Here’s why Lady Bird’s Rotten Tomatoes record matters

Lady Bird became Rotten Tomatoes’ highest-rated movie. And that’s important since you wouldn’t expect that from a female-centric, low-budget indie film.

Lady Bird just made Rotten Tomatoes history by becoming the highest-rated movie ever on the site. And that’s a huge deal.

According to UPROXX, Lady Bird had 168 reviews as of yesterday, making it the most reviewed film to keep a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. It has zero certified “rotten” reviews and 168 certified “fresh” reviews. It’s also number 52 on Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Movies list. It had the top limited opening in 2017, and Saoirse Ronan won Best Actress at the Gotham Awards.

It’s easy to see why Lady Bird has gotten so many amazing reviews. The coming-of-age movie about Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson perfectly captures the complicated, tumultuous relationship between a teenage girl and her mother. The film creates deeply detailed characters. It shows the conflict between a teenager wanting to find herself and gain her independence and a mother struggling with that and her own life. The movie feels incredibly relatable and is perfectly acted and written.

And the fact that this is a low-budget, indie movie by and about women makes Lady Bird’s recent Rotten Tomatoes record all the more impressive. It’s not some big, Hollywood blockbuster, and yet everyone loves it.

Lady Bird beat out Toy Story 2 for the Rotten Tomatoes record, which had 163 positive reviews. But Lady Bird didn’t have a big studio like Disney behind it.

Instead, Greta Gerwig’s movie became the movie that could. We live in a world of big blockbusters, but Lady Bird is a close look at a mother-daughter relationship. It’s a small, but smart movie about a teenager girl that treated her with respect. And that’s something to celebrate.

Next: 6 movies at TIFF 2017 that make us excited for fall

“Yeah, I’m always surprised,” Ronan told UPROXX of Lady Bird’s success. “I think whenever anything does well – I mean, I’ve only ever had it once before – but getting a response like this is something that you dream of, but you can’t necessarily expect it because most of the time it doesn’t happen. And that’s not to say that the film doesn’t deserve it, but it was a small film, it was a low budget, it’s about a teenage girl, and those things don’t necessarily mean that you’re going to get commercial success or anything like that. And the fact that we’ve gotten so much love and people, men and women, have really understood it and really related to it has been amazing.”