Christian Science Monitor's Scores

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For 4,492 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 'Round Midnight
Lowest review score: 0 Couples Retreat
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,780 out of 4492
  2. Mixed: 1,361 out of 4492
  3. Negative: 351 out of 4492
4492 movie reviews
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  1. '71
    Within its limited compass, ’71 packs a punch, and the lack of political bias does give it a more encompassing feel.
  2. Blackfish
    One glaring question the film doesn’t raise: Why, given his history, is Tilikum still entertaining in sea parks?
  3. The Guilty
    Despite, or perhaps because of, these constraints, it’s one of the most cinematically alive movies of the year.
  4. Full Time
    Although Gravel doesn’t make a big deal about it, Julie also represents something larger than herself. Her plight as a single working mother is far from unique. But Full Time doesn’t ennoble the working class.
  5. Project Nim
    The big news here is not simply that Nim was traumatized, it's that Nim was signing that he was traumatized.
  6. Spider-Man 2
    The sequel is more exciting and surprising than the 2002 original, thanks largely to Molina's excellent acting. Only the strenuously comic scenes fall as flat as one of Spidey's leftover webs.
  7. When We Were Kings
    Fascinating footage goes beyond the boxing ring to document Ali's brilliance as a public personality.
  8. 20 Feet from Stardom
    I have rarely seen a movie that better expressed the revivifying nature of music. (Many of the women, not surprisingly, grew up singing gospel in church choirs and had preachers for parents.)
  9. Avatar
    If I never felt entirely transported by Avatar, it's probably because the story thudded just as often as the imagery soared. But Pandora is still a good place to park yourself for three hours.
  10. 20th Century Women
    Without Bening, whose performance is a watchful and laid-back marvel, 20th Century Women, written and directed by Mike Mills, would still be borderline worth seeing because of its supporting cast.
  11. Wuthering Heights
    In all, Wyler's version is a fine example of classical Hollywood filmmaking. But if you want the full experience of this dark and stormy tale, spend a few evenings curled up with Bronte's novel. Nobody has improved on it yet. [19 May 1989, p.10]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  12. Pina
    You may not feel like dancing after watching Pina – unless you have a thing for earth in your shoes – but you'll certainly know you've seen something.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Animal Kingdom
    All very grim and unrelenting; Michôd generates some nail-biting suspense, though it's not the sort of experience that many people are likely to enjoy.
  14. Hugo
    Hugo is a mixed bag but one well worth rummaging through.
  15. Ladybird Ladybird
    Ladybird Ladybird tackles this troubling tale with documentary-style realism, showing profound sympathy with the protagonists while dispassionately revealing the enormous divide that exists between ideals of harmonious family life, on one hand, and a network of inadequate social policies, on the other. [29 Nov 1994, p.14]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  16. Gloria
    Gloria is a starting-over story that never quite picks up a head of steam. Lelio paces the action as a series of sketches, and the hit-or-miss quality of the material makes for a bumpy ride.
  17. Spider
    Arguably the subtlest, most carefully textured film of Cronenberg's career.
  18. Seymour: An Introduction
    I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a movie that better conveys the sheer passion both performer and listener have for great music.
  19. 56 Up
    What gives the series its force is not just its universality but also its particularity. These grown-ups may be Everyman, but they are also singular.
  20. Serpico
    A quintessential New York director made this quintessential New York movie in 1973, with Pacino at his best.
  21. Up in the Air
    This is a movie about, among other things, pain, and it's made by someone who understands its expression.
  22. Milk
    Milk is an agitprop fantasy about the selflessness of sainthood. If anybody but Penn was playing the saint, we'd probably feel as if we were being sold a bill of goods. Instead, he just about pulls it off. Such is the treachery of talent.
  23. Lilya 4-Ever
    This grim Danish-Swedish production is socially revealing and artistically creative, both coldly realistic and infused with compassion for its heroine and her youth culture.
  24. Grey Gardens
    One of the most entertaining films ever made by the legendary Maysles brothers and their gifted associates. [17 Apr 1998, p.B2]
    • Christian Science Monitor
  25. Cutie and the Boxer
    Their 40-year marriage seems like more of a trial than this overweening, lightly likable movie acknowledges.
  26. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    Tarantino has always been an inventive director, and in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 he's at his cinematic best, showing an ingenuity that nothing in his monster hit "Pulp Fiction" surpasses.
  27. Vera Drake
    The acting is brilliant and Leigh's screenplay - developed through his usual process of improvisation and rehearsal - is very long on compassion, very short on preaching and politics.
  28. BlacKkKlansman
    If we are being asked to regard BlacKkKlansman as more than a movie, this may be another way of admitting that, on some fundamental level, it falls down as anything but revue sketch agitprop.
  29. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
    “Vengeance Most Fowl” encapsulates everything that makes “Wallace & Gromit” movies such a joy for children and adults. Its humor is unabashedly silly, yet slyly clever.
  30. Red Army
    Audiences knowing nothing about hockey will still be able to appreciate this movie as a somewhat jaunty take on the cold war and its aftermath – and resurgence. A curious kind of cold-war nostalgia can be felt in the West these days; President Vladimir Putin is the kind of comprehensible villain Americans feel comfortable with.
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