The company behind Rotten Tomatoes has responded to claims that some of the positive user ratings for the new Melania documentary appear “suspicious.”
Melania currently holds a 5 percent rating among film critics on the review aggregator website. The vast majority have been scathing in their assessment of the Amazon MGM Studios’ documentary chronicling the first lady’s activities in the 20 days leading up to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration.
However, it has been a different story among the user reviews posted on the website by people who have gone to see the film. Melania has a 99 percent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter, which measures audience sentiment based on a film’s rating among non-critic users.
The Rotten Tomatoes website says every user rating on the site is “a verified review from a moviegoer that bought a ticket and wrote a review through Fandango,” the online movie ticketing platform. Both Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango are owned by Versant (75 percent) and Warner Bros. Discovery (25 percent).
However, this rating has been met with skepticism in some quarters. Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.
What To Know
The 99 percent rating Melania has on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter puts it among the highest user rated films ever. As one X user , @llandy420, pointed out, The Shawshank Redemption, a film many consider among the greatest of all time, only has a 98 percent rating on the same metric.
Debunk.org, a disinformation watchdog, told Newsweek it saw “something suspicious” in the user reviews posted about the film. “The Debunk, org team has reviewed over 220 comments on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Less than five reviews were negative compared to all other reviews of five stars. 97 percent were positive, which is statistically impossible to achieve,” the watchdog said.
“All reviews are presented as verified (tickets purchased over Fandango), but all accounts seem to have only a single review, which is odd, because citizens who love movies tend to be heavier review writers as well. Most reviews appeared two days ago (63 percent) which also looks inauthentic.”
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB), which also allows users to submit reviews for films, meanwhile, flagged “unusual activity” on the user reviews for Melania. “Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title,” a message on the website states.
Versant, the company behind Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango, has dismissed any suggestion the user reviews could have been manipulated. A Versant spokesperson told Newsweek: “There has been NO bot manipulation on the audience reviews for the Melania documentary. Reviews displayed on the Popcornmeter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning it has been verified that users have bought a ticket to the film.”
Why It Matters
Amazon shelled out a reported $40 million to secure the distribution rights to Melania and a further $35 million on marketing.
Despite the better-than-expected box office takings for Melania, only 11 documentary films have ever grossed more than the $75 million Melania would need to make in order to break even, according to The Numbers. That outlay, coupled with the critical reaction to the film, led to suggestions Amazon’s investment in the project was more to do with politics than any financial or artistic considerations.
Yet those initial box office numbers, along with these positive user reviews, could go some way to dispelling that notion.
What People Are Saying
Versant told Newsweek via email: “There has been NO bot manipulation on the audience reviews for the Melania documentary. Reviews displayed on the Popcornmeter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning it has been verified that users have bought a ticket to the film.
“Every title on Rotten Tomatoes has Auto Moderation applied to reviews submitted to the Popcornmeter, which means there are filters that can block certain reviews due to keywords/language that violate our community code of conduct.
“We also use active moderation, which means Rotten Tomatoes staff members review each review before contributed to the Popcornmeter, ensuring that all reviews adhere to our community code of conduct.”
Debunk.org told Newsweek via email: “All reviews are presented as verified (tickets purchased over Fandango), but all accounts seem to have only a single review, which is odd, because citizens who love movies tend to be heavier review writers as well. Most reviews appeared two days ago (63 percent) which also looks inauthentic.”
Podcast host Justin Chiera said on X: “Quite funny how blatant the bots and/or fanatics are w/ Melania reviews. All 5 star & 10/10 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes & IMDB before released to the public, oddly the only movie they have all reviewed or rated. Then all others are 1 w/ reviews summarized as ‘Disaster.'”
Stian Schultz said on X: “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as phony as the user reviews of Melania on Rotten Tomatoes.”
On Reddit, u/braunglasrakete wrote, highlighting several of the user reviews for Melania on Rotten Tomatoes:
“A fantastic flick, our theater was sold out and erupted in applause and cheers at the end of the show. Melania is a wonderful human, a class act and America is blessed she is once again our first lady.”
“First class representation of our true, lovely, kind and compassionate first lady. Our audience applauded, laughed and shed some tears today.
Conservative website The American Spectator said on X: “On Rotten Tomatoes, Melania currently has a 6 percent critics score and a 99 percent audience score. People looking for entertainment rather than woke pablum now know to seek out movies with a higher audience score than critics’ score, and the larger the difference, the better. The highly successful Sound of Freedom carries a 58/99.”
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