Chicago’s Music Box Honors Films With ‘F’ CinemaScore Grades

Since 1979, CinemaScore has surveyed opening night audiences for wide releases from an A+ to F scale. It’s become a movie tradition. In the past 43 years, 122 films have received a perfect A+ grade.

On December 5th, Chicago’s Music Box will kickoff “Who Gives an ‘F’,” which will be the screening of a mini selection of films that received the dreaded “F” grade on CinemaScore.

The Music Box calls the F CinemaScore a “badge of honor.” Quite honestly, looking at the list of films that have, over the years, received this “honor,” they might very well have a point:

It spans the punk rock to the artistically inclined, the morbid artifacts to the subsequently acclaimed. What audiences saw as betrayals may have indeed been grand subversions playing in malls across America fueled not by irony, but by an unbridled earnestness rare in contemporary film.

In case you’re unaware, CinemaScore, "the industry leader in measuring movie appeal,” is the market research firm that surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades. The results get used by media outlets around the country.

Around 400 people get surveyed for every theatrically released film — An overall grade of "A+" and "F" is calculated as the average of the grades given by responders. Only 22 films have ever received an “F.”

Now, given the blandness of mainstream tastes, you should not be shocked to learn that the selection for the Music Box’s “F” graded films will actually be quite adventurous; there are some unheralded gems to be discovered. Remember, Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut,” which I love, garnered a D- back in 1999.

The quintessential “F” titles are … Steven Soderbergh’s “Solaris,” Jane Campion’s “In the Cut,” William Friedkin’s “Bug,” Richard Kelly’s “The Box,” Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly,” Robert Altman’s “Dr. T and the Women” snd Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!”

You can read the Chicago Tribune’s interview with the Music Box employees who created this series.