Philadelphia Inquirer's Scores

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For 4,176 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 70% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 27% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Hell or High Water
Lowest review score: 0 The Mangler
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,145 out of 4176
  2. Mixed: 682 out of 4176
  3. Negative: 349 out of 4176
4176 movie reviews
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  1. Sabrina
    Ford plays Linus as a consummate actor so good at feigning emotions that he fools even himself. It is a nuanced performance, astonishing in an otherwise innocuous film. Though Ormond's Sabrina doesn't exactly generate the heat to melt Ford's glacial CEO, his transformation from polar ice cap to volcano is heartstopping. Who'da thunk we were watching Cinderfella? [15 Dec 1995, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  2. Wolf Totem
    Wolf Totem has some of the most exciting, mind-blowing scenes of nature I've ever seen.
  3. Eat Drink Man Woman
    A sort of full-course Father of the Bride, Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman is tender without being mushy, sweet without being syrupy - and surprising in ways that can only make you smile. [17 Aug 1994, p.E01]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  4. Shame
    McQueen finds the exquisite tension between the brother wanting to disconnect and the sister longing for connection. To paraphrase a line of Sissy's, it's a good movie that comes from a bad place.
  5. Ballast
    What this unclassifiable story may lack in decibels, it has in emotional depth. At once a mystery, a family drama, a snapshot of children at risk, Ballast is an unusually perceptive character study more eloquent in action than in dialogue.
  6. Nowhere Boy
    Taylor-Wood stresses the universals rather than the specifics of John's youth. So don't go expecting a Fab Four origin story. The word Beatles is never uttered. But do go.
  7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    Goblet of Fire, fourth in the fantasy franchise, is the most fun and the most fraught with conflict.
  8. Prisoners
    A devastating psychological thriller, Prisoners pulls us deep into our worst fear: the Amber Alert. Then it holds us under.
  9. Ondine
    Pretty magical.
  10. The Secret in Their Eyes
    Although The Secret in Their Eyes has neither the power, the artistry, nor the electric energy of its fellow Oscar nominee, France's "A Prophet," the Argentine film nonetheless engages with style, suspense, and seriousness of intent. Criminal intent and otherwise.
  11. I Am a Sex Addict
    Although there's nothing funny about addiction, Zahedi - a thin, bug-eyed fellow with the air of an R. Crumb sad sack - brings wit and self-deprecation to his tale of obsession and woe.
  12. Invincible
    Core, a cinematographer who helms both camera and directorial duties here, creates a vivid sense of time and place without letting the period music, clothes or art direction intrude. The performances are likewise understated and unpretentious, especially those of Wahlberg and Kinnear.
  13. I Don't Know How She Does It
    In describing the conflict of a woman who has it all without enjoying it all, Pearson's book had teeth. McKenna's screenplay has only a smile. But is it ever good to laugh.
  14. 21
    21 makes for some slick escapist fantasy. Even if, and because, the fantasy has its roots in something real.
  15. Quartet
    And that, in the end, is what Quartet is about: determined engagement, embracing music and theater and the arts, and embracing the friends and loved ones you have around you.
  16. Black Sea
    With creepy sound effects (thuds and clangs and groans, oh my) and a mounting - make that sinking - sense of dread, Black Sea is at once fist-clenchingly suspenseful and, well, dull.
  17. (500) Days of Summer
    Deschanel does what she does seemingly without effort, managing to convey Summer's mixed-up messed-upness.
  18. Rabbit Hole
    Wrenching, poignant, and quietly healing.
  19. The Bourne Legacy
    It's smart, it's exhilarating, and Gilroy's depiction of a high-tech world where our every move is captured by surveillance cams and Big Brother-types deploying the latest spyware feels authentic, and troubling.
  20. Lawless
    A story of entrepreneurship, of family, of fighting for one's rights - the right to make white lightning, and money. It's as American as apple pie.
  21. Tropic Thunder
    Raunchy, raucous and riotously funny.
  22. Creation
    Jon Amiel's moody, and strangely moving, vignette of the naturalist is something else entirely. It is more about Darwin, father and husband, than Darwin the scientist.
  23. The Aviator
    Scorsese's most accomplished, most disciplined movie since GoodFellas. His most gorgeous, too, with the peaches'n'strawberries'n'cream palette of early Technicolor films.
  24. Snow White and the Huntsman
    A surprisingly fine, fantastic movie it is.
  25. Killer Joe
    Killer Joe is twisted pulp, and the actors chew on it bravely, boldly, and with varying degrees of success.
  26. The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best
    Deadpan and a bit dopey, Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best has a shaggy charm, and the chemistry between the tuneful twosome's would-be Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty makes up for the inevitable rock-and-roll road movie cliches.
  27. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
    Worthy of mention is Carolina Herrera's design for Bella's wedding dress, sophisticated and demure in the front and Pippa Middleton sexy, and proper, in the back.
  28. Adult Beginners
    Byrne and Kroll are the reasons to see Adult Beginners. The story itself feels truncated, like there are bits missing that we should see, ambling along.
  29. Sidewalks of New York
    Burns' movie shows a Woody.esque affection for a certain slice of New York and its denizens (with the angst and neuroses quieted down a notch or two).
  30. ABCD
    Involving study of sibling and interpersonal relationships.
  31. Shoot 'Em Up
    For sheer audacity and adrenaline-fueled carnage, Shoot 'Em Up hits its target pretty much dead on.
  32. Freakonomics
    Freakonomics is uneven, and even a little cloying, but its sum effect isn't bad.
  33. Made in Dagenham
    To the extent that this mostly sunny excursion succeeds, it's due to the irrepressible Hawkins.
  34. Equity
    An intensely intelligent, well-written, and mature exploration of the unwritten rules women have to follow if they want to succeed in high finance.
  35. Bellflower
    Bellflower has plenty of rough edges and it suffers from a bad case of hipper-than-thou-ness. But it's a triumph.
  36. Margot at the Wedding
    Some call Margot a comedy. For me, it is a tragedy impaled by comic moments.
  37. The Watermelon Woman
    The Watermelon Woman is a thoughtful, charming movie that takes its audience along on a journey of self-discovery - without ever taking itself too seriously.
  38. Enter the Void
    Enter the Void inspires ambivalence. Aside from its technical brilliance, it is an experience equally sublime and infuriating, revelatory and painful, ecstatic and terrifying.
  39. Gran Torino
    For those who gripe that America doesn't make cars or movies like it used to, Clint Eastwood has two words for you: Gran Torino.
  40. When You're Strange
    Offers a worshipful but insightful portrait of the group - centered, of course, on its charismatic front man.
  41. Land of the Dead
    Oddly enough, though Land of the Dead is more clever and grand than Romero's early classics, it is not as haunting.
  42. The Princess and the Warrior
    Lacks the gimmicky hook that made "Run Lola Run" an arthouse hit, but it doesn't lack for ideas, nor for images that will sweep you up in their boldness and have the resonance of dreams.
  43. The Edge of Seventeen
    The Edge of Seventeen is funny and tragic, but most of all it feels real in the same way John Hughes movies felt real. It's not a candy-coated version of teenagedom. It's harsh, and awkward, and funny, just like being a teenager.
  44. This Is the End
    Out-of-control hilarious.
  45. Sex and Lucia
    Whatever you say about Sex and Lucía, you have to admit that it takes place at a hormonal high tide that never ebbs.
  46. Songcatcher
    Greenwald's film is filled with an infectious love for the region's songs. It could hardly be otherwise, given the level of musical talent she recruited for Songcatcher.
  47. Dreamcatcher
    A crazed symphony of the supernatural. The elements don't hang together, but Kasdan delivers real scares, and real hoots, in the midst of the mayhem and madness.
  48. Madame Satã
    Whether or not Ainouz's stylish directorial debut gets to the "real" Madame Satã is beside the point, but as a celebration of a figure who fashioned his own identity from pieces of pop culture and street poetry, from song and fashion and fury, it's memorable.
  49. Inside Man
    Lee transforms a generic cops-crooks-and-hostages scenario into a smart, sharp heist movie by the sheer force of his love for, and knowledge of, the city where he lives.
  50. 13 Going on 30
    While 13 Going on 30 is too formulaic to sustain the delicacy of emotion that gave "Big" its appeal, it has tour-de-farce moments that made screenwriters Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa's "What Women Want" such a monster hit.
  51. Mad Max: Fury Road
    George Miller's Fury Road is a hundred things at once: a biker movie, a spaghetti western, a post-apocalyptic dystopian action pic, a tale of female empowerment (The Vagina Monologues' Eve Ensler was a consultant on set), a Bosch painting made scary 3D real, a Keystone Kops screwball romp, and an auto show from hell.
  52. Tony Takitani
    Tony Takitani, fablelike and beautiful, requires a certain amount of patience, but its small, peculiar charms work their way into your soul.
  53. Z for Zachariah
    Like "Compliance," Z for Zachariah shows how terrifying and redeeming interpersonal relationships can be. We crave human contact, yet it can still destroy us, even at the end of the world.
  54. The Visitor
    At first glance Walter isn't a guy you want to spend two hours with. But by the end of the film, you don't want to see him go. Jenkins is like that: He sneaks up on you and steals your heart with light-fingered skill.
  55. Earth
    A wide-screen wildlife documentary in which the cycles of birth and death, migrations and seasons, are captured in stunning - absolutely stunning - ways.
  56. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    Watching these young men brutalize each other is troubling enough, but perhaps the film's most interesting angle is how the experiment changes more than its subjects.
  57. Bandits
    Billy Bob Thornton, wearing a succession of toupees, wigs, fake facial hair, and funny hats, and twitching more than a horse's behind, is the best reason to see Bandits.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Them!
    A first-rate horror film, of which there aren't many. [17 Jun 1954, p.19]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  59. This Film Is Not Yet Rated
    Hugely entertaining catalog of MPAA follies.
  60. Jindabyne
    Deliberately paced, with an eerie, country-ish score from the Australian singer/songwriter Paul Kelly, Jindabyne is definitely a mystery. But it's not about who killed the woman - audiences know that practically from the outset.
  61. What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?
    As a piece of filmmaking, What the Bleep isn't exactly transcendent stuff. But as an entryway into new ways of thinking about the self, the universe, and the vast infinite whatnot of whatever (you know what we mean, oh wise one), this little movie is big.
  62. The Crow
    If the arrival of The Crow - a visually dazzling and hyperkinetic action movie - is an occasion to mourn the loss of Lee, it is also ample reason to celebrate the protean gifts of its director, Alex Proyas.
  63. The Client
    In effect, The Client is a clever and pliant variation on the classic Hitchcock situation that puts a kid, instead of an adult, between the authorities and villainous criminals.
  64. The Tailor of Panama
    Forget the end and there is much to enjoy here.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  65. Starred Up
    The raw emotions on display need no translation. David Mackenzie directs the film in a piercingly realistic style. His ingenious decision to forgo a score makes Starred Up even more immersive, because all you hear is the dehumanizing din of prison.
  66. The Dead Girl
    A challenging film populated with characters who are depressed, on antidepressants, or strung out on mood-altering drugs, The Dead Girl is a downer with resonance.
  67. Populaire
    Populaire plays like a musical - you expect anyone, at any time, to break into song.
  68. Happenstance
    Mild but engaging romance.
  69. Drive Me Crazy
    Buoyed by the appealing Hart and Grenier.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  70. Remember the Titans
    A conventional, button-pushing but emotionally affecting tale.
  71. Noise
    A satisfyingly screwy New York story.
  72. Love Actually
    At times soppy, sentimental and shamelessly romantic, at other moments bursting with clever barbs -- and now and then zooming in on something telling and poignant -- Love Actually is just about impossible to dislike.
  73. The Maid
    Silva expertly maintains the tension, asking the audience to interpret Raquel's bizarro behavior. His diagnosis is a pleasant surprise.
  74. Closer
    Closer, in the end, lacks a certain heft. The language and the actions of the characters are brutal and devastating. The movie itself, a little too nice.
  75. Jurassic World
    Jurassic World, like its genomed nemesis, is bigger, and it is pretty scary. But it's not nearly as cool, or as smart, as "Jurassic Park."
  76. Monster's Ball
    Hate, love, bigotry, empathy and chance are the uninvited guests at Monster's Ball.
  77. Digging for Fire
    Digging for Fire, like last year's "Happy Christmas" (also with Kendrick) and 2013's "Drinking Buddies" (with Johnson and Kendrick), is not a film for fans of taut, crafted dialogue and definitive endings. Conversations drift and weave, as do the people having them. Narcissistic melancholy dukes it out with beer-and-pot-stoked merriment. There is longing. There is foolhardiness.
  78. Charlotte's Web
    A perfectly lovely, if uninspired, movie that suffers from following on the trotters of "Babe," the one about the piglet advocate of barnyard brotherhood.
  79. Arrival
    With its icy symphonic score (courtesy of Iceland’s Johan Johansson) and a palette of rainy-day colors, Arrival is at once majestic and melancholy. It’s a grand endeavor, and Adams, at the center of it all, brings pluck and smarts and a deep-seated sorrow to her role. This is her movie, no doubt.
  80. The Switch
    By turns rowdy and rueful, The Switch is a comedy with serious ramifications, not least of which is the question, what makes a family?
  81. The Orphanage
    Bayona's moves are deft, the atmosphere oozes with anxiety and grief, but the big payoff - like the big payoff in The Sixth Sense, another film The Orphanage has more than a bit in common with - never comes.
  82. Stone
    I was with the movie until its head-scratcher of an ending, too oblique for its own good.
  83. Daybreakers
    While the characters are B-movie thin, the dialogue standard-issue, and the CG and matte effects only passable at best, it's undeniable fun to behold the likes of serious thespians Hawke and Dafoe slumming around in this cheeseball stuff.
  84. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    Fans of Brooks and his wry, dry neuroticism will not be disappointed as he whines and whimpers around New Delhi.
  85. The Matrix Reloaded
    All of the elements that made The Matrix a mass-cult phenom -- breathtaking physical gymnastics wedded to the brain-cramping mental and spiritual kind -- resurface in Reloaded.
  86. Nanny McPhee Returns
    At its best, Nanny McPhee Returns has the playful surrealism of "Babe," if "Babe" had been directed by Terry Gilliam.
  87. Calendar Girls
    The story hooks us because stars Helen Mirren and Julie Walters look as fetching in woolens and Wellingtons as they do in the altogether. But it reels us in because it is about people who for so long have paid lip service to making a difference that they are profoundly altered when they actually do.
  88. Muppet Treasure Island
    All Muppet capers, whether they involve low comedy or high seas, require the romantic conflict of Kermit and Piggy. Fortunately, the frog and the pig are worth waiting for. And like all great thespians, they leave you wanting more. [16 Feb 1996, p.3]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  89. Mad Hot Ballroom
    A crowd-pleaser of immense proportions.
  90. Hysteria
    Hysteria is a romantic comedy, not an erotic one.
  91. Tomboy
    Beautifully photographed by Crystel Fournier, Sciamma's film has a floaty weightlessness (as opposed to the heavyosity of "Boys Don't Cry") that neither judges nor pathologizes Laure.
  92. The Manchurian Candidate
    Sure, there are holes in The Manchurian Candidate, and tenuous coincidences and too-convenient plot devices. But Washington, Schreiber, Streep and company - and Demme - have managed to make all the malevolent machinations seem relevant again.
  93. The Ballad of Jack and Rose
    A gut-punch of a movie, a potent, mesmerizing drama.
  94. Writer of O
    The real reason to see this slight but interesting documentary is to watch and listen to the radiant Aury.
  95. Spring Forward
    A little gem that's everything a fine independent film used to be.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  96. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
    A jubilee for McDormand and jolly good fun for most everyone else.
  97. Brideshead Revisited
    The film is plush and passionate and graced with elegant performances. Best is that of Emma Thompson as Brideshead's matriarch, Lady Marchmain, who resembles a cross between Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict.
  98. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
    If all this sounds like too much whimsy to bear, be forwarned. There is whimsy everywhere.
  99. Billy Elliot
    One of those movies where it's impossible not to find yourself cheering for the scruffy underdog hero.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  100. Me Without You
    A chick movie? Well, yes, but it's a whole lot cooler than that one with the "Ya-Ya's" in the title.
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