Inspired by dissatisfied fans throwing rotten fruit onto stages, the website Rotten Tomatoes has dutifully expressed the general response of critics and audiences alike for TV shows and movies. However, the score given by top critics, called the Tomatometer®, can seem difficult to decipher.

The way that it is scored is by the employees of the website scouring professional movie reviews from accredited critics, and then using the score given by the critics, create a percentage pertaining to the movie. If many critics found the movie to be bad, it can get a “Rotten” score, indicated by a green splotch on the website. The smaller the percentage the worse the movie was reviewed.

If over 60 percent of critics found the movie good, then the movie can receive a tomato, indicating a “Fresh” percentage. The higher the percentage, the better the movie. The best score that a movie can get is if the score is over 75 percent, in which they are “Certified Fresh”.

The basic of it is, the higher the percentage, the better the movie in the eyes of critics. Of course, you can form your own option, and others have as well, which make up the Audience Score.