# CinemaScore

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.

## Background

Ed Mintz, who majored in math at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founded dental billing software company Dentametics, 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.
A Yom Kippur donation card with tabs inspired the survey cards given to audience members. 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.
After employees of Mintz's dental company tested the survey cards at theaters, polling began in 1979. 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. By the mid-1980s AMC Theatres used CinemaScore data when choosing films for its locations. A website was launched by CinemaScore in 1999, 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. 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.
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.
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.
Since July 2014, CinemaScore reports its results also on Twitter.
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. 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

CinemaScore describes itself as "the industry leader in measuring movie appeal". 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. 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. CinemaScore typically receives about 400 cards per film; the company estimates a 65% response rate and 6% margin of error.
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). 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. Studios use the demographic data when marketing films. A studio might hope that a high grade helps the box office of a film with a disappointing opening weekend, or adjust a future film's marketing based on survey results for one with a similar demographic.
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. 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". 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".
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. From 2000 to January 2020, there were 53 movies with "A+". 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. 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". (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.)
As of 2020, 22 films have received an "F" grade. Vulture wrote that besides horror,
   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.
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." 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.
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. 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". Jeff Goldstein of Warner Bros. described CinemaScore as "essential ... for the entertainment industry", and Dan Fellman of Warner said that the studio discontinued its own exit polling because of CinemaScore. 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".
CinemaScore also conducted surveys for product placements, Anheuser-Busch, and Las Vegas casinos.

## List of "A+" films

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

## List of "F" films

As of May 2024, a total of 22 films have received an F rating from American audiences polled by CinemaScore.
| No. | Title | Director | Year |
| 1 | Bolero | John Derek | 1984 |
| 2 | Eye of the Beholder | Stephan Elliott | 1999 |
| 3 | Dr. T and the Women | Robert Altman | 2000 |
| 4 | Lost Souls | Janusz Kamiński | 2000 |
| 5 | Lucky Numbers | Nora Ephron | 2000 |
| 6 | Darkness | Jaume Balagueró | 2002 |
| 7 | Fear Dot Com | William Malone | 2002 |
| 8 | Solaris | Steven Soderbergh | 2002 |
| 9 | In the Cut | Jane Campion | 2003 |
| 10 | Alone in the Dark | Uwe Boll | 2005 |
| 11 | Wolf Creek | Greg McLean | 2005 |
| 12 | Bug | William Friedkin | 2006 |
| 13 | The Wicker Man | Neil LaBute | 2006 |
| 14 | I Know Who Killed Me | Chris Sivertson | 2007 |
| 15 | Disaster Movie | Jason Friedberg Aaron Seltzer | 2008 |
| 16 | The Box | Richard Kelly | 2009 |
| 17 | Silent House | Chris Kentis Laura Lau | 2011 |
| 18 | Killing Them Softly | Andrew Dominik | 2012 |
| 19 | The Devil Inside | William Brent Bell | 2012 |
| 20 | mother! | Darren Aronofsky | 2017 |
| 21 | The Grudge | Nicolas Pesce | 2020 |
| 22 | The Turning | Floria Sigismondi | 2020 |