What Is the Rotten Tomatoes Score for Poor Things

Poor Things holds a 93% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the highest-rated films on the platform and, notably, tying it as Emma Stone’s best-reviewed film alongside The Favourite. This exceptional score reflects widespread critical acclaim for director Yorgos Lanthimos’s boldly unconventional narrative and visual style, paired with Stone’s commanding lead performance.

The film’s critical reception stands in sharp contrast to many contemporary releases that struggle to achieve such universal praise from reviewers.

Released in 2023, Poor Things tells the darkly surreal story of a woman brought back to life through a peculiar scientific experiment, exploring themes of identity, autonomy, and female agency through a steampunk-influenced lens.

The Rotten Tomatoes score of 93% isn’t merely a number—it represents the collective assessment of professional film critics who found the project both artistically ambitious and remarkably executed. To understand what this score means requires looking at both the critical consensus behind it and how it compares to industry benchmarks.

Table of Contents

• How Does a 93% Score Compare to Other Film Ratings?
• The Critical Consensus Behind Poor Things’ Score
• Emma Stone’s Career Trajectory on Rotten Tomatoes
• Understanding IMDb Scores Versus Rotten Tomatoes
• BAFTA Recognition and Awards Season Context
• Visual Storytelling and Critical Appreciation
• Poor Things’ Place in Contemporary Cinema
• Conclusion

How Does a 93% Score Compare to Other Film Ratings?

A 93% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes places Poor Things in elite company. For context, scores above 90% represent films that critics consider genuinely outstanding works with minimal significant flaws.

This is notably higher than most commercially successful films—even acclaimed blockbusters frequently land in the 75-85% range. The Favourite, Emma Stone’s previous collaboration with Lanthimos, achieved the same 93%, underscoring how rare it is for an actor to have multiple films reaching this tier of critical consensus.

The gap between critical and audience scores provides additional perspective.

While critics gave Poor Things a 93%, the general audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes (tracked separately through audience surveys) tells a different story, indicating that the film’s experimental nature appeals more to critics than to mainstream moviegoers.

This split between professional critics and general audiences is common for challenging, avant-garde films that prioritize artistic vision over conventional narrative structures. Poor Things’ critical score of 93% positions it above many Best Picture winners and acclaimed indie darlings, reflecting a rare achievement in contemporary cinema.

The Critical Consensus Behind Poor Things’ Score

The official rotten Tomatoes critics consensus describes Poor Things as “wildly imaginative and exhilaratingly over the top,” capturing why the film resonated so strongly with professional reviewers.

Critics praised Lanthimos’s distinctive directorial voice, the production design’s commitment to its surreal aesthetic, and Stone’s fearless performance that embraced the film’s strange, uncompromising vision.

The language used in consensus summaries often signals what aspects critics valued most—and in this case, the emphasis on “imaginative” and “brilliant” suggests critics appreciated the film’s refusal to pursue mainstream conventions.

However, the high critical score comes with an important limitation: it doesn’t necessarily predict audience enjoyment.

Challenging, experimental films frequently receive strong critical recognition while alienating general viewers who find their pacing, style, or narrative structure difficult to engage with. Poor Things exemplifies this divide. Some audience members find the film’s deliberate artificiality and unconventional storytelling refreshing, while others perceive the same qualities as pretentious or off-putting.

A 93% critical score should be understood as “critics largely agreed this is a well-crafted, ambitious film,” not as a guarantee that all viewers will enjoy it.

Emma Stone’s Career Trajectory on Rotten Tomatoes

Emma Stone’s filmography on Rotten Tomatoes reveals a consistent pattern of acclaimed work, with Poor things representing a high point. By tying The Favourite at 93%, Stone joined a select group of actors with multiple films in the 90%+ range.

Her other highly-rated films include La La Land (91%) and Poor Things (93%), demonstrating her ability to collaborate with visionary directors on projects that earn both critical praise and commercial success. This consistency suggests that Stone actively chooses roles in projects with strong artistic direction.

What makes this achievement notable is that Stone earned these scores across diverse genres and styles—from the musical romance of La La Land to the surreal period piece of Poor Things. This range indicates that her critical success isn’t tied to a single formula or director.

The 93% score for Poor Things, specifically, reflects critics’ recognition of her commitment to playing a character in an unusual, demanding role. The film required her to inhabit a character learning about the world for the first time, which demanded a different approach than traditional acting and garnered specific praise for her fearlessness.

Understanding IMDb Scores Versus Rotten Tomatoes

While Poor Things achieved 93% on Rotten Tomatoes’ critics score, the film holds a 7.8/10 rating on IMDb, which tracks ratings from general audiences rather than professional critics. This five-point difference between the 93% critical score and the 7.8/10 audience score highlights a fundamental distinction between how professionals and general viewers evaluate film.

IMDb’s rating system relies on user submissions from millions of viewers worldwide, creating a more democratic but less specialized assessment than Rotten Tomatoes’ curated critics list.

The gap between critical and audience ratings is meaningful but not unusual for ambitious artistic films. A 7.8/10 on IMDb remains a solid rating—it suggests most viewers found the film entertaining or worthwhile, even if they don’t rank it among the best films ever made.

The difference illustrates a practical trade-off: films that push aesthetic and narrative boundaries tend to generate stronger critical appreciation than mainstream satisfaction.

Viewers considering whether to watch Poor Things based on ratings should recognize that a 93% critics score suggests artistic achievement, while the 7.8 IMDb rating indicates it will appeal to a solid but not universal audience.

BAFTA Recognition and Awards Season Context

Poor Things’ critical success translated into major recognition during awards season, securing significant nominations at the 2024 BAFTAs, where it competed alongside Oppenheimer as one of the year’s most-nominated films. Academy recognition provides external validation of the critical consensus reflected in the Rotten Tomatoes score.

When a film earns both a 93% critical score and prestigious award nominations, it signals that the initial critical assessment wasn’t an outlier but part of a broader pattern of recognition across the industry.

The award nominations matter because they indicate the 93% score wasn’t inflated or driven by a small group of outlier reviews. Multiple prestigious award bodies—including BAFTA voters, Academy members, and international film festival programmers—independently arrived at similar conclusions about Poor Things’ quality.

This alignment between critical scores and institutional recognition suggests the high rating reflects genuine consensus rather than critical groupthink. However, it’s worth noting that awards bodies and critics’ associations sometimes diverge from general audiences; the presence of major nominations doesn’t guarantee mainstream appeal, as evidenced by the lower IMDb audience score.

Visual Storytelling and Critical Appreciation

A significant factor driving Poor Things’ 93% critical score is its distinctive visual approach. Director Yorgos Lanthimos employed unconventional cinematography, production design, and color grading that create a surreal, artificial world matching the film’s thematic concerns about artificial life and constructed identity.

Critics particularly appreciated how the visual language served the narrative rather than existing as mere aesthetic flourish.

The use of distorted perspectives, unusual framing, and a deliberately non-naturalistic visual palette all contributed to reviewers’ assessment that the film represents a cohesive artistic vision. This emphasis on visual storytelling explains why the film received stronger critical acclaim than it might from audiences less attuned to these compositional choices.

Professional film critics are trained to evaluate how a director uses visual techniques to serve thematic purposes, while general audiences may find the same techniques distracting or overly stylized.

The high critical score therefore reflects critics’ recognition of technical and artistic craft that might not resonate as strongly with viewers prioritizing conventional narrative clarity and emotional directness.

Poor Things’ Place in Contemporary Cinema

Poor Things’ 93% Rotten Tomatoes score positions the film as a significant moment in contemporary cinema where artistic ambition received widespread critical validation. In an industry often dominated by franchises, sequels, and commercially-driven projects, a non-franchise film starring an acclaimed but not universally bankable actor receiving this level of critical consensus is noteworthy.

The score suggests that critics remain engaged with and receptive to bold, unconventional filmmaking when executed with skill and vision.

Looking forward, Poor Things serves as a reference point for how experimental storytelling can achieve critical recognition without necessarily achieving uniform audience acceptance. The film demonstrates that there remains space in cinema for projects that challenge viewers and prioritize artistic vision over accessibility.

The 93% score likely will influence future development of similar projects, as studios and distributors recognize that critical acclaim for ambitious films can generate prestige and awards recognition, even when mainstream appeal remains more limited.

Conclusion

Poor Things’ 93% Rotten Tomatoes critics score represents genuine critical consensus that the film is a well-crafted, artistically ambitious work. The score reflects professional reviewers’ appreciation for director Yorgos Lanthimos’s distinctive vision, the film’s bold visual language, and Emma Stone’s fearless performance in a challenging role.

This rating places the film among the year’s most acclaimed releases and ties it as Stone’s best-reviewed work alongside The Favourite.

However, prospective viewers should recognize that a 93% critical score differs from a universal recommendation. The gap between the critics’ score and the lower audience ratings on platforms like IMDb indicates that the film’s experimental nature appeals more strongly to professional reviewers than to general audiences.

Understanding Poor Things’ Rotten Tomatoes score requires appreciating what critics valued—artistic ambition and technical execution—while acknowledging that these qualities don’t guarantee mainstream enjoyment for all viewers.

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