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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  1. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
    He doesn't just kill a good buzz. He bludgeons it.
  2. Full Frontal
    Studding your movie with friends, admirers, and sycophants is having a ball; it does not bring us to question the illusory power of cinema or the politics of entertainment.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    One Last Kiss
    More movies should be so funny and perceptive, with writing this sharp and acting this believable.
    • 12 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Master of Disguise
    Like criticizing the light fixtures on the Titanic. This ship was going down anyway.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Signs
    Its quirks are exactly what make Signs interesting, entertaining, and good.
  6. Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    The magic of their perfectly shaded performances is that you always have to wonder ... Is she really that bad?
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Kid Stays in the Picture
    Implicitly acknowledges and celebrates the glorious chicanery and self-delusion of this most American of businesses, and for that reason it may be the most oddly honest Hollywood document of all.
  8. Swimming
    A rarity among modern movies: a coming-of-age tale without cliche or sentimentality. Bolstered by a luminous lead performance from Lauren Ambrose.
  9. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
    To love Wilco is to believe in a certain rustic intelligence about popular music (and about yourself) and to embrace the Tweedy worldview that you need sarcasm and vagueness to cope with the pitfalls of sincerity.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    The Country Bears
    The music and the stars aren't enough to save the movie.
  11. Who Is Cletis Tout?
    Ladling in so much schmaltz that even his in-house critic says, ''This thing's worse than `Terms of Endearment.'''
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Austin Powers in Goldmember
    The most consistently funny of the ''Austin Powers'' films.
  13. Happy Times
    Shares many things with ''Not One Less'' and ''The Road Home,'' among them a grass-roots sensibility that ultimately puts a premium on hope and simple kindnesses, while acknowledging the seductive power of money and superficial success.
  14. K-19: The Widowmaker
    A relentlessly serious action movie, characterized by, of all things, sorrow.
  15. 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Stuart Little 2
    Sure, go ahead and take the kids. But, for pity's sake, read them the book first.
  17. Tadpole
    Written in wisps and watery double-entendres by Heather McGowan and Niels Mueller, and the movie is so benign that its proceedings are beside the point.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Eight Legged Freaks
    Doesn't try to be anything it's not. It's happy being a funny, shoot-'em-up, run-for-your-life, green-guts monster movie. And as green-guts monster movies go, it's a beaut.
  19. All About Lily Chou-Chou
    Awash in strangeness, a poem that details what it's like to be 13 at the end of a millennium.
  20. My Wife Is an Actress
    The film's most endearing trait is that these people sincerely love movies, and they truly love their own idiosyncrasies. And is that not the greatest love of all?
    • Boston Globe
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
    The downtimes are so flat that it makes you wonder whether director John Stainton and writer Holly Goldberg Sloan made them intentionally bad, just so we'd look forward to seeing Irwin again.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Reign of Fire
    This is quite enjoyable as creature features go, and Bale continues to demonstrate his curious under-the-radar appeal. As for McConaughey, let's just say a star is reborn. Suddenly that whole naked-bongo-playing incident makes a lot more sense.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Sex and Lucia
    Isn't a first-date movie. As a third -date movie, though, it's just about perfect.
  24. Never Again
    There are moments, too, where the forced hipness falls aside and the two lead characters just plain relate, realistically and maturely, with a seasoned playfulness that is truly charming.
  25. Road to Perdition
    Its seriousness is welcome. It's also a burden the film can't completely surmount.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Last Dance
    Rehearsals are frequently more fascinating than the results. Last Dance, whatever its flaws, fulfills one facet of its mission in making me want to find out whether, in this case, that's true.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
    It is Bowie's alter ego as the androgynous Martian rock star that remains, 30 years later, his most enduring artistic achievement.
  28. Rocco and His Brothers (re-release)
    After “Rocco,” Visconti’s style lost the vestiges of naturalism and indulged in rococo artifice and aristocratic splendor.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Me Without You
    More predictable than it ought to be - you can set your watch by the appearance of the mournful Nick Drake song on the soundtrack.
  30. Read My Lips
    An inventive, propulsive office thriller.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Group
    Is it one of Oprah's book club meetings?
    • 47 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Like Mike
    I don't want to sell Like Mike as something it's not. It's a cash-in, all right - just better written, more tightly edited, sharply performed, and a little more heartfelt than most.
  33. Men in Black II
    There's something wrong with this picture, and the problem is there on Smith's face -- Smith looks distressingly I-was-an-Oscar-nominee bored. That goes double for Jones.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Songs from the Second Floor
    The film is depressive, slow, darkly funny, unyielding in its formal rigor, and unsettlingly beautiful. It's obviously not for everyone, but only because not everyone can meet its stare.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Powerpuff Girls
    Forgoes that split-level wit to concentrate on mere rock 'em sock 'em mayhem.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Lovely & Amazing
    A chick flick of a particularly intelligent, ruthless, and loving sort.
  37. Notorious C.H.O.
    Her face is as much a part of her comedic form as her observations are. It's an amazing slapstick instrument, creating a scrapbook of living mug shots.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Hey Arnold! The Movie
    The ugly duckling of Nickelodeon's after-bath lineup. That's its strength.
  39. Mr. Deeds
    Armed with a dinner theater accent and hair that looks like an LP melted on his head, Turturro pockets the picture. As a demonstration of his newly accessed maturity and benevolence, Sandler helps him do it.
    • Boston Globe
  40. Juwanna Mann
    It is Kevin Pollak who steals what there is of a show as Jamal's passive-aggressive, pressure-cooked agent. His comedic timing, particularly given the thinness of the script, is the only genuinely impressive slam dunk this movie has to offer.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sunshine State
    There is almost no drama, nor any surprise, in this long effort.
    • Boston Globe
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Lilo & Stitch
    A quirky, welcome addition to Disney's cavalcade of animated stars.
  43. Minority Report
    Cruise will never be a master thespian, but there's no one better at putting across the charisma of control, and the opening sequence of ''Report'' is an astonishingly fluid demonstration of his gifts.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Emperor's New Clothes
    Not without its charms. But it never rises to its clever what-if concept.
    • Boston Globe
    • 51 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Windtalkers
    The code talkers and their guardians - Beach and Cage, Willie and Slater - do the best they can with the oddly flat-footed script, but their dynamics don't really have a place in Woo's universe.
  46. Scooby-Doo
    This dog will inevitably let down purists looking for the elusive combination of smart and funny.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    The Bourne Identity
    The best audiences can hope for is that they, too, get amnesia and forget they ever saw this movie.
  48. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    Like watching somebody else's flashback and wondering what you were doing then instead.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Cuba feliz
    Grittily beautiful film that looks, sounds, and feels more like an extended, open-ended poem than a traditionally structured story.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 12 Critic Score
    Bad Company
    The major problem with this alleged comic thriller is it is neither funny nor thrilling. Neither the heavies nor the good guys are believable.
  51. Cherish
    The cast is up to the challenges of that arc, but the plot doesn't always keep them afloat.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    There's death, domestic violence, alcoholism, racism, attempted suicide, and a mental breakdown. Naturally, it's a comedy about the eccentricities of Southern women.
  53. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
    Magically transports the viewer across time and space. As it does so, it becomes a humbling reminder of the universality of the human experience.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Sum of All Fears
    And then there's Liev Schreiber as CIA operative John Clark. With less than 30 minutes of screen time, he's everything Affleck isn't - magnetic, clever, and delightful to watch. If only the filmmakers had possessed the courage to cast the splendid Schreiber instead of the feeble Affleck.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Undercover Brother
    Tries to wring laughs from just about every dusty stereotype about blacks and whites imaginable. But it's all cheap, lazy, and unoriginal.
    • 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Sleepy Time Gal
    Stunning performances help make The Sleepy Time Gal a thoughtful, moving piece that faces difficult issues with honesty and beauty.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    CQ
    Triumphs over its own trendiness only by being vapid and superficial.
  59. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    Resonates with intelligence and a poignancy made more sorrowful by what happened to all of us, but especially to New Yorkers, on that terrible day.
    • Boston Globe
    • 25 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Enough
    Shamelessly exploits the horror of domestic violence for melodramatic, cheap thrills.
  61. Insomnia
    Has to be appreciated simply for doing its job, for being the only thriller I've seen recently that made me wonder how my knuckles ended up in my mouth.
  62. 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.
  63. The Believer
    An amazing and incendiary movie that dives straight into the rough waters of contradiction.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    About a Boy
    Renders what should have been a wholly entertaining film into a timid, soggy near miss.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
    One roots for Lucas to get the next film sorted out, and to resurrect the humanity and soul that first made so many fall in love a long time ago with that galaxy far, far away.
  66. The Lady and the Duke
    Rohmer's style saps the film of the drama that flows directly from the subject matter.
  67. Unfaithful
    Despite the Gallic source material, what we truly have in Unfaithful is a tasteful, adult-contemporary ''Fatal Attraction'' redux, right down to the mister's Soho address and the happy family tucked away in the New York hinterlands.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The New Guy
    Probably would have worked better as a slamming soundtrack than as a muddle-headed movie.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
    An epic film in every respect.
  70. 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Mystic Masseur
    Offers no tangible sense of Ganesh's genuine convictions (beyond a thirst for fame), nor of the essence of his character. By the time Ganesh's political downfall comes, in the same spiritless fashion in which his fortunes rose, it would take a mystic miracle to care.
  72. 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.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hollywood Ending
    A small film, but its ease and grace are virtues that can't be overrated.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Spider-Man
    Raimi crafted a complicated hero who is a welcome relief from the usual two-dimensional offerings. That said, we could use some moxie in the sequel.
  75. Circuit
    Like ''Showgirls'' and ''Glitter,'' the most entertaining moments here are unintentional.
  76. Sade
    Sensationalism and doom are not on screen here; Jacquot offers a relatively peaceful moment in Sade's life.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Sex with Strangers
    Explicit yet consistently unerotic. It's also intensely sad, capturing everything about these people except the high they ceaselessly chase.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dogtown and Z-Boys
    Does a terrific job of evoking the electric magic of an extraordinary era.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Life or Something Like It
    Delivered with all the subtlety of a steel-toe boot, you may be galled that you've wasted nearly two hours of your own precious life with this silly little puddle of a movie.
  80. Jason X
    The only chills to be found are courtesy of your theater's central air, and the suspense will come from the wait to see which disappointed kid in a hockey mask will be the first to slash the screen.
  81. Rain
    Affecting, troubling, dazzling film.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Salton Sea
    A commercial Hollywood movie without pretensions. If there's no art here, it's still a good yarn - which is nothing to sneeze at these days.
    • 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.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Murder by Numbers
    For much of its length, the film is plausible, if predictable and ponderous. Its strongest assets are its actors.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Girls Can't Swim
    While not all transitions to adulthood are so fraught, there's much truth and no small amount of poetry in Girls Can't Swim.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Enigma
    Snoozy, plodding film that never captures the inherent suspense of its subject.
  87. The Scorpion King
    For a movie with such a misplaced sense of history, The Scorpion King seems afraid to have more fun with its own stupidity.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    World Traveler
    The real seduction Crudup pulls off is that he makes it seem possible that the character hasn't actually done all of these awful things.
    • Boston Globe
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nine Queens
    Elaborately layered movie about schemes and more schemes that pile up faster than chips on a blackjack table. The other half is realizing, about halfway through the film, that you won't figure it out until it's over.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Chelsea Walls
    As for Hawke's direction, if there is any, it certainly isn't apparent. The shots are frequently bland and uneven, and the players act as though their only instruction was ''Just show up at the set and remember your lines.'' At least they seem to have gotten that much right.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    The Triumph of Love
    Sorvino can't pass for a man, but that's beyond the point in this rarefied situation. She's beautiful and she can usually act, but here the only convincing thing she projects is fatigue from running around the garden all day.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Mule Skinner Blues
    Earnhart's fundamental compassion toward his subjects elevates a riveting work that feels like a hybrid of ''Crumb'' and ''Nashville,'' with maybe a side of ''King of the Hill'' tossed on the barbecue.
  93. 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.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Human Nature
    It's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and where ''Human Nature'' should be ingratiating, it's just grating.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Frailty
    Murder should either be unsparingly real or kitschy like the ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'' This is neither.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Changing Lanes
    Banek is one of the more complex characters Affleck has attempted, but the performance comes off flat and uninvolving.
  97. New Best Friend
    Tawdry, trashy yawn-fest that makes the viewer long for the days when bad girls were dangerous dames with sultry style.
    • Boston Globe
  98. The Sweetest Thing
    This movie is to sweet as a dog is to a hydrant. But it's little things like that that keep someone like Diaz laughing all the way to the urinal.
  99. Lucky Break
    The movie moves predictably to its formulaic finale, which -- unwittingly perhaps -- reprises Plummer's own sugary classic, ''The Sound of Music.''
  100. Les Destinées
    Full of elegance but hampered by lack of depth.
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