★ U+2605 BLACK STAR and ☆ U+2606 WHITE STAR are the standard pair for ratings such as ★★★★☆. In Unicode names, “black” means filled and “white” means outlined — nothing to do with colour. ⭐ U+2B50 is the emoji star and displays in colour by default.
For star ratings, give the element an accessible label (for example aria-label="4 out of 5 stars"), because screen readers otherwise read out “black star, black star, …”. Asterisk-like stars (✱ ✲ ✳) are decorative; for footnotes use the ASCII asterisk * or ⁎ U+204E LOW ASTERISK.
Click any symbol to copy it. Names link to the full character page with every encoding.