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. Midsommar
    Like a particularly bad trip, Midsommar bristles with the subcutaneous need to escape, with the dread that one is trapped. In this community in the middle of nowhere, in this strange culture, in this life, in your body and its existential pain: Aster imprisons us so that when the release comes, it’s as if one’s insides are emptying cataclysmically. In the moment, it’s an assault. It’s astounding.
  2. Annabelle Comes Home
    This isn’t a movie in search of a greater meaning. It just needs to be entertaining. But it does both, and better still, it bothers to be creative.
  3. Toy Story 4
    The first thing to note about Toy Story 4 is that it is extremely funny: I’d argue it’s the most consistently comedic of the entire series
  4. Late Night
    Director Nisha Ganatra, who also comes from TV, doesn’t really create a cinematic experience that begs to be seen on the big screen, but treats the characters and the setting with enough depth to breathe life into an otherwise tired project.
  5. The Dead Don't Die
    The movie doesn’t drag, but it’s a major drag all the same.
  6. Men in Black: International
    It turns out, after the third attempt to recapture the magic of the first film, that the Men in Black universe is not a particularly compelling one after all. Probably time to move onto something else. They’re all tapped out here.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    I Am Mother
    I Am Mother offers just enough of a twist on an old futuristic tale to be enjoyable, and its small cast buoys the film above most small-budget sci-fi.
  8. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
    At nearly two-and-a-half hours, Rolling Thunder Revue is overlong but also overpowering, inconclusive yet undeniably stirring. It left me exhausted, but I kinda want to see it again.
  9. Dark Phoenix
    Dark Phoenix was always destined to fail. Limiting the sprawling story to one main arc severely debilitates the original’s emotional resonance, but avoiding Apocalypse’s swollen plot and stakes-less character narratives means reigning in an essentially big saga and cutting all of its awe down to some rote CGI. To make this work in one movie is to deny the essence of the source text.
  10. The Perfection
    At its best, The Perfection is an homage to 1970s horror movies and 1980s thrillers, a glorious, multi-hewed mind screw.
  11. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
    Juxtaposing human-sized drama against classic Toho iconography and one jaw-dropping silhouette after another, King of the Monsters is often more magnificently overwhelming than not.
  12. Aladdin
    With music that breathes new life to beloved songs with an emphasis on percussion and horns, and production designer Gemma Jackson’s luscious world building that borrows from various Middle-Eastern cultures as added pedigree, Aladdin is the rare remake that actually gives us a whole new world.
  13. For the Birds
    Artistically, For the Birds is admittedly not groundbreaking. It’s rustic and basic and in some instances a bit muddled. At times it lacks a cogent forward thrust. But it illuminates something we might not think about very much, which is what is actually going on in the mind of a hoarder, and how the pathology of such a person ramifies on other people (and animals).
  14. Asako I & II
    Asako I & II is an easygoing movie, at least if the film’s exterior is taken at its words. Under the hood, it’s roiling.
  15. Diamantino
    The sweetness of the film finds an amusing complement in its strange eroticism, itself part of the queerness of its genre mixing.
  16. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    As video games and action movies parabolically draw closer and closer to one another, John Wick 3 may be the first of its kind to figure out how to keep that comparison from being a point of shame.
  17. Pokémon Detective Pikachu
    While there ample missteps—a villain the audience doesn’t really care about, a lack of epic fights that brought the original audience to both the games and shows, and a predictable plot—the film manages to be a hell of a lot of fun, capturing the spirit of its source material as effectively as a well-aimed Poké Ball.
  18. The Souvenir
    A hushed, unassuming, intimate movie to remind audiences of the power of cinema by interrogating the definition of cinema itself.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Photograph
    It helps that this quiet film is stocked with actors who can carry the weight of their long silences, as well as a stellar supporting cast.
  20. Ask Dr. Ruth
    It’s her unstoppability, her tireless drive to see through the work she believes needs doing in the field of sexual enlightenment that gives Ask Dr. Ruth real urgency, lifting what’d be an otherwise breezy character portrait to near essential levels.
  21. Blue Is the Warmest Color
    A beautiful, wise, erotic, devastating love story, this tale of a young lesbian couple’s beginning, middle and possible end utilizes its running time to give us a full sense of two individuals growing together and apart over the course of years. It hurts like real life, yet leaves you enraptured by its power.
  22. Long Shot
    Theron wrings this so-so material for all its comedic potential. But she gets little help from her running mate.
  23. Avengers: Endgame
    Comic book fans know the thrill of following all your favorite characters through a multi-issue storyline that culminates in a “universe at stake” ending. Now, thanks to 21 movies in 11 years and one massive, satisfying three-hour finale, moviegoers do, too.
  24. Non-Fiction
    Effectively, the film feels dishonest and, in spite of surprisingly dynamic camera work, intellectually lazy. Ironically, there is enjoyment in watching Binoche and Hamzawi, whose character is rightfully unsympathetic to her schmuck of a cheating husband. Non-Fiction is at least no more clever than Unfriended: Dark Web.
  25. Body at Brighton Rock
    What makes Body at Brighton Rock such good fun is understanding where Wendy is coming from, and connecting to the very specific engine that’s fueling her fear. The movie’s truth doesn’t disappoint, because the truth is that nature plays tricks on the mind.
  26. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
    Above all else, Birdman is tender, raucously funny and deeply tragic.
  27. Thriller
    As an aspirational film with too many flaws to overlook, Thriller at best qualifies as an interesting attempt at bringing additional perspectives to horror. Given the potential of this particular niche of the horror genre, that also makes it quite the wasted opportunity.
  28. Family
    There’s some surprisingly compelling footage, played over the end credits, of real life Juggalos providing testimonials about what their community means to them, and in that a message about understanding the misunderstood.
  29. Penguins
    Ultimately, what Penguins lacks in vibranium frisbees or live-action blue genies, it more than makes up for in … well … penguins.
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