I always check both and am glad to see they are adding a shorthand for the audience score, since it can be far more important than the critic rating depending on the type of movie. For example, horror must have something new for the critic to get a decent score, although they rarely hold dramas to the same standard.

Fresh and Hot horror movies will most likely be both interesting in addition to have horrifying concepts, and probably have fewer cheap jump scares. (Bodies Bodies Bodies 2022)

Fresh and Stale horror will most likely be a pretentious thriller with cliche horror done in the most mediocre way possible. (We Are Still Here 2015)

Rotten and Hot horror has a high chance of being enjoyable, well executed horror that doesn’t have some completely new take on the genre or has too much gore for critics. (Underworld 2003)

Other than a few movies that were actually review bombed, audience ratings can be far more accurate for genre movies than critic reviews.

Audience rankings on Rotten Tomatoes can give a good idea of how well a movie is liked… however there are often review bombings where groups give something a score of one instead of an actual review. IMDb scores are usually a bit better.

Critics score is more useless to me… as some are being paid by Hollywood to write a good review. Also, a high percentage Rotten Tomatoes score only means that most critics gave a somewhat positive review. I’d rather have 70% Fresh of critics who give 4/5 stars on average than 90% Fresh who give it 3/5.

They used to have the score averages of critics, but took that away… probably because some critics don’t even rate the films they review, but rather talk about it.

Best to just follow individual critics you mostly agree with.