Boston Globe's Scores

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For 7,964 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: 5,240 out of 7964
  2. Mixed: 1,556 out of 7964
  3. Negative: 1,168 out of 7964
7964 movie reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Oldboy
    More than anything else, Oldboy recalls Alfred Hitchcock with all restraint tossed to the wind, or Hitchcock's most obsessed devotee, Brian De Palma, at his most nastily inspired.
  2. Guess Who
    The movie will please those looking for easy physical comedy.
  3. The Ballad of Jack and Rose
    If only Miller's writing had some human zest. Nearly everybody here is crunchy, salt-of-the-earth organic, and off in a dreamland.
  4. Nina's Tragedies
    Gabizon never establishes a consistent tone or point of view. Instead, we hop from one episode to the next, with no momentum and no reason to care about these people.
  5. Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous
    The laughless outtakes for ''Armed and Fabulous" helpfully remind us that it could have been worse.
  6. Mondovino
    The movie feels incomplete and uncentered. It's like a grand magazine profile that's all reportage and absolutely no prose.
  7. Ice Princess
    A feel-good but inane Disney production.
  8. The Ring Two
    Scares up few chills.
  9. Melinda and Melinda
    Doesn't entirely work.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Fifty-Fifty
    True to its title, Schizo is both gripped by the past and pulled toward an unknown future.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Steamboy
    Boys of all ages, by contrast, will be mesmerized by the relentless, breathtakingly visualized action.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Rider Named Death
    Shakhnazarov's film effortlessly captures the times and the author's conflicted yet unyielding attitude, yet it never draws any conclusions -- the film remains under glass.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Hostage
    It's a B-flick all the way, but it has no pretensions to the contrary, and that's some kind of refreshing.
  14. Robots
    Isn't as trippy, scary, handmade-looking, or environmentally aware as some of Miyazaki's pictures. But it shares their dreaminess. Even at its most ingenious, not even Pixar does that.
  15. The Upside of Anger
    It's the men in ''Upside" who speak all the truth.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Millions
    You really don't need to borrow someone else's kids to ponder and enjoy what Millions has to offer.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    In My Country
    At its best when Anna confronts her tangled Afrikaaner legacy and when it brings the heretical notion of forgiveness up front, where a non-African audience can come to grips with it.
  18. Black Cloud
    But this film, with its many cliches and borrowed substitutes for creativity, suggests his (Schroder) career in the boxing arena might have peaked with ''The Champ."
  19. The Boys & Girl from County Clare
    Highly unoriginal tale.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Don't Move
    A paranoid male fantasy about cheating, with surface similarities to Hollywood movies like ''Fatal Attraction" and ''Unfaithful." This one's Italian, though, and its attitude toward adultery is more European.
  21. Dot the I
    A deplorable piece of cynicism whose only point of interest is Gael Garcia Bernal's accent
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Off the Map
    Rambles without apparent purpose, and yet it blooms in emotional impact as it goes.
  23. Be Cool
    Barely any of it is funny, and if a minute of it is meant in mockery, few of the darts ever find the board.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Jacket
    The acting makes the difference, and in Jacket it rises above the needs of the material.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Pacifier
    JUST worth your children's time, and hardly worth yours.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Dear Frankie
    The movie's still shameless; the difference is you don't mind.
  27. Gunner Palace
    Works purely as a series of complex snapshots of the conflict in Iraq.
  28. Intimate Stories
    A delightful road movie.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Walk on Water
    There’s something happening here and it isn’t exactly clear. What is clear is that Eytan Fox may yet make a great film for the 21st century.
  30. Whisky
    A fine film of few words and very little motion.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Best of Youth
    A slowly flowering miracle: an epic of normal life.
  32. Cursed
    Marks a return to a not-so-distant time when horror movies weren't soul-rotting atrocities but just enjoyably bad.
  33. Diary of a Mad Black Woman
    Blows to the head are delivered with more subtlety than the message of Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
  34. Man of the House
    So light it should wind up on the ''diet" shelf of the video store.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Up and Down
    The film bears a resemblance to such multicharacter dramas as Robert Altman's ''Short Cuts" and Paul Thomas Anderson's ''Magnolia" -- like them, it's a portrait of a society straining at the seams -- but it manages the neat trick of being both charming and bilious.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Other Side of the Street
    Don't see the movie if you can't handle two rather sexy senior citizens threatening to meet in body and mind.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Turtles Can Fly
    Ghobadi shows us a world where a village pond can hold both rare goldfish and unforgivable evil, and where every step is onto booby-trapped terrain.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Because of Winn-Dixie
    In pace, sensibility, and big, beating heart, this is a child's first indie film, and it's the better for it.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Constantine
    One thing's clear: R.J. Reynolds won't be showing Constantine at the company picnic any time soon.
  40. Son of the Mask
    At its least intolerable, the movie is a fatherhood freak-out.
  41. Downfall
    A bizarre film.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Schultze Gets the Blues
    A delightfully deadpan comedy from Germany, is one of those movies where nothing whatsoever seems to happen until you look closely, at which point everything happens.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Animation Show 2005
    It's a mixed bag almost by definition. Yet the good is good indeed, making this show worth a look for devotees of the form.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Ong Bak
    A sizable amount of national pride is on display in Ong-Bak.
  45. Bride & Prejudice
    In attempting to show us a love blind to class, culture, and color, she's (Chadha) also made it bland.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Hitch
    James has the forward drive of a trash-compacted Ralph Kramden with some of Ed Norton's random gentility and, here at least, he has a knack for fine-tuned physical comedy that gets you laughing even when the script's not there.
  47. Inside Deep Throat
    It's an unfocused overview that intersperses choppy interviews and observations with clips from "Deep Throat," including some of its most notorious and explicit scenes.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    My Mother's Smile
    It's a bit of a mess but strong stuff nevertheless -- a mournful, often wickedly funny religious satire that suggests what Kafka might have come up with had he been raised Catholic.
  49. Uncle Nino
    An effortless heartwarmer that manages to be utterly corny but quite likable.
  50. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
    Judy Irving's terrific documentary 'The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is ostensibly about birds, but only in the way that a game of Scrabble is about tiles.
  51. Pooh's Heffalump Movie
    A fine afternoon at the megaplex. And it will make a welcome addition your home library when it's released on video.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Nobody Knows
    Spare and elegant and harrowing, it's an ode to childhood trust being stretched until it snaps.
  53. Boogeyman
    A horror film whose only scare is that it was made at all... As with so many stupid horror movies in these post-''Scream" times, this one is at such a creative loss that all it can do is make its audience feel duped for having purchased a ticket.
  54. The Wedding Date
    Messing should know this is precisely the kind of movie Grace would ridicule Will for dragging her to see.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Nomi Song
    Succeeds at its main tasks. It re-creates new wave New York with Proustian force, from the Kiev (the diner) to Fiorucci (the clothing store).
  56. Assisted Living
    The whimsy Greenebaum wants to construct can't match the terminal sadness that naturally takes over the film. Perhaps in accidental tribute to Todd, the whole thing feels half-baked.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Daybreak
    Involving and sometimes comically bleak but never fully convincing as drama.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Travelers and Magicians
    Anyone interested in Buddhism and the chance to see the high-altitude, deep-spirited landscapes of Bhutan from a movie theater seat is herewith directed to Travellers and Magicians.
  59. Alone in the Dark
    Think of the lamest horror movie you've ever seen. Now think of Tara Reid in the lamest horror movie you've ever seen. See how much worse it could have been?
  60. Hide and Seek
    Ignore the hype. You won't find anything startling or memorable in the derivative Hide and Seek.
  61. Aliens of the Deep
    Stirs excitement about exploration of all kinds.
  62. Fascination
    I'm afraid this is one of THOSE movies, one where ''plot" is another word for ''gratuitous sex scene."
  63. Lost Embrace
    Has a novelist's human touch. Were it a book, it would go somewhere on the shelf with Jonathan Safran Foer and early Philip Roth.
  64. Are We There Yet?
    This gnarly and illogical little sitcom is bound to make any adult reconsider that next outing with the kids.
  65. Head-On
    Not about crashing into walls or crashing into other people. It's about crashing into yourself and living to tell the tale.
  66. Watermarks
    In the absolutely moving new documentary Watermarks, seven women in their 80s return to the Vienna swimming pool of their youth.
  67. Assault on Precinct 13
    Disappointing for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's silly. For another, it's not always silly enough to be diverting.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Machuca
    It's a tale powerfully told, nevertheless, with an unusual vantage point in its upper-class young hero.
  69. Coach Carter
    Who's it for? How do you put this message across without it seeming medicinal? Sure, MTV is among the movie's producers, but what 11th grader wants to spend a Friday night being hit with such a blunt instrument?
  70. Elektra
    As she sashays, mirthlessly, from one thankless confrontation to the next, it's unclear why anyone would find Garner any more deserving of stardom than certain mannequins.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Racing Stripes
    Simultaneously overplotted and simplistic, the new barnyard/racecourse comedy from Warner Brothers is predictable every step of the way, and it contains at least three too many poop jokes.
  72. The Chorus
    The crime of The Chorus isn't that it's corny. (I like corny.) It's that its corniness seems programmed.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
    At its strongest cataloging the sheer sensory overkill of the festival -- the faces, the food, the many roads to bliss. Only the slightest historical information is offered and no spiritual background whatsoever.
  74. White Noise
    A moronic exercise in supernatural claptrap.
  75. Sky Blue
    This is one beautifully drawn, frequently lifelike piece of anime.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    A Love Song for Bobby Long
    Works hard to give quirk a bad name.
  77. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
    Assassination reminds you that Penn can be very funny.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Merchant of Venice
    The reason to see The Merchant of Venice is Al Pacino.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    In Good Company
    Cheerful and easy to watch but surprisingly inept in the telling.
  80. Fat Albert
    In the end, it's hard to see a real reason for the movie's existence. We already have Muppets.
  81. Donkey Skin (re-release)
    It's practically a primer on how to rework a literary classic into an impressively restrained movie with something fresh and intelligent to say.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Woodsman
    An honest, honorable indie chamber drama that, if anything, errs on the side of caution. It benefits from a scrupulously observed performance by Kevin Bacon.
  83. The Phantom of the Opera
    It has a little something to irritate everybody. People looking for romance will find only cardboard lovers. People looking for a resounding musical will find it odd that the camera runs away from the lip-synching cast. And people looking for opera -- well, shame on you.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Meet the Fockers
    What a waste.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Hotel Rwanda
    I wish Hotel Rwanda felt like something more than a very, very good TV movie.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Imaginary Heroes
    Weaver's randy, impatient, very funny performance is the main reason to see Imaginary Heroes.
  87. Beyond the Sea
    Had Spacey made Beyond the Sea 10 or 15 years ago, it might have been close to transporting.
  88. Flight of the Phoenix
    Silly to the last drop of rationed water.
  89. The Sea Inside
    You want the movie to stir your soul, push your intellect, or at the very least, break your heart. But it's such a repetitive and thinly constructed piece of filmmaking that the scope and complexity of Sampedro's case are turned to porridge.
  90. Spanglish
    What he's (Brooks) come up with is one of the most humane works ever made about the lives of working mothers.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Aviator
    As luscious as the filmmaking craft here is, it lacks the rude vitality, the unpredictability, the pure American craziness of the films that should have won him (Scorsese) the Oscar: "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "GoodFellas."
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    The film's no masterpiece, but at least you're in the hands of people who know what they're doing.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Million Dollar Baby
    More than "Unforgiven," more than "Mystic River," it is Clint Eastwood's autumnal masterpiece.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Dolls
    Dolls is an art film, and a languid, inexplicably haunting one at that.
  95. Ocean's Twelve
    The film Soderbergh's made is about promiscuous stargazing. And you don't need a brain for that, just two eyes and a mammoth appetite for heavenly bodies.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    A Tale of Two Sisters
    A Tale of Two Sisters reminds that few things are as terrifying as our own imaginations.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    The film's meta-fey title alone is an example of why some people adore Anderson and why he drives others absolutely crazy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
    This is the kind of film that reminds you of what movies, at their best, are capable of.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Blade: Trinity
    One of the prime laws of the multiplex states that any action or horror movie series will devolve into ritualized violence, self-mocking camp, and egregious silliness by part three. Blade: Trinity is right on schedule.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    House of Flying Daggers
    It's a perfect example of how far production design and editing WON'T take you when the story's not there.
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