Even with Oscar season in full swing, I never like to leave the movie theater thinking, Wow. That was a waste of time and money. After watching the Oscar winning movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008, it was so boring, I swore I wouldn’t watch any movies for a year. Confession time: I only made it 3 months until I first watched Slumdog Millionaire, which is literally my favorite movie ever!

Anyway, I hate bad movies. For me, “bad” can be a mixture of many things, but these 3 things top my list:

1. Boring (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
2. Bad Acting (Any of the Twilight movies)
3. Sexual Nudity- Just… Why?

No matter what kind of movies you love or what kind of movies you hate, I’ve developed 3 surefire steps to make sure I’ll never watch another bad movie again. I want to share those steps with you now.

STEP #1 Google

I know. It seems obvious. but once you google your potential, you instantly gain access to the trailer, the cast, and the review sites. On your phone or on desktop, Google gives you all of this:

STEP #2 Rotten Tomatoes

No. Rotten Tomatoes isn’t a group of Veggietales characters going bad. It’s a genius website that averages out scores on reviews from respected movie critics from around the country.

IMPORTANT SCORING TIP: A 65% – 95% score usually means super entertaining. Any score below 65% usually means bad acting, cliché storylines, or super dumb. Any score above 95% could mean the movie’s too artsy for people like me. I went to a movie with a 99% score once and walked out within 30 minutes to get my money back. I then slipped into another theater to watch Captain America: Civil War.

STEP #3 Common Sense Media

I hate sexual nudity in movies. Common Sense Media helps me read about every questionable scene with this nifty tool:

Each tab with a grey arrow directs you to a card. The card let’s you read up on any Violence, Sex, or Language that appears in the movie. With this tool, you’ll never be surprised by a nude scene or foul language again.

Since you have the tools to make a good decision on which Oscar movies to watch, use them to look up a few of these Oscar nominees:

Little Women

1917

Harriet

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Richard Jewell

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)

St. Louis Superman

Walk Run Cha-Cha

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

JOJO RABBIT

Ford v Ferrari

Toy Story 4

Hair Love

Kitbull

Avengers: Endgame