Weathering with You holds a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 93%, calculated from 95 professional reviews with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. This is not merely a passing grade—it’s an exceptional one that places the anime film alongside some of the most critically respected works in animation.
The film earned Certified Fresh status on the platform, a designation reserved for movies that have achieved both critical consensus and broad professional agreement.
- Rotten Tomatoes Score: Table of Contents
- What Does a 93% Critics Score Actually Mean?
- Certified Fresh Status and What It Signifies
- How Weathering with You Compares to Other Anime Films
- The Critics' Consensus on the Film's Quality
- The Difference Between Critics and Audience Scores
- Why These Scores Matter for Animated Films
- What the Score Tells You About Watching Weathering with You
- Conclusion
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For context, a 93% score means that the vast majority of critics who reviewed Weathering with You recommended the film to audiences, which is a significant achievement in the competitive landscape of international animated cinema. The Certified Fresh label carries particular weight because it’s not awarded to every acclaimed film.
Rotten Tomatoes enforces strict criteria: a minimum number of reviews combined with a sufficiently high percentage and strong consensus among critics. Weathering with You met these rigorous standards, confirming that its quality wasn’t just the opinion of a handful of enthusiastic reviewers but rather a widespread professional consensus about its artistic merit and storytelling achievement.
Table of Contents
- What Does a 93% Critics Score Actually Mean?
- Certified Fresh Status and What It Signifies
- How Weathering with You Compares to Other Anime Films
- The Critics’ Consensus on the Film’s Quality
- The Difference Between Critics and Audience Scores
- Why These Scores Matter for Animated Films
- What the Score Tells You About Watching Weathering with You
- Conclusion
What Does a 93% Critics Score Actually Mean?
A 93% rotten Tomatoes score indicates that 93 out of every 100 critics surveyed gave the film a positive review rather than a negative one. This is fundamentally different from a traditional grading scale where 93% might suggest some room for improvement.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the scoring system is binary at its core—each review is either “fresh” (positive) or “rotten” (negative)—meaning a 93% score represents overwhelming critical approval.
The accompanying 7.4/10 average score provides additional context, showing that critics didn’t just recommend weathering with You, they recommended it enthusiastically.
To understand how exceptional this is, consider that most mainstream Hollywood blockbusters typically score in the 60s to 80s range. Oscar-winning films often hover around 80-90%. A 93% score places Weathering with You in the upper tier of critically acclaimed cinema, alongside celebrated works like Spirited Away (97%) and Your Name (98%).
This makes it one of the highest-rated animated films in Rotten Tomatoes history, a distinction that speaks to the film’s artistic ambitions and its success in achieving them.
Certified Fresh Status and What It Signifies
The Certified Fresh designation on Rotten Tomatoes is a special badge that indicates both quantity and quality of reviews. To earn this status, a film must have a high percentage of positive reviews along with a minimum number of critic submissions.
Weathering with You’s Certified Fresh status, based on 95 reviews, demonstrates that this score wasn’t built on a small sample size but on a substantial body of professional critical assessment.
This is an important distinction because it means the high rating reflects the opinions of a genuinely diverse group of critics from various publications and perspectives.
one limitation to note is that Rotten Tomatoes’ certification process can sometimes skew toward mainstream critics and established publications. Independent critics and niche outlets may be underrepresented, though this is less of an issue for a high-profile release like Weathering with You.
The Certified Fresh status essentially guarantees that if you’re someone who values professional critical consensus, this film has passed a meaningful threshold of critical approval.
How Weathering with You Compares to Other Anime Films
Weathering with You’s 93% score places it among the elite of anime cinema on Rotten Tomatoes. Your Name, the film’s spiritual predecessor by director Makoto Shinkai, earned a 98% score, making Weathering with You the slightly less acclaimed of the two.
However, a 93% versus 98% represents a much smaller gap in actual critical sentiment than the raw numbers suggest—both films are universally praised by critics.
For comparison, other acclaimed anime films like demon Slayer: mugen train scored 98%, while more recent releases like Jujutsu Kaisen 0 earned an 80%, showing considerable variation within the anime community’s critical reception.
The score also reflects Weathering with You’s position in international film criticism. Unlike some anime that appeal primarily to dedicated anime fans, Weathering with You earned strong reviews from mainstream film critics and publications that might not typically engage deeply with anime.
This cross-platform appeal among both anime specialists and general film critics contributed to its high Rotten Tomatoes score, suggesting the film succeeded in transcending genre boundaries.
The Critics’ Consensus on the Film’s Quality
The 7.4/10 average rating accompanying the 93% score reveals that critics appreciated more than just the film’s surface appeal. This mid-to-high numerical average suggests that reviewers found substantial merit in Weathering with You’s storytelling, animation, character development, and emotional resonance.
Critics frequently praised the film’s stunning visual direction, its ambitious exploration of climate change as a narrative backdrop, and its ability to balance spectacle with intimate character moments. The consistency of this praise across 95 different reviews is what generates confidence in the overall assessment.
However, not every positive review meant critics found the film without flaws. Some reviewers noted that the film’s ambitious themes occasionally overwhelm the personal story at its center, or that certain plot developments require the viewer to make logical leaps.
These critical observations didn’t prevent positive ratings—they simply reflect that critics valued what the film accomplished while acknowledging where it might have been executed differently. This nuance is part of what makes the 93% score meaningful rather than dismissive.
The Difference Between Critics and Audience Scores
Rotten Tomatoes displays both critic scores and audience scores separately for an important reason: they frequently diverge. While Weathering with You’s 93% professional critics score is well-documented, the audience score wasn’t captured in the initial research data but is available directly on the official Rotten Tomatoes page.
This separation matters because critics approach films with different expectations and frameworks than casual viewers. Critics evaluate artistic ambition, technical craft, and narrative sophistication, while audiences often prioritize entertainment value and emotional connection.
For anime specifically, audience and critic scores sometimes show notable variation. Some films score higher with audiences than with critics because viewers enjoy the spectacle and emotional beats without requiring the same analytical rigor.
Conversely, some acclaimed anime films that critics praise for artistic merit may receive more moderate audience scores from viewers who found them difficult or slow-paced. Understanding both scores provides a more complete picture of how a film was received across different viewing communities.
Why These Scores Matter for Animated Films
Animation as a medium has historically faced critical bias, with many mainstream critics and award organizations treating it as less serious than live-action cinema. Weathering with You’s exceptional 93% score represents a continued shift in this perception.
The film earned strong critical acclaim not despite being animated, but while being recognized as animation that accomplishes artistic goals that would be difficult or impossible in live-action.
The film’s willingness to tackle climate change, environmental anxiety, and personal sacrifice through the lens of animation demonstrates the medium’s capacity for serious thematic exploration. This score also carries significance for the anime industry itself.
Major Hollywood studios increasingly invest in anime and anime-adjacent projects, partly because critical reception data like Weathering with You’s 93% score demonstrates that the format can achieve mainstream critical legitimacy.
For filmmakers considering working in animation or anime style, a score like this provides evidence that the medium can achieve the same level of critical recognition as traditional live-action cinema.
What the Score Tells You About Watching Weathering with You
If you’re trying to decide whether Weathering with You is worth your time, the 93% score serves as a meaningful but not absolute guide. The high score indicates that professional critics found the film successful across multiple dimensions—storytelling, visual execution, emotional impact, and thematic ambition.
It suggests the film has enough substance to reward careful viewing and will likely offer something valuable regardless of your familiarity with anime. The Certified Fresh status adds confidence that this score reflects a broad consensus rather than niche enthusiasm.
That said, a high Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t guarantee personal enjoyment. A 93% score means some viewers will connect deeply with the film while others may find it doesn’t resonate as strongly. If you typically enjoy character-driven narratives, visually ambitious cinema, or anime in general, the score is a positive signal.
If you prefer straightforward, action-driven plots or have less tolerance for the pacing of character-focused animation, the score is still relevant but should be weighed against your personal preferences.
Conclusion
Weathering with You’s 93% Rotten Tomatoes critics score, backed by 95 professional reviews and Certified Fresh status, places it among the most critically acclaimed animated films of recent years. This high score reflects both the film’s technical excellence and its success in delivering a thematically ambitious story that resonated with critics across different publication backgrounds.
The 7.4/10 average rating shows that critics didn’t just rate the film positively—they rated it enthusiastically, seeing genuine artistic merit in Shinkai’s work.
For anyone considering watching Weathering with You, these scores function as a meaningful signal of quality while not serving as a guarantee of personal enjoyment. The film has clearly succeeded in its artistic ambitions according to professional critics, and it has earned recognition that extends beyond the anime community to mainstream film criticism.
Whether you’re a longtime anime enthusiast or a general cinema viewer, the critical reception suggests that Weathering with You offers substantial rewards for the time invested in watching it.
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