Entertainment Weekly's Scores

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For 7,797 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 68% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 30% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 13th
Lowest review score: 0 Wide Awake
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,958 out of 7797
  2. Mixed: 2,079 out of 7797
  3. Negative: 760 out of 7797
7797 movie reviews
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  1. Wendy and Lucy
    Wendy and Lucy is like "Lassie Come Home" directed by Antonioni. What's piercing about it, and also disturbing, is that Reichardt views the renunciation of society with something close to righteous purity -- as a lefty romantic dream.
  2. Hunger
    A disturbingly avid re-creation of the last six weeks in the life and slow, self-imposed wasting of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands.
  3. Cadillac Records
    It's an enjoyable ramble, with a feel for what made the early days of rock as wild as any that followed.
  4. Nobel Son
    Randall Miller (Bottle Shock), appears to be trying to cross a bad Elmore Leonard thriller with a bad indie-festival family-angst comedy. He gives us the worst of both worlds.
  5. Punisher: War Zone
    Dominic West (The Wire) plays a facially mutilated Mob boss as if he's in a broad SNL sketch.
  6. Frost/Nixon
    Surges with an energy and visual verve that improve the play and enhance the themes of dramatist Peter Morgan's script.
  7. The Black Balloon
    Toni Collette gives it the old "Little Miss Sunshine" try in The Black Balloon as an edge-of-kooky, very pregnant mama presiding over a chaotic household.
  8. Four Christmases
    Crassly enjoyable.
  9. Milk
    A fascinating film -- more docudrama than biopic.
  10. Transporter 3
    The villainous Polluter-in-Chief is eloquently played by Robert Knepper, familiarly loathsome as T-Bag on Fox's "Prison Break." And when Knepper and Statham get together, there's a fine showdown of grimaces.
  11. Twilight
    On screen, Twilight is repetitive and a tad sodden, too prosaic to really soar. But Hardwicke stirs this teen pulp to a pleasing simmer.
  12. The Betrayal - Nerakhoon
    The past-and-present layering is a lot more resonant -- and less sketchy -- than the film's theme of ''betrayal,'' both familial and governmental.
  13. Special
    Thanks to Rapaport's brio in embracing the hero's drug-induced delusions, the movie is less a failure than a noble experiment gone awry.
  14. Bolt
    Bolt breaks no great new stylistic ground -- and yet it's a sturdy beaut.
  15. Lake City
    The story is as impersonal as it is labored.
  16. Australia
    Long before the second hour of Australia (which feels like the fifth), it's clear that Luhrmann hasn't found a satisfactory way to make a movie nearly as ballsy -- or coherent -- as he wants his creation to be.
  17. Quantum of Solace
    The point is, wherever he is, this James Bond is pissed. And that ceaseless anger begins to curdle every sequence that might otherwise bring a little happiness. I mean happiness for us, the viewers.
  18. A Christmas Tale
    The movie is enchanting.
  19. Eden
    Eden lacks the technique to give its stifled domestic-erotic feelings their full power.
  20. We Are Wizards
    This charm-filled documentary about passionate Harry Potter fans (and one foe) leaps all over the place.
  21. How About You ...
    As the reigning inhabitant, Redgrave adopts the swanning gestures of Maggie Smith in this mild adaptation of a Maeve Binchy story.
  22. Slumdog Millionaire
    Slumdog Millionaire is nothing if not an enjoyably far-fetched piece of rags-to-riches wish fulfillment.
  23. Role Models
    The fun of Role Models is that it's a high-concept movie executed with speed and finesse and the kind of brusquely tossed-off obscene banter that can get you laughing before you know what hit you.
  24. JCVD
    A reality-twisting cousin to "Being John Malkovich" -- showcases a Van Damme who's sly like a fox about his own image.
  25. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    An appalling, jaw-dropping movie that will cause serious nightmares.
  26. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
    Escape 2 Africa is pretty tame, but it knows how to keep its own turf tidy.
  27. Pray the Devil Back to Hell
    Gini Reticker's simply made, affecting documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell reveals how these heroic ordinary women prodded the factions to peace and literally brought down Taylor, a leader of sociopathic cruelty.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Repo! The Genetic Opera
    If steampunk bloodbaths aren't for you, it's a long wait for the fat lady to sing.
  29. Soul Men
    Soul Men could have done with less amped-up abrasiveness and more soft-shoe charm.
  30. House
    The backstories keep piling up, with nods to "The Shining," "The Ring," and a dozen other gothic supernatural chillers, yet the result doesn't remotely scare you.
  31. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
    The facts are so awful that Dear Zacharycan be forgiven much of its antsiness--as a memorial, as a condolence to Bagby’s parents (who became activists for judicial reform in their late son's honor), and as a howl of grief.
  32. The Haunting of Molly Hartley
    The story's a snooze, so the filmmakers punch it up with smash cuts and thunderclaps that turn the most laughably banal items -- birds, mail, an alarm clock -- into cheap jack-in-the-box shocks.
  33. Splinter
    A nifty horror movie that doesn't claim to be anything other than a zippy exercise in creature-feature entertainment.
  34. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    A Smith production is always noisy, shambling, and liberally smutty on the outside while conservatively gooey on the inside.
  35. Let the Right One In
    If random arty blood thrills are your cup of fear, perhaps you'll enjoy Let the Right One In, a Swedish head-scratcher that has a few creepy images but very little holding them together.
  36. Synecdoche, New York
    I gave up making heads or tails of Synecdoche, New York, but I did get one message: The compulsion to stand outside of one's life and observe it to THIS degree isn't the mechanism of art -- it's the structure of psychosis.
  37. Changeling
    The trouble with Changeling is that it plays less like reality than like a bare-bones, moralistic rehash of other, better movies, such as "L.A. Confidential" or "Frances."
  38. I've Loved You So Long
    This is a movie about actors acting; who cares why Juliette was in the pen?
  39. Passengers
    Turns out to be just another dud in the genre of revisionist mysteries that have been messing with our heads since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people. Only this time, the big reveal doesn't so much twist the plot as snap its neck.
    • 20 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Saw V
    The production values have become so horror-movie shoddy that Saw V has more in common with kitsch like "Friday the 13th Part V" than the original "Saw."
    • 45 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pride and Glory
    Edward Norton is in top form as Ray, a burned-out detective whose investigation into the deaths of four cops leads him to suspect his brother-in-law, Officer Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell, also terrific).
  42. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    These are standard youth-movie dilemmas, but they're brought to life by the high-energy cast and the musical numbers, which Ortega shoots with electrifying pizzazz.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fear(s) of the Dark
    Feels like a nonstarter.
  44. Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
    At once scary and stirring.
  45. W.
    The intrepid one is the outstanding Josh Brolin, who does such a phenomenal job in the title role that he carries every scene he's in to a place of subtlety and integrity far beyond what Stone needs to make his attention-grabbing noise.
  46. Filth and Wisdom
    The movie is short on wisdom, but it might have gotten by if it had had better filth.
  47. Max Payne
    It's just a grindingly inert death-wish thriller.
  48. The Secret Life of Bees
    The Secret Life of Bees is a lesson -- or, rather, a whole series of them -- we no longer need to learn. Of course, it's also a divine-sisterhood-defeats-all chick flick, and on that score there's no denying that its clichés are rousingly up to date.
  49. Sex Drive
    Seth Green is uproarious as an Amish farmer who speaks in sentences so passive-aggressive, they're like tiny slaps.
  50. Frontrunners
    This is no real-life comedy à la "Election" -- more like a valuable, teen-scaled version of the presidential election that currently obsesses us.
  51. Body of Lies
    Most of this just seems, you know, so three years ago, so "Bourne" again.
  52. Breakfast with Scot
    Deserves sympathetic attention, if only for the family-values specifics loaded into the story, and the way mildmannered stars Ben Shenkman (Angels in America) and Tom Cavanagh (Ed) embrace their instructional roles.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    City of Ember
    The story, which follows two kids who try to save their burg from blackouts, isn't well-executed, losing itself to unclear mythology and sci-fi gibberish.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Express
    Has Dennis Quaid really never played a college football coach before? With his handsome, craggy face and likable intensity, he was born for the job, and he's the main attraction in The Express.
  55. Happy-Go-Lucky
    The London universe Leigh creates (employing his trademark improv techniques to unite his ensemble, many of whom make their film debuts) isn't so much a reality as a hope, and an invitation to find joy and grace in everyday moments.
  56. Quarantine
    Quarantine director John Erick Dowdle and co-writing brother Drew wisely stick close to the told-from-the-cameraman's point-of-view template of the terrific original, though they add a few fine flourishes.
  57. Dung che sai duk
    For the love of all things sensual and mysterious, see this one on a big screen.
  58. RocknRolla
    Ritchie concocts a crime-jungle demimonde that's organically linked to the real world, and it's a damn fun one to visit.
  59. Rachel Getting Married
    A triumph -- Demme's finest work since "The Silence of the Lambs," and a movie that tingles with life.
  60. Religulous
    He's a bombs-away provocateur, and in Religulous, Maher's blasphemous detonation of all things holy and scriptural, he doesn't really pretend to play fair. He's like Lenny Bruce with an inquiring mind and a video camera.
  61. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
    While George Lopez, Cheech Marin, and Paul Rodriguez are funny men, it's amazing how boring these Latin-shtick cutups can be when none of them gets a single good line.
  62. Blindness
    As the players enact the fall and rebirth of civilization, Meirelles suggests that even a society gone to hell looks better with a little music-video-like pizzazz.
  63. Flash of Genius
    The individual components of director Marc Abraham's David-and-Goliath drama are roundly unexceptional; the script, soft and teach-y; the performances, earnest.
  64. An American Carol
    A loony attack on wacko liberalism and a ding-dong defense of wacko conservatism.
  65. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
    Best in show is the divine Gillian Anderson as a powerful celebrity publicist, editing the image of her clients in much the same way this adaptation tames Young's much pricklier book.
  66. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
    So much goes down on Nick and Norah's one enchanted evening that the best advice is to enjoy the ride -- the actual ride -- around this vibrant new New York.
  67. Ballast
    The final shot, of the three characters now united, may be the quietest affirmation of life I've ever seen in a movie, and one of the truest.
  68. The Lucky Ones
    The Lucky Ones isn't dull, and the actors do quite nicely, especially McAdams, who's feisty, gorgeous, and as mercurial as a mood ring.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fireproof
    The filmmakers hedge their bets by making the young marrieds agnostic at the start of the movie, in order to turn Fireproof into a manual for eternal as well as marital salvation.
  70. Forever Strong
    Despite all the macho posturing, the corny story is just as sappy as anything on Lifetime.
  71. Eagle Eye
    A brain-squandering thriller.
  72. Miracle at St. Anna
    Miracle isn't powerful, it's muddled and diffuse.
  73. Choke
    It's an indelibly warped cartoon of lust and despair.
  74. Nights in Rodanthe
    Lane and Gere mime adult courtship with the efficiency of synchronized swimmers. Yet in this ocean of emotion, they look like they're drowning.
  75. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
    If you want to hear juicy inside tales of the scams devised by Lee Atwater, the right-wing visionary of media-age dirty tricks, you'll find loads of them in Boogie Man.
  76. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
    A spare, controlled study in communication gaps and a piercing sketch of suburban American loneliness.
  77. Appaloosa
    A throwback to the age when Westerns were quaint.
  78. Battle in Seattle
    His (Townsend) staging has a tumult, a multi-POV immediacy that brings to mind Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday."
  79. The Duchess
    Fiennes speaks with his body what the script cannot formulate about what it's like to be a man apart. The actor creates particulars of time, space, class, and personality with one crook of a finger, one twist of a wrist. I call that nobility of craft; he's the actors' prince.
  80. Hounddog
    Fanning is remarkably collected and even dignified. As for the rest of the gang, they ought to be returned to sender.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Lakeview Terrace
    Jackson is the best thing here.
  82. Ghost Town
    Diverting enough, but it's also the kind of high-concept studio concoction Ricky Gervais might have ridiculed in his great backstage-showbiz sitcom "Extras."
  83. Igor
    The visuals are a kick; the groan-inducing dialogue isn't.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Best Friend's Girl
    The actors (especially Alec Baldwin, as Tank's horndog dad) elevate the material slightly, but such piffle will just fill you with longing...for a better movie.
  85. Burn After Reading
    The movie is overplowed, even if Brad Pitt's debut as a Coen comedy player is eye-catching.
  86. Towelhead
    As it becomes clear that Ball, in essence, has just restaged American Beauty with a socially conscious paint job, the sensationalism of Towelhead looks more and more like a dramatic tic.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Family That Preys
    All over the place:It's a boardroom/family/couples/road-trip story.
  88. Righteous Kill
    It's not much fun to see these two reduced to "Mad TV" parodies of themselves.
  89. The Women
    The movie is a feminist lesson instead of what it should have been (and once was): a tough, synthetic, high-gloss entertainment that wears its heart on its lacquered fingernails.
  90. Ping Pong Playa
    Even the championship showdown feels polite.
  91. Save Me
    Even those of us who find anti-homosexual ''deprogramming'' to be hideously intolerant and naive may find ourselves oddly relieved that Mark is there (in a Christian rehab center).
  92. Bangkok Dangerous
    The filmmakers even manage to turn seamy Bangkok into the least exotic setting imaginable.
  93. A Secret
    The filmmaker's decision to shoot the past in color and the present in murky black and white is an inspired visual translation of psychological truth.
  94. August Evening
    The filmmaker of August Evening creates a succession of quiet, elliptical scenes that accrue into an affecting big picture of family ties and immigrant experience.
  95. The Pool
    Smith transfers an Iowa-based short story by Randy Russell to India's western Goa region -- and works in Hindi, primarily with novice actors. The result is a story both authentically specific and profoundly global.
  96. Babylon A.D.
    When martial arts star Michelle Yeoh shows up as a pious, butt-kicking nun, you have to wonder if Kassovitz isn't accidentally cribbing from Mel Brooks, too.
  97. I Served the King of England
    This is a dark story as well as a frothy one. But the bubble of absurdist self-absorption in which Menzel places this specimen of man-child is exquisite.
  98. College
    Friendly yet toothless, College musters little energy even as anarchic-party-movie nostalgia.
  99. Disaster Movie
    The movie is merciless sending up "Juno's" self-satisfied hipster gobbledygook, and it's quite funny to see Hannah Montana still promoting her tie-in products as she lies crushed and dying under a meteor.
  100. Traitor
    A slippery entertainment that's all feints and few punches thrown at a fight card of indistinguishable terrorists, Muslim and otherwise.
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