Portland Oregonian's Scores

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For 3,654 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Caesar Must Die
Lowest review score: 0 Summer Catch
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,408 out of 3654
  2. Mixed: 966 out of 3654
  3. Negative: 280 out of 3654
3654 movie reviews
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  1. The Pianist
    It's no wonder that Polanski, himself an artist who has survived a series of nightmares, should tell it so naturally and powerfully.
  2. Song of the Sea
    If Song of the Sea had had the promotional muscle of Disney or Dreamworks behind it, it may have won this year's Oscar for Best Animated Feature instead of merely being nominated. It certainly would have deserved it.
  3. Amy
    It's a sad story, and Asif Kapadia's documentary tells it without narration or commentary. Instead there's a brilliantly edited succession of interviews and performances and news footage that glides through her charmed, doomed life.
  4. The Edge of Heaven
    Akin is German-born but of Turkish heritage, and his films have often been concerned with the particular clashes and conflicts between those cultures. This film, though, does so in a much more oblique way than 2004's "Head-On."
  5. The Savages
    The film has a dreary, worn quality; much of it is set in winter in Buffalo, N.Y., after all. You know before long that the best you can hope for is that these folks won't kill each other or themselves.
  6. Gimme Shelter
    Movies don't get any more real than this.
    • Portland Oregonian
  7. Ilo Ilo
    With evocative performances, especially from the two women, and a nicely modulated sense of nostalgia, Ilo Ilo marks the emergence of a promising new cinematic voice.
  8. An Education
    It is, in its quiet, precise, classical way, nearly perfect.
  9. Lebanon
    Lebanon isn't as resonant as the haunting mix of autobiography and animation in "Waltz with Bashir," which dealt with the same war. Still, the film's fresh craft promises more from a director who turns the tiniest possible of settings into a sobering metaphor for the madness of a larger world.
  10. Exit Through the Gift Shop
    A diverting, playful and puzzling documentary.
  11. Kings & Queen
    It is well-acted and written with a rigorous effort to skirt cliche, and it has the savor of real life throughout.
  12. Offside
    Within this simple structure, Panahi manages at once to celebrate and critique his nation's passions, sexual politics, sporting heritage, laws, morality and class system. It's a fictional feature but, like many Iranian films, it feels uncannily real, particularly in its final rousing minutes.
  13. Knocked Up
    Alas, while the verbiage bubbles, the plot slogs. You feel that there's a big pile of deleted scenes waiting to appear on the DVD -- and that a good bit of what's here should have joined it. Funny is good, but it requires sharp if it's to rise to true greatness.
  14. The Departed
    It isn't in the same league as the director's best work, chiefly because it lacks the bravura flourishes of cinematic craft that helped make his name. But it's so vital and bloody and funny and wicked and tense and unapologetic that it feels kin to those films, which little of the director's work of the past decade has managed to pull off.
  15. Festival Express
    Slight on personality but long on music; Janis Joplin elevates it to near-great concert-film status.
  16. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    A smart and engaging entertainment.
  17. Half Nelson
    Gosling, who was amazing in "The Believer" but hasn't yet connected substantially with a big audience, continues to impress.
  18. The Insider
    Earnest, smart, handsome, well-acted and made with mastery.
  19. About Schmidt
    We laugh, yes, but we're touched, too, a delicate balance that the film manages again and again, right through to its bittersweet conclusion.
  20. The Asphalt Jungle
    John Huston's classic film noir, adapted from W.R. Burnett's novel, is a forerunner of dozens of heist movies, few of which surpass it. [26 Feb 1999]
    • Portland Oregonian
  21. Hero
    Perhaps the most beautiful film to hit Portland movie screens this year.
  22. Shane
    Ladd's career had been declining and kept declining after Shane, but his minimalist, passive style was perfect for this character, a violent man who has grown thoughtful too late in life. This is his best work. [28 Apr 2000]
    • Portland Oregonian
  23. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    Heart of Gold feels like an ample slice of the real America, the one truly worth caring for. And it's such a rare thing in this benighted age that the simple clarity with which it's presented feels like nothing less than a miracle.
  24. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    Builds into a moment of such gorgeous rocking that you truly lose yourself in some musical otherworld you never dreamed you'd reach in current films.
  25. The Dark Knight
    Because make no mistake: The Dark Knight is many things, some of them deliriously fun, some of them deeply impressive, and some of them puzzling and frustrating. But most of all it is dark.
  26. The Past
    The film's final scene, which manages to recontextualize everything we've seen so far with a brilliant simplicity that, if further proof were needed, establishes Farhadi as one of the best storytellers in cinema today.
  27. 24 Hour Party People
    Wilson's account is enormously self-serving and self-aggrandizing, but the film makes his ego a virtue and a running joke.
  28. Atonement
    A handsome film, an earnest film, a film with taste in music and photography and a real sense of intelligence. But too often it feels like an exercise. And even when you're impressed by it, you know you're being played.
  29. The Tree of Life
    An extraordinary thing, and one that I shall likely esteem for a long time. Philosophically, though, it's still mired in the primordial ooze in a way that will, I suspect, forever make me hold it at arm's length.
  30. Naked
    This apocalyptic vision of London-as-Hell is a far cry from Leigh's earlier work, the relatively gentle social comedies, High Hopes and Life Is Sweet. But, working with the actors in his usual improvisatory style, Leigh dares to drop into depths he has never before explored. With its aura of horror and hopelessness, Naked is a very brave work. If you can take it, it's a film you won't soon forget. [28 Jan. 1994, p.AE13]
    • Portland Oregonian
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