Deciding by a single score goes wrong often. What the numbers are actually measuring.
A film rated 7 where almost everyone gave it 7 and a film averaging 7 from a mix of 10s and 4s are completely different. The first is reliably decent; the second divides people. The second could become a favourite or a waste of an evening. Where the distribution is visible, reading it alongside the average helps.
Critics weigh construction: direction, structure, context. Audiences weigh enjoyment and satisfaction. That is why some films show a wide gap between the two. The question is not which is right but which matches what you want tonight.
Immediately after release, the people who were waiting for the film watch and rate it first, so scores often start high. As general audiences arrive, scores can settle downward. Some films go the other way, undervalued at first and reassessed later. An opening-week score is still an unsettled number.
Organised campaigns to boost or sink a specific title exist. A large number of ratings before release, or an unnatural concentration of only 1s and 10s, is worth treating with suspicion. In those cases, reading a few actual reviews is faster than studying the number.
The most useful approach is finding people whose taste overlaps yours. Once you know a reviewer or publication that rated several of your favourites similarly, their verdict predicts your reaction far better than a global average. Keeping different references for different genres also works.
Each button runs this keyword on that search engine