The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. Although the name "Rotten Tomatoes" connects to the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes in disapproval of a poor stage performance, the direct inspiration for the name from Duong, Lee, and Wang came from an equivalent scene in the 1992 Canadian film Léolo.

Senh introduced the concept to friends Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang. The three had met as students at UC Berkeley a few years earlier, and were coding websites at their Shattuck Avenue startup, Design Reactor, co-founded by Patrick and Stephen in January 1997.

The company has been owned by Flixster, a Warner Bros. company, since May 2011. As of 2021, the website's editor-in-chief is Joel Meares. History Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12, 1998, as a spare time project by Senh Duong.