Excellent and Definitely recommend: the two scores that price a film

Q: Why the top box only? Isn't 'very good' still good?

Because 'very good' doesn't make anyone do anything. People recommend films they think are excellent, and word of mouth is driven by enthusiasm, not approval. Studio research firms track the top two boxes as well, but the top box is where the predictive power sits — especially for independent films, which live or die on recommendation.

By Joey Dawson, Dawson's

Last reviewed: 28th July 2026

Every test screening report contains dozens of measures, but buyers ask about two. Excellent — the percentage of viewers giving the film the top rating on a five-point scale. Definitely recommend — the percentage who say they would definitely tell someone else to watch it. Everything else in the report exists to explain those two figures.

Studios have measured films this way for decades, and the vocabulary is standard across the business. That's what makes the numbers valuable to an independent producer: when you quote them, you're speaking a language the buyer already trusts.

Excellent — did the film land?

After the screening, every viewer rates the film on a five-point scale: excellent, very good, good, fair, poor. The headline figure is the percentage choosing the top rating. Not "liked it", not "enjoyed it". Excellent.

The discipline of the top box is deliberate. Almost nobody walks out of a film and rates it "poor" — politeness pushes everything toward the middle. The signal isn't in whether people approved of the film; it's in how many were genuinely enthusiastic about it. That's what the top box isolates.

(Studio research firms also track the top two boxes — excellent plus very good — as a broader satisfaction measure. Both are useful. But the top box is where the predictive power sits, because enthusiasm is what makes people act.)

Definitely recommend — will they tell anyone?

Viewers are also asked whether they'd recommend the film. Again, only the top answer counts: Definitely. "Probably" is a polite no.

This is often the most predictive single number in the report, because it's the closest available proxy for word of mouth — and word of mouth drives independent film performance more than any other single factor. A studio release can buy an opening weekend with marketing spend. An independent film almost never can. It earns its audience one recommendation at a time, or it doesn't earn one at all.

Why two numbers, not one

The two scores usually move together, but not always — and the gap between them is diagnostic.

High Excellent, lower Definitely recommend usually means viewers admired the film but can't picture who they'd send to it. That's a positioning problem — the film is landing, but its audience isn't defined sharply enough for a recommendation to have a target. Often fixable without touching the cut.

High Definitely recommend, lower Excellent is the crowd-pleaser pattern: the film works as an experience even where viewers can name its flaws. For a buyer, this is frequently the more bankable of the two.

Both low means the film itself needs work — and if you've tested at rough cut rather than after picture lock, you still have time to do it.

What the scores can't tell you on their own

A raw percentage is meaningless in isolation. A figure that's strong for a slow drama would be a warning sign for a broad comedy, which is why scores are read against similar films — same genre, comparable budget, comparable audience — rather than against some universal bar.

And a single screening only tells you where you stand. The number that changes negotiations is the movement between two screenings: test, act on the results, test again. A film that went from middling to strong has proved something no single score can — that the problems were found and fixed. That's why serious testing is designed to be done twice.

Why this changes the price

A buyer acquiring your film is pricing risk, and the biggest risk is word of mouth: whether the film earns out over months or disappears in a fortnight. Without evidence, they estimate from genre, cast and instinct — and estimates made without evidence are conservative by default.

A strong Excellent figure and a strong Definitely recommend figure are a direct answer to that question, in the buyer's own vocabulary. The conversation stops being an argument about taste and becomes a discussion of what actually happened when the intended audience watched the film. The party holding that information sets the terms.

Which is the practical argument for testing before a market rather than after a deal. Information you can't act on isn't worth paying for.

Questions

What counts as a good Excellent score?

It depends on the genre and the audience the film was tested against. A figure that's strong for a slow drama would be a warning sign for a broad comedy, which is why the comparison against similar films matters more than the raw number — and why the movement between two screenings matters more than either single result.

Why the top box only? Isn't "very good" still good?

Because "very good" doesn't make anyone do anything. People recommend films they think are excellent, and word of mouth is driven by enthusiasm, not approval. Studio research firms track the top two boxes as well, but the top box is where the predictive power sits — especially for independent films, which live or die on recommendation.

Which number matters more?

Definitely recommend, narrowly. It is the closest available proxy for word of mouth, which determines whether an independent film earns over months or disappears in a fortnight. But buyers will ask about both, and the two together are far more persuasive than either alone.

Do buyers actually know these numbers?

Yes. Studios have measured films this way for decades and the vocabulary is standard across the business. That's precisely why the numbers are useful: you're quoting evidence in a language the buyer already trusts.