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 3.4 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. Candyman
    While the kills, perpetrated by a being mostly just seen in mirrors, are sometimes a bit too obfuscated by their gimmick to be viscerally satisfying, they slot in perfectly with the film’s themes and aesthetic even when they’re not dumping cascades of blood.
  2. The Last Matinee
    The Last Matinee embraces the cat-and-mouse game between the killer and those to be killed as horror’s naughty pleasure. It’s central to the genre’s function in cinema.
  3. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    The main attractions for Marvel’s Ten Ring circus are better when freed from the MCU’s captivity.
  4. Reminiscence
    A film about nostalgic escape play-acting an old-fashioned genre has plenty of meta potential to comment upon the entertainment industry’s IP obsession and monetization of arrested development. Reminiscence isn’t quite assured enough for either. Instead, it’s pulp that hasn’t been boiled hard enough, its ideas slowly replaced by machinery.
  5. The Night House
    It’s a fun flick and some may still be drawn into The Night House’s mystery, but the film—and everyone at the heart of its conception—have Hall to thank for that.
  6. Demonic
    For all of its lackluster holy leanings, Demonic still achieves an air of abject horror, aided in no small part by Ola Strandh’s electro-exorcism score. The demon’s design is also consistently terrifying, whether it is enveloped in a neon-soaked backlight or morphing into unpredictable and increasingly abominable versions of itself.
  7. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
    Rarely do anime franchises end on such a pitch perfect note, but Anno shows it is possible with Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time. After decades of grappling with what this series means to him and using it as a mechanism to process his own emotional baggage, Anno has finally found closure within his broken world full of angst and hope.
  8. Don't Breathe 2
    While Don’t Breathe 2 emulates a similar aesthetic from its predecessor and is still able to skillfully build tension, it is ultimately an incredibly disappointing film.
  9. Free Guy
    Reynolds, as ever, seems both happy to be there and faintly self-mocking about his never-ending quest for validation. A better movie could tease out of that tension, or allow its star to unravel a little, rather than just get knocked around. Free Guy is too busy mashing buttons.
  10. Days
    Two lives connecting across the wasteland of modernity can be among the rarest and richest parts of our days on this planet. When Tsai makes those connections, all too briefly, it’s indelibly moving.
  11. CODA
    By the time the movie reaches its poignant, beautiful conclusion, I defy anyone to have a dry eye. CODA is about letting go and letting your loved ones soar.
  12. Ema
    Ostensibly, Ema revels in the pulling down of walls, insistent on stripping away the artifice of civility and systemic conservatism.
  13. Bleed with Me
    The small cast, capsule setting and slow-burning yet scintillating story are efficacious in their sparse simplicity, leaving ample room for carefully crafted ambiance and performances to arrest the viewer with mounting dread and anticipation.
  14. Raging Fire
    Despite a few moments of heightened bliss that remind us what kind of talent it has in front of the camera (and the operatic possibilities of Hong Kong action), Raging Fire’s dull discussion of policing never lights a fire.
  15. Swan Song
    Concerning itself with death and history, Swan Song asks for an assured hand, but gets an ambitious assistant’s—one whose scrutiny and interest in the assortment of ideas within the work dithers, but whose ideas are nonetheless present if left only simmering.
  16. Val
    As can be said of its real-life subject, Val is moving, inspiring, funny and fractured. It’s a look at the man and an expansion of the myth, revealing just as much as it continues to obscure.
  17. Vivo
    Part adventure, part wistful romance—alongside some nice lessons imparted about friendship, family and taking risks—Vivo is enjoyable and familiar.
  18. Annette
    Like the rest of Annette, the dry humor isn’t funny enough to fully sustain its cool-kid commentary and the filmmaking is never grand enough to fully sell the caricature.
  19. John and the Hole
    A completely detached exercise in bewilderment that’s enigmatic nature comes off less Lynchian and more “unfinished scriptian,” director Pascual Sisto’s feature debut aims for intrigue but settles comfortably in mediocrity.
  20. Pray Away
    Despite its important subject and impressive access, the surprisingly surface-level film doesn’t have much to say.
  21. The Green Knight
    David Lowery’s The Green Knight is a modern reckoning with a medieval fable. It’s a haunting, confounding, surprisingly erotic fantasy epic; a confrontation between man and nature, nature and religion, man and himself.
  22. Nine Days
    Nine Days marks Oda as one of our most exciting new directors, a filmmaker possessing an innovative cinematic mind with a heart to match.
  23. The Boy Behind the Door
    The power of friendship is what keeps the heart of this film pumping fresh blood until the very end.
  24. The Suicide Squad
    Gunn and crew have made that vibe, alternating between inventive and bloody battle and ballbusting hang-out sesh, their delightful spandex hallmark—and The Suicide Squad’s intensification of it from the GotG films feels like it’s been let loose on a particularly rowdy vacation.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 21 Critic Score
    Stillwater
    As the film trickles toward its howler of a conclusion, any hopes McCarthy might somehow salvage this story evaporate. Stillwater sinks like a stone.
  26. Jungle Cruise
    Director Jaume Collet-Serra and his fully crewed vessel of writers never sink all the way to the bottom, but the very best they accomplish is keeping their heads above water.
  27. Jolt
    Jolt’s generic results are so far removed from its high-concept electrical premise that you have to wonder: Watt the hell happened?
  28. Old
    Old is not Shyamalan’s best film, nor is it the best film so far this summer, but it’s both a chilling summer escape and an empathetic reminder that other people are working against us as just as quickly as time, when all we have in our time left is each other.
  29. Mandibles
    Though Dupieux’s films have never shied away from violence and destruction, Mandibles preserves the filmmaker’s penchant for perplexity while asserting that life is a glorious thing—even in its distasteful weirdness.
  30. Kandisha
    Despite achieving formidable scares and clever callbacks to the filmmakers’ debut Inside, a sinister specter of clumsy cultural engagement lingers in Kandisha.
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