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 3.1 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. St. Vincent
    Lieberher, a Philly native transplanted to L.A., is a reed-thin, wide-eyed wonder. There's none of that precocious Hollywood child-actor stuff going on; he's seriously thinking about what he has to say, assessing his words and their implications. It's rare to see any actor - let alone a novice, barely out of the single digits - so readily and naturally displaying inner thought in front of the camera.
  2. The Best of Me
    The Best of Me is neither worse than his other films nor particularly better. At 118 minutes, it is, however, one of the longest. Interminably long, dragging out its molasses heart through what seem like three different endings.
  3. Fort Bliss
    Monaghan is stronger still. This is a performance that deserves to be noticed. She is crushingly good.
  4. Fury
    Although it's pretty much impossible to avoid the cliches and constructs of a war movie, Ayer pushes his actors to find the adrenalized fear, and fire, in their guts. Pitt brings "Wardaddy" alive in ways that put his cartoonish "Inglourious Basterds" Army lieutenant to shame. Lerman's rabbity dread is palpable.
  5. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
    With its improvisatory score (drummer Antonio Sanchez provides a hustling backbeat throughout), its seamless shots, its leaps into the surreal, and then back again into the excruciating, embarrassing real, Birdman ascends to the greatest of heights.
  6. I Am Ali
    Clare Lewins' dizzyingly disjointed documentary, I Am Ali, has one thing going for it: its subject, boxing immortal Muhammad Ali.
  7. Men, Women & Children
    Men, Women & Children isn't a cartoon. It wants to be real, terribly. Instead, it's just terrible.
  8. Lilting
    Hong, who makes his feature debut here, has a masterful command of rhythm, beautifully weaving each strand of the narrative around that momentous opening scene.
  9. Dracula Untold
    Dracula Untold is a movie that gives good trailer. That's not surprising because it's a visually arresting saga. Unfortunately, the story in the final, full version is thicker than blood.
  10. Pride
    British screen stalwarts Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton appear as locals - he twitchy and reticent, she chatty and full of cheer, both with their hearts in the right place.
  11. The Two Faces of January
    This is Highsmith, and so things do not go as planned for her protagonists. The Two Faces of January - drop-dead gorgeous to behold - is not a merry tale, but a murderous one. Murderously good.
  12. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
    A sweet, if predictable, kids' comedy. But you have to overlook the conveniently inconsistent behavior of all the characters - except in Garner's case. She never establishes a character.
  13. Kill the Messenger
    It hobbles its otherwise fascinating premise by descending into hagiography. Webb's story is a tragedy, to be sure, but portraying him as a saint and martyr does little to advance the truth.
  14. The Judge
    Sure, there's a witty reference to another, vastly more momentous legal drama (To Kill a Mockingbird, Robert Duvall's film debut). And yes, Farmiga gets to call out Downey, and stay in character, for "that hyper-verbal vocabulary vomit thing that you do." Small pleasures, in a bigger mess.
  15. Tracks
    Even with a voice-over narration, and conversations with her dog, Robyn's nomadic quest is full of grand silences, all the better to take in the sky, the rocks, the world spinning underfoot. Wasikowska plays this wordless wanderer just right. That is, she makes her real.
  16. The Hero of Color City
    A weak "Toy Story"-esque animated film for preschool kids made with little imagination, little art, and even less soul.
  17. Annabelle
    Sadly, Annabelle, a cheap, sleazy, low-budget prequel meant to explain the origins of that particular doll, is as undistinguished, uninteresting, and unscary as the worst of the Chucky films.
  18. The Skeleton Twins
    If a movie with suicide as a central theme can be deemed funny, then writer/director Craig Johnson has pulled it off, mixing heartache and humor and giving Wiig, especially, the opportunity to shine.
  19. Jimi: All Is by My Side
    That's something else Ridley and his actors do: make you appreciate what a life it was - impossibly short, impossibly brilliant.
  20. Plastic
    Identity theft and credit-card fraud never looked as exciting or sexy as in Plastic, a frothy little heist movie from Britain that starts off with great promise, only to devolve midway into an empty derivative shell of a film.
  21. 20,000 Days on Earth
    It's a wondrous mix of the momentous and mundane, the profound and the perverse, with Cave blues-talking his way through the goofy juxtapositions, the darkness, and the light.
  22. The Notebook
    A bleak, despairing testament to the cruelty of war, and how it mangles and defaces everyone it touches.
  23. Hector and the Search for Happiness
    Filled with embarrassing gosh-golly moments about non-Western cultures, it's a staggering, and insulting, example of cultural myopia.
  24. Two Night Stand
    Two Night Stand, is a clever, if uneven, romcom about Generation Y's conflicted, paradoxical views of sex and love. Featuring strong dialogue and terrific performances, the film has moments of near-brilliance, but falls apart with a lame, conventional ending.
  25. The Equalizer
    The Equalizer, which reteams Washington with his Training Day director, Fuqua, is an origin story, like the birth of Batman, or Daredevil. If audiences and star are so inclined, it's easy to see this premise and this character - a tough, taciturn gent burdened with regret and a very special skill set - going into Roman numerals.
  26. The Green Prince
    The Green Prince is an extraordinary achievement. It has all the suspense of a great espionage yarn, but it's also a powerful moral document that calls into question the tactics of terrorism.
  27. Autumn Blood
    Some viewers will dismiss Autumn Blood as a pretentious Euro-art iteration of Straw Dogs. For those willing to be open to its experimentation and more charitable about its many faults, the film can provide a powerful experience and serve as an fascinating testament to the tenuous nature of the social contract.
  28. The Maze Runner
    It's bleak business, and as it hurries toward its explosive, expository conclusion, the film becomes nonsensical, too.
  29. Love Is Strange
    Love Is Strange has a gentleness about it, and an empathy, that inspire.
  30. The Man on Her Mind
    The Man on Her Mind, a mirthless, stagy romantic comedy about a pair of New York loners, isn't so much a story as a threadbare concept - a one-liner, really. An old, used-up one at that.
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