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. Miss Potter
    At 92 minutes, the film has the economy of a Potter story, but not the shapeliness or the zip.
  2. Pan's Labyrinth
    This is the breakthrough work of one of world cinema's most visionary artists.
  3. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
    There are sniff movies and there are snuff movies, but Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is both. It has the bouquet of balm and blood. Imagine "Fragrance of the Lambs."
  4. 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.
  5. Arthur and the Invisibles
    What a mess.
  6. Factory Girl
    For Hickenlooper and Mauzner, Sedgwick is more interesting for whom she slept with than who she was. Their movie may indict Warhol for exploiting Sedgwick, but they're just as guilty.
  7. The Flying Scotsman
    Boasts exciting competitive track cycling footage.
  8. Notes on a Scandal
    What it lacks, though, is any sense that these people - are real.
  9. Children of Men
    A chase movie, a spy movie, a futuristic thriller full of colorfully bizarre characters and deftly choreographed stunt work, Children of Men works on multiple levels - as action and allegory.
  10. The Good Shepherd
    A cool-headed thriller, and a richly detailed character study that traces the birth and evolution of America's foreign espionage bureaucracy, The Good Shepherd also marks a significantly more mature, assured directing turn from Robert De Niro.
  11. Night at the Museum
    If the filmmakers had a script half as good as their special effects, Night at the Museum would be a must-see.
  12. We Are Marshall
    McConaughey tucks into the role like a hungry man gobbling a ham sandwich.
  13. Venus
    The great thing about Venus - apart from its sharp eye for the daily routines and drab details of senior citizenry in a buzzing metropolis - is that it isn't soppy, or sentimental.
  14. Curse of the Golden Flower
    A dazzling costume epic, a spectacle for the eyes and for the soul.
  15. Letters from Iwo Jima
    One of the great war movies - or antiwar movies - of all time.
  16. The Painted Veil
    The Painted Veil is rich with history and heartbreak. It's stirring stuff.
  17. Rocky Balboa
    What's touching about Rocky Balboa, the sixth chapter in the saga of Philadelphia's lord of the ring, is the small-scale stuff. Not the spectacle of the has-been, now 60, connecting with a punch. But the sight of an actor connecting with a character.
  18. Dreamgirls
    Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the 1981 Broadway sensation is, if possible, as dazzling and energizing as its source.
  19. The Good German
    Tobey Maguire, terribly miscast and squeaky (that voice - it belongs to a kid!).
  20. Breaking and Entering
    Breaking and Entering is smart and smartly done, as it describes these inter-circling worlds - the well-to-do Brits and the newly deposited foreigners, trying to shake off their homeland tragedies and start anew.
  21. 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.
  22. Eragon
    I wish Eragon's cinematography were crisper, the music less Wagnerian, and the acting more consistent. But this movie isn't for me. It's for my 10-year-old, for whom the subtleties of narrative, photography and acting mean nothing.
  23. The Pursuit of Happyness
    The relationship between Chris and his diminutive namesake is at the core of the film - the determination to be there for his son, no matter what; the mentoring, the pair's goofy, lovely banter. And Smith and his bright-eyed boy pull it off brilliantly.
  24. The Holiday
    Law shines like a sunbeam, warming the film with rakish charm and unexpected emotionalism.
  25. Blood Diamond
    It's earnest, but it feels beside the point. Blood Diamond's real point: box office.
  26. Apocalypto
    The heart of the matter - and the viscera - is the action, and one man's determination to survive. Apocalypto is primal.
  27. Unaccompanied Minors
    A noisy, not particularly charming collection of skits and skirmishes.
  28. The Nativity Story
    Isaac's emotional performance as the man who learns to share the woman he loves with the God he worships is profoundly moving and gives the movie its heart.
  29. The Lives of Others
    Lives is a best-foreign-film nominee competing in a year that at least three movies in this category are stronger than Oscar's best-picture contenders.
  30. Turistas
    Nasty stuff. It's xenophobic (message: Americans, steer clear of the Third World); it's photogenic (the Sports Illustrated-likeswimsuit issue beach scenes, the colorful villages, the lush landscapes); it's gruesome (operating table POV shots); and it's violent.
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