Paddington 2 has broken a Rotten Tomatoes record. There was a whole lot of angst in film culture in 2017, and a lot of it centered on various aspects of Rotten Tomatoes. The movie review aggregator was the focal point of numerous controversies throughout the year, from Rotten Tomatoes scores differing from the views of the general public to efforts to manipulate the audience score for Star Wars: The Last Jedi to the site’s new policy of delaying the release of certain scores until the broadcast of its web show.

Now, in the early days of 2018, another film’s Rotten Tomatoes score is in the news. But this time, it’s for much more positive, less-angsty reasons.

RELATED: The Commuter and Paddington 2 Box Office Wrap-Up 

The new film Paddington 2 has retained a perfect, 100 percent fresh score on the Tomatometer, based on 165 reviews as of Thursday night. The 164th review, the site announced, broke the previous record for most consecutive fresh reviews without a single rotten one, held by 1999’s Toy Story 2, which had 163. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird also broke the record last year, but then lost its streak when one critic posted a negative review.

The director of the film, Paul King, issued a statement to the site:

“The Paddington films are a real labour of love. So many people pour their hearts and souls into them for months or even years, hand-crafting every last frame, and we are all incredibly grateful for the overwhelmingly positive response we’ve had so far. We hope it inspires people to go to the cinema to see for themselves if a talking animal film really can be any good, and whether Hugh Grant really can look devilishly handsome even while dressed as a nun. (Clue: yes.)”

Paddington 2 would seem an unlikely choice to become Rotten Tomatoes’ best-reviewed movie ever. It’s a sequel to a children’s film, one that hasn't exactly been a huge box office performer, at least in the U.S. It also has a counterintuitive plot, involving the animated bear getting sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and even its behind-the-scenes story is rocky, with the Weinstein Company having dumped it on to Warner Bros. following the Harvey Weinstein implosion.

But still, the film is undoubtedly a charming, winning effort. And even if no critic listed it as their favorite movie of the year, every single one of them appears to have liked it more than they didn’t.

Paddington 2 is still playing in theaters.

MORE: Paddington 2 review 

Source: Rotten Tomatoes