‘Wonder Woman’ Is Now the Best-Reviewed Superhero Movie of All Time
With a record-breaking worldwide box office gross of over $821 million and an official Oscar campaign, the latest update on Wonder Woman’s global dominance probably won‘t surprise you: Gal Gadot’s solo adventure is now the best-reviewed superhero film of all time, according to the results of a new analysis from Rotten Tomatoes. And looking at the remaining top 10, she’s in good — if occasionally surprising — company.
To determine the best-reviewed superhero films, Rotten Tomatoes used a complicated equation, known as the Bayesian formula. That method factors in “variations in the number of reviews per movie,” allowing for an adjusted overall score. Wonder Woman came out on top with an adjusted score of 108.574 percent, followed by Logan (107.976 percent) and The Dark Knight (106.233 percent).
The approach accounts for why Wonder Woman, which has a 92 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, ranked higher than The Incredibles, which came in ninth place despite having a 97 percent rating — the highest rating on the list:
- Wonder Woman - 92% (108.574%)
- Logan - 93% (107.976%)
- The Dark Knight - 94% (106.233%)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming - 92% (105.978%)
- Thor: Ragnarok - 93% (105.63%)
- The Avengers - 92% (103.97%)
- Iron Man - 94% (103.912%)
- Captain America: Civil War - 90% (103.89%)
- The Incredibles - 97% (103.393%)
- The LEGO Batman Movie - 91% (103.18%)
Another interesting thing about the list is that it’s mostly populated with more recent films. Not a single movie on the above top 10 was released prior to 2004. There are a few potential explanations for this: More writers and bloggers have been reviewing movies in recent years, many of which are in the Rotten Tomatoes system — several of those writers, you may have noticed, share reviews on smaller blogs or local papers and news programs in smaller towns. Every vote should — and does — count.
But another possibility — and one that relates to the explanation above — is that perhaps critics and bloggers have become more generous in their reviews…at least as far as superhero movies go. Your mileage may vary, but I think we can agree that these are all good films, at the very least. Some are great, but they’re all solid. Will Thor: Ragnarok stand the test of time? What about The LEGO Batman Movie, which, though admittedly fun, runs a little too long and starts to drag in the middle?
My point is this: With an uptick in movie and pop culture sites (a not insignificant amount of which skew more toward commercial fare and are largely read by comic book fans), and more people reviewing films, it’s not hugely surprising that some of these very recent superhero movies landed on that top 10 list. This isn’t an attempt to dump on film criticism or the opinions of others; it just…makes sense.
In any case, Wonder Woman is the best-reviewed superhero movie of all time, and that’s certainly another great win for our girl Diana.