Boston Globe's Scores

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For 7,947 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1 point lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 Autumn Tale
Lowest review score: 0 Argylle
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,229 out of 7947
  2. Mixed: 1,553 out of 7947
  3. Negative: 1,165 out of 7947
7947 movie reviews
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  1. How to Train Your Dragon
    Finds DreamWorks Animation looking to Viking territory for its next Shrek-sturdy comedy tentpole. By Odin, they make it work.
  2. Waking Sleeping Beauty
    Vividly captures a period of movie history. It’s just that the period seems less vital -- sleepier, if you will -- than it once did.
  3. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    A lively and affectionate cross between an infomercial and a genuflection.
    • Boston Globe
  4. The Dish
    Warm, wry, endearing.
    • Boston Globe
  5. Cradle 2 the Grave
    This is a ride, a video game, a soundtrack -- unapologetic and clearly labeled as such. It has no middle speed.
  6. The Girl
    Somewhat overstylized and deliberately enigmatic, The Girl won't appeal to everyone. But its ambition and beauty ultimately triumph over pretense.
  7. Manito
    Because Manito is really just an opera without the violins or Viking hats, you probably don't need to have everything spelled out. Its Spanish-English script is secondary to the universal language and timeless drama of family, community, dreams made and dreams dashed.
  8. Frequency
    Enough originality and emotional weight to keep you engrossed even when it lapses into some pretty standard moves at the end.
    • Boston Globe
  9. Skins
    Maybe the redemptions offered are simplistic in the context of this place, but they make for a dramatic (if heavily foreshadowed) conclusion.
  10. Anywhere But Here
    Aims its big, bold mother-daughter conflicts straight at the heart by way of the tear ducts, and connects.
  11. The Château
    No one here is prodding you to laugh. It just happens.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Murderous Maids
    May ultimately be no more than the sum of its (body) parts, but it's still a ghastly service-industry horror story - a film to make you wonder what might be roiling beneath the surface of the placid young woman who hands you your Grande Latte every morning.
  13. Painted Fire
    This is that rare art flick whose subject goes nuts because his work is not self-indulgent ENOUGH.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Cool and Crazy
    Jensen's charming film, is perhaps one of the first in which the actors are credited not by the size of their salaries and egos, but by their vocal ranges.
    • Boston Globe
  15. Cradle Will Rock
    Brings the '30s vividly to the screen.
  16. Dick
    Hedaya is sublime.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Divine Intervention
    The Academy accepts submissions only from real countries, and Palestine isn't one. This is as good a joke, and as dark, as anything in the movie.
  18. K-19: The Widowmaker
    A relentlessly serious action movie, characterized by, of all things, sorrow.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Open Hearts
    Open Hearts, like all good melodramas, is ruthless in its insistence that people are dragged, uncomprehending, in the wake of events.
  20. Plunkett & Macleane
    Scott makes it easy to overlook the conventionality beneath his sometimes overdone but almost always enjoyable combination of atmosphere and propulsiveness.
  21. Mickey Blue Eyes
    It brings an enlivening wit to a comedy of culture collision.
  22. Liam
    Frears makes every note count for a lot in this beautifully gauged microcosm of big emotions expressed in small gestures.
    • Boston Globe
  23. The Cat's Meow
    Could have been -- and should have been -- richer and more resonant. It's Hollywood Babylon Lite, only TV movie-deep. But at least it's tangy.
  24. Tully
    The film's unhurried pace is actually one of its strengths. Entirely appropriately, the tale unfolds like a lazy summer afternoon and concludes with the crisp clarity of a fall dawn. That's not just a farm movie, that's life.
  25. Life and Debt
    Employs both eloquent and down-to-earth methods to explain the complex reasons why so many of the world's developing countries remain caught in an economic quagmire that prevents them from becoming self-sufficient.
  26. The Guys
    Short without feeling scant. That's how big its sense of grief is.
  27. In Too Deep
    Invigorating excellence.
    • Boston Globe
  28. Where the Money Is
    The film never drags, but one of the enjoyable things about it is its way of taking its time letting us get to know and savor the characters.
  29. Simon Magus
    An odd but original, at times even poetic, film about a vanished world.
  30. The Cup
    A small film and, ultimately, a satisfying one.
  31. The Luzhin Defence
    Watson's character grows in importance until she eclipses the recessive Luzhin.
    • Boston Globe
  32. A Love Divided
    Solid, balanced period piece that focuses on a specific place and time yet resonates with universal themes.
    • Boston Globe
  33. Tortilla Soup
    Its attributes and achievements are modest, but its arias, duets, and ensembles are engaging all the same.
  34. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
    Movingly recounts a hitherto untold story in the voices of the people who lived it.
    • Boston Globe
    • 35 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Two Can Play That Game
    In addition to the film's two extremely likable stars, the strong supporting cast features a who's who of rising African-American actors.
  36. La Ciénaga
    The triumph of La Cienaga lies in Martel's way of fashioning the kind of ensemble performance that draws us in by convincing us we're watching behavior, not acting.
  37. Sidewalks of New York
    The film's flaws seem unimportant, and it passes the big test, making you want to find out what happens to these characters, even when what does happen is predictable.
    • Boston Globe
  38. The Best Man
    Breathes fresh life into old formulas.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    In July
    Sweet little crowd-pleaser.
  40. Return to Never Land
    Reliable, standard Disney animated fare, with enough creative energy and wit to entertain all ages.
    • Boston Globe
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Scratch
    An illuminating and entertaining study of an underground culture that has become part of the American mainstream.
    • Boston Globe
  42. Pauline and Paulette
    Sentimental and has its heart on its sleeve, but never heavy-handedly so, and its delicacy and tenderness will get to you if you give it half a chance.
    • Boston Globe
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Lovely & Amazing
    A chick flick of a particularly intelligent, ruthless, and loving sort.
  44. Shanghai Ghetto
    May not be as dramatic as Roman Polanski's ''The Pianist,'' but its compassionate spirit soars every bit as high.
  45. Le bossu
    The story is a mess. But On Guard was directed by the reliable Philippe de Broca, who imbues the whole affair with high-calorie silliness.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Piglet's Big Movie
    If you've got some very small fry on your hands and 75 minutes to kill, this is as bright, colorful, and fuzzy as you're going to get.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Wash
    This real-life alliance is part of what makes the slice-of-life comedy The Wash work as well as it does, despite a somewhat skimpy though often crassly amusing script written by the film's director, D.J. Pooh.
    • Boston Globe
  48. Evelyn
    Isn't just a feel-good movie; it's a feel-good-and-righteous movie. And audiences will forgive its flaws.
  49. The Little Vampire
    Sweetly macabre charmer.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Red Satin
    More than a predictable self-discovery yarn about the caterpillar that turns into a beautiful butterfly.
  51. Dark Days
    Engrossing and eye-opening in several respects and even, when you least expect it, humorous.
    • Boston Globe
  52. Love's Labour's Lost
    Branagh and Love's Labour's Lost all but will themselves into liftoff. They achieve it, and in doing so, they somehow make it right to our pleasure centers with their generous embrace of stardust and pizazz.
  53. Isn't She Great
    A surprisingly warm and engaging entertainment - brassy, schmaltzy, funny.
  54. Earth
    Hurls its Holocaust at us in a series of justifiably horrific images.
  55. Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember
    A long, warm, satisfying farewell encounter.
  56. The Opportunists
    Goes soft in the end, but not ruinously so. Meanwhile, its loose cannons bounce off one another deliciously.
  57. Rat
    Rat may be lightweight, but it's never cheesy.
    • Boston Globe
  58. Southpaw
    There's an engagingly homegrown quality to much of the footage.
  59. An American Rhapsody
    Although there's a certain connect-the-dots quality to the storytelling, there's no denying the care and craftsmanship that Gardos has brought to her debut film.
    • Boston Globe
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    A Matter of Taste
    A Matter of Taste, French director Bernard Rapp's polished second film, swims in lies, ones that sate at first, but soon intoxicate, seduce, and drown.
    • Boston Globe
  61. Grateful Dawg
    The pure joy of music-making is what this gem of a film is all about.
    • Boston Globe
  62. Mifune's Last Song
    The liveliest, most original family values film of the year so far.
  63. Waydowntown
    The film will resonate with today's alienated workers, whose every brain cell and nerve ending hates the soul-crushing jobs they're told they should be grateful to have.
  64. Flawless
    A smartly crafted throwback to the gritty Manhattan crime melodramas of the '40s .
  65. East Is East
    This engaging ensemble comedy that could have been called ''Father Doesn't Know Best.''
    • Boston Globe
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Orfeu
    A heady, sometimes blurry combination of fable, legend, and social-political commentary.
    • Boston Globe
  67. What to Do in Case of Fire
    Like Schumacher, director Gregor Schnitzler is more preoccupied with his characters' looks than their behavior. You might not buy the ideas. But you'll definitely want the T-shirt.
  68. Mansfield Park
    Stylish and arrives at a satisfying cumulative weight, even if it isn't Austen pure.
  69. Boys and Girls
    Plays like a college version of ''When Harry Met Sally.''
    • Boston Globe
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    One hell of a party, and it doesn't let anything get in the way of that.
  71. Harrison's Flowers
    A powerful portrait of modern journalism and the nobility -- and futility -- of chronicling modern war.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Heaven
    It's maddeningly chowderheaded, simplistic, pretentious, and not a little silly. You can't take your eyes off it.
  73. Water Drops on Burning Rocks
    The film does not offer an optimistic view of relationships.
    • Boston Globe
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Deterrence
    There is a palpable edge-of-the-seat tension and a number of complex ethnic issues that linger after the movie ends.
  75. Everybody's Famous!
    A likable satire on celebrity, Flemish-style, it is no less pointed than its American counterparts, just a lot less pompous.
  76. The Closet
    Perhaps not the most uproarious of Veber's farces, but entertaining and emotionally satisfying all the same.
    • Boston Globe
  77. The Monkey's Mask
    Less elliptical and more down-and-dirty than Lang's interesting debut film, ''The Well,'' this one tumbles through Sydney's academic and alternative poetry circles and is built around a lesbian private eye.
    • Boston Globe
  78. Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire
    The sweetly enticing Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire repays the bit of patience it asks.
    • Boston Globe
  79. Vénus beauté (institut)
    It's all glossy urban fairy-tale stuff, laid on with style to spare, given added resonance by a mini-pantheon of French movie goddesses.
  80. Me & Isaac Newton
    As each scientist chronicles his or her story, one is impressed by the place that unswerving motivation and determination has assumed in the work.
    • Boston Globe
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Son's Room
    A triumph of gentility that earns its moments of pathos.
    • Boston Globe
  82. The Five Senses
    A deft, elegant, melancholy tapestry of flawed outreach, and the big reason it succeeds is Podeswa's courage in dispensing with a lot of exposition and trusting the audience - and the faces of the actors - to fill a lot of what otherwise would be gaps.
    • Boston Globe
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Big Bad Love
    It's messy, but in the end satisfying, a film worth making, a journey worth taking.
    • Boston Globe
  84. Sade
    Sensationalism and doom are not on screen here; Jacquot offers a relatively peaceful moment in Sade's life.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Elling
    Touches smartly and wistfully on a number of themes, not least the notion that the marginal members of society - the ones who get spit out on the sidewalk with no idea of how it happened - might benefit from a helping hand and a friendly kick in the pants.
  86. Place Vendôme
    It's rare that a crime movie achieves such emotional complexity, but this one is smartly layered.
    • Boston Globe
  87. Secret Ballot
    Ride it out, and you will find the rewards modest but meaningful.
    • Boston Globe
  88. The Tavern
    A steadily engaging and winningly humane film that loves its characters.
    • Boston Globe
  89. The Importance of Being Earnest
    A delightful alternative to most current multiplex fare, which wouldn't recognize a juicy bon mot if it tripped over one in the aisle.
  90. All the Little Animals
    Involvingly acted, surehandedly crafted.
  91. Home Movie
    Suffice it to say that Chris Smith's Home Movie is the most bananas episode of ''Cribs'' ever. The film is Smith's ballad of the wacky homeowner.
  92. Mumford
    The performances are disarming and Mumford is the kind of comedy that grows on you if you give it a chance.
  93. Miss Julie
    Figgis's film doesn't match its reach.
  94. Les Destinées
    Full of elegance but hampered by lack of depth.
  95. The Crimson Rivers
    The Crimson Rivers could teach many an American thriller a thing or two about sophisticated creepiness.
  96. Josie and the Pussycats
    Mindless glitz-o-ramas don't get any snazzier.
    • Boston Globe
  97. Crush
    MacDowell offers an engaging portrait of a complex woman who has survived life's slings and arrows. It makes Crush an affecting take on modern women.
  98. Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
    No porno flick posing as art. Nor is it science fiction, though it does contain a few scenes with B-movie overtones. This is a deep and meaningful film, ultimately far more poignant than it is titillating.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    A Housekeeper
    There isn't much to The Housekeeper, really, but it plumbs depths of male unease that louder and less wise movies strain to reach.
  100. Martin & Orloff
    The film is faithful to its absurdities, sometimes hilariously so.
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