Why The Woman King’s Rotten Tomatoes Score is So Good

The Woman King has received mostly glowing reviews, giving it one of the year’s best Rotten Tomatoes scores. 2022 has seen a number of well reviewed movies, but the strength and consistency of The Woman King’s reviews set it apart from many other theatrical releases this year.

Set in the mid-1820s, The Woman King tells the story of an army of female warriors trained by General Nanisca (Viola Davis) to defend the West African nation of Dahomey. As an epic war film loosely based on historical events and starring women of color, The Woman King has a lot going for it on paper, but for a September release in an already complicated post-COVID theatrical environment, the positive reviews and high Rotten Tomatoes score are an especially great sign.

Obviously strong review scores in Rotten Tomatoes are always a good thing, but The Woman King’s Rotten Tomatoes rating doesn’t only make it one of the better reviewed films this year, but in a year mostly dominated by franchise sequels, with just a few exceptions, so it’s encouraging to see a movie like The Woman King get such a positive reaction. Here’s how its Rotten Tomatoes score sets it apart.

The Woman King’s Rotten Tomatoes score currently stands at 94 percent Fresh, coming from 118 positive reviews out of a total of 125 counted by the review aggregator (meaning only 7 reviews are counted as negative or “Rotten”). The 94 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is clearly a big sign of success, but the total number of reviews for The Woman King is also a positive sign in and of itself. While big franchises tend to get more total reviews than The Woman King has, with the average MCU movie seeing almost 380 reviews on each movie, for a non-franchise movie, The Woman King’s 125 opening weekend reviews from critics is also a good sign for the movie’s popularity.

The positive reviews also extend to Rotten Tomatoes’ specially selected “Top Critics” category, seeing the exact same 94 percent from 36 Top Critics (meaning only two Top Critics gave it a Rotten review). The Rotten Tomatoes scores for both all critics and Top Critics simply represents the present age of reviews that are generally positive, but the actual average rating of all the reviews is also impressive, earning an average score of 7.8 out of 10, which is higher than the MCU’s 7.18 out of 10 average review rating. Obviously the movie is drastically different than most MCU movies, but as a franchise with consistently high scores it serves as a good point of comparison to use as a benchmark.

Critics and audiences don’t always align, particularly when it comes to reviews and Rotten Tomatoes scores, but The Woman King has a really strong reception in both categories. The Woman King’s verified audience score in Rotten Tomatoes is an impressive 99 percent, even higher than the score from critics. The verified audience score is a fairly new measurement, so it can be hard to compare to other historical scores since it’s gathered differently, but the movie’s “all audience” score of 85 percent is still higher than the MCU’s 82 percent average from audiences.

While the critic score is generally cited as the most prominent signal of a movie’s reception, the audience score is also an important indicator. In fact, it was more common for 2021’s top performing movies to have a Fresh audience score in Rotten Tomatoes than it was for them to have a Rotten score. While there are numerous other factors involved in a movie’s reception, the strong reviews from both audiences and critics certainly help set The Woman King up for success.

The most impressive aspect of The Woman King’s Rotten Tomatoes score is the consistency of positive reviews between critics, Top Critics, and audiences. The scores from critics and Top Critics are identical, while the score from audiences is also high, showing the movie checks all the boxes to satisfy the technical and artistic considerations of critics while providing the kind of thrills and drama needed to elicit an enthusiastic audience response.

For a movie starring a large cast a women of color, there can also be concerns about potential review bombing or other bad faith reviews, but the consistency in the score is a strong indicator that there’s no foul play. Even with the 14 point disparity between the 85 percent audience score and the 99 percent verified audience score, it’s common for the all audience score to be lower, with review bombings typically seeing an even wider split.

For comparison, 2017’s Wonder Woman, another epic movie featuring female warriors, scored 93 percent from critics, 90 percent from Top Critics, and 83 percent from audiences (several years before the introduction of the “Verified Audience” score). Wonder Woman is widely considered one of the best DCEU movies (if not one of the better superhero movies overall). Similarly, Black Panther, which featured an all black cast and featured Wakanda’s elite Dora Milaje female warriors like The Woman King scored 96 percent from critics, 100 percent from Top Critics, and 79 percent from audiences (also prior to the verified audience rating).

As fantastical comic book movies they aren’t a perfect reference point for a movie based on actual historical events, and Rotten Tomatoes scores shouldn’t be used to make head-to-head comparisons to determine what movie is “better” or “worse,” but the comparison helps establish some context for The Woman King’s Rotten Tomatoes score. With some superficial similarities, shared subject matter, and similar reviews, Black Panther and Wonder Woman’s Rotten Tomatoes score could give an indication of the level of quality to expect from The Woman King.

Of course, all reviews are subjective, and even the movies mentioned have a small number of detractors, so the positive scores don’t mean everyone loves the movies, but clearly the vast majority do. Regardless, with such a consistently strong Rotten Tomatoes scores from all critics, Top Critics, and audiences it’s fair to expect most audience members to similarly enjoy The Woman King.