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 3.3 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. L.I.E.
    A disturbing and provocative study of adolescence and isolation.
  2. O
    Stripped of its poetry, some of the devices of the tragedy of the Moor come off here as woefully contrived.
  3. Jeepers Creepers
    A standard-issue, ineptly executed serving of the genre's staples, from skeptical cops to an all-knowing psychic.
  4. Fighter
    The film speaks to fundamental issues of history, truth, and the philosophical conflicts of humankind.
  5. Tortilla Soup
    Flavorful and fun. "Muy sabroso y divertido," as Martin might say.
  6. Together
    A mordantly funny, clear-eyed view of an extended family's mounting dysfunction in a changing society.
  7. Ghosts of Mars
    While this cheesy, heavy-metal melange of horror, space hooey and cowboy shoot-'em-ups isn't exactly dull, it isn't anything to write home about either.
  8. Happy Accidents
    Happy Accidents is romantic perversity in reverse.
  9. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
    Frisky, raunchy and frequently riotous.
  10. Summer Catch
    Fuzzy, feel-good movie about baseball, babes and believing in yourself.
  11. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
    It's not fresh and irreverent, qualities we admire in Allen. It is recycled and irrelevant.
  12. Innocence
    If there's a more passionate love story out there, then I haven't had the privilege of seeing it.
  13. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
    A handsomely staged and craftily constructed tearjerker.
  14. American Outlaws
    As a western, American Outlaws is an utter failure. As the basis of a "Mad TV" parody, it is an unintentional hoot.
  15. Rat Race
    Somnambulistic pacing, kerplunkingly unfunny jokes, and mugging thespians making fools of themselves. Truly torturous spectacle.
  16. All Over the Guy
    Davis, with a nicely turned and witty screenplay from Bucatinsky, freshens up the familiar predicament by having her two lovers recount the affair to a stranger.
  17. American Pie 2
    With the raunch quotient cranked up several notches, the sequel is calculated, cynical and, worse, not funny.
  18. Osmosis Jones
    Should you take the kids? Boys 8 to 11 are the target audience for this gross-out film. A better question might be, should they take the parents?
  19. The Others
    Beautiful to behold but lacking in any kind of palpable dread or suspense.
  20. The Deep End
    Remains rooted in the real world, which makes its story all the more satisfying -- and chilling.
  21. Audition
    Brazen shocker is never less than compelling -- even when you feel compelled to shut your eyes.
  22. Original Sin
    The lead performances are very strong -- few actors possess as much sheer physical presence as this pair -- but their dialogue is stilted, as though lost in transit from a Victorian hothouse.
  23. Under solen
    This modest drama is the art-house equivalent of comfort food: satisfying in its familiarity.
  24. Rush Hour 2
    If there's going to be a "Rush Hour 3," the filmmakers need more of the Ziyi/Sanchez women warriors to punch up the sagging cross-cultural buddy humor of the Chan-Tucker partnership.
  25. The Princess Diaries
    The extent to which The Princess Diaries succeeds is the result of how pretty Hathaway at first mimics, then internalizes, Andrews' essential majesty.
  26. Apocalypse Now Redux
    It's an occasion for welcoming a restoration that transforms a flawed movie, one that was touched by greatness, into a masterpiece. [10 Aug 2001, p.W3]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  27. Planet of the Apes
    Offers a primal vision of the primate order turned topsy-turvy. It is provocative. It is frightening. It is a mess.
  28. Bread and Tulips
    Actresses such as Maglietta are why movies were invented: You never get tired of her mercurial personality or of her infinitely compelling face.
  29. Jackpot
    Filled with bleak, beautiful Hopperesque tableaus and strange characters whose lives intersect.
  30. Greenfingers
    Between Owen's quiet intensity and Mirren's showy color, they make a complementary pair for screen or garden.
  31. Brother
    When it works, which is often, Kitano's movie is an anthropology of the distinctions between Japanese yakuza and American gangsters.
  32. America's Sweethearts
    Christopher Walken has the best moments in the whole thing, portraying the wacked-out auteur of the Gwen-and-Eddie vehicle. Sadly, he's only in America's Sweethearts a few hilarious minutes.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  33. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    This drag-queen melodrama, like its star, perseveres.
  34. Ghost World
    There's a loneliness at the heart of this world, and Ghost World, that's really touching -- and a bit scary, too.
  35. Jurassic Park III
    Has to be the sorriest excuse for a reprise since "Highlander — The Final Dimension."
  36. The Score
    A jazzy, immensely absorbing thriller.
  37. Made
    Favreau and Vaughn have chemistry to kill: comic, combative and engagingly goofball.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  38. Legally Blonde
    Smart screwball comedy that upends the stereotype of the airhead towhead.
  39. Bully
    Clark denies his audience the catharsis, resolution and renewal of classical tragedy. The film reduces its viewers to helplessness, and I'm not sure that's its intent.
  40. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    Is Final Fantasy decent sci-fi? Yes, more than decent.
  41. Everybody's Famous!
    A good-natured comedy of errors from Belgium, should elicit smiles, if not belly laughs.
  42. Kiss of the Dragon
    Kiss of the Dragon is a straight-ahead star vehicle for the trim and terse Li, whose steady gaze and fist-flying ways are tempered by a gentlemanly mien.
  43. Lost and Delirious
    Perfectly cast, if insufficiently dramatized.
  44. Jump Tomorrow
    A light and extremely likable comedy -- just what the doctor ordered right now.
  45. Cats & Dogs
    For its first hour, it's a delightful cloak-and-dagger comedy starring a brave Beagle James Bond and a depraved Persian Dr. Evil.
  46. Scary Movie 2
    Scary Movie 2 has something for potheads and the potty-mouthed alike. Anyone looking for a true sequel, however, will be disappointed.
  47. The Closet
    It's a bright and breezy piece, and a refreshing alternative to the gross-out Hollywood comedies.
  48. Crazy/Beautiful
    An intelligent romance that cuts against the grain of the youth-pic genre, crazy/beautiful boasts a scarily good performance from Dunst.
  49. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
    A fascinating but flawed work that demonstrates that, contrary to popular wisdom, great minds do not think alike.
  50. Come Undone
    A delicately managed piece that is by turns intimately detailed and elliptical, and that's an approach that suits the tangled emotions of its two protagonists.
  51. Lumumba
    Betrayal is at the heart of this story, but also dreams of liberty and a life where all people are treated with respect.
  52. 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.
  53. Chain Camera
    Informative, funny, sad and intriguing.
  54. The Fast and the Furious
    A massive compendium of youth-movie/pedal-to-the-metal cliches. But man, is it fast!
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  55. Dr. Dolittle 2
    A tired, cobbled-together concoction.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  56. Life and Debt
    What's frustrating for the viewer who wants to support the Jamaican economy is that "Life and Debt" does not suggest how Jamaica-lovers can help the island's citizens.
  57. The Adventures of Felix
    Poignant, funny and clear-eyed about some tough topics: homophobia, racism, AIDS.
  58. Down from the Mountain
    If the heart of the film is Hartford, who late in his struggle with cancer conveys the luminous colors of a man at his twilight, its soul is Welch.
  59. 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.
  60. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
    A by-the-numbers extravanganza that journeys from London to Venice to Siberia to Cambodia without ever really going anywhere.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  61. Sexy Beast
    Glazer has a daring sense of story structure that ratchets up the suspense, and his sense for sardonic black comedy is unerring.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  62. La grande strada azzurra
    A small, beautiful film exploding with big ideas.
  63. Divided We Fall
    The film treats the ensuing issues of conscience and compromise with subtlety and warmth.
  64. Swordfish
    It's hard to say with certainty whether it's insufficient plot or insufficient interpretation that's responsible for Travolta's waxwork performance.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  65. Evolution
    Evolution devolves to the sight of a colossal alien expelling flatus over Arizona. So that's why this movie stinks. Play that flatulent music, white boy.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  66. The Anniversary Party
    Has a loose, improvisatory feel that rings true.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  67. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
    Unfortunately for Disney, the real obstacle confronting the submarine isn't the giant lobster. It's a foul-smelling ogre, and it's no contest.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  68. Bride of the Wind
    Stiff but handsome film, there's little sense of the conflict and complexities that drove Alma Mahler.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  69. Rape Me
    Strictly for adventurous moviegoers, a peculiar experience -- a polemic that is at once watchable and repellent.
  70. Big Eden
    Too cute by half (or maybe three-quarters).
  71. Himalaya
    It's human drama, high and mighty.
  72. The Road Home
    The Road Home takes a path few movies choose to travel these days, but it's a very affecting journey.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  73. Pearl Harbor
    A script with the most underdeveloped characters and spectacularly realized visuals since "Titanic."
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  74. The Man Who Cried
    Melodramatic and strangely moving.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  75. Our Song
    Heartbreaking? Sometimes. Involving? You bet.
  76. Fast Food Fast Women
    Painfully cute drama.
  77. Angel Eyes
    Lopez is so remarkably unaffected and guileless that she manages to carry the film through its mood swing, if not successfully to its conclusion.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  78. Shrek
    The humor of the script constantly confounds expectations, and yet Shrek still manages to say all the right things to children.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  79. Moulin Rouge!
    You get faux feelings -- but faux of the highest, giddiest order.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  80. Startup.com
    This small story that tells the much bigger story of the New Economy's bubble and burst is less a documentary than it is breaking news.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  81. The Trumpet of the Swan
    Modest, unassuming fare for younger children.
  82. Bread and Roses
    Full of pungent and telling observation.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  83. The King Is Alive
    Fascinating and strangely involving piece.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  84. A Knight's Tale
    A bewildering but never boring yarn.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  85. About Adam
    Delightfully reflect the abandonment of the old image and way of life.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  86. A Question of Faith
    Doesn't run very deep, or resonate with profound meaning. But as a thoughtful fable, laced with humor, the picture has its charms.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  87. Eureka
    A work that demands patience, and it will easily exasperate some moviegoers.
  88. Time and Tide
    Kinetic and kooky, with a climactic shoot-out at a rail station that's daring in its ridiculousness.
  89. Under the Sand
    Ozon has crafted a near-perfect film, a mournful, moving kind of cinema poetry.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  90. The Mummy Returns
    Although the sequel retains its predecessor's breezy retro spirit, The Mummy Returns is a mite darker and scarier and the effects a little spiffier.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  91. One Night at McCool's
    A curious screwball "noir," doesn't so much bend established genres as blend them into an unappetizing cocktail, where they curdle before pouring.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  92. Town & Country
    The humor here is overcooked to the point of limpness.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  93. The Golden Bowl
    If The Golden Bowl -- isn't charged with electric emotion, well, that's not what Henry James or James Ivory is about.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  94. Driven
    Driven is in both its script and its execution a paint-by-numbers affair.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  95. Harry Is Here to Help
    The film is a small and polished gem that proves that with a friend like Harry, nobody needs an enemy.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  96. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
    I laughed once.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  97. The Luzhin Defence
    Falls short of being totally absorbing and compelling.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  98. The Low Down
    Defiantly different, a movie that carefully checks the pulse of its characters rather than trying to get the blood rushing.
  99. The Center of the World
    Where Mike Figgis' film, with Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, bore deeply and darkly into emotional territory, The Center of the World turns out to be just as fake as its setting.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  100. Bridget Jones's Diary
    As adorable and predictable a film as the Helen Fielding best-seller that inspired it.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
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