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 1.1 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: 5,229 out of 7947
  2. Mixed: 1,553 out of 7947
  3. Negative: 1,165 out of 7947
7947 movie reviews
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    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Monty Python's Life of Brian
    "No God and no religion can survive ridicule," wrote Mark Twain, but for once the sage of Hannibal was wrong.
  2. Mayor of the Sunset Strip
    Ultimately, Bingenheimer seems underwhelmed with himself. The people who know him say, in the movie, that he's a relic. Mayor of the Sunset Strip makes heartbreakingly clear what a glorious relic Bingenheimer is.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Concert for George
    It's spookily touching to see this massed group of former rock gods gathered to honor one of their fallen. Bald spots and graying shags predominate; the giant velvet lapels of 1969 have given way to sensible sport coats; the granny glasses are for real.
  4. The Claim
    Stark, haunting, epic, and mournful, The Claim is a mountain of a film.
    • Boston Globe
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    24 Hour Party People
    Just don't expect the truth. An extremely bent, highly amusing form of the truth, maybe, but not the truth. 24 Hour Party People shares with the current Robert Evans documentary ''The Kid Stays in the Picture'' an awareness that a good anecdote often trumps the facts, but here the cheats are cheekily laid bare.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    In This World
    A tremendous human drama, with each stage of its characters' journey a white-knuckle thriller in miniature.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Raising Victor Vargas
    The ''R'' rating is understandable, but absurd. This is a family film in the most complicated and, ultimately, most cheering sense.
  8. MC5*: A True Testimonial
    MC5 is everything a rockumentary should be and usually isn't. Then again, MC5 was everything a rock band should be and usually isn't.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Time Out
    Cantet's script and direction are flawless, and, matched step-for-step by Jocelyn Pook's mournful score, he builds the tension to near unbearable levels.
  10. The Score
    Nobody's going to think of The Score as trail-blazing, but there's nothing small-time about its dramatic and acting payoff.
  11. A Beautiful Mind
    The film makes more apparent than ever that Howard is quite underrated as a filmmaker, possibly because he's been hidden in full view in the mainstream for so long.
    • Boston Globe
  12. Rocco and His Brothers (re-release)
    After “Rocco,” Visconti’s style lost the vestiges of naturalism and indulged in rococo artifice and aristocratic splendor.
  13. The Virgin Suicides
    From start to finish there's a shimmer of discovery about it - our discovery of it, Coppola's discovery of how much she can do.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Y Tu Mamá También
    Sensual, funny, and moving film.
  15. Salaam Bombay!
    Nair, to her credit, doesn't succumb to any special pleading, which deepens her film's impact. Time and again, you sense that she and her subjects come from a place that believes in film, as "Salaam, Bombay" specifies its world and compels us to inhabit it. [15 Sep 1988, p.68]
    • Boston Globe
  16. The Wind Will Carry Us
    It's a meditation on life and death, but it's less somber and more light-handed, subtle, and mischievously funny.
    • Boston Globe
  17. Quills
    A witty yet fiery and, in the best sense, provocative play of ideas about freedom of expression.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    One Last Kiss
    More movies should be so funny and perceptive, with writing this sharp and acting this believable.
    • 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.
  20. Signs & Wonders
    Has extraordinary depth and insight about the limitations and follies of human beings.
  21. Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
    Souffle-light and airily playful.
    • Boston Globe
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Catch Me If You Can
    Nothing if not a celebration of our willingness to be gulled by life's charming strangers.
  23. Divided We Fall
    The film's triumph - and it is a triumph - in the end rests on the ability of Hrebejk and his actors to convince us that they never stop being normal people.
    • Boston Globe
  24. Since Otar Left
    What an amazing presence Gorintin has. Never mind her hunched back and white hair, she's no crone. She makes Eka needy for happiness but susceptible to heartbreak. It's a great performance, full of both joy and the quiet, disappointing parts of being alive that come with knowing change is part of life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Lilo & Stitch
    A quirky, welcome addition to Disney's cavalcade of animated stars.
  26. Aberdeen
    It is an uncompromising family tale, one that's dark but lyrical and moving in its rendering of the ties that bind even the most dysfunctional families, despite valiant efforts to destroy them.
    • Boston Globe
  27. Mean Creek
    Adults should find its simmering drama at least as compelling as teens will, even if parental figures are only slightly more present here than in a " Peanuts" comic strip.
  28. Read My Lips
    An inventive, propulsive office thriller.
  29. Shaolin Soccer
    As goofy action comedies go, Shaolin Soccer is one of the best.
  30. Eyes Without a Face [re-release]
    Eyes Without a Face, outre as it is, never tires as hypnotic, touching, ghastly fun.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Return
    Filmed with a cold, poetic beauty, The Return slowly strips away motivation until it arrives at a place of myth both private and oddly universal.
  32. Herod's Law
    Incisive, highly entertaining political farce.
  33. Monsoon Wedding
    The film's bountiful warmth and gusto do their work. By the end, we feel part of the family, too.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Spider
    It's Cronenberg's finest film, it's star Ralph Fiennes's riskiest role, it's a tour de force for actress Miranda Richardson.
  35. Serendipity
    Serendipity returns us, if only for a couple of hours, to the Manhattan of our dreams.
    • Boston Globe
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Roger Dodger
    Mines laughs from the ways in which its antihero's reductive philosophy consistently goes kerflooey in his face, but there's a weary sadness to it as well.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
    If you've seen the Beatles documentary "Let It Be," you know what four men who are heartily sick of one another look like, and in 2001, Metallica had been recording twice as long as the Fab Four.
  38. 25th Hour
    It's deeply stylized, but there's an accompanying patience and gravity that are hard to shake. They're the architecture of a lingering, unsentimental sadness.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut
    The director's cut has been getting a much warmer critical reception than the original release, but not necessarily because it's significantly better.
  40. Memento
    The most disorienting and trippiest data-retrieval caper in years.
    • Boston Globe
  41. 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.
  42. I'm Not Scared
    Watching it is like being lost in somebody's richly moody campfire story -- it's so good, in fact, that only once it's over do you realize you've been holding your marshmallows too close to the flame.
  43. Three Kings
    You walk out amazed and refreshed by the way it kicks the assumptions out from under the genre.
  44. High Fidelity
    Sad, funny, brilliant.
    • Boston Globe
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
    The film is as spare and unvarnished as a wooden temple floating on a lake, but its reflections run deep, and it can ripple your thoughts for months.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
    The opening 15 minutes of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World are so well crafted that they restore your faith in commercial cinema.
  47. Lightning in a Bottle
    It's hugely entertaining.
  48. Oasis
    Oasis is that rare miraculous whirlwind romance that moves from attempted rape to reverence without kicking up a lot of dust.
  49. All About My Mother
    A tender genuflection to the women's energies that keep that spinning world from keeling over.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    A Woman Is a Woman
    The most playful film to come out of the French New Wave, it's also the last time Jean-Luc Godard appeared to have any fun.
  51. Amélie
    Delightful and original, the film conjures up a corner of Paris distinct and specific, yet fairy-tale fanciful.
    • Boston Globe
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Time of the Wolf
    Haneke has become known as a dour modern master of cinematic pain, and in this movie he scrubs civilization down to the root level.
  53. Girlfight
    A terrific little uppercut of a boxing movie and close to a perfect one.
    • Boston Globe
  54. Shadow of the Vampire
    He's (Dafoe) the stuff bad dreams are made of. He's also the best movie vampire since Schreck's original. He deserves a bloody Oscar.
  55. Nico and Dani
    The film is rightfully carried by Nico and Dani and under Gay's artful helmsmanship it's carried with remarkable sympathy and believability.
    • Boston Globe
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Touching the Void
    As sagas of endurance in the face of ridiculous odds go, this story is up there with Shackleton and ''Into Thin Air.''
  57. Jersey Girl
    Eloquent and unapologetically cute.
  58. The Saddest Music in the World
    Maddin's movies are easy, too. Point your eyes at the screen; the magic follows.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Super Size Me
    I don't usually make recommendations of this kind, but if you or your kids have gone to a burger joint in the last few weeks, you really do need to see this movie.
  60. Dinosaur
    Throughout the history of film, nothing turns campier faster than dinosaur movies. This one will have a much longer shelf life than most.
    • Boston Globe
  61. Love & Basketball
    The cinematic equivalent of a high, arching rainbow of a three-pointer from midcourt.
  62. Almost Famous
    Hollywood filmmaking at its best, brimming over with feeling, texture, spirit, and several kinds of keenness that transmute experience into big pop myth.
    • Boston Globe
  63. Bowling for Columbine
    Moore's roving essay feels even more urgent now than it did when the jury had to make up an award to honor it at the Cannes film festival in May.
  64. The Perfect Storm
    'Titanic'' was a case of a cheeseball story riding terrific effects. The Perfect Storm is in every important way deeper.
  65. Ocean's Eleven
    It's slick, sleek, and stylish, and if it doesn't quite redefine cool, it certainly offers a snazzy update.
    • Boston Globe
  66. As Good as It Gets
    Nicholson, Hunt, and Kinnear will win you over as they turn the film into a valentine to New York's walking wounded.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    I'm Going Home
    Richly allusive and eloquently stylized.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
    If there's a larger theme in Zatoichi, it's that nobody is quite who he or she seems.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Gangs of New York
    Scorsese and his team of Grade A talents are working on an operatic scale here, and like many operas, this is long, overwrought, sprawling, and more than frequently brilliant. It also hits just enough discordant notes to keep it from greatness.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Notre musique
    Elegant, insistent movie -- a great gray filmmaker's finest in years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    This So-Called Disaster: Sam Shepard Directs the Late Henry Moss
    Turns out to be one of the finer peeks into the creative process of staging a play. Granted, that's a tiny genre, and the film's core audience -- theater majors and the people who love them -- is narrow. The lessons, however, are big.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Cold Mountain
    Three quarters of Cold Mountain consist of some of the most masterful and absorbing filmmaking of the year. The final quarter is Hollywood business as usual.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Finding Nemo
    Pixar is so good at what it does that every other kiddie-entertainment purveyor -- including parent company Disney -- flounders in comparison.
  74. 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.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Così ridevano
    A film of great ingenuity and imagination, full of suggestive power, and it deserves to be seen.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Forgotten
    Turns out to be a grade-A B-movie that grounds its thrills in particulars of time, place, and character, so that when the time comes to make the leap into the wholly preposterous, we do so willingly. This is a movie that earns our trust -- and then happily abuses it.
  77. Dogville
    Despite its ultimate nuttiness, has a quiet, consuming power that sneaks up on you and doesn't go away. This is something new and ambitious for Von Trier: a work of compassion.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Door in the Floor
    A stunningly well-acted drama for grown-ups.
  79. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    If you thought ''Moulin Rouge,'' or, for that matter, ''Tommy,'' was trippy, Hedwig, with its glorious convergence of material and performer, will show you what you've been missing.
    • Boston Globe
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Baadasssss!
    A much better movie than the one it honors.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Camp
    A comedy, and for all its cliches and clumsiness, close to a great one.
  82. Diamond Men
    Riding a mood that's tilted to the jazzy blues that Eddie prefers to Bobby's blasting rock on the car radio, Diamond Men is a sparkly film that's easy to love.
    • Boston Globe
  83. Ghost World
    Whatever portion of the alienated teen angst championship Thora Birch left unclaimed after ''American Beauty,'' she nails down brilliantly in Ghost World.
    • Boston Globe
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Goodbye Lenin!
    One of the most enjoyable movies I've seen lately, but it has a biting knowledge of that which history gives and history takes away.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    I Heart Huckabees
    Among the most insane mainstream movies ever released.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Incredibles
    Such smart, whiz-bang fun that you may not realize what it's about until you're safely home.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Kinsey
    As superbly crafted -- as good -- as this movie is, Condon never really owns up to the cloud of pessimism at its center.
  88. Maria Full of Grace
    Has a power that doesn't announce itself until it's over: You leave not wanting to give up on life, just resentful of the world we live in.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    School of Rock
    Utterly adorable.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Sweet Sixteen
    Compston's performance and the downer milieu, presented with appropriate paint-peeling profanity, are more than enough to keep an audience riveted and ultimately moved close to tears.
  91. Taking Sides
    Proves acutely subtle. But its question of what we forgive art in the face of atrocity and immorality is one for the ages.
  92. The Talented Mr. Ripley
    A slick, twisty, top-of-the-line crime thriller with gorgeously sensual textures and a screenful of wickedly faceted performances.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    A Very Long Engagement
    Flattens you with concussive detail and the awfulness of war; it plays like "Saving Private Ryan" as remade by a Continental mathematician flipping out on Ecstasy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Riding Giants
    Giants has SO many insistent high points, in fact, that its breathlessness threatens to turn monotonous.
  95. Closer
    From Marber's fiercely polished writing, Nichols wrings every drop of acid, yet it's a show of the director's goodness that a movie fundamentally preoccupied with interpersonal ugliness is allowed to end on a convincing note of beauty.
  96. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
    [Cuaron]'s a visionary and crafty storyteller who rewards your patience, not with twists in the plot, though the movie has its share, but with pure feeling. Deploying wit, grace, and artistry, he's whisked a kid flick into adolescence.
  97. Ratcatcher
    Fresh, original, and arresting.
    • Boston Globe
  98. Spanglish
    What he's (Brooks) come up with is one of the most humane works ever made about the lives of working mothers.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Vera Drake
    The film is startlingly even-handed.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Last Emperor
    The most startling achievement of The Last Emperor is that it accomplishes what seems to have eluded Bertolucci for some time. He has found the small in the large and, in many ways, he has created what many thought impossible -- an intimate epic. [18 Dec 1987, p.95]
    • Boston Globe
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