Polygon's Scores

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For 731 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 4.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Spencer
Lowest review score: 0 Red Notice
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 530 out of 731
  2. Mixed: 141 out of 731
  3. Negative: 60 out of 731
731 movie reviews
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  1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
    The final shot of Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is overwhelming. It’s a culmination of the two hours that have preceded it, but it’s more than just the end of a movie. It’s an entire life cycle of a love affair.
  2. Marriage Story
    Baumbach takes the time to make room for their opposing viewpoints and experiences, and he creates a richer film for it. Marriage Story is beautifully bittersweet. There are no winners or losers in Charlie and Nicole’s separation, and no heroes or villains, either.
  3. Atlantics
    Diop’s film isn’t brash or loud, but it’s still stunning, capturing the migrant story and its effects in a new light.
  4. Little Joe
    Any similarities to Little Shop of Horrors are superseded by similarities to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as the story becomes less about a mutated plant and about the lengths people will go to in order to achieve happiness, real or manufactured.
  5. Playmobil: The Movie
    While a lot of modern kids’ movies (especially those based on toys or apps) feel crass and cheap, Playmobil is heartfelt and earnest. It doesn’t have much to offer childfree moviegoers, and it does mostly feel like The Lego Movie with the serial numbers filed off. But it’s the sort of film that will keep kids entertained without driving their parents crazy.
  6. Last Christmas
    Last Christmas does the job when it comes to creating a pleasant haze of warm feelings, offering a momentary respite from the cold, cynical world outside the movie theater.
  7. Togo
    The real joy of Togo is simple: Willem Dafoe plus dog, and sometimes Willem Dafoe plus dogs, plural. He tells them they’re good dogs. (They are.) They lick his face. (So would I.) As they race through the ice and snow, they bring a sense of warmth and life to the landscape. It’s wonderful.
  8. 1917
    1917 is a noble, failed experiment in breaking the rules.
  9. Earthquake Bird
    All three leads are terrific — especially Vikander, whose Japanese is impressive — but they’re working with material that doesn’t measure up to their talents.
  10. The Knight Before Christmas
    It’s equal parts modern fairy tale, time-travel movie that’s meant to make people understand and appreciate their own era, and Christmas magic movie, and the creators don’t do anything meaningful to refresh those genre trappings, or play with their conventions.
  11. Little Women
    What makes Little Women particularly refreshing is that Gerwig treats the four March sisters as equals, rather than as right or wrong for wanting different things.
  12. Charlie's Angels
    The film emerges as a perfectly agreeable action movie, one that’s both true to the concept of Charlie’s Angels, and probably unrecognizable to anyone time-traveling from the 1970s. That’s okay, though. Some concepts have to evolve to survive.
  13. Doctor Sleep
    Flanagan’s sister piece ensures that its underlying meaning is as close to the surface as the shallow grave discovered in the second act. Flanagan chose to make Doctor Sleep utterly banal. Through means straightforward and blunt, he’s turned a surreal simulation of succumbing to insanity into a plainly stated reminder to always be true to yourself.
  14. The Elephant Queen
    The Lion King shed its lush animation for a more photorealistic world, which prompted many (us included) to wonder if the hyper-realistic CGi caused some of the heart to be lost from the story. The Elephant Queen, on the other hand, works with just animals and narration to create an evocative tale.
  15. Dolemite Is My Name
    Dolemite Is My Name is ultimately a little flimsy — perhaps as is appropriate given the nature of Dolemite itself — but it’s a star turn for Murphy. His compassionate choices make up for the film’s flaws, or at least make them less noticeable while you’re watching it.
  16. Let It Snow
    While the film isn’t groundbreaking, it’s an easygoing, unchallenging experience that’s suitable for the season.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 48 Critic Score
    Lady and the Tramp
    Disney Plus’ Lady and the Tramp flattens the original movie’s dreamy love story by trading genuine emotion for artificiality and a past that never existed.
  18. The King
    That it ends up being more of a showcase for Pattinson than Chalamet is the film’s biggest irony, and nearly the only thing that keeps Michôd’s latest from being a total drag. Chalamet, who has proven himself worthy of the stan culture around him in his previous performances, is a black hole of charisma as Hal.
  19. Noelle
    Disney Plus’ original Christmas movie Noelle is like a recipe where all the ingredients are delicious, then realizing, once the dish has been cooked, that the flavors cancel each other out.
  20. Honey Boy
    By inhabiting the worst periods of his life, LaBeouf delivers one of the best performances of the year.
  21. Ford v Ferrari
    Shelby and Miles’ story is compelling, but Mangold digs deeper to find the motor that propels Ford v Ferrari across the finish line.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Frozen II
    The side plots are the burst of energy the movie needs.
  23. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
    It’s an unruly, wild, and tender film that sometimes gets lost but, by the end, finds its way to a very moving state of grace.
  24. The Show
    Moore and Jenkins are obviously aiming higher than a self-aware noir pastiche, or at least something off to the side of one. Yet those elements of the movie are a lot more enjoyable than sort-of-dream sequences featuring yet another guy in clown makeup.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Street Fighter
    For a product of its time — a decade full of video game-inspired stinkers — it’s worth looking back on, especially because it’s obvious how much fun the cast is having.
  26. Addams Family Values
    By zeroing in on the eldest Addams child, the new Addams Family 2 exposes just how clunky and wrongheaded its take on Wednesday is — and what the animated movies get wrong about the family in general.
  27. The Witches
    The combination of Dahl’s bleak plot turns, from the offscreen death of Luke’s parents to a witch who lures the grieving young boy out of his treehouse with the promise of a pet snake, Roeg’s in-your-face camerawork and Henson’s creature effects make every second of The Witches unencumbered, gleeful torture.
  28. House
    House isn’t all that scary, but it is weird in all the best ways, and nothing else looks or feels like it.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Let's Scare Jessica to Death
    Director John Hancock and lead actress Zohra Lampert collaborate to produce something stranger and vaguer than the film’s countless contemporaries, giving the heroine far greater agency.
  30. Original Cast Album: Company
    What makes the documentary so compelling is that it captures the process of re-creating a performance that’s meant to be experienced live.
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