Newsweek's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Select another publication »
For 1,617 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 40% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Children of a Lesser God
Lowest review score: 0 Down to You
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 952 out of 1617
  2. Mixed: 532 out of 1617
  3. Negative: 133 out of 1617
1617 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Notting Hill
    Adorable, if uneven, romantic comedy.
  2. Lethal Weapon
    Lethal Weapon will undoubtedly strike gold. But for those weary of overwrought macho displays -- My pistol's bigger than your pistol is the true theme -- this strenuously "fun" movie is a pretty joyless affair. [16 Mar 1987, p.72]
    • Newsweek
  3. Some Kind of Hero
    This is funny? Yes, as Pryor does it--not as knee-slapping farce, mind you, but as the painful comedy of endured humiliation of which he is the master... But it's high time Pryor stopped redeeming badly made movies and surrounded himself with talents equal to his own. [12 Apr 1982, p.87]
    • Newsweek
  4. The Shining
    Stanley Kubrick hungers for the ultimate. In The Shining, he has gone after the ultimate horror movie, something that will make "The Exorcist" look like "Abbott and Costello Meet Beelzebub." The result is the first epic horror film, a movie that is to other horror movies what his "2001: A Space Odyssey" was to other space movies. [26 May 1980, p.96]
    • Newsweek
  5. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
    The Wrath of Khan is a small soap opera about a man coming to terms with age and death and a son he had never acknowledged. It's really On Golden Galaxy, and it would have made a lot more sense as a modestly produced hour of television. [7 June 1982, p.53]
    • Newsweek
  6. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
    Lucas manages to turn the audience's familiarity to his advantage: like a jigsaw puzzle whose final form has always been known, the fun is in discovering how the last pieces fit.
  7. Never Say Never Again
    Director Irvin Kershner handles the early part with wit and style, but he's hamstrung by Lorenzo Semple's script, which is based too much on "Thunderball." Still, there are fun passages. [10 Oct 1983, p.93]
    • Newsweek
  8. Top Secret!
    Like "Airplane!", the film is teeming with funny ideas. Unlike "Airplane!", the majority do not come off...Top Secret! is mildly amusing at best. [25 June 1984, p.69]
    • Newsweek
  9. Dick Tracy
    Dick Tracy is a class act: simple, stylish, sophisticated, sweet.
  10. Dragonslayer
    A dark slice of sword and sorcery that could have used some of Walt's old storytelling sense. [13 July 1981, p.81]
    • Newsweek
  11. The Falcon and the Snowman
    The Falcon and the Snowman lurches about awkwardly, withholds crucial information and lacks a strong point of view. It is nonetheless fascinating, a kind of darkly comic illustration of the banality of contemporary evil. Penn is reason enough to see the film. [04 Feb 1985, p.15]
    • Newsweek
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gladiator
    The fight scenes are dynamic, intricately choreographed, and downright exciting.
    • Newsweek
  13. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
    If Forgetting Sarah Marshall doesn't reach the inspired heights of "Knocked Up" or "Superbad," it runs a very respectable second.
  14. Summer of Sam
    A thick stew of sex, violence and suspicion, Lee's movie -- spiked up with a virtually nonstop soundtrack -- definitely has the power to jangle your nerves.
  15. The Flamingo Kid
    With Dillon in the movie, you might expect another girl-chasing beach movie. But the evocation of the nouveau riche club, and of adolescence itself, is closer to early Philip Roth than to Spring Break. [31 Dec 1984, p.65]
    • Newsweek
  16. Thirteen Days
    Keeps you hanging on every twist and turn of its wilder-than-fiction plot.
    • Newsweek
  17. Interiors
    Interiors has the look of a Bergman film, helped by Gordon Willis's Nykvist-like cinematography, but it does not have the creative elation that triggers elation in the audience, no matter how dark the artist's vision. Woody gives us his dread untransfigured and it's hard to swallow. [07 Aug 1978, p.83]
    • Newsweek
  18. At Close Range
    At times veering toward the portentous, the film nonetheless has the relentless rhythm of a juggernaut. The acting is first-rate American realism -- gutsy, funny and scary as the occasion demands. [09 June 1986, p.79]
    • Newsweek
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Manny & Lo
    In her starched nurse's uniform, shuffling around with a bicycle chain for leg irons, Place would steal the movie if the youngsters weren't so impossibly perfect. [05 Aug 1996, p.73]
    • Newsweek
  20. Running on Empty
    Improbable as some of the plot may be, Lumet's movie -- directed with artful simplicity -- strikes powerful emotional chords. Running on Empty also happens to be the year's best teen romance: quirky Lorna (Martha Plimpton), in stubborn rebellion against her family's Wasp propriety, is a delightfully real teenager. [03 Oct 1988, p.57]
    • Newsweek
  21. Over the Edge
    Over the Edge is a rabble-rouser--and a good, tough, darkly funny movie to boot. [28 Dec 1981, p.65]
    • Newsweek
  22. The Door in the Floor
    This hothouse tale of grief, sex and betrayal is told with a cool detachment that renders it commendably unsentimental--and slightly remote.
  23. Stir of Echoes
    The movie tries too hard. Too bad. This coulda been a contender.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fahrenheit 9/11
    That's the real problem with Fahrenheit 9/11: not the message, but the method… Moore’s default mode is overkill: he even notes that on the night before the attacks Bush slept on "fine French linen." Surely scratchy muslin wouldn't have stopped the evildoers.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    An Ideal Husband
    Beautifully appointed, fairly bursting with splendid sets and divine costumes, but it ultimately fails to capture the essence of Wilde's airy wit.
  26. Blaze
    A tale this outrageous would seem to demand a more freewheeling style, but Shelton never really lest his hair down. His movie peaks too early: it feels over when Long loses the gubernatorial election; the last half hour seems redundant. But if Blaze isn't quite the movie it could have been, it's much too good a tale to pass up. [18 Dec 1989, p.68]
    • Newsweek
  27. Charlie Wilson's War
    Of course, hanging over this ironic tale is the deeper historical irony--that many of the "good guy" rebels Charlie is funding (and we're cheering) will become our mortal enemies...It's as if "Titanic" ended with a celebratory shipboard banquet, followed by a postscript: by the way, it sank.
  28. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
    A one joke movie? Perhaps, but it's such an engaging joke that anyone who loves old movies will find it irresistible. And anyone who loves Steve Martin will be fascinated by his sly performance, which is pitched exactly between the low comedy of The Jerk and the highbrow Brechtianisms of Pennies From Heaven. [24 May 1982, p.85]
    • Newsweek
  29. Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
    Ambitious, unsettling, funny and perhaps too smart for its own good. With so much on its satirical agenda, it tends to spin out of orbit. [9 Nov 1987]
    • Newsweek
  30. My Bodyguard
    Tony Bill's first film as a director has moments of genuine charm and humor, it doesn't overinflate the adolescent agonies of its 15-year-old hero, Clifford Peache (Chris Makepeace), and it has a nice feel for the indignities and intimidations of a boy's high-school life. But it rings true only when it stays in the classrooms and hallways of the Chicago public school to which Clifford has just been transferred. When it follows him home to the posh hotel where he lives with his father (Martin Mull) and his grandmother (Ruth Gordon), My Bodyguard suddenly feels like a pilot for a bad sitcom. [25 Aug 1980, p.74]
    • Newsweek
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »