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Critics have scored Melania, one of the most expensive documentaries ever made, just six percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

A correction at the bottom of the Guardian review summed up many critics’ feelings. ‘The star rating for this film was corrected on 2 February 2026. A formatting issue led an earlier version to be awarded one star, when the reviewer’s intention was zero.’

However, with a 99 percent score from verified audiences, the First Lady’s documentary has broken Rotten Tomatoes records, with the biggest discrepancy between critics and audiences in the last 27 years.

What are critics saying?

The documentary – which Nick Hilton, in his one-star review for The Independent, wrote “is transparently not a documentary” – cost Amazon $40m (£29m) on the rights and a further $35m (£25.5m) on marketing. Barry Hertz at the Globe and Mail deemed it “the ultimate chronicle of 21st-century excess and greed, a world of casual yet immense cruelty covered in flop sweat and gold glitter.”

Frank Sheck, journalist for The Hollywood Reporter described it as an “expensive propaganda doc” and “a film that fawns so lavishly over its subject that you feel downright unpatriotic not gushing over it”.

However, much to everyone’s surprise, the documentary beat box office predictions to earn more than $7m (£5.1m) at US cinemas in its opening weekend. “No one saw that coming,’ writes a surprised Pamela McClintock in the Hollywood Reporter.

One audience member writes on Rotten Tomatoes, “A fantastic flick, our theater was sold out and erupted in applause and cheers at the end of the show. Melania is a wonderful human, a class act and America is blessed she is once again our First Lady. This behind the scenes sneak peek was so well done and such a wonderful watch. A must see.”

How much should we trust the reviews?

Being released on a Friday, the film may attract a certain kind of reviewer, according to new research from Mannheim Business School. The research found that reviews submitted at the weekend generally have lower ratings than those submitted on a weekday.

Florian Stahl, Professor of Marketing, and colleagues analysed 400 million reviews on product, e-commerce, hospitality, entertainment, and workplace platforms. They found that weekend reviews receive fewer 5-star and more 1-to-3-star ratings compared to weekday reviews. They called this the ‘weekend effect’.

The researchers then surveyed the characteristics of the reviewer, and found that a different type of person is more likely to leave reviews at weekends. These individuals were found to have fewer social connections, fewer friends on social networks, and feel lonelier.

To avoid this, Stahl suggests that companies and organisations should adjust when they request reviews to limit the number submitted at weekends.

Or if Melania had been released midweek, rather than on a Friday evening, perhaps reviewers may have been inclined to be kinder.

Of course, this does not explain the critic’s negative reviews… but it may help to explain the IMDb rating of 1.3/10 – amongst the lowest of all time, or the now viral review posted to Letterboxd which simply reads “if they showed this on a plane, people would still walk out”.

Or perhaps it is just a bad documentary after all.

Do reviews make a difference?

With audience ratings so high, and critic ratings so low, is it a good film?

Research from Tianjie Deng, Associate Professor at the University of Denver, finds that both critic and audience reviews can affect movie sales and demand. The research looked at online movie reviews from Rotten Tomatoes across 90 films, and matched this with the box office sales data and advertising spending.

The research found that aggregate audience star scores had a measurable impact on box-office performance – presumably because these quick indicators help potential viewers decide whether to watch a movie.

However, when looking at critic reviews, it was the content of the review, not just the star or score rating, that significantly influenced sales. This suggests viewers engage with critics’ interpretations and narratives, not just their scores.

Professor Deng concluded that critics and users influence box office differently – some studies find critics directly shape demand, while user reviews often reflect crowd consensus.

When looking at the likely success of a film, user ratings are reflective of broad consumer appeal and short-term revenue, whereas critical narratives can shape the story around the film and affect deeper audience perceptions. Critic reviews, then, are particularly relevant for films that rely on prestige, awards or niche audiences.

Interestingly, research from INSEAD finds that consumers tend to give more weight to negative reviews because they assume these are more likely to be genuine, reflecting a negativity bias. Exposure to a negative review increases the chance that a consumer will look for alternative products rather than buy the item they’re viewing. The critics’ negative reviews to Melania may therefore dissuade people from going out to see the documentary, even if they were initially curious.

When we look at the types of people who went to see this film at the weekend, the Hollywood Reporter estimated that the film had done well with conservatives in the southern US – specifically women over the age of 55, who made up 72 percent of the opening-day audience.

It is likely, in Melania’s instance, that political supporters of the President and First Lady in the US are more inclined leave a positive review regardless of the quality of the film.

After all, despite the film taking more money in the US over opening weekend than predicted, the fact remains that, the film simultaneously debuted at number 29 in the UK box office (38th in Italy).

The future of ‘Melania’

Love it or hate it, the Melania documentary is attracting attention. Some say all press is good press.

While it might not have flopped at the box office, if we go by the critics’ reviews, Melania is unlikely to earn any awards, except perhaps a Razzie.

But in this political climate, in which the President today announced he was suing Harvard Business School for $1 billion, anything can happen…

I look forward to seeing what Melania wears to collect her Oscar for best actress.

By, Chloë Lane

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