Boston Globe's Scores

Select another publication »
For 7,945 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 0.9 points 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: 5,227 out of 7945
  2. Mixed: 1,553 out of 7945
  3. Negative: 1,165 out of 7945
7945 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Potiche
    What the movie utterly fails to resolve is what François Ozon is up to here and where he's going next.
  2. The Elephant in the Living Room
    The movie effectively rids you of any notion that owning a cougar or a python is a good idea.
  3. Bill Cunningham New York
    It's as much a portrait of a kind of artist as it is a document of a city's evolving sense of style.
  4. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
    As Apichatpong erases, once again, the barriers between the celestial and terrestrial, he also does away with the cordons between film genres - this is sci-firomancefamilyreligiousthrillercomedyporn. No video service has a section for that. The only suitable shelf is the one in your soul.
  5. My Perestroika
    Offers a surprising and revealing look at Russia's past and present.
  6. Born to Be Wild
    Ironically, Born to Be Wild banks solely on its tameness to captivate and inspire, aided by an upbeat, sometimes incongruous soundtrack.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 12 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Your Highness
    The most painful movie so far in a year that's already scraping the bottom of the barrel, Your Highness is a tedious, dung-colored misfire that sullies the genre of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Princess Bride."
  8. Soul Surfer
    The best moments come when Robb's all-purpose toughness experiences vulnerable doubt. These moments are flickers, but they're bright and human.
  9. Arthur
    The new remake of Arthur is a thin copy of the 1981 original. But it has a few things going for it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Hanna
    It rockets along entertainingly enough for most of its running time - only that it's made with a self-importance the story itself doesn't warrant.
  11. I Am
    Shadyac doesn't film how his change inspires more change, or showing him, say, starting a school for destitute orphans. All we see him give is this movie. It's not much of a contribution.
  12. Happythankyoumoreplease
    The movie is generic and shallow in its glimpse of the love and sex lives of a handful of young New Yorkers.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    When We Leave
    As powerful as the movie is, it stays on the outside of a culture looking in.
  14. Miral
    Miral feels like gastric bypass moviemaking. It's a miniseries awkwardly stuffed in the body of a two-hour drama about the Palestinians' long struggle against the Israelis.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Super
    Smart, sick, and subversive, Super gives you what you want only to make you wonder why you want it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Music Never Stopped
    A drably directed yet terrifically affecting drama about family bonds, classic rock, and the human brain. It's sentimental, yet so honest and eccentric that it rises above schmaltz.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Cold Weather
    This is a slacker detective story, emphasis on the slack, and if you can downshift into its loping rhythms, it's pretty wonderful.
  18. Certified Copy
    You can see her (Binoche) effect on Kiarostami's filmmaking: She brings out something new in him, too.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Insidious
    The crazy train of Insidious runs fully off the rails when the filmmakers go logical and some of the strange gets explained away as a double shot of demonic possession and astral projection.
  20. Hop
    Hop may have taken years to design and animate, but it feels as if minutes were required to compose it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Source Code
    I'm still not sure what "source code" means here. I suspect the actors, the director, and the screenwriter haven't a clue either. But the thing keeps you watching.
  22. Strongman
    By the end, you don't entirely understand either of these people, but you come to understand why they need each other.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Sucker Punch
    It's a surprisingly joyless mash-up of every bit of fanboy flotsam floating around in its maker's cranium.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    White Irish Drinkers
    All the good intentions in the world can't save White Irish Drinkers from playing like the baldest of retreads.
  25. Orgasm Inc.
    Canner is either overwhelmed by so much impressive access to so many alarming business opportunities or lacking the investigative rigor to drive home the moral problems of these drugs and the existential problems of these women.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Monogamy
    Monogamy sets up a nifty idea that it doesn't follow through.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Win Win
    Confident enough to simply go with the exotica of average middle-class Americans who are well-intentioned, flawed, and dog-paddling like crazy to keep their heads above water. There's nothing at all unusual about them, and that's unusual.
  28. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules
    Credit Bowers and company, finally, for making some good calls about where to follow the leads furnished to them by the book and the first movie, and where to get creative.
  29. I Saw the Devil
    But that ending is a whopper all the same: a heartless blast of tragedy, exploitation, amusement, and general flagrance.
  30. Kill the Irishman
    The best thing about the picture (unless you like exploding cars, in which case the rest of the movie is just so many interruptions between getting to see all these big old '70s boats going boom) is its proudly hammy supporting cast.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Jane Eyre
    This may not be the greatest movie version of the novel, but it's possibly the truest.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Of Gods and Men
    Like the best spiritual movies, of whatever faith, "Of Gods and Men" moves us toward a union with the infinite, and when we come to the monks' last supper, the moment is staggeringly powerful.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Lord of the Dance in 3D
    If you're a fan of this Lord, find a copy of the 1999 DVD "Lord of the Dance" and don't waste your time with this flat vanity piece.
  34. Paul
    Never achieves the exhilarating feat of exemplifying the types of Hollywood movies it wants to unpack.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Lincoln Lawyer
    Formulaic enough to suggest that franchise would be B level at best, a TV series at worst. But it's also just good enough to make you want to watch it, anyway.
  36. Limitless
    Basically an addiction thriller in which the thirst is for the acquisition and execution of knowledge. So you need an actor who seems surprised by how smart he is but not afraid to be charmingly intelligent. Cooper turns out to be perfect for the part.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Red Riding Hood
    A laughably inept series of adolescent poses trying to pass itself off as a movie.
  38. Mars Needs Moms
    "Mars" needs Mom more than the filmmakers seem to realize.
  39. Elektra Luxx
    Does a lot of winking and teasing.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Battle: Los Angeles
    The Duke is not only name-checked in passing, but Eckhart (who's excellent) even bears a squinty resemblance by the final scenes.
  41. Heartbeats
    The good news is that the movie advertises Dolan's delirious visual talent.
  42. The Desert of Forbidden Art
    In The Desert of Forbidden Art, documentarians Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev offer some background on the late Savitsky, a painter who initially collected ethnic folk art quashed by the Stalin regime.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Last Lions
    The film is an astonishing visual experience and at times almost profoundly suspenseful.
  44. Kaboom
    Kaboom lets Araki play with carnality as opposed to cautioning against it.
  45. Even the Rain (Tambien la Lluvia)
    An ambitious mix of politics, religion, art, and human drama.
  46. Poetry
    This is a movie whose power comes from the alignment both of Mija's discovery with ours and of a tremendous writer and director with his star.
  47. Beastly
    The characterization couldn't be more flagrant if the soundtrack creaked out an oldie by a certain ancient pop quintet: You're a candy girl.
  48. The Adjustment Bureau
    Whether this movie works for you largely depends on whether you're willing to work for it. To which I say: Bring your gym clothes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Rango
    You can feel the actors tossing energy, one-liners, and limbs off each other with gusto.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Take Me Home Tonight
    Completely unoriginal, sure, but watchable and even likable.
  51. Drive Angry 3D
    Drive Angry is something new for Cage - a movie that feels like it's straight FROM cable.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    A Somewhat Gentle Man
    For a passive-depressive Norwegian crime drama with not a lot in the way of plot, A Somewhat Gentle Man has a charmingly fluky sense of humor.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Grace Card
    More drama than tract, it's a low-budget Christian indie that just clears the runway on the sincerity of its performances and inclusiveness of its message.
  54. Hall Pass
    Hall Pass is the brothers' 10th movie, and their most gangbusters since "Me, Myself & Irene."
  55. Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
    Fresh or not, creatively merited or not, here it comes: the third installment of Martin Lawrence's big, dopey franchise.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Housemaid
    Gorgeously shot (by Lee Hyung Duk) and well worth seeing for Jeon's deceptively simple performance. Unlike its heroine, though, it gets away without a scratch.
  57. Cedar Rapids
    The movie shouldn't work, yet it does.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    I Am Number Four
    A well-made, reasonably diverting night at the multiplex that will seem overly familiar to everyone except teenage girls.
  59. Unknown
    Neeson is much better suited to the loneliness and self-doubt of Martin's crisis than he was for the thuggery of the previous movie.
  60. The Strange Case of Angelica
    "Angélica" feels most like the film that argues Oliveira is this close to the beyond without ever bothering to knock first at death's door.
  61. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
    The movie usefully, carefully, and cogently argues that Bieber is more than his hair. He is his hoodies. He is his pop-hooks. He is his many handlers.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Gnomeo and Juliet
    It has its own bizarre charms and a breezy confidence that renders it the very definition of a simple pleasure.
  63. The Eagle
    Part of the trouble is casting. This is a movie that needs a great or gonzo performer to give it depth or heft.
  64. Just Go with It
    Seeing her (Kidman) in junk like this is a bit like watching the Queen of England eat a Taco Bell chalupa.
  65. The Roommate
    It's the latest in the blank-from-hell genre, in which misogyny and entertainment are made to seem indistinguishable while the blank makes life hell for someone who then is cornered into striking back.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Barney's Version
    A smart, well-acted two hours at the art house, full of witty observations and fellow feeling. But, really, it has no business being a movie.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    A breezily stylized, very enjoyable trot through the writer's life, theme by theme, era by era.
  68. Undertow
    Like most films about gay men, Undertow can't envision a normal life of couplehood. But Fuentes-Léon works in a blithe and breezy magic-realist manner that fends off attendant feelings of depression.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Sanctum
    A muscular Australian B-movie down to the thin characters and boilerplate dialogue.
  70. Biutiful
    The movie wails in pain. And it's that sort of grand empathy that makes Iñárritu both impossible to dismiss and impossible to live with.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector
    A fascinating shambles of a documentary - fascinating because its subject is so influential and so deranged, a shambles because its filmmaker can't decide which approach to take and so takes all of them.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Illusionist
    A handcrafted jewel of a movie, The Illusionist understands the illusions that sustain us in youth and that we have to let slip in the end. It's the rare work of art that cherishes both the magic and the trick.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Rite
    The movie's primary pleasure is Hopkins, who manages to take the role of Father Lucas seriously without being serious about it at all.
  74. The Mechanic
    An intermittently arresting, mostly standard action entry that deals death noisily more than cleverly - a lot like the original.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Shoah (re-release)
    Why revisit Shoah 25 years after it was first released? Because it matters more a quarter century on, just as it will matter even more in a hundred years, and 200, and - if it and we survive - a thousand.
  76. Nénette
    The movie isn't a critique of zoo life. But it's possible we have on our hands, in Nénette's captivity, a microcosm of celebrity star-gazing.
  77. Another Year
    Like "Life Is Sweet," "Secrets & Lies," and yes, 1971's "Bleak Moments," to name but three of Leigh's 10 semi-improvised character studies, Another Year is another frowning comedy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Way Back
    It's earnest and well-acted and sturdily filmed: We're in good hands and we know it.
  79. No Strings Attached
    The film is also packed with enough sharply scripted screwiness from Adam's roommate (Jake Johnson), Emma's roomie (Greta Gerwig), and others to keep viewer impatience to a minimum.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Company Men
    The result is, like its characters, a good and decent film in a world that rather heartlessly demands more.
  81. Johnny Mad Dog
    Basically, talented French director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire has too much style on his hands. His film isn't as amorally grandiose as "City of God." Nor does it achieve the hulking tragedy of "Gomorrah."
  82. My Dog Tulip
    Many of the backgrounds look like watercolors that are either drying or dying.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Leaving
    The only reason to see Leaving - and it's not a bad reason at all - is for the sight of Kristin Scott Thomas in a rare happy mood.
  84. The Dilemma
    Howard never decides on tones that complement each other, and the dissonance is jarring.
  85. And Everything Is Going Fine
    While the words belong to the storyteller, the story in And Everything Is Going Fine appears to be telling itself.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Green Hornet
    It's off-putting, rude, misshapen, and more often than not hysterically funny. The second half, sadly, is an ear-splitting train wreck.
  87. Season of the Witch
    After a while, the movie tires of the witch business and trots out a plot twist that permits the effects department to spend money. Some moviegoers might find the bait-and-switch funny.
  88. Country Strong
    Paltrow makes the part look natural. She's not impersonating an actual singer, so she seems merely like a twangy, alcoholic version of herself. She should be stopped from dancing in enormous arenas, but her thin voice is rather pretty.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Casino Jack
    Glib, fast-paced entertainment that barely leaves a mark - which, given the subject, is just plain wrong.
  90. Blue Valentine
    All the movie's good style goes to waste on a not terribly compelling conceit and loosely sketched characters.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Summer Wars
    In Summer Wars, it's what's old that's made to seem refreshingly new.
  92. Gulliver's Travels
    A migraine inducement that you'd think Jack Black had gotten out of his system years ago. Yet he still finds an excuse to wear a blazer and shorts and fling his bodily orb like Angus Young on Guitar Hero night at the neighborhood bar.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Rabbit Hole
    Rabbit Hole is a personal project for Kidman - she produced the film after falling in love with the play - and it seems to have revived the quickness in her. That ice-blue gaze has found its focus again, and it looks deep into the one thing none of us want to face.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Legend of Pale Male
    It's notable for some astounding urban wildlife footage and for the way it unintentionally reflects the giddy narcissism of the primate known as homo sapiens.
  95. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
    Finnish filmmaker Jalmari Helander's dark-comic expansion on his cult Internet shorts, in which he crafts a back story for Santa that's as black as stocking coal.
  96. Somewhere
    I can't say why Coppola wanted to spend time with this man. It's like following someone on Twitter who fails to generate many compelling tweets.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    All Good Things
    Jarecki's not remotely in Scorsese's league yet, but he knows New York and he has seen the dark soul of man. Maybe next time he won't blink.
  98. True Grit
    This isn't a rousing movie as much as a reassurance. The brothers (Coens) prove they can play it straight, but they're preferred, for better and worse, at a sharp angle.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Little Fockers
    Is there a statute of limitations for how many good actors can be wasted in a bad movie?
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bhutto
    People called the Bhuttos "The Kennedys of Pakistan" and, in a parallel with our losses, the Pakistanis suffered the untimely deaths of Benazir, her father, and her two brothers.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »