Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 2,243 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 60% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Young Frankenstein
Lowest review score: 7 Reagan
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,591 out of 2243
  2. Mixed: 515 out of 2243
  3. Negative: 137 out of 2243
2243 movie reviews
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  1. Mister Organ
    Mister Organ is a remarkable film: A comedic horror of a documentary, a simple piece of investigative journalism descending into madness and a spotlight on the human spirit’s capacity for darkness.
  2. Carter
    I’ve seen a lot of good movies this year, but Carter is a challenger to Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere All at Once for “Most Fun.” It’s also easily the most violent and visceral, on par at least with The Northman, but at a higher rate of corpses-per-minute.
  3. La Llorona
    Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamente posits that when the national narrative refuses to recognize the atrocities its own country committed against an entire ethnic group, weaponizing popular legends in order to convey horrifying reality is perhaps the most effective rallying cry—alongside the anguished wails of a tortured mother.
  4. Top Gun: Maverick
    Kosinski’s dogfights are pristine, incredible feats of filmmaking, economical and orbiting around recognizable space, but given to occasional, inexplicable shocks of pure chaos. Then quickly cohering again.
  5. Black Panther
    Black Panther might be the first MCU film that could claim to most clearly be an expression of a particular director’s voice.
  6. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    This is a film that’s proudly impertinent but also deeply morally serious. And even if Three Billboards doesn’t always hold together, that’s appropriate for its anxious characters who are, themselves, a little unsteady.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Alcarràs
    Simón’s first feature film, Summer 1993, was praised for her seamless blending of real life and fiction, crafting a sense of earned authenticity. Alcarràs accomplishes something similar.
  8. Menashe
    The result is a sharp, moving dissection of personal identity and self-agency.
  9. Bruiser
    Warren’s craftsmanship keeps the audience from swallowing a breath. He’s a merciless filmmaker, deeply considerate of his choices in staging and casting.
  10. Where the Devil Roams
    The payoff is grand, as a macabre exercise and a moving gut punch.
  11. Predators
    Where Predators becomes fascinating as a documentary is not in its rise-and-fall accounting of the titular series, however, but in the way it examines the evolution of empathy or vindictiveness in those who have been touched by abuse and tragedy.
  12. Silver Dollar Road
    Some documentaries would be better off as written journalism. Silver Dollar Road complements Presser’s work with Peck’s erudition and humane touch.
  13. The Inventor
    Thankfully, 2023 continues to be a banner year for animation of all kinds, with The Inventor proving that its traditional techniques of animation—done with such skill, heart and passion—are just as timeless as the man who inspired their use here.
  14. Mamacruz
    A vibrant and lovely character study, Mamacruz makes the most of its horny matriarch.
  15. John Wick
    The blood-slicked, vividly drawn film universe John Wick illustrates is such a generous slice of pulp that, even if not original, per se, it exudes a confidence rarely seen these days, surefire franchises be damned.
  16. Twinless
    Sweeney’s film, his second high-achieving, high-wire act in a row, lives on the line between yearning and helpless fixation.
  17. The Death of Dick Long
    The Death of Dick Long’s central miracle is that, disgusting as its big reveal is, Scheinert’s direction is fundamentally compassionate.
  18. Happening
    Racked with emotional tension and visceral turmoil, it paints a painful portrait of how women have suffered—and will, sadly, continue to suffer—for the ability to make their own precious choices.
  19. Sea of Shadows
    Ladkani’s camerawork is agile and sleek, and the editing is super-sound, so even with a complicated web of crime, corruption, socioeconomic tension, multiple languages, blurred-out faces and folks who operate in the dark, it’s easy to follow.
  20. The New Boy
    Gorgeously shot and intellectually/emotionally provoking, the film tantalizes with transcendent revelations but is simultaneously unbalanced in how it approaches its characters and minimalist storytelling.
  21. Italian Studies
    It’s an odd sort of travelogue Leon and Kirby curate here, but Italian Studies’ drifting, artsy peculiarities make 70 minutes fly by with a palliative affection—for Alina, for New York and for all the intersecting stories contained within its bounds.
  22. Air
    It’s a wholly relatable and surprisingly sharp tale of grandiose risk-taking and myth-making.
  23. Wendell & Wild
    Wendell & Wild could get weighed down by these heavy themes, but its combination of satire and silliness keeps it light on its feet.
  24. The Pirates of Somalia
    Even Bahadur’s stupid voiceover writing becomes funnier over time as we realize the clichés and groaners only serve to show what an ultimately lame writer Bahadur was—that it was his bravery, stubbornness, hope, inquisitiveness and stupidity that made him great.
  25. Aftersun
    In its gentle, modest way, Aftersun might well break your heart.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Fairyland
    Though the threat of tragedy hangs over Fairyland, it never diminishes the film’s emotional weight. As a viewer, you carry a heavy heart that knows where the story is likely heading, yet some part of you still hopes a miracle might intervene.
  27. Modest Heroes: Ponoc Short Films Theatre, Volume 1
    Modest Heroes is a satisfying sophomore effort from Studio Ponoc, a collection of shorts that, together, resonate with the sentiment of that most joyous and courageous of adages made famous by the likes of Rod Serling: “...there’s nothing mightier than the meek.”
  28. The League
    What Pollard pulls from his subjects is ease of storytelling; even at an hour and forty minutes, the film keeps a lively pace, and for all of the work’s academic value, it’s endlessly, almost effortlessly engaging.
  29. Wojnarowicz
    Overall, however, the viewer gets an essential introduction to Wojnarowicz—enough to foster a desire to look more deeply into his own, numerous written accounts of his life, and to examine their own upholdings of moral decency in art, sex and access to an unencumbered life.
  30. Amanda
    Cavalli’s directorial eye is as strong as her writer’s wit, a combination that makes for an unusually assured debut.
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