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The Golden Globes cemented its reputation as the biggest populist movie awards ceremony out there, last night awarding Green Book as Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) and Bohemian Rhapsody as Best Motion Picture in the Drama category. (See full 2019 winners list.) Both movies have connected with theater audiences, through high CinemaScore grades and as revealed in their Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Scores: 95% for Green, and 90% for Boho.
But look at the Tomatometers and different stories emerge. While Green Book‘s Certified Fresh 81% is in the same realm of its Audience Score, Bohemian Rhapsody struggled to even be Fresh. The film was Rotten for a significant amount of time as reviews came in prior to release, before finally settling on the just-Fresh 62%.
And now it’s won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. (In Drama, and not Musical/Comedy, but that’s been another story entirely.) A cursory glance over the decade’s past Best Picture – Drama winners reveals a gallery of Certified Fresh films, where something like The Revenant‘s 79% is a precipitous drop. But now with Bohemian Rhapsody officially in the club, its 62% Tomatometer makes it the lowest-rated movie to take top honors in either Drama or Musical/Comedy in 33 years, since Out of Africa, which rides a parlous 60%. The infamously staid Robert Redford and Meryl Streep joint won Best Picture – Drama at the 1986 ceremony, while Prizzi’s Honor took Musical/Comedy.
So where would Boho Rhapso rank among all Best Motion Picture winners in Golden Globes’ 76-year history? Using our Adjusted Tomatometer (which includes several factors including release year and number of reviews), the Queen biopic places 128 out of 149 winners. In last place? 1953’s Biblical epic The Robe, which should think about covering up its 33% Tomatometer.
Want to learn more about Golden Globes history? Don’t stop us now, because here’s the full list of Golden Globe winners ranked by Tomatometer.
