movies and want them to be good, and we try to be honest when we see one that we don't measures up.

That doesn't mean the audience can't like a movie with a rotten rating, or hate a movie with a fresh rating. It's no insult to critics when audience opinion diverges. In fact, it makes talking and thinking about movies more interesting.

If critics are ambivalent about Rotten Tomatoes scores, why do moviegoers use the scores to decide whether to see a movie?

Mainly, it’s easy. You’re buying movie tickets on Fandango, or you’re trying to figure out what to watch on Netflix, so you check the Rotten Tomatoes score to decide. It’s simple. That’s the point.

And that’s not a bad thing. It's helpful to get a quick sense of critical consensus, even if it's somewhat imprecise. Many people use Rotten Tomatoes to get a rough idea of whether critics generally liked a film.

The flip side, though, is that some people, whether they’re critics or audience members, will inevitably have opinions that don't track with the Rotten Tomatoes score at all. Just because an individual's opinion is out of step with the Tomatometer doesn't mean the person is “wrong” — it just means they're an outlier.

And that, frankly, is what makes art, entertainment, and the world at large interesting: Not everyone has the same opinion about everything, because people are not exact replicas of one another. Most critics love arguing about movies, because they often find that disagreeing with their colleagues is what makes their job fun. It's fine to disagree with others about a movie, and it doesn't mean you're “wrong.”

(For what it’s worth, another review aggregation site, Metacritic, maintains an even smaller and more exclusive group of critics than Rotten Tomatoes — its aggregated scores cap out around 50 reviews per movie, instead of the hundreds that can make up a Tomatometer score. Metacritic’s score for a film is different from Rotten Tomatoes’ insofar as each individual review is assigned a rating on a scale of 100 and the overall Metacritic score is a weighted average, the mechanics of which Metacritic absolutely refuses to divulge . But because the site’s ratings are even more carefully controlled to include only experienced professional critics — and because the reviews it aggregates are given a higher level of granularity, and presumably weighted by the perceived influence of the critic’s publication — most critics consider Metacritic a better gauge of critical opinion.)

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office earnings?

The short version: It can, but not necessarily in the ways you might think.

A good Rotten Tomatoes score indicates strong critical consensus, and that can be good for smaller films in particular. It’s common for distributors to roll out such films slowly, opening them in a few key cities (usually New York and Los Angeles, and maybe a few others) to generate good buzz — not just from critics, but also on social media and through word of mouth. The result, they hope, is increased interest and ticket sales when the movie opens in other cities.

Get Out , for example, certainly profited from the 99 percent “fresh” score it earned since its limited opening. And the more recent The Big Sick became one of last summer's most beloved films, helped along by its 98 percent rating. But a bad score for a small film can help ensure that it will close quickly, or play in fewer cities overall. Its potential box office earnings, in turn, will inevitably take a hit.

Yet when it comes to blockbusters, franchises, and other big studio films (which usually open in many cities at once), it’s much less clear how much a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score affects its box office tally. A good Rotten Tomatoes score, for example, doesn't necessarily guarantee a film will be a hit. Atomic Blonde is “guaranteed fresh,” with a 77 percent rating, but it didn‘t do very well at the box office despite being an action film starring Charlize Theron.

Still, studios certainly seem to believe the score makes a difference . Last summer, studios blamed Rotten Tomatoes scores (and by extension, critics) when poorly reviewed movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Baywatch , and The Mummy performed below expectations at the box office. ( Pirates still went on to be the year’s 19th highest-grossing film.)

2017’s highest grossing movies in the US

But that correlation doesn’t really hold up. The Emoji Movie , for example, was critically panned, garnering an abysmal 6 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. But it still opened to $25 million in the US, which put it just behind the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk . And the more you think about it, the less surprising it is that plenty of people bought tickets to The Emoji Movie in spite of its bad press: It's an animated movie aimed at children that faced virtually no theatrical competition, and it opened during the summer, when kids are out of school. Great reviews might have inflated its numbers, but almost universally negative ones didn't seem to hurt it much.

It's also worth noting that many films with low Rotten Tomatoes scores that also perform poorly in the US (like The Mummy or The Great Wall ) do just fine overseas, particularly in China. The Mummy gave Tom Cruise his biggest global opening ever . If there is a Rotten Tomatoes effect, it seems to only extend to the American market.

Without any consistent proof, why do people still maintain that a bad Rotten Tomatoes score actively hurts a movie at the box office?

While it’s clear that a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score and box office earnings aren't correlated as strongly as movie studios might like you to think, blaming bad ticket sales on critics is low-hanging fruit.

Plenty of people would like you to believe that the weak link between box office earnings and critical opinion proves that critics are at fault for not liking the film, and that audiences are a better gauge of its quality. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, co-star of Baywatch , certainly took that position when reviews of the 2017 bomb Baywatch came out:

Baywatch ended up with a very comfortably rotten 19 percent Tomatometer score , compared to a just barely fresh 62 percent audience score. But with apologies to The Rock, who I’m sure is a very nice man, critics aren't weather forecasters or pundits, and they’re not particularly interested in predicting how audiences will respond to a movie. (We are also a rather reserved and nerdy bunch, not regularly armed with venom and knives.) Critics show up where they’re told to show up and watch a film, then go home and evaluate it to the best of their abilities.

The obvious rejoinder, at least from a critic’s point of view, is that if Baywatch was a better movie, there wouldn’t be such a disconnect. But somehow, I suspect that younger ticket buyers — an all-important demographic — lacked nostalgia for 25-year-old lifeguard TV show, and thus weren't so sure about seeing Baywatch in the first place. Likewise, I doubt that a majority of Americans were ever going to be terribly interested in the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which notched a 30 percent Tomatometer score and a 64 percent audience score), especially when they could just watch some other movie.

A pile-up of raves for either of these films might have resulted in stronger sales, because people could have been surprised to learn that a film they didn’t think they were interested in was actually great. But with lackluster reviews, the average moviegoer just had no reason to give them a chance.

Big studio publicists, however, are paid to convince people to see their films, not to candidly discuss the quality of the films themselves. So when a film with bad reviews flops at the box office, it’s not shocking that studios are quick to suggest that critics killed it.

How do movie studios try to blunt the perceived impact when they’re expecting a bad Rotten Tomatoes score?

Of late, some studios — prompted by the idea that critics can kill a film’s buzz before it even comes out — have taken to “ fighting back ” when they’re expecting a rotten Tomatometer score.

Their biggest strategy isn’t super obvious to the average moviegoer, but very clear to critics. When a studio suspects it has a lemon on its hands, it typically hosts the press screening only a day or two ahead of the film's release, and then sets a review “embargo” that lifts a few hours before the film hits theaters.

Consider, for example, the case of the aforementioned Emoji Movie. I and most other critics hoped the movie would be good, as is the case with all movies see. But once the screening invitations arrived in our inboxes, we pretty much knew, with a sinking feeling, that it wouldn’t be. The tell was pretty straightforward: The film’s only critics' screening in New York was scheduled for the day before it opened. It screened for press on Wednesday night at 5 pm, and then the review embargo lifted at 3 pm the next day — mere hours before the first public showtimes.

Late critics’ screenings for any given film mean that reviews of the film will necessarily come out very close to its release, and as a result, people purchasing advance tickets might buy them before there are any reviews or Tomatometer score to speak of. Thus, in spite of there being no strong correlation between negative reviews and a low box office, its first-weekend box returns might be less susceptible to any potential harm as a result of bad press. (Such close timing can also backfire; critics liked this summer's Captain Underpants , for example, but the film was screened too late for the positive reviews to measurably boost its opening box office.)

That first-weekend number is important, because if a movie is the top performer at the box office (or if it simply exceeds expectations, like Dunkirk and Wonder Woman did this summer), its success can function as good advertising for the film, which means its second weekend sales may also be stronger. And that matters , particularly when it means a movie is outperforming its expectations, because it can actually shift the way industry executives think about what kinds of movies people want to watch. Studios do keep an eye on critics’ opinions, but they’re much more interested in ticket sales — which makes it easy to see why they don’t want risk having their opening weekend box office affected by bad reviews, whether there’s a proven correlation or not.

The downside of this strategy, however, is that it encourages critics to instinctively gauge a studio’s level of confidence in a film based on when the press screening takes place. 20th Century Fox, for instance, screened War for the Planet of the Apes weeks ahead of its theatrical release, and lifted the review embargo with plenty of time to spare before the movie came out. The implication was that Fox believed the movie would be a critical success, and indeed, it was — the movie has a 97 percent Tomatometer score and an 86 percent audience score.

And still, late press screenings fail to account for the fact that, while a low Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t necessarily hurt a film’s total returns, aggregate review scores in general do have a distinct effect on second-weekend sales. In 2016, Metacritic conducted a study of the correlation between its scores and second weekend sales , and found — not surprisingly — that well-reviewed movies dip much less in the second weekend than poorly reviewed movies. This is particularly true of movies with a strong built-in fan base, like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , which enjoyed inflated box office returns in the first weekend because fans came out to see it, but dropped sharply in its second weekend, at least partly due to extremely negative press .

Most critics who are serious about their work make a good-faith effort to approach each film they see with as few expectations as possible. But it's hard to have much hope about a movie when it seems obvious that a studio is trying to play keep-away with it. And the more studios try to game the system by withholding their films from critics, the less critics are inclined to enter a screening devoid of expectations, however subconscious.

If you ask critics what studios ought to do to minimize the potential impact of a low Rotten Tomatoes score, their answer is simple: Make better movies. But of course, it’s not that easy; some movies with bad scores do well, while some with good scores still flop. Hiding a film from critics might artificially inflate first-weekend box office returns, but plenty of people are going to go see a franchise film, or a superhero movie, or a family movie, no matter what critics say.

The truth is that neither Rotten Tomatoes nor the critics whose evaluations make up its scores are really at fault here, and it’s silly to act like that’s the case. The website is just one piece of the sprawling and often bewildering film landscape.

As box office analyst Scott Mendelson wrote at Forbes :

[Rotten Tomatoes] is an aggregate website, one with increased power because the media now uses the fresh ranking as a catch-all for critical consensus, with said percentage score popping up when you buy tickets from Fandango or rent the title on Google Market. But it is not magic. At worst, the increased visibility of the site is being used as an excuse by ever-pickier moviegoers to stay in with Netflix or VOD.

For audience members who want to make good moviegoing decisions, the best approach is a two-pronged one. First, check Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to get a sense of critical consensus. But second, find a few critics — two or three will do — whose taste aligns with (or challenges) your own, and whose insights help you enjoy a movie even more. Read them and rely on them.

And know that it’s okay to form your own opinions, too. After all, in the bigger sense, everyone’s a critic.

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