Boston Globe's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Beast
    The Beast is an unusual film: challenging, ambitious, and inward. Even when inscrutable, as it often is, it holds the attention, though less so the longer it lasts, and it lasts nearly 2½ hours.
  2. Monkey Man
    A date movie “Monkey Man” is not.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Coup de Chance
    The film’s closing is abrupt and maybe too tidy, but “Coup de Chance” is still a clever little thriller. It displays an admirable economy of storytelling, and its jazz-heavy soundtrack helps maintain a jaunty mood.
  4. Wicked Little Letters
    There are many complaints to be made about “Wicked Little Letters” — its forced humor, its even more forced moral lessons, its tonal unevenness (flat-footed jokiness here, cheap sentimentality there) — but chief among them is wasting Buckley.
  5. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
    The problem with “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the same as so many of these franchise-based films: They’re all soulless special-effects extravaganzas where CGI takes the place of character development, good writing, and emotional connection.
  6. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
    Seeing the Ghostbusters in the Big Apple where they belong put a smile on my face, at least until I realized I was watching a sitcom about wiseass teens and their dopey parents.
  7. Shirley
    Despite an impressive pedigree in front of and behind the camera, “Shirley” fails to convey just how remarkable the career of Shirley Chisholm really was. The problem isn’t the narrow focus on one of her accomplishments, it’s the even narrower depiction of who she was as a person.
  8. Love Lies Bleeding
    I generally love noir, gore, kick-ass women, the 1980s — but “Love Lies Bleeding” ladled out a visual stew I did not enjoy consuming.
  9. Shayda
    For the first 90 minutes, the film has a light touch that centers its story and makes us identify with Shayda.
  10. Arthur the King
    I should have been more affected by Arthur the King because, after all, “Old Yeller” conditioned my generation to erupt in tears whenever a dog’s fate looks dire. And yet, all I saw were the familiar gears churning underneath.
  11. They Shot the Piano Player
    While uncertainty remains about Tenório’s horrible fate, it’s never in doubt how much he was beloved. “They Shot the Piano Player” is a tribute to the musician and to those who knew him best. See it more than once, and hope the theater plays it loud.
  12. Kung Fu Panda 4
    I enjoyed the first three adventures of the Dragon Warrior, but the best thing he can do now is to give this series a much needed skadoosh, sending it to rest in the cinematic spirit realm.
  13. Dune: Part Two
    Just as in the first film, I was put off by the white-savior narrative (Stilgar’s fervent belief quickly becomes grating), and the Hans Zimmer score that sounds as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space.
  14. Io Capitano
    Io Capitano doesn’t try to convince viewers whether Seydou, Moussa, and all the other migrants have a right to seek a better life. What it does do, however, is tell their story in a way that makes them far more human and relatable than most of the news stories we see nowadays.
  15. Drive-Away Dolls
    This entire film is a troll, a refreshing, claws-out swipe at anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and beliefs. It’s also a testament to the power of queer people in front of and behind the camera.
  16. The Taste of Things
    One of 2023′s best films, “The Taste of Things” is achingly romantic and devastatingly sad. You’ll spend the first two-thirds of this movie salivating, and the last third of it sobbing.
  17. Madame Web
    Johnson tries her best, and O’Connor is good for a few laughs, but “Madame Web” is a lost cause. The special effects are confusing and the action scenes are poorly edited. By the time we get a rote explanation of Webb’s powers, it’s too late to care.
  18. Bob Marley: One Love
    Bob Marley: One Love opts to print the legend, but it will just make you want to listen to “Legend.”
  19. Menus Plaisirs - Les Troisgros
    If you love food porn, this movie will satiate your appetite for visions of French food while providing much insight into how that food is prepared.
  20. The Promised Land
    Though the last third of the film feels rushed, and Bennebjerg’s performance hews dangerously close to mustache-twirling-villain territory, there is much to admire and enjoy here. Arcel has made the kind of cinematic spectacle Hollywood used to excel at, but doesn’t make anymore.
  21. Argylle
    Argylle is a cynical cash grab that has the audacity to use that “new” Beatles song, “Now and Then” (itself a cynical cash grab pieced together with far more skill than this movie) as the basis for its score and the “love theme” for Aidan and Elly.
  22. Origin
    It’s not a fun time at the movies, but it’s an informative and worthy one.
  23. I.S.S.
    This film isn’t terrible; it’s just empty. There are few things more disappointing than a genre movie that forgoes developing its intriguing premise to focus on cheap, failed attempts to thrill.
  24. Driving Madeleine
    Driving Madeleine is held together by the funny and dignified performances of its two leads.
  25. Mean Girls
    Though I enjoyed both films, I had the same problem with this “Mean Girls” as I did with the original: I didn’t know whom to root for as the story played out.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Beekeeper
    Director Ayer, whose career took off when he wrote 2001′s “Training Day,” has frequently attempted to create Action Movies That Matter (the stressful 2014 World War II picture “Fury,” for one); this is absolutely not one of those. He tackles this assignment without much self-seriousness but doesn’t seem keen to embrace its silliness quotient, either.
  27. The Book of Clarence
    Samuel’s sophomore full-length feature is an ambitious misfire, a noble failure that starts off like “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” and ends like “The Passion of the Christ.”
  28. Public Speaking
    Without any framing background information, this affectionate documentary and its continual monologues can feel a little too insidery and indulgent. [22 Nov 2010, p.G9]
    • Boston Globe
      • Posted Jan 10, 2024
    • 92 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Zone of Interest
    The film is not just about a Nazi couple, or even just about the banality of evil. Rather, it is about the ways in which people close themselves off to destabilizing truths. We all live beside some sort of looming awfulness. How we act in the face of that evil is what matters.
  30. Night Swim
    Night Swim has its characters make infuriatingly asinine decisions to serve its plot.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »