Philadelphia Daily News' Scores

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For 363 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 52% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 The Last Days
Lowest review score: 25 The Happytime Murders
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 258 out of 363
  2. Mixed: 78 out of 363
  3. Negative: 27 out of 363
363 movie reviews
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  1. It: Chapter Two
    Your fear that the movie will never end is the most palpable fear offered by Chapter Two, which substitutes spectacle for the creeping, escalating dread the story is meant to have, and that the first movie had in modest amounts.
  2. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
    Linklater is a naturally empathetic filmmaker, and you can feel him trying to find something he can latch onto in the Desperate Housewives cat-fighting that dominates the movie in the early going. He’s helped ultimately by the story, and by the performances of Blanchett and Wiig, who are given room to embellish their characters and relationships.
  3. The Dead Don't Die
    Jarmusch, in his droll way, both celebrates and subverts the familiar elements of the genre.
  4. Late Night
    The movie mainly rides on the chemistry and charm of its two leads, and writer Kaling has given Thompson a substantial character to play.
  5. Shaft
    The plot particulars are flimsy and laughable by design — this Shaft has been put together by folks with an instinct for comedy.
  6. Plus One
    Developments give Erskine a chance to play hurt and wounded, and she handles this as beautifully as she does the light comedy. She’s the plus in Plus One.
  7. Men in Black: International
    No neuralizers needed for Men In Black: International — you’ll forget you’ve seen it not long after walking out.
  8. Dark Phoenix
    Dark Phoenix has a cast of lame-duck actors wearing expressions that say, “Check, please,” and the movie has the kind of knotty, suspenseless plotting that makes the veins in your head throb.
  9. Aladdin
    In some ways the movie’s crazy fictions suit today’s modern mash-up sensibilities, and its cast reflects the patterns of modern migration that are creating a whole new world.
  10. Booksmart
    The movie clicks, and given the sorry state of movie comedy, its ability to be consistently funny stands out. It is expertly, briskly paced — shout out to the judicious and effective editing of Jamie Gross.
  11. Brightburn
    The only creepy things about Brightburn, though, are its labored, derivative narrative, its giddy sadism (it gets off on Brandon’s adolescent power trip, and expects its audience to do the same), and its cynical built-in branding.
  12. Trial by Fire
    A tweak toward conventional drama might have added to the movie’s impact, but it’s scrupulous and straightforward.
  13. Shadow
    The movie is romantic and sexy, and its exploration of the masculine and feminine (fire and water, yin and yang) is inventive and playful.
  14. The Biggest Little Farm
    Often fascinating, and sometimes even moving. There are lessons here about the cycle of life that can only be driven home by the real, random, and sometimes cruel dictates of fate.
  15. The Sun Is Also a Star
    Much rides on the actors’ ability to connect as they brush aside the obvious credibility obstacles, and the movie’s pop genericism doesn’t help — half the movie’s running time feels like it’s a pop music montage of the fetching young couple kissing, nuzzling, holding hands, so it often feels less like an ad for Invisaline.
  16. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    The goal for director Stahelski is escalating violence and bloody chaos, pushed to the point of the preposterous and beyond.
  17. Wine Country
    The movie is at its best when the women are focused on the common enemy: getting older.
  18. Pokémon Detective Pikachu
    Not long into Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, it becomes clear that the movie is never going to make what you might call sense.
  19. Tolkien
    Yes, Tolkien is a little on-the-nose. But there is also an undeniable appeal to the life-art allusions that drive this earnest movie, which is handsomely mounted, well-cast, and well-acted.
  20. The Hustle
    Wilson and Hathaway don’t click. The characters feel as if they were workshopped separately, and efforts to combine their comic energy on screen fall flat.
  21. The Intruder
    If HGTV and Lifetime had a TV channel baby, it would produce movies like The Intruder.
  22. Long Shot
    This is an intriguingly weird, gender inversion of the Cinderella fantasy at the root of Pretty Woman.
  23. Knock Down the House
    Their personal stories are just as interesting, and taken together, they add insight into our nation’s unusual political moment, equal parts instability and possibility.
  24. Avengers: Endgame
    I wasn’t sure, after the tedium of Infinity War, that Marvel could wrap this up in a satisfying way. Turns out, it was a snap.
  25. Peterloo
    It’s a movie touching on labor issues that some may find a bit labored, but for the patient viewer there are insights — Leigh is giving us a history lesson that makes some pointed nods toward the current Brexit debate.
  26. Fast Color
    Fast Color is disciplined and restrained, yet feels a few tweaks away from being the rousing origin story it aspires to be.
  27. Missing Link
    Result[s] in pleasant but forgettable results.
  28. High Life
    High Life has the trippy profundity of 2001, the human treachery of Aliens, and it also includes an Orgasmatron.
  29. Master Z: Ip Man Legacy
    Yeoh’s fantastic as usual, making an impressive series of moves while not disturbing a single hair on her period Joey Heatherton hairdo.
  30. Little
    The idea that “little” Jordan’s response to attractive older men is guided by her inner adult yields some creepy-funny laughs that many will find mostly creepy.
  31. Pet Sematary
    The direction by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, is competent and efficient, if not especially stylish or ambitious, and the squeamish should know the movie is backloaded with stabby, graphic, slasher-movie content.
  32. Diane
    Pulling us through all of it is Place, who imbues her character with a touching persistence, and gives striking depth and dimension to this “regular” woman, who used to be a regular.
  33. Shazam!
    The movie itself is chill. The filmmakers were going for (and mostly achieve) the 1980s Amblin Entertainment feel of a movie out to have an unpretentious good time — a welcome throwback to days before comic books movies became gargantuan and grim.
  34. Hotel Mumbai
    Hotel Mumbai sometimes surrenders to melodrama and action-genre imperatives, and it mixes actual people like Oberoi with fictional composites in a way that strays from the stringent just-the-facts discipline of a docudrama like United 93. But there is value, too, in its subjective approach.
  35. The Mustang
    The small miracles that do occur in The Mustang feel real, and well–earned.
  36. The Aftermath
    As Knightley and Skarsgard wrestle with this material and each other, the movie around them goes plot crazy.
  37. Dumbo
    This movie has nearly as high a body count as "Us"...Is this satire? Homage? More like the desperation of a director who’s supplanted “vision” for emotion. The story leaves Dumbo without meaningful links to the human characters, and the scattered story of Farrell’s cohering family falls flat.
  38. Gloria Bell
    The title character in Gloria Bell is a fiftysomething divorcée, and the movie is uncommonly generous to her by the sometimes standards of contemporary Hollywood.
  39. The Hummingbird Project
    Though mired in arcane subject matter, the movie is always lucid and reasonably engaging.
  40. Us
    What Peele conjures here in the final moments is clever enough to remind us that he was telling an intricate story all along, and not just piling up bodies.
  41. Yardie
    In the end, a coherent tone eludes Elba, but he shows promise as a scene-setter, and the movie displays an effective use of color.
  42. Five Feet Apart
    The movie is actually not bad, until it goes full Lifetime Channel crazy in the third act.
  43. Finding Steve McQueen
    Though fact-based movies are often guilty of bending truth to improve a story, Finding Steve McQueen goes in the other direction, downplaying strange-but-true elements that might have helped its saggy narrative.
  44. Climax
    I wonder if Noe is familiar with the work of Three Dog Night, and their 1970 rumination on a party gone bad, “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” Its lyrics apply here: “I’ve seen so many things I ain’t never seen before. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t want to see no more.”
  45. Captain Marvel
    Years from now, chances are that when people sit around and talk enthusiastically about that movie with Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson, the subject is most likely to be Kong: Skull Island.
  46. Triple Frontier
    Though it’s been many years in development, it remains a timely look at the dangers of our increasingly outsourced, privatized military-intelligence network.
  47. Greta
    Neil Jordan gives us a fancier version of the Lifetime staple in Greta.
  48. Fighting with My Family
    It’s easy enough to guess where this is going, but the movie gets the details right, and the relationships play out in a satisfying way, aided by Merchant’s consistently funny writing and light touch.
  49. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
    The movie really soars when the dragons do the same — as in previous installments, the best shots are of dragons maneuvering through the clouds.
  50. Alita: Battle Angel
    It’s a story with too many influences, no cohesion, no apparent narrative purpose.
  51. Isn't It Romantic
    In conceptual terms, the movie has more in common with Scream, in that it’s an examination of genre clichés (in this case romantic comedies) that both satirizes and embraces them.
  52. Capernaum
    The acting is fine throughout, and director Labaki (she plays Zain's lawyer) has a genius for handling untutored performers like Al Rafeea.
  53. They Shall Not Grow Old
    They Shall Not Grow Old avoids geopolitics to concentrate on the lives of the common soldier and the reality of trenches — the horseplay, camaraderie, boredom, disease, squalor, and terror that were all part of life on the front. It’s a sobering, moving success.
  54. Miss Bala
    The remake, directed by Twilight’s Catherine Hardwicke, makes substantial changes — taking the bare bones of the story and turning into a sort action-fable about female empowerment, starring Jane the Virgin headliner Gina Rodriguez.
  55. Cold War
    Cold War, a love story about music and musicians, is for people who found A Star Is Born way too cheerful and optimistic. It’s pretty downbeat, but it’s also another black-and-white (subtitled) marvel from Pawel Pawlikowski.
  56. Glass
    There is a lot of plot in those final minutes, and don’t bother trying to outguess the magician. He pulls a rabbit out of a hat, just to distract you from the next rabbit.
  57. Stan & Ollie
    This is a funny, affectionate and surprisingly touching film.
  58. The Upside
    Even if you haven’t seen The Intouchables, you have a pretty good idea where the drama is headed. Still, The Upside nonetheless does an amiable job of taking you there, thanks to hard work by the two leads.
  59. Serenity
    The fact that it’s a Razzie contender, of course, is no reason not to see it. In fact it could be an inducement — Razzie movies can be quite fun.
  60. Destroyer
    The story circles cleverly back on itself, putting an original spin on the familiar tale of the burned-out investigator reckoning with the defining event in a checkered career.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Escape Room
    The setup may seem recyclable, but really it’s disposable.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Bohemian Rhapsody
    Bohemian Rhapsody doesn't throw itself into the tale of the band with anything approaching the abandon of the boldly unconventional 1975 smash hit that gives the movie its name. Instead, Bohemian Rhapsody plays it safe in a manner that's often cliched and always predictable — but not entirely unsatisfying.
  63. Vice
    A more nuanced Bale portrait of a man enamored of secrecy, strong-arming, militarism, and vigilante impulses can be found in The Dark Knight.
  64. Ben Is Back
    Ben is Back, operating with the flexibility of fiction, flirts with the idea that a mother’s intuition and love can be decisive, even as it acknowledges the pitiless, relentless nature of the disease. Or maybe all the movie wants to propose is that miracles — rare as they are — can happen.
  65. Welcome To Marwen
    The movie works best when it falls back on plain old acting. Merritt Wever is sweet presence as the hobby shop worker and gentle soul who understands Mark’s obsessions, and appreciates his art. Her scenes with Carell are the movie’s least technological, and its best.
  66. Aquaman
    At least Aquaman has a different palette, and new shapes to work with. It’s still ultimately silly and dreary, and will test the endurance of fans who then must withstand an even longer credit sequence to get a whiff of the next DC story wrinkle.
  67. Bathtubs Over Broadway
    The elegiac air that surfaces here and there in Bathtubs blends nicely with Young’s own final days on Late Show, reading his separation papers and wondering how to look for a job in his 50s.
  68. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    The more-is-more approach to superhero movies is usually a deadly mistake, but it works nicely in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
  69. Mortal Engines
    While the movie is often dazzling, it’s also frequently dull.
  70. Mary Queen of Scots
    Ronan is good (as usual) as the spirited and rather haughty Mary, making the most of what, to be fair, is the plum role.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Vox Lux
    It’s not an easy watch: It might be the darkest pop music movie ever made. But it largely succeeds at its main goal, which it not to entertain, but make you think.
  72. Mary Poppins Returns
    This glossy, handsomely budgeted musical deploys topflight talent throughout, from casting to choreography to songwriting to animation and modern digital effects, and though it achieves a Poppins-like level of hyper-competence, it lacks the most elusive attribute we associate with Mary — magic.
  73. Instant Family
    The foster-care comedy Instant Family has more heart than laughs, but enough of the former to squeak by.
  74. Widows
    The premise is a borderline gimmick, but director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) invests the movie with enough grit — it's set in the world of hardboiled Chicago politics — to draw us in.
  75. The Front Runner
    As played by Jackman, he's imperious, self-righteous, and humorless, and it's hard to imagine such a figure capturing the imagination of the public, policy acumen notwithstanding. The movie is better at showing Rice (Sara Paxton) as a woman trampled by the press stampede — ditto Hart's wife Lee, played elegantly by Farmiga.
  76. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
    Buster Scruggs, it seems, is about not just the Old West, but The West in a larger sense.
  77. Green Book
    Ali and Mortensen make the friendship feel real, using some unexpected tools from Farrelly's kit. His comedic instincts help the movie tiptoe through some dangerous cultural minefields.
  78. Creed II
    The movie sticks to formula, and spells everything out.
  79. Boy Erased
    Hedges is an efficient, expressive actor, and has the knack for conveying complex information with a look or a gesture, as he does here, suggesting the turmoil within his character on the night when his parents assign him to undergo therapy.
  80. A Private War
    Pike plays Colvin as selfless, but also a woman who would have pitched a drink in your face for calling her that. The movie takes Colvin's cue. At no point is her personal drama bigger than the suffering of the people on whom she is reporting, and the concluding events in Syria are particularly well-handled and tactful.
  81. Outlaw King
    Robert's relationship with Elizabeth is actually one of the film's better features – it is here that Pine's low-key charisma is put to its best use, and his chemistry with Pugh is useful in establishing the emotional foundation of their resilient marriage, which held together during the times of defeat, separation, and victory.
  82. The Price of Everything
    Kahn surveys artists, dealers, auctioneers, and gallery operators to provide a synopsis of the New York art world, and is at its most interesting when profiling artists who represent differing attitudes toward the way money affects their work.
  83. Suspiria
    The movie seems even longer – replacing Argento's splashy colors with dull, chilly greys, and lengthening the story (Argento clocked in at 96 minutes) with layers that feel over overwrought and overthought.
  84. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
    Can You Ever Forgive Me? charts the offbeat alliance and ultimately the friendship that develops between the Hock and Israel, a bond that exists somewhere between proximity and affinity.
  85. Wildlife
    It's a bold and borderline eccentric performance by Mulligan.
  86. In Search of Greatness
    Psychologists quoted in the film have a scary-sounding term for one of the ingredients found in most exceptional athletes. It's called a "rage to master."
  87. The Oath
    There are a number of movies about addiction scheduled to be released this fall, and although The Oath isn't mentioned as being among them, maybe it should be.
  88. Halloween
    Unlike with the series' other sequels, this one finally feels like it was worth the wait.
  89. The Happy Prince
    It finds the right harmonized note of melancholy and humor in its closing moments.
  90. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween
    The sheer number of monsters in the movie serves as a stand-in for its weak plot — a retread of the first film, in which Stine's monsters attack a small town in Delaware.
  91. First Man
    He's not an easy man to read, and he's not meant to be (Foy carries most of the emotional load). First Man relies on Gosling's own low-rev screen presence to hold the viewer's interest. Not until we reach the surface of the moon does the movie really venture into his head (almost literally in terms of camera point of view).
  92. The Old Man & the Gun
    It's a nice gesture that he's chosen The Old Man and the Gun as his exit vehicle, gifting fans with heaping helpings of his relaxed charm, making a nod to the Sundance Kid, and even the flimflam fun of The Sting.
  93. The Sisters Brothers
    Phoenix has a way of drawing most of the camera's energy toward him, but Reilly, in his own mysterious and quiet way, can hold his own with anyone, be it Ricky Bobby or King Kong.
  94. Bad Times at the El Royale
    Goddard provides ample space for his star-studded cast to play, often to great effect, thanks mostly to lesser-known stars like Erivo and Pullman. The production design is similarly engrossing, with the El Royale's endless corridors and secrets making it as much a character in the movie as any of its human players.
  95. Venom
    As a symbiote, Brock/Venom is sometimes funny, and for a while the movie finds a rhythm that seems to suit director Ruben Fleischer, best known for Zombieland.
  96. Private Life
    Jenkins does something daring with the story's resolution – conceptually brilliant, but you may think that it pays a small dividend on a large emotional investment.
  97. The Hate U Give
    At every turn, Starr's situation gets more nuanced and more engrossing, and in the hands of director George Tillman Jr., the movie maintains a confident, sweeping scope without every losing command, or its nerve.
  98. Colette
    We're meant to thrill at Colette's emancipation, but when she breaks it off with wild Willy and finds true love (with Denise Gough) for the first time – built on respect and honest affection — it looks dreadfully dull.
  99. A Star Is Born
    You see that Cooper has taken the frayed ends of American culture and knitted them together — male and female, urban and rural, folksy and hip, rich and poor, finding common ground through music. You see songs move through different musical idioms, and you see the power that can have, as long as people are willing to listen.
  100. Science Fair
    Sometimes these anecdotes show courageous and admirable striving, and a genuine love of science. Sometimes they show something less inspiring – the way systems can be gamed by competitors whose specialized knowledge of rules combine with tactics and strategies that give them an advantage, so what's being measured and honored is not always aptitude and innate genius.
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