Why I don't Rank Movies?

I started watching movies again. I use Letterboxd for logging the movies I watch. While I use a really popular website for that purpose, I don’t use it like an average user.

I don’t like rating movies. Truth to be told, I don’t really like rating anything.

There’s inherent flaws with the ranking systems (0-10 , 0-5) we usually use. It’s not entirely the system’s fault, but existence of it makes everything a bit more complicated.

For example, “the average” of anything. If I rate a movie 5/10, people will assume that I didn’t like the movie. It’s not the truth, I liked the movie, but I try to not watch everything on the cinema. I only watch stuff I find interesting. A 5/10 movie would be average for me. Not bad, but not exceptionally good.

This is where the problem comes in. We’re, as humans, inherently smug. We never want to admit whatever we do is average. It should be a bit better than average, but not so much so we’re not blowing our cover entirely. That’s why 7/10 is the new 5/10.

I decided to ditch the system entirely. There are two kinds of movies, the ones I like and the ones I don’t. Some I like/dislike more than others, but who cares. I am not trying to watch “best” movies entire time. I want to consume art. I am trying to broaden my horizons. I am not in a race to be the best. I am trying to enjoy myself and that’s really it.

I am adopting this approach on everything. It makes a lot of things much more enjoyable because my view of the experience vastly changed.