How Reel Critix Works
Every rule below is public on purpose. A review aggregator is only worth as much as the method behind it, so the method is the product.
What qualifies as an AI film
A title belongs in the catalogue when at least 50% of its visual content is machine-generated. We measure it shot by shot, weighted by runtime:
| Shot type | Counts as |
|---|---|
| Fully generated shot | 100% |
| Hybrid - live plate with a generated environment | 50% |
| Camera-captured or hand-drawn | 0% |
| Titles, credits, black frames | Excluded entirely |
Enhancement is not generation. AI upscaling, denoising, rotoscoping or colour work applied to real footage does not make a film an AI film. It is recorded separately as post-production assistance.
Voice, music and performance can be entirely human and the film still qualifies - those are recorded on their own axes so you can filter on them.
Provenance: nine axes, not one label
Asking "is it AI?" is the wrong question by now. Every title carries a graded record across nine axes - imagery, motion, performance, voice, music, sound, writing, editing and post - each marked as human, AI-assisted, hybrid, AI-generated, not applicable, or not disclosed.
We display "not disclosed" rather than hiding it. A half-filled record that is honest is worth more than a complete one that was guessed, and showing the gap is what gets it filled.
The public label on a film - Fully Generated, AI-Animated, Hybrid Production - is computed by us, never chosen by the submitter. Filmmakers describe their process; the system decides what to call it. That removes any incentive to shop for a flattering label.
How provenance gets verified
Confidence is accumulated from independent evidence, strongest first:
| Evidence | Weight |
|---|---|
| Creator-authorised generation history from the model vendor | Highest |
| C2PA / Content Credentials manifest on the master | High |
| SynthID or vendor watermark detected | High |
| Staff audit against the rubric | High |
| Festival submission record | Medium |
| Project file / edit decision list | Medium |
| Synthetic-media detector output | Advisory only |
A detector never decides a public label. Synthetic-media detectors are unreliable in both directions. They route a title to a human reviewer; they do not adjudicate it.
Review integrity
This is the part everything else rests on.
- An unverified account cannot move any score. Not a little - at all. An account that costs nothing to create is worth nothing to a manipulator.
- Identity is verified by stacked independent signals, scored on a published points ladder. We store a one-way hash from the identity provider - never your document, number or photo.
- Verified does not mean public. Critics publish under a byline; viewers may use a pseudonym. Verification status is public, the evidence never is.
- Filmmakers cannot review their own work, or work competing against theirs. This is enforced in the database, not by asking nicely.
- Corrections are published. When we remove reviews or restate a score, we say what happened and how the number changed. No silent deletions.
The two scores
We publish a Critic Score and an Audience Score, and we never blend them. The gap between them is usually the most interesting thing on the page.
- Critic Score: weighted mean of verified critic ratings, normalised to 0-100. Critic weight runs from 0.5× to 2.0× based on body of work, venue and independence. Model-vendor affiliation reduces weight and carries a permanent visible disclosure.
- Minimum 4 critic reviews before a Critic Score appears; 20 before an Audience Score does. Below that the page says so.
- Scores do not decay. A 2026 verdict stays the 2026 verdict.
Where we are today
210 titles are catalogued. Zero scores are published, because the founding critic roster is still being assembled and no title has four verified reviews. Every catalogued title is marked provisional until a human verifies its provenance.
We would rather launch with an honest empty state than a fabricated number. If that sounds like a place you want to write for, apply to be a founding critic.