Desson Thomson

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Washington Post
For 1,968 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Desson Thomson's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Vertigo
Lowest review score: 0 The Devil's Own
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 984 out of 1968
  2. Mixed: 544 out of 1968
  3. Negative: 440 out of 1968
1968 movie reviews
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    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Desson Thomson
    Deep Cover
    It's been gunned before -- and so much better.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Songcatcher
    The haunting beauty of the music, and the people who produce it – that's the chapter and verse of this story.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Desson Thomson
    Sweetie
    This Australian film by New Zealand director Jane Campion comes at you, and keeps coming at you, in peculiar, oddly enchanting bursts of detail.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Desson Thomson
    Bread and Tulips
    A little too shopworn and pokey to be more than a respectable European diversion.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Desson Thomson
    Four Weddings and a Funeral
    Screenwriter Richad Curtis (writer of the English "Blackadder" series) and director Mike Newell (who made "Enchanted April") keep things lively and entertaining; each wedding is garnished with its own distinctive mood and dramatic significance.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Desson Thomson
    Wattstax (re-released)
    The result is a time capsule par excellence...This is the best of times and the worst of times, African American style.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Much Ado About Nothing
    His spirited take on the Sicily-set comedy is enjoyable, primarily for its all-embracing attitude. It breathes modern life into old expressions like "fare thee well" and "by my troth," and it welcomes nontraditional New Worlders Denzel Washington, Robert Sean Leonard, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves into the traditionally British throng.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Desson Thomson
    Reservoir Dogs
    With the exception of the opening scene -- whose purpose is chiefly comic -- the movie is one, extended climax. Even with flashbacks and other time jumps, it never lets up. You have to go back to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1952 "The Wages of Fear" to recall suspense this relentless.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Desson Thomson
    The Scent of Green Papaya
    Scent is a captured memory, a living, breathing reverie rather than a narrative. It's also the birth of a great talent.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    Probably the most engaging Potter film of the series thus far.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Desson Thomson
    Paprika
    It's best appreciated by assuming something of a dream state ourselves and enjoying the giddy flow.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Il Postino: The Postman
    The screenplay (which is credited to a small crowd: director Michael Radford, Anna Pavignano, Furio Scarpelli, Giacomo Scarpelli and Troisi) is refreshingly witty and restrained.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Desson Thomson
    Chicago
    Not since the 1972 'Cabaret' has there been a movie musical this stirring, intelligent and exciting.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Desson Thomson
    The World
    A movie with the visual expanse of a John Ford western and the ensemble grandeur and long takes of a Robert Altman picture. The movie is definitely Chinese in content, but it exudes American style and spirit.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Desson Thomson
    Bad Education
    The result is one of Almodovar's darkest films since the early days of "Law of Desire" and "Matador," and certainly one of his finest.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Encounters at the End of the World
    It's as much fun to anticipate what he's (Herzog) going to say as it is to appreciate the snowy landscapes, belching volcanoes and mustachioed seals before his lens. And what could have been a conventional travelogue becomes a sort of ruminative odyssey of the mind.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire
    A compelling, compact story about a country that was left to destroy itself while one man presided futilely over the carnage.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
    Shows firsthand the appreciation and warmth from the musicians who worked with him.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Desson Thomson
    The Hours
    With its deft intercutting of place and time, the film creates a powerful sense of mysticism and fate.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 10 Desson Thomson
    The New Guy
    Feckless and crude without any particularly funny redeeming value. If there's anything more to this poor excuse of a movie than immediately meets the eye, I'll get back to you.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Desson Thomson
    Everlasting Moments
    There's another satisfying benefit to Everlasting Moments. It's gloriously absent of the hyper-speed anxiety that passes for storytelling on our multiplex screens.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Desson Thomson
    The Patriot
    Mostly, the movie is riveting, well-done fare -- the stuff of Hollywood epic adventure.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
    This is a charmfest of a movie, for bird lovers and non-bird lovers alike.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    The Color of Paradise
    A heartbreaker, plain and simple.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    A Fish Called Wanda
    It'll keep you amused enough to sit still and even remember it fondly.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Big Night
    It's the moviegoing equivalent of great eating.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Cinema Paradiso
    Just about everything you ever loved (or hated) about Italian films can be found.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Desson Thomson
    The Secret of Roan Inish
    JOHN SAYLES has a filmmaking style that's often closer to leaden than lyrical. But his plodding manner works somewhat to advantage in "The Secret of Roan Inish," a modern-mythic drama set in Ireland that explores the special relationship between Irish seaside dwellers and Selkies -- seal-like creatures said to be part human.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Desson Thomson
    In the Company of Men
    This is a fully realized movie, whose intelligence -- despite its grim findings -- dwarfs any Hollywood production.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Desson Thomson
    Bugsy
    Levinson was never one for narrative tightness. As with much of his previous work, Bugsy is a maze of episodes, a sprawling excuse for engaging human banter. Although the truth will inevitably catch up with Beatty -- especially concerning that expensive nightclub -- it's not entirely clear what the movie's about. But that's the kind of detail Beatty's Siegel wouldn't even worry about. Neither should you.
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