20 Most Surprising Rotten Tomatoes Scores Of 2019

When reviews drop for any new movie, the first thing many will do is take a trip to Rotten Tomatoes to check out the aggregate "critical consensus" percentage score and decide whether or not said movie is actually worth their time.

While judging any movie on a single number is obviously hugely reductive because film discourse is so much more than one monolithic calculation, the influence that Rotten Tomatoes has had on the industry is undeniable.

Studios will proudly print "Certified Fresh!" stickers on their Blu-rays, while if they know their film is a dud in advance, they'll only screen it for press at the very last minute - if at all.

And though the vast majority of movies can have their inevitable Tomatometer scores predicted in advance with a fair degree of ballpark accuracy, every so often a movie's critical reception is a sharp divergence from the expected.

Whether for better or worse, these 20 movies from the past year all defied most sensible and studied predictions, either exceeding low expectations or dropping far north of the mark.

While few of us were surprised when Avengers: Endgame received near-universal raves or Dark Phoenix was widely panned, it's safe to say that many of the year's biggest films weren't received how anyone expected...