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 2.1 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. The Railway Man
    Colin Firth smolders as the PTSD-riddled veteran (played in flashbacks by War Horse‘s Jeremy Irvine), and Nicole Kidman cries dutifully as his wife — but they’re both derailed by the movie’s tidy emotional resolutions.
  2. Begin Again
    "Once" was a small and well-loved heirloom, its imperfections part of the charm. But Begin Again has been burnished to a shiny dullness.
  3. The Double
    Director Richard Ayoade (Submarine) gets a huge impact from minimal expressionist sets, but the thin story — loosely based on Dostoyevsky’s 1846 novella — plays like a pale reflection of a more exciting tale.
  4. The Unknown Known
    To take the playfully convoluted, semi-nonsensical aggression of Rumsfeld's language and make it the whole point of a movie is to fall into the trap of mistaking the spin for the story.
  5. Maggie
    The sight of Schwarzenegger in this small, subdued role makes us root for his survival. That’s the power of star wattage at work. Not even the undead can kill it.
  6. In the Heart of the Sea
    Howard’s film, for all of its storytelling skill, technical polish, and rousing high-seas sequences, never quite casts the spell it should. It’s too polite to give us a real feeling of life or death. Its sense of danger is watered down.
  7. Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas
    Madea is still a witty character, but the gutter wisdom of her tossed-off verbal hand grenades can’t shock us anymore; even the outtakes that play through the closing credits feel like reruns.
  8. Horrible Bosses 2
    It's the small, tossed-off moments — Bateman's deadpan mugging, Day's frenzied cluelessness, and Sudeikis' smarmy one-liners — that land the best.
  9. The Quiet Ones
    Aside from a few cheap but effective shocks and jumps, there's nothing here that horror fans haven't seen in better recent films like "The Conjuring." Not to mention all of those wonderful Hammer films from the '50s and '60s.
  10. Maidentrip
    After 519 days at sea, Dekker finally achieves her goal...and decides to keep sailing, only this time with a hunky boy as her mate. If I were her parents, I wouldn't have signed off on that, either.
  11. Live by Night
    Live by Night is clearly Affleck’s love letter to classic pulp, and almost no noir touchstone goes unturned in its two-hour-plus run.
  12. Jersey Boys
    The biggest problem is that the film, written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, never makes a convincing case for why Valli the man or the singer matters beyond the music in the way that "Ray" and "Walk the Line" did for Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.
  13. Cuban Fury
    Frost is a likable bloke with a deft physical grace to match his rat-a-tat one-liners. But all the sequins and silk shirts in the world can’t disguise the film’s too-familiar formula.
  14. Alice Through the Looking Glass
    For better or worse, Looking Glass loses none of the first film’s muchness, with Bobin mimicking both his predecessor’s wildly saturated style and his general disregard for plot and substance.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Regression
    While Regression does, for the most part, deliver simmering suspense — and with Watson and Thewlis together, it’s fun (and weird) to see a mini-Harry Potter reunion — the script often falls flat, and the film sometimes leans too heavily on the score to telegraph an ominous tone.
  16. The Mummy
    I’m not sure that this aimless, lukewarm take on The Mummy is how the studio dreamed that its Dark Universe would begin. But it’s just good enough to keep you curious about what comes next.
  17. San Andreas
    San Andreas shows that sometimes the fake stuff can get the job done beautifully. I don’t want to make any claims that San Andreas is a great film. It’s not. But as mindless sensory barrages go, its fakery taps into something real: It shows us just how impotent we all are to control our planet. Unless, of course, you happen to be The Rock.
  18. The Sacrament
    West is a talented director and knows how to build suspense. But here’s a case where the truth wasn’t only stranger than his fiction, it was scarier, too.
  19. Nymphomaniac: Volume II
    A notch more watchable than Volume I, if only because Joe, the self-destructive heroine, is now played front and center by the magnetically dyspeptic Charlotte Gainsbourg instead of the vacuous model Stacy Martin.
  20. Step Up: All In
    The space between the spectacles are just too laborious, creating the odd sensation that there's not quite enough dance in this dance movie.
  21. Everest
    When the lights come up, you don’t want to feel like you’ve watched a ­better Cliffhanger. You want to understand the tragedy you’ve just watched. Yes, you want to be entertained, but you also want the icy, whipping wind of reality to sting.
  22. Kill the Messenger
    Director Michael Cuesta (Homeland) includes just enough real news footage among the heavily scripted scenes to make you crave a documentary on Webb instead.
  23. Magic in the Moonlight
    While it's breezy and funny and perfectly pleasant, you probably won't remember this particular gift by the time the next birthday rolls around.
  24. Stalingrad
    Stalingrad is a 3-D epic that's one-dimensional.
  25. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
    With its political power struggles and prodigious body count, all rendered in a thousand shades of wintry greige, the movie feels less like teen entertainment than a sort of Hunger Games of Thrones.
  26. Unbroken
    It's moving, admirable, and occasionally exhilarating. What it's missing is the one thing that could always be counted on with Jolie as a star: the spark of danger.
  27. Ping Pong Summer
    The film coasts on its time-capsule fetishism and affable supporting turns from Susan Sarandon and Lea Thompson, but it never achieves the emotional punch of like-minded comedies such as "Adventureland" and "The Way, Way Back."
  28. Equals
    Director Drake Doremus carefully constructs an us-against-the-world romance for Silas and Nia (an idea he pulled off beautifully in the underrated 2011 drama "Like Crazy," starring Felicity Jones and the late Anton Yelchin) and provides them with a rogue band of fellow thought rebels, including Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver.
  29. Crimson Peak
    Crimson Peak is a cobwebs-and-candelabras chamber piece that’s so preoccupied with being visually stunning it forgets to be scary.
  30. The Legend of Tarzan
    You just wish — after two solid but oddly joyless hours — that Legend strained less to hit its marks, and swung a little more.
  31. Run All Night
    Unfortunately, Run All Night gets a little slack with its third act and runs out of steam by the time the final showdown arrives.
  32. The Conjuring 2
    There are some solid scares (Wan is too gifted in the dark art of gotcha manipulation to not make you leap a few times), but there’s nothing on par with the first film’s brilliant hide-and-clap scene with Lili Taylor. If there’s going to be a Conjuring 3—and this movie is just decent enough to suggest there will be—our heroes should be a little choosier about which case they dust off next.
  33. The Protector 2
    Thai martial-arts maestro Tony Jaa’s newest film overloads on terrible F/X that rob the film of the actor’s usual brute-force balleticism.
  34. Hotel Transylvania 2
    Genndy Tartakovsky returns as director, and the creator of "Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Laboratory" has somehow managed to kick up the energy even more for the sequel.
  35. A Brief History of Time
    Directed by the ingenious documentarian Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line), A Brief History of Time held out the promise of being an audacious, brain-bending experience. Instead, it's plodding and disappointingly conventional.
  36. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    Predictable, corny, and mild.
  37. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
    Shot in inky black and white, Ana Lily Amirpour's fractured Farsi fright flick has a spooky, otherworldly quality. It's like an early Jim Jarmusch indie set in Little Tehran at 4 a.m.
  38. Lucky Them
    The movie is disappointingly flat-footed about both rock and journalism, and its shaggy plot sheds logic as it goes. Still, the actors are excellent; they’re triple crème slathered on an odd little undercooked biscuit of a script.
  39. A Promise
    It’s well made but drearily familiar.
  40. The Love Punch
    There’s nothing remotely original about the premise, and jokes about prostates feel more pandering than funny, but the leads make this dumb romantic caper watchable.
  41. Magic Mike XXL
    Director Gregory Jacobs worked under original Magic Mike helmer Steven Soderberg for years, but sadly he has almost none of his former boss’s ability to elevate material that is essentially one lamé thong away from a TLC reality series.
  42. Ricki and the Flash
    Director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Diablo Cody, both Oscar winners, have made far better films. Still, Ricki raises smart questions about why a mother’s musical ambitions are so much more selfish than, say, seven-time dad Mick Jagger’s.
  43. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    Fantastic Beasts is two-plus hours of meandering eye candy that feels numbingly inconsequential.
  44. The Client
    The movie keeps you occupied, but in a processed, unexciting way.
  45. The BFG
    Parents looking for a 21st-century E.T. to share with their kids are bound to be a bit disappointed even as their eyes are dazzled.
  46. The Calling
    The Calling shares a little too much with atmospheric TV mysteries like "The Killing" and "Broadchurch": the hard-living female detective, the cloudy weather, the small-town existentialism.
  47. The Transporter Refueled
    It’s hard to deny the hedonistic joy in the way Delamarre plays with his various toys, and the goofball stunts—including the yacht-based finale, with a special appearance by a jet ski—are generally worth wandering through the dialogue desert.
  48. Coldwater
    The best thing about it is its star, P.J. Boudousqué, who locates a sense of terror and betrayal that the script lacks.
  49. Saban's Power Rangers
    Most movies like Power Rangers get the first-half Y.A. character stuff wrong and the second-half smashy-smashy action stuff right. This one does just the reverse.
  50. While We're Young
    After a while, the director of the more perceptive "Frances Ha" and "The Squid and the Whale" tips his hand, painting the aging Xers as guardians of integrity and the millennials as opportunists. It’s a cheap shot, and it feels like he’s telling the kids to get off his lawn. It’s not Stiller’s character who’s the curmudgeon, it’s Baumbach.
  51. Kong: Skull Island
    Hiddleston and Larson are especially let down by the script, which wants to be jokey in the way that something like Predator was, but can’t pull it off. The same lack of care goes into the period-specific song choices that have as much imagination as a Time-Life Songs of the ‘70s set.
  52. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny
    It’s a shame the rest of the soap-opera story doesn’t measure up to its stunts.
  53. Taken 3
    It's a testament to Neeson's startling charisma as an action star that for all its storytelling flaws, large swaths of Taken 3 remain wildly entertaining.
  54. Vacation
    What’s missing is the pent-up anger that simmered behind Chevy Chase’s doofus grin. His Clark was always on the verge of a nuclear-family meltdown. Helms lacks Chase’s passive-aggressive edginess.
  55. Happy Valley
    The documentary offers a compelling overview of the case, but Bar-Lev spends too much time painting Paterno as a victim and scapegoat. That advocacy doesn't sit well.
  56. Suicide Squad
    Writer-director David Ayer (End of Watch) skillfully sets up the film, introducing each of the crazies with caffeinated comic-book energy. But their mission...is a bit of a bust. The stakes should feel higher.
  57. Logan
    The loner has to learn to put someone else first. It’s both as manipulative and hokey as that sounds, but occasionally it works well enough that you might find yourself getting choked up against your better judgment.
  58. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
    It’s smarter than most films, but not as smart as the first one. It’s funnier than most films, but not as funny as the first one. And it still probably belongs in the upper tier of Marvel movies but nowhere near as high up as the first one.
  59. The DUFF
    As misspent of an opportunity as The DUFF may be, it’s hard to completely dismiss a film that gives someone as talented as Whitman her long-overdue spotlight.
  60. Woman in Gold
    Even Helen Mirren, the Queen Midas of class acting, can’t fix this well-intentioned miss.
  61. The Intern
    Hathaway’s take on the underwritten Jules is refreshingly unshowy, but De Niro seems a little lost.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Kidnap
    While a quick payday might be the case for Berry on Kidnap (she also serves as a producer), the Oscar winner earns her way to the bank in this mildly titillating (albeit unsophisticated) thriller, which bears a striking resemblance to her 2013 flick "The Call."
  63. A Girl Like Her
    While mean girl Avery Keller (Hunter King) gets a nuanced and surprisingly redemptive arc, the target of her bullying, Jessica (Lexi Ainsworth), mostly goes ignored.
  64. Queen and Country
    Tonally, the movie can’t decide whether it’s a comedy, a romance, or a wistful wartime madeleine. What it’s missing is the sense of joy and wonder of its predecessor.
  65. Nasty Baby
    Subverting expected narratives may have been Silva’s aim all along; still, the turn isn’t just nasty, it’s confounding.
  66. Results
    Even by Bujalski’s shaggy standards, Results never adds up to much. Instead it just sort of sputters out and settles for a predictable rom-com ending. Conventional doesn’t suit him.
  67. I Smile Back
    It’s 85 minutes of grim abyss-gazing with no hope of salvation. If Silverman’s going to bare her soul this nakedly, she deserves a better film to do it in.
  68. 5 to 7
    While the film has an undeniably sexy glow, it’s too earnest and sappy by half. Fortunately, Frank Langella and Glenn Close drop by as Brian’s disapproving parents.
  69. Secret in Their Eyes
    In Ray’s hands, it’s essentially a grim procedural with too many moments of untapped potential and a moderately shocking twist. Save his version for a rainy day or a long airplane ride; or better yet, go rent the original.
  70. Beauty and the Beast
    It’s fine and funny and sweet and lush and some of the songs are infectious, but I still don’t completely understand why it exists — and why they couldn’t do more with it.
  71. Adult Beginners
    There aren’t enough laughs here to goose it past formulaic. It’s harmless and mild and likable, but it’s also a toothless comedy that should have had some bite.
  72. The Secret Life of Pets
    Like a dog that endlessly chases its tail in circles, Pets is amusing for a while, then it just tires itself out.
  73. Youth
    As it is, Youth is hit-and-miss, beautiful and frustrating.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    5 Flights Up
    Freeman is funny as a lovable crank, but Keaton’s neurotic performance wears thin.
  75. Anesthesia
    The cast (which includes Glenn Close, Sam Waterston, Kristen Stewart, and Corey Stoll) is strong, but the movie itself is a little exhausting, like a New York cousin to Paul Haggis’ Crash, with a smaller budget and a bigger vocabulary.
  76. A Perfect Day
    Del Toro’s low-key resignation gives the film what power it has, but the female characters (played by Mélanie Thierry and Olga Kurylenko) are disappointingly thin.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Daddy's Home
    Anders had many opportunities to pit the dads against each other directly, but trades in the cheesy, expected route for devious mind games.
  78. Pitch Perfect 3
    Mostly this is all just pretext for dreamy postcard shots of Europe, a metric ton of slapstick, and as many highly specific vocal riff-offs as one empty airplane hangar can handle.
  79. The Runner
    The Runner is a well-meaning character study with an admirably cynical ending, but it’s too cold to ever fully draw you in.
  80. Meet the Patels
    In its current form as a documentary, Meet the Patels is a charming and moderately enlightening examination of what happens when an American-raised man recovering from a bad breakup attempts to find a wife through the kind of arranged marriage that has kept his parents blissful for decades.
  81. Freeheld
    For all its clumsiness, the story resonates—and the photos that run over the final credits are a poignant reminder of the real life, not just the political legacy, that Laurel left behind.
  82. The Perfect Guy
    For all its third act nuttiness, The Perfect Guy really should have gone way crazier.
  83. War Room
    War Room is a gold-plated piece of Bible thumping that’s resonating with the same audience that watches Jimmy Stewart get touched by an angel every December in "It’s a Wonderful Life" — and cry next to Christmas trees, despite that film’s many hackneyed religious devices.
  84. Bad Boys for Life
    Banter and bullets is the action-movie MO, and the duo at the center of it hardly seem to have to stretch to spread their bickering charm on thick. By the shock-and-awe climax, though — when everything but the goatee pretty much goes up in flames — other things have worn thin.
  85. Mr. Right
    The ludicrous action-flick plot slows to a crawl whenever Kendrick and Rockwell aren’t on screen.
  86. Risen
    Risen is more entertaining than Bible-adjacent stories are usually allowed to be.
  87. This Changes Everything
    Yet as Everything moves from nation to nation, the cohesion and potency of its message dissipates.
  88. Cars 3
    Fee steers Cars 3 like the sleek piece of movie machinery it is—a standard ride with a half-full tank, a gorgeous paint job, and not much at all under the hood.
  89. Flowers
    The film is undercut by long metaphorical stretches that dampen their impact.
  90. The Man Who Knew Infinity
    Unfortunately, the film is nowhere near as innovative as its subject.
  91. Elstree 1976
    There are some stretches of the film that are frankly a bit boring and wouldn’t be missed if they were cut.
  92. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    There might not be a more gorgeous-looking movie this year than Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
  93. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
    Dumbledore feels like an improvement, at least, on the joyless, enervating slog of 2018's Crimes of Grindelwald; it's nimbler and sweeter and more cohesive in its storyline. And the cast, less trapped in a fug of half-formed symbolism and subplots, are allowed realer and more romantic stakes.
  94. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
    What work better in the movie are mostly smaller moments: the jokes that land, the rapport between the reporters, and all the weirdly ordinary ways people manage to find a new normal, even in the most WTF circumstances.
  95. Monster Hunt
    The plot is even more nonsensical than it sounds, but the monsters’ high-energy antics and the humans’ martial-arts skills make for a delightfully bizarre adventure romp.
  96. Keanu
    Even if it can’t compete with the best highlights from their TV show, Keanu is a solid first step into movie stardom for both Key and Peele.
  97. War Dogs
    A lot of what makes War Dogs work comes down to Hill, who is operating at maximum density here physically (he reportedly gained weight specifically for the role) but whose unhinged charisma also anchors the movie.
  98. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    For a film that invites so much self-aware chortling over franchise in-jokery, you feel Spider-Verse has missed something essential from its own screen history.
  99. Early Man
    What comedy there is comes from Tom Hiddleston’s Lord Nooth — a miser with a head like a soft-boiled egg. But the laughs are mild at best. At least there’s director Nick Park’s playful Silly Putty visual imagination to take your mind off just how thin the story is.
  100. Kevin Hart: What Now?
    Hart’s exuberance make him a captivating performer — and his energetic delivery helps even the most mediocre jokes land.
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