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 3.3 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. Dear Mr. Brody
    What Maitland does do to separate his film from other docs that rely on that structure is weave dramatization into documentation, breathing life into the woeful stories and dashed dreams of men, women and children mailing their pleas for relief to Michael Brody Jr. at the edge of desperation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Broker
    Every baby deserves to be loved and taken care of, but so does every adult. Broker does an impressive job of articulating how these two truths are inextricably intertwined.
  3. Women Talking
    A movie like this shouldn’t be so ambivalent, much less so harsh on the eye.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. The Royal Hotel
    [Green's] new film The Royal Hotel could be summed up as Smile More: The Movie, which grounds a clash between two globe-separated cultures in old-time misogynist tropes that know no geographic borders. Like The Assistant, the movie revolves around women in the presence of atmospheric male domination. Gendered maltreatment is in the very air they breathe.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Apolonia, Apolonia
    At the beginning of Apolonia, Apolonia, Glob proclaims her goal: To create an eternal portrait of her subject, one that evokes the paintings of kings. She accomplishes this feat, leaving a dazzling record of Sokol’s life that champions and carries on her legacy as an artist.
  8. Babyteeth
    This movie is a painful, beautiful and especially true gem.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Inu-oh
    Adapted from Hideo Furukawa’s novel The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-Oh Chapters, Inu-Oh is a true evolution of an ancient artform while also emphasizing friendship, legacy and who has the right to tell the stories of the departed.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Urchin
    Urchin more than occasionally looks like and has the immediate feel of a Ken Loach film, with its long lens scenes of Dillane interacting in real locations with figures who, as in the best of Loach, could be either non-actors or performers convincingly masquerading as them.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Better Man
    Even for the uninitiated the tunes prove to be well presented and peppered in ways that drive the narrative forward, and everything from grand dance sequences to moments cuddling on a couch are done in convincing and effective ways.
  12. The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography
    It would be inaccurate to say The B-Side only scratches the surface of Dorfman, but this lovely portrait takes pains to adopt her mindset, finding the beauty that pervades an artist’s life. As a result, Morris is offering his own kind B-side—not better than the main work, but a delightful alternative take.
  13. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
    The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Past beautifully observes how the ridiculous mundanities of being alive are some of the most difficult.
  14. The Promised Land
    It all comes together to make The Promised Land a stirring historical epic that balances its grandiose framing with something surprisingly grounded and genuine. A bountiful harvest indeed.
  15. The Nightingale
    This is neither a pleasant movie nor a pleasing movie, but it is made with high aesthetic value to offset its unrelenting pitilessness: It’s fastidiously constructed, as one should expect from a director of Kent’s talent, and ferociously acted by her leading trio of Aisling Franciosi, Baykali Ganambarr and Sam Claflin.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Presence
    Penned by David Koepp, who previously wrote Soderbergh’s tight and thrilling chamber piece Kimi, Presence is a darkly comic and slow-burn genre film that presents as both a haunted house tale and an exploration of a strained family dynamic—shown entirely through the perspective of its ghost.
  17. I, Tonya
    Screenwriter Steven Rogers and director David Gillespie get an “A” for effort as far as their brave attempt to meld these wildly differing tones into a cohesive narrative, but their execution, as satisfying as it might be, too obviously reaches for a pedigree it hasn’t yet earned.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Maestro
    Cooper’s struggle to structure his stories and reign in his melodramatic tendencies flattens its successes into a somewhat lackluster, occasionally brilliant, ode to an American icon.
  19. Relic
    Relic posits that old age is not something to be reviled or worshiped, instead viewing aging as a continual process as opposed to a fearful spectre.
  20. Thelma
    Like its absentminded hero, the film can sometimes get sidetracked right when things are getting good, wandering down schmaltzy or twee narrative paths. But when it lets Thelma (and Squibb) do her thing, the comedy is perfectly cute and a stellar showcase for what an actor’s late career can offer.
  21. Love Lies Bleeding
    The tactile world Glass has crafted is just as immersive and erotic in its design as it is physically between her two lead lovers.
  22. Girls State
    A documentary that can struggle to tie its young politicos to the outside world, but thrives when tying them to each other.
  23. Suzume
    At its best, Suzume is a film that imagines modern Japan as a post-apocalyptic setting, evoking the animated beauty and “mono no aware” of pastoral iyashikei like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.
  24. Apples
    Apples’ metaphorical backbone feels malnourished, its focus ever-inclined toward careful imagery as opposed to unraveling its inherent mythos. Nonetheless, Nikou’s debut offers interesting insight into the human psyche as it relates to memory and personhood while hinting at the fractured national identity of Greece itself.
  25. A Touch of Sin
    Sadly, A Touch of Sin isn’t a movie that will have any trouble translating to other cultures. If anything, it’s upsetting how much Jia’s dark tale of murder, retribution and suicide echoes similar issues within America’s contentious class system.
  26. The Beguiled
    The discussion of what the film isn’t is a discussion worth having, just not at the expense of what the film is: Delicious, sensual, made with sterling craft and an unassumingly sharp edge.
  27. Clara Sola
    Clara Sola remains rooted in a magical realism that gracefully grapples with the patriarchal limits imposed on women’s sexual pleasure, particularly when fellow women enforce them.
  28. Changing the Game
    The sports doc finds plenty of beauty and excitement befitting its genre in its uphill battle, even if it sometimes tries to wrestle above its weight class.
  29. The Amusement Park
    There’s little here for the casual horror fan, but genre completionists will likely find something that sticks with them.
  30. Detroit
    It’s an overwhelming horror movie—maybe a little too overwhelming.
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