Rotten Tomatoes Awards Its Best Movie Trophies To 'Avengers: Endgame' & 'Parasite'

Rotten Tomatoes has become the subject of intense debate over the last few years. For those that understand how the site works, the Tomatometer is nothing more than a decent barometer for how much critics either like or dislike a film. Other people (and sometimes studios, in their marketing) will use the Rotten Tomatoes score as a quick number to flash around when you want to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt whether a film or TV series is great or not. Regardless of your opinion on the validity of the Tomatometer, it is still a relevant metric that is used by many.

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And just as it’s done in years past, Rotten Tomatoes has kicked off 2020 with the release of its Golden Tomato Awards. The awards aren’t voted by any governing body but instead given to films based on mathematical metrics. According to the website, the Golden Tomato Awards are “determined by the Tomatometer score for movies and TV shows in a category and rank by Adjusted Score, which uses a weighted formula that accounts for the variation in the number of reviews when comparing the movies or shows.”

Got it? Good!

So, who are the winners? Well, on the film side of things, the big winners are both “Avengers: Endgame” (Best Movie > Wide Release) and “Parasite” (Best Movie > Limited Release). As for TV series, the Best New TV Show award goes to “Watchmen,” while the Best Returning TV Show award is given to “Fleabag.” While no one is going to argue whether or not “Parasite,” “Watchmen,” or “Fleabag” are deserving or not, there will be people just frothing at the mouth waiting to rain down hate about ‘Endgame’ getting an award from Rotten Tomatoes.

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Sorry folks, but this isn’t a sign of the end times. Instead, these awards, once again, show how interesting (but flawed) the idea of review aggregation is. Is “Avengers: Endgame” the best movie of 2019? Of course, not! But when you look at its Tomatometer rating (94% with over 500 reviews), then it did better than “Us,” “Knives Out,” and “Toy Story 4.” It’s just math delivered by a company that makes its money by assigning definitive number grades to every film based on a binary Rotten/Fresh system. It’s hardly a bellwether for greatness and creativity.

If you’re interested in how the rest of the awards were given out, here is the complete list of winners:

BEST MOVIES/TV
Best Movie > Wide Release – Avengers: Endgame
Best Movie > Limited Release – Parasite
Best Movie > Directorial Debut – Toy Story 4
Best Movie > Foreign-Language – Parasite
Best Movie > Spanish Language – Pain and Glory
Best Movie > Australia – The Nightingale
Best Movie > United Kingdom – They Shall Not Grow Old
Best New TV Show – Watchmen: Season 1
Best Returning TV Show – Fleabag: Season 2
Best TV Movie – Deadwood: The Movie

MOVIES BY GENRE
Best Action/Adventure Movie – John Wick 3
Best Animated Movie – Toy Story 4
Best Comedy – Booksmart
Best Comic Book/Graphic Novel Movie – Avengers: Endgame
Best Documentary – Apollo 11
Best Drama – Parasite
Best Horror Movie – Us
Best Kids & Family Movie – The Kid Who Would Be King
Best Musical/Music Movie – Rocketman
Best Romance Movie – Transit
Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie – Ad Astra
Best Thriller – Knives Out

TV BY GENRE
Best Animated TV – Undone: Season 1
Best TV Comedy – Fleabag: Season 2
Best Docuseries – Leaving Neverland
Best TV Drama – Unbelievable: Season 1
Best TV Horror – Evil: Season 1
Best Miniseries, Limited Series & Anthology TV Show – Chernobyl
Best TV Sci-Fi/Fantasy – Dark: Season 2
Best Superhero TV Show – Watchmen: Season 1