On these fan websites, everybody’s a critic

Though the conversations of moviegoers are shushed in cinemas, the Internet abounds with the chatter of movie fans discussing, rating and dissecting their favorite films.

Flixter.com is a fast-growing social networking site built around love for movies. A virtual water cooler for movie buffs, it has compiled more than 380 million movie ratings from users.

After forming a profile that can include clips from films, users generally rate movies and share recommendations with their friends. The milieu is plainly populist and young -- it’s hard to imagine foreign-film devotees spending much time on Flixter.

Netflix, the subscription-by-mail movie-rental service, also gives you the chance to rank movies and share with friends your queue -- the films you’ve scheduled for rental. At www.netflix.com, you can even e-mail a “Movie Note” to a friend about a particular film.

The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) was one of the Internet’s first great sites, and it remains an essential tool for any movie fan. It recently underwent a redesign to increase the number of photos, but it largely kept its information-stuffed style.

The site predictably contains a list of the highest-rated films (“The Godfather” leads with a score of 9.1), but it also amusingly lists the “Bottom 100.” Last year’s little-seen “Crossover,” a story about a basketball player who uses his college scholarship to become a doctor, has the misfortune of ranking last at 1.3.

If you still want critics -- not other movie fans -- to guide your movie-watching, several sites compile the reviews of the nation’s tastemakers.

RottenTomatoes.com has long brought together critical reactions to movies and video games. Likewise, MetaCritic .com averages critical response to movies, DVDs, CDs, games, books and TV shows.