Rolling Stone's Scores

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For 4,534 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 The Wolf of Wall Street
Lowest review score: 0 Joe Versus the Volcano
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,923 out of 4534
  2. Mixed: 982 out of 4534
  3. Negative: 629 out of 4534
4534 movie reviews
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  1. Source Code
    Working from a tight script by Ben Ripley, Jones creates scary, hairy, high-octane tension. Disbelief? Suspended, until the logic lapses kick in later. It's a small price to pay for a ride that starts at wild and accelerates from there.
  2. Predestination
    To try and wrap your head around the plot of Predestination can only lead to madness. Don't get me wrong: The movie itself is a trip. Just jump off the cliff and go with the Spierig brothers, Peter and Michael, as they whoosh into the labyrinth of their own fervid imaginations.
  3. The Duchess
    It's Knightley who makes The Duchess a royal treat.
  4. Chéri
    With Pfeiffer, 50, radiating uncommon beauty, grace and feeling, Frears uncovers a fragile story's grieving heart.
  5. In a Better World
    An emotional powerhouse.
  6. Atomic Blonde
    Theron, in the middle of her action-hero phase and at her "Mad Max: Fury Road" best here, just nails it.
  7. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
    McQuarrie — an Oscar winner for his script for 1995's "The Usual Suspects" — has an ace to play. That's the indie sensibility he brings to the usual Hollywood FX.
  8. Pacific Rim
    What pulls us over the rough spots is the mind meld between del Toro the artist and the child inside him. They both want to astonish us. Geeks everywhere, salute.
  9. World Trade Center
    Undeniably affecting, but you leave it wanting more.
  10. The Illusionist
    Edward Norton is at his best here, chalking up another boundary-stretching performance this year in the wake of the unfairly overlooked "Down in the Valley."
  11. Wanted
    Brutal, sexy, built to thrill and minus a scintilla of redeeming social value, the movie -- based on a series of comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones -- explodes like summer fireworks.
  12. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
    This is a rich subject for satire and sticking it to political bureaucracy. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (127 Hours) has mined Paul Torday's book for delicious nuggets about Western capitalism at war with Muslim culture.
  13. MacGruber
    How the hell can you take an SNL skit that runs 90 seconds and stretch it to a 90-minute feature? Sounds excruciating. But MacGruber breaks the jinx by putting the skit in the context of a 1980s action movie and creating its own brand of explosive lunacy.
  14. The Conspirator
    The film pivots on McAvoy's powerfully implosive performance as a man trying to grow beyond his own prejudices. His scenes with Wright, under Redford's nuanced guidance, give this film its timely resonance and its grieving heart.
  15. Curse of the Golden Flower
    The final effect is stunning, but also sadly impersonal.
  16. Die Another Day
    Brosnan, in his fourth time up at the Bond bat, hits this one out of the park.
  17. Dark Blue
    A film of wounding power. It stays with you.
  18. The Matrix Reloaded
    The Wachowskis have put together a mix of culture, kung fu, sci-fi and speculation, that makes them the warped wonders they are. When the film ends with a "To Be Continued," the hooks are in for The Matrix Revolutions on November 5th. Maybe I've been programmed to say it, but I am so there.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Victory
    Watching the legendary Pele display his footwork on the field (that bicycle kick!), you almost believe the soccer god could have singlehandedly stopped Hitler's troops in their tracks.
  20. RBG
    You just wish the film itself was half as compelling as its subject; not defaulting to piano-tinkling sentimentality or old-people-sure-are-adorable cutesiness at every opportunity would have been a bonus as well.
  21. When You're Strange
    Unhappy with what Oliver Stone did to Jim Morrison and the Doors in his 1991 biopic? Here’s the doc for you.
  22. Cold in July
    Get ready to squirm. Be sure to seek out this twisty and terrific sleeper in theaters or on VOD. It's a real find.
  23. Lost in La Mancha
    Fulton and Pepe have created an extraordinary document. Hilarious and heartbreaking.
  24. Fracture
    Just because a movie is freakin' preposterous doesn't mean it can't be diabolical fun. Case in point: Fracture.
  25. Grace Is Gone
    Simplicity -- four-square, not sappy -- is rare in film. James C. Strouse had it in his script for Lonesome Jim. As writer and first-time director, he gives Grace Is Gonethe quiet power to sneak up and floor you.
  26. Hereafter
    Hereafter, set to a resonant Eastwood score, truly is haunting.
  27. Made-Up
    Pointed and hilarious.
  28. Trance
    Dawson digs deep and nails every nuance, making the dizzying suspense resonate with raw emotion. She is, in a word, electrifying. Even when the wheels come off the too-busy plot, so is the movie.
  29. Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus
    Cera, still one of a kind and still making us love him for it (Arrested Development – yes!), never flinches. Jamie is impossible to like. And yet we do because Cera plays him without an ounce of bogus ingratiation. He's terrific.
  30. Wreck-It Ralph
    Moore brings a video junkie's passion to the movie game, and it's hilariously infectious.
  31. The LEGO Batman Movie
    Don't obsess over the rough edges. The Lego Batman Movie rises on its own goofball spirits. Wanna get nuts and shake your sillies out? This is the place to do it.
  32. Transamerica
    The movie's soul is with Huffman. Speaking in a low voice, her posture as stiff as her vocabulary, her eyes a pool of sadness and hope, she turns this small, resonant film into a cry from the heart.
  33. Suffragette
    What makes Suffragette a relevant rabble-rouser, besides Mulligan's fierce, affecting performance, is the way it won't bow to the kind of Hollywood formula that tsk-tsks about how bad it was then — only to wrap everything up with a comfy banner that says, "You've come a long way, baby."
  34. The Outsiders
    Francis Coppola's revision of his 1983 film of S.E. Hinton's best seller The Outsiders is funny, touching and revelatory, with twenty-two minutes of added footage and a new soundtrack featuring Elvis Presley. [Review of re-release]
  35. Delirious
    Buscemi makes this pathetic and potentially lethal shutterbug a figure of surprising humor and compassion.
  36. Ex Machina
    Isaac's brilliant take on this bearded, buzz-cut and barefoot Dr. Frankenstein is a tour de force of shock and awe. Ex Machina springs surprises that will haunt you for a good long time.
  37. Equity
    To the credit of this scrappy, admirably femcentric film, crisply directed by Meera Menon from a tightly wound script by Amy Fox (with Reiner and Thomas also doing double-duty as producers), Equity refuses to paint a rosy picture of women at the top.
  38. I Smile Back
    Silverman, digging so deep into her character that we can feel her nerve endings, is like nothing we've seen before. She's fierce and unerring. No showing off; she just is. This is acting of the highest caliber.
  39. Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
    What an astounding actress Annette Bening is. And she’s at her very best in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool playing Gloria Grahame.
  40. We Own the Night
    We Own the Night is defiantly, refreshingly unhip.
  41. The Andromeda Strain
    Robert Wise's adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel about a deadly space pathogen trades in the genre's cosmic pulp and head-trippiness for a procedural-like seriousness. Germaphobes, proceed with extreme caution.
  42. Star Trek Beyond
    Despite the futuristic tilt in the title, Star Trek Beyond works best when it boldly goes retro.
  43. A Late Quartet
    Grace notes abound in A Late Quartet, a small, shining gem of a movie that works its way into your heart with insinuating potency of music.
  44. The Wolfpack
    The Wolfpack is frustrating in how much it doesn't tell us about the Angulos and the legal tangle that comes with their release. But once you've met these kids, you won't forget them — or the film that puts a hypnotic and haunting spin on movie love.
  45. Lords of Dogtown
    Hardwicke whips up a frenzy of crazy-cool board action, with Alva choreographing the stunts. Even when the slippery-slope-of-success cliches halt the film's momentum, the ready-to-rock actors rev it up again.
  46. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Shane Black creates a movie that is defiantly smartass and too cool for the room. I couldn't have liked it more.
  47. Deadpool
    This movie's junky feel is part of its charm. Sure it goes on too long and repetition dulls its initial cleverness. Still, Deadpool is party time for action junkies and Reynolds may just have found the role that makes his career.
  48. The Company You Keep
    There's enough plot to stuff a miniseries, but Redford never loses sight of the human drama. Martyrdom is not conferred, nor is reinvention equated with redemption. Drawing skillfully on a first-rate cast, Redford builds a riveting, resonant political thriller that values the complexity of its characters and the intelligence of its audience.
  49. Live by Night
    There’s enough here for half a dozen movies, and you can feel the severe overcrowding. But you can't keep your eyes off it.
  50. Friday Night
    A mesmerizing erotic odyssey.
  51. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    Naughty and nice is a killer-hard combo to pull off. Stick with Rogen and Banks. They rock it.
  52. Hustle & Flow
    Explosive entertainment.
  53. The Last King of Scotland
    Whitaker is on fire, and as long as he's onscreen, King keeps you riveted.
  54. The Basketball Diaries
    [Kalvert] best serves the movie by simply focusing on DiCaprio, who communicates the spirit and blunt truth of the diaries even when the movie keeps trying to soften the blow.
  55. The Manchurian Candidate
    This riveting film is marred by compromises -- such as a switch of assassins to create an unpersuasive upbeat ending -- that keep it in the shadow of its predecessor.
  56. Disconnect
    Bateman, in a rare dramatic role, is just tremendous, finding depths of emotion where they're least expected. Disconnect works they same way. Even when it trips on its ambitions, it hits home.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Silent Running
    A movie that has everything — if by everything you mean Bruce Dern as a long-haired homicidal intergalactic treehugger playing poker with droids, talking to bunnies, and feeling really passionately about salad.
  58. A Walk on the Moon
    Whenever the drama drifts into soap opera, the actors restore the balance.
  59. Superman Returns
    Superman returns with a bang. Singer tarnishes his hero's halo with just enough sexual longing and self-doubt to make him riveting and relatable. That "S" on his suit has a whole new meaning: He's a Soul man.
  60. Tupac: Resurrection
    Lazin's remarkable achievement is to catch Tupac in the act of discovering himself. It's something to see.
  61. Hands of Stone
    The Venezuelan-born writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz (Secuestro Express) knows how to muscle up momentum and bring the best out of actors.
  62. '71
    Demange's film, spiked by an outstanding, all-stops-out O'Connell, makes politics unnervingly personal. Too much? What else do you expect of a cinematic knockout punch that sends you reeling?
  63. Charlie Wilson's War
    Rude, crude and hilarious, whether he's hitting on Joanne or brokering the sale of Soviet weapons through Israel and Islamic Pakistan, Hoffman is the film's sparking live wire.
  64. It's Kind of a Funny Story
    I don't blame you for backing off a movie that focuses on a suicidal teen who learns warm life lessons by spending five days in a Brooklyn hospital's psych ward. Stop worrying. It's Kind of a Funny Story, based on Ned Vizzini's semiautobiographical novel, breaks the jinx.
  65. Beyond the Hills
    Exorcist junkies should look elsewhere. Instead of spinning heads and projectile puke, Mungiu offers nuance and provocation. The result is quietly devastating.
  66. Manifesto
    That's what Blanchett is doing here. She adds a human element. She can turn anything into art. Even artistic navel-gazing.
  67. Inventing the Abbotts
    The film belongs to Phoenix ("To Die For"), who is terrific. He has the gift, shared with his late brother, River, of conveying emotions without pushing them at you. The delicacy of his scenes with Tyler lets you enjoy the film for what it truly is: a heartbreaker.
  68. The Guys
    The film is just two people talking, but director Jim Simpson finds its grieving heart.
  69. Smokin' Aces
    Best consumed with pizza and lots of brewskis, Joe Carnahan's Smokin' Aces is shamelessly and unapologetically a guy movie. It's lewd, crude and loaded with shootouts and hot lesbo action.
  70. The Doom Generation
    It’s a savagely funny ride fueled by Araki’s insight and blunt compassion.
  71. The Dukes
    From the Emeralds doing "Acapella" to Davi himself taking the lead on "So Much in Love," The Dukes is damn near impossible to resist.
  72. Wonderstruck
    A film of extraordinary details that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. But, oh, it gives a lovely light.
  73. Nowhere Boy
    Johnson doesn't resemble, much less embody, Lennon, but he does catch his distinctive glint of mischief tinged with pain. Duff and Scott Thomas are both exceptional, revealing how John's relationship with these two clashing sisters marked his character.
  74. Batman Returns
    Burton uses the summer's most explosively entertaining movie to lead us back into the liberating darkness of dreams.
  75. The September Issue
    A subversively entertaining documentary.
  76. Mad Hot Ballroom
    Listening to the kids talk is a treat in itself, but watching them strut their stuff in the final competition is enough to make you stand up and cheer.
  77. Hollywoodland
    The irony is that Affleck's battering at the hands of fame has prepped him beautifully to play Reeves.
  78. The Eagle Huntress
    Simon Niblett's cinematography, utilizing drones to catch impossible scenes of flight, is extraordinary, especially in the winter hunting sequences that end the film.
  79. Split
    This might have degenerated into a cheap gimmick if not for the way Shyamalan lets us inside the childhood trauma that pushed his tormentor into multiple personalities.
  80. Friday Night Lights
    Thornton gets inside the coach's skin. It's a subtle, soulful performance in a movie that otherwise goes for the jugular.
  81. Only the Brave
    The surprise MVP runner-up here is Connelly, despite her tendency to get kind of yell-y during key dramatic moments. Her lonely Amanda is a better written version of a typical long-suffering-spouse.
  82. My Friend Dahmer
    A warped wonder of a movie that takes twisted to areas few have investigated.
  83. The Founder
    Like Apple founder Steve Jobs, Kroc – who died in 1984 – had a genius for marketing the talent of others. Is that a lesser gift? Not in these United States. Not then. And not in the age of Trump. Set more than a half century ago, The Founder proves to be a movie for a divisive here and now. Step right up. You might just learn something. God help us.
  84. Velvet Goldmine
    The plot only slows a film that works best as a feast of sight and sound.
  85. Melinda and Melinda
    With Melinda and Melinda he's (Allen) not just going through the motions. He's saying the game isn't over before you laugh till it hurts.
  86. Hamlet 2
    It's Coogan's breakthrough star performance that holds it all together. He's sensational.
  87. The Hunting Ground
    As the cases mount and institutional reps succeed best by playing dumb, The Hunting Ground becomes a energizing call to action, a potent provocation that’s been too long coming.
  88. The Towering Inferno
    The story is stock, but thanks to the behind-the-scene fire wranglers, you can practically feel the heat.
  89. Black Rain
    It's risky making an action picture that breaks its violent stride to emphasize the difficulties of living up to preconceived ideas of masculinity. But it's that risk that makes Black Rain distinctive. By refusing to beat its Eastern and Western protagonists into comic-book pulp, the movie pays them, and the audience, a rare compliment.
  90. Light Sleeper
    Schrader is out there again, testing the limits of audience tolerance. Good for him. Buoyed by his questing spirit and Dafoe's mesmerizing performance, Light Sleeper might just keep you up nights.
  91. Danny Collins
    Pacino is irresistible. Whether strutting onstage or wrestling with his drug-fueled demons, he doesn't skimp on Danny's human limits. With nine Lennon tunes on the soundtrack and a new song for Danny to express his creative reinvention, this hilarious and heartfelt movie is an exuberant gift.
  92. The Yes Men
    Subversive and diabolically funny.
  93. Wetlands
    This no-bull spellbinder is allergic to sentiment. Unlike porn, Wetlands keeps its humanity intact. And if Oscar didn't have a stick up his ass, Juri would be a nominee for Best Actress. Yup, she's that good. Your move.
  94. Confidence
    Scenes with Burns crackle with the toxic energy that makes Confidence a game worth playing.
  95. Last Flag Flying
    The compensation comes in watching these three marvelous actors have a go at it, which they do with piercing humor and heart.
  96. The Clearing
    The pleasures of this endeavor, directed with a keen eye for detail by Pieter Jan Brugge, come from what the actors bring to the material.
  97. Tangled
    Disney's spirited re-telling of Rapunzel in 3D animation turns out to be a dazzler.
  98. Nymphomaniac: Volume I
    I refuse to render a final verdict on the latest cinematic outrage from Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier until Volume Two drops its undies on April 18th. But I will say this for Volume One: It's a mesmerizing mind game.
  99. The Angry Birds Movie
    There's no denying the movie's high spirits or its irresistible invitation to shake your sillies out.
  100. A Scanner Darkly
    This gifted writer-director isn't out to dull the masses with cinematic opium. Embedded in the visionary headtrip of A Scanner Darkly is a hotly political call to arms.
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