Boston Globe's Scores

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:
7964 movie reviews
    • 52 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    There's grace here if the movie were willing to dig for it. Occasionally it does.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    You come out of the theater impressed by the scope of Eastwood's reach and frustrated by how little remains in his grasp. As gifted as this filmmaker is, this isn't the sort of thing he does best.
  1. The best parts of Flicka are its pinch-me optimism and its old-fashioned-movie flourishes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    It's like "The Illusionist" crossed with a really hard Sudoku.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Harrowing and inexorable, the film recaptures the progressive insanity of Jim Jones and the hundreds of worshipers in his thrall, and it certainly gives you willies to last for days.
  2. A lovely , old-fashioned farm romance quietly doubling as a comment on immigration and American identity.
  3. If Plympton is making pastiche, he's also having a laugh at a universal experience that for a lot of people was probably pretty crummy. Apparently, it was a little crummier for him.
  4. The most popular facial expression for victims in The Grudge 2 is something I'd like to call "deep befuddlement." This time "deep befuddlement" goes double for paying customers.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    One walks out of Man of the Year aching for the squandered opportunities.
  5. What follows is serviceable action set to music you'd find in a video game -- or a military ad.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    It isn't often you get to meet the devil in all his glory, but here he is in Deliver Us From Evil, and his name is Father Oliver O'Grady.
  6. Everybody in the movie is so tightly wound that Walters seems a model of actorly limberness. She cuts through the movie with speed and mannish, zany wit.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The pleasure of Infamous is in its gallery of larger-than-life portrayals.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 25 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The results are dull, of all things. The movie itself feels like an overstuffed burrito,
  7. For kids strung out on Anthony Horowitz's 007-lite adventure series, this maiden adaptation is a pleasant enough diversion from having to flip the pages.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    It is harrowing, heartbreaking, cheering, and unforgettable.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    When The Departed roars to life, as it does in so many of its scenes, you feel like nobody understands movies -- the delirious highs, the unforgiving moral depths -- as well as this man does. Welcome back, Marty.
  8. What Little Children understands so well, and so poignantly, is a kind of parental existentialism that hits 30- somethings with kids: How does having children make you such a less interesting adult?
  9. Perhaps Employee of the Month, which was typed then directed by Greg Coolidge, is unfolding in the key of satire. But you'd have to be a dog to hear it.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The new prequel isn't really a slasher movie at all. It's a mess, with too much to say, and an odd genre in which to preach.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    No matter their wealth or social status, these people share disappointments and elations and a sense that life, in the end, may be what life is about.
  10. You buy "fair - trade" coffee; you assume you're being socially responsible. But now, along comes Black Gold to tell you that all fair-trade coffee is not created equal, and that Ethiopia, the "birthplace of coffee" and home of some of the world's best beans, may be getting the least fair shake of all.
  11. To those filmgoers who wouldn't know Rat Fink from Barton Fink, this reviewer's advice is: Pass. The latest counterculture tribute by Mann, director of 1988's "Comic Book Confidential" and 1999's "Grass," is as proudly silly as it is informative, and it can't help that a critical amount of brand coolness gets lost in the translation.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 38 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The result is movie goulash: made with love, impossible to digest.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    In Shortbus, the impish writer-director John Cameron Mitchell does the unthinkable: He puts the joy back in movie sex.
  12. Distinguishes itself from the recent glut of mediocre political documentaries by opting for nonpartisanship.
  13. The filmmaker invites us to reconsider the author as someone warmer and less intimidating than his body of work. On that count, Wrestling With Angels succeeds.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    A subtle, often very funny, ultimately touching tragedy of royal manners and meaning.
  14. The point of all this solemnity may be to pay serious respect to those rescue swimmers, who courageously look after errant kayakers or victims of Hurricane Katrina. But what we get in exchange is a movie that feels too much like a Coast Guard recruitment film. Who wants to pay to see that?
  15. As cartoon rip-offs go, Open Season can be surprisingly entertaining, in a made-for-6-year-olds kind of way.

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