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. Detachment
    Adrien Brody deserves superlatives for his acting in the alternately mesmerizing and maddening Detachment.
  2. Natural Selection
    Best known as Ed Helms' nagging fiancée in "The Hangover," Harris is just perfect without ever looking down on Linda's faith in God and herself. Her performance earns a special kind of glory.
  3. Jeff Who Lives at Home
    The funny, touching and vital Jeff, Who Lives at Home reaffirms your faith in Jay and Mark Duplass. Their films hit you where you live.
  4. Casa de mi Padre
    Luckily, Ferrell is at his funniest being serious. Casa de Mi Padre, shot in 24 days for $6 million, is really an SNL-ish sketch stretched to feature length. But Ferrell is an hombre loco. Mi gusta.
  5. 21 Jump Street
    Are we always still in high school in our heads? 21 Jump Street thinks so. And Hill and Tatum are just the crazy-ass comedy team to prove it.
  6. 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.
  7. Silent House
    "Paranormal Activity" has been here before, of course, but Silent House springs tangy new tricks, and Olsen is a primo scream queen.
  8. Friends with Kids
    An indelibly funny and touching comedy with a real sting in its tail. The laughs leave scars.
  9. John Carter
    John Carter bites off more than even Woola can chew, but it's built on something rare: wonder instead of Hollywood cynicism.
  10. Being Flynn
    Here, you can feel De Niro's full engagement in a character that echoes his roles in "Taxi Driver" and "Awakenings." It's a great wreck of a performance that feels bruisingly true. At its best, when it keeps sentimentality at bay, so does Being Flynn.
  11. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
    Yikes! Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda direct strictly for short-attention spans on a fruit-loopy palette that made me want to puke. Had Dr. Seuss lived (he died in 1991), I'm confident he would have puked as well.
  12. Project X
    Most teen flicks just fake being fueled by anarchy. But the gut-bustingly funny Project X is the real deal. It's raunchy, reckless and ready to party. What's not to like?
  13. Act of Valor
    I don't know what to make of Act of Valor. It's like reviewing a recruiting poster.
  14. Gone
    There's no thrill in Gone because you can see every surprise coming. It lies there flapping like a dying fish. Skip it.
  15. Wanderlust
    When the script sags, Wain and producer Judd Apatow rely on a top team of actors to keep you laughing.
  16. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
    One look at the dreadful mess that is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will turn your whisper into a primal Cage scream: MAKE THIS MOVIE STOP!
  17. This Means War
    A trio of appealing actors is trapped in an action-spiked romcom death-sentenced by a lack of humor, heart and a coherent reason for being.
  18. Chronicle
    Despite a gimmicky premise, Chronicle fuels its action with characters you can laugh with, understand and even take to heart.
  19. In Darkness
    In Darkness is an agonizing experience, especially when Jews are publicly humiliated in the streets and a driving rainstorm nearly drowns those cowering in the depths. Holland means to shake you. In Darkness has the power to haunt will haunt your dreams.
  20. The Vow
    The Vow is a sopping hankie of a romance for women who love to suffer and the men who love them.
  21. Rampart
    Yup, it could have been a bucket of bleak. But the electric talent of Harrelson and Moverman is too exciting to be anything but exhilarating.
  22. Safe House
    Worse, Safe House asks us to believe that Ryan Reynolds can outclass Denzel Washington in the art of being a hard-ass. Not on this planet, baby.
  23. W.E.
    Here's Madge one more time doing something for which she is eminently unsuited – directing.
  24. The Woman in Black
    The Woman in Black doesn't break new ground, but in its suggestions of fine film ghost stories, from "The Innocents" to "The Others" and "The Orphanage," it works you over with riveting restraint.
  25. Red Tails
    You leave Red Tails thinking of what might have been instead of what is – a missed opportunity.
  26. Man on a Ledge
    The shopworn script by Pablo F. Fenjves, who ghost-wrote the unpublished O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It: The Confessions of the Killer, gets no help from director Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cite Soleil).
  27. One for the Money
    Everything in One for the Money rings cringingly false, from Heigl's absurd Snooki accent to Plum's romance with Joe Morelli, an Italian cop, played by – faith and begorrah – Jason O'Mara. To dismiss Julie Anne Robinson's direction as clueless would be a kindness.
  28. The Grey
    A terrifically exciting, deeply unsettling survivalist epic.
  29. Coriolanus
    Think "The Hurt Locker," which shares a cinematographer in Barry Ackroyd with no damage to the Bard's bruising poetry. Neat trick.
  30. Haywire
    Haywire comes close to achieving Soderbergh's goal of creating "a Pam Grier movie made by Alfred Hitchcock."
  31. Miss Bala
    Naranjo, a graduate of the American Film Institute, has a gift for staging action that defines character. The film is a harrowing experience. It cuts deep.
  32. Margaret
    Margaret, for all its flaws, is a film of rare beauty and shocking gravity.
  33. The Devil Inside
    The Devil Inside manages not only to scrape the barrel's bottom but to drill a hole in said bottom and funnel deeper into the scum.
  34. We Need to Talk About Kevin
    Acting doesn't get much better than the subtly brilliant display put on by Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
  35. Joyful Noise
    Lots of talented young singers decorate the scenery, notably Jeremy Jordan (late of Broadway's failed Bonnie & Clyde but soon-to-open in Newsies)who has vocal and acting chops that shine even in this bucket of Glee Goes Gospel cornpone.
  36. Contraband
    Wahlberg could sleepwalk through this role, and does. See this movie and you'll surely follow his lead.
  37. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
    Solidly crafted, impeccably acted and self-important in the way that Oscar loves, Extremely Loud is also incredibly close to exploitation.
  38. The Iron Lady
    The sharp economy of Lloyd's direction allows the incontestably great Streep to take impressionistic snatches of a life and build a woman in full. This is acting of the highest order.
  39. Albert Nobbs
    As directed with grit and grace by Rodrigo García, this quietly devastating film goes bone-deep.
  40. Pariah
    The gifted Rees makes finding out a stirring and heartfelt journey. And Oduye is unforgettable. A star is born.
  41. A Separation
    A Separation is a landmark film. No way will you be able to get it out of your head.
  42. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    At times, Jolie rises to the pulpit when she should stay on the ground. Her theme is too complex for her scattered screenplay to encompass. It's as a director that Jolie shines.
  43. War Horse
    War Horse gets to you. It's one from the heart.
  44. We Bought a Zoo
    Damon is extraordinary. He's heartfelt performance has a tough core of intelligence and wit.
  45. The Adventures of Tintin
    The movie comes at you in a whoosh, like a volcano of creative ideas in full eruption.
  46. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    From him (Fincher), we get – what? – a faithful adaptation that brings the dazzle but shortchanges on the daring.
  47. Carnage
    The film version of Carnage hasn't just lost God from its title, it's lost the laughs from the play that brought it life.
  48. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
    So the sequel, A Game of Shadows, is more of the stupid same. It wouldn't matter so much if Downey and Jude Law, as the bromantic Dr. Watson, didn't look so ready to turn on the cerebral dazzle. Instead, Ritchie treats them like action goons out of his "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" basement.
  49. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
    It's implausible as hell, but no less fun for that.
  50. Young Adult
    In this tale of stunted development, Theron is a comic force of nature, giving her character considerable density and humanity despite her monstrous aspects.
  51. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    Oldman gives a performance that is flawless in every detail.
  52. New Year's Eve
    Bad beyond belief.
  53. Shame
    Michael Fassbender delivers a bold and brilliantly immersive performance as a sex addict in Shame. He is so raw and riveting you won't be able to take your eyes off him.
  54. A Dangerous Method
    The actors give it their all, especially Knightley, whose jaw- jutting, heavily accented and unfairly criticized portrayal gives the film its fighting spirit.
  55. My Week with Marilyn
    The luminous Michelle Williams goes bone-deep here. Monroe's beauty was one of a kind. No one, not even Williams, can act it. What Williams does, with fierce artistry and feeling, is illuminate Monroe's insights and insecurities about herself at the height of her fame.
  56. Hugo
    Scorsese builds Hugo in the Méliès manner, creating a complete, ravishing Parisian world on a soundstage in England and reveling in the sheer transporting joy of it. Hugo will take your breath away.
  57. The Muppets
    The Muppets slaps a smile on your face you won't want to wipe off.
  58. The Artist
    The Artist encapsulates everything we go to movies for: action, laughs, tears and a chance to get lost in another world. It just might leave you speechless. How can Oscar resist?
  59. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
    Start hating me now, Twihards, but the sexless, bloodless, padded and plodding Breaking Dawn, Part 1 is the worst Twilight movie to date. (I don't get it either.)
  60. The Descendants
    Payne's low-key approach only deepens the film's intimate power. Want a movie you can really connect with? The Descendants is damn near perfect.
  61. Melancholia
    Von Trier draws us inexorably into the web of these characters. He loses us in a dream of his own devising. That's filmmaking. Now if he'd only learn to shut up at press conferences.
  62. Jack and Jill
    A total bust, a stupefyingly unfunny and shamelessly lazy farce packed with cringe-worthy jokes and overt product placement.
  63. J. Edgar
    Even when the film trips on its tall ambitions, you can't shake it off.
  64. A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas
    We're getting more of the same, but less of the impact, like weed from a bad dealer.
  65. Tower Heist
    There's not much to say about a jerry-built caper comedy, except that this one has timeliness on it side, and some first-rate clowns.
  66. Anonymous
    Say this for Emmerich, he's not stuffy. And he lucks out big-time with his cast.
  67. The Rum Diary
    At best diverting, at worst drearily conventional, The Rum Diary is pre-gonzo Thompson, before the fusion of fact and trippy fantasy that flowered into a brilliant delirium.
  68. Like Crazy
    Jones is a marvel. Sundance couldn't get enough of her. You won't, either. Her performance grabs hold and won't let go.
  69. In Time
    Pretty cast. Potent premise. Piss-poor execution. And so dies In Time.
  70. Paranormal Activity 3
    I fully expect Paranormal Activity 3 to be box office gold. But it's barely worth two stars, let alone two cents. As for future followups, I offer this plea: STOP!
  71. Martha Marcy May Marlene
    It's Olsen, as a damaged soul clinging to shifting ground, who makes this spellbinder impossible to shake.
  72. Margin Call
    Margin Call is an explosive drama that speaks lucidly and scarily to the times we live in.
  73. Footloose
    Footloose 2011 is harmless as far as it goes, but on the dance floor and off it never goes nearly far enough.
  74. The Thing
    One gut-busting death after another, terror giving way to tedium. Your call.
  75. The Skin I Live In
    Even when the film's frigid elegance, perfectly captured by cinematographer José Luis Alcaine, becomes off-puttingly clinical, Almodóvar's passion burns through. The skin he lives in is alive to challenge no matter what warped form it takes.
  76. The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
    The film is in black-and-white so the gore doesn't spray quite as colorfully. But you'll still puke up a storm. Not so much at the movie, whose shock value wears off quicky, but at Six, who seems to hate himself almost as much as his audience. Masochists will give the movie a thumbs-up, as long as their thumb isn't already up their ass.
  77. The Way
    Estevez keeps his touch light, with a minimum of pedantry. The Way is really a gift from this son to his father. Sheen, gradually revealing a man painfully getting reacquainted with long buried feelings, who gives the film its bruised heart.
  78. Real Steel
    Sugar Ray Leonard helped with the motion-capture, and it shows. Good stuff. But the tear-jerking in Real Steel is as shameless as its product placement. We're being hustled.
  79. The Ides of March
    A big, bruisingly funny moral fable etched in acid and Obama disillusion.
  80. Take Shelter
    Nichols throws curveballs, but his film is unique and unforgettable.
  81. 50/50
    A movie handled with this kind of care is a rare gift. Refusing to hide from pain or bow to it, 50/50 makes its own rules. It'll get to you.
  82. Killer Elite
    Killer Elite pretends to be fact-based and true to its 1980s period. Just know it's all baloney.
  83. Moneyball
    Moneyball is one of the best and most viscerally exciting films of the year.
  84. Restless
    Wasikowska, from "Alice in Wonderland" to "Jane Eyre," is an actress of translucent expressiveness. And Hopper has his father's brooding intensity and a quicksilver humor all his own. They are both so good, I suggest you dive into the story unfolding in their eyes rather than the banal one in the script.
  85. Straw Dogs
    Peckinpah rubbed our noses in the bloodlust. Lurie invites objectivity. He gets strong, complex performances from actors who won't be painted into corners.
  86. Drive
    A brilliant piece of nasty business that races on a B-movie track until it switches to the dizzying fuel of undiluted creativity. Damn, it's good. You can get buzzed just from the fumes coming off this wild thing.
  87. Contagion
    The film is most riveting in its early scenes, when Soderbergh's digital cameras locate germs everywhere – don't touch those peanuts!
  88. Warrior
    Warrior aspires to myth. It's Cain and Abel battling it out in the face of a decidedly ungodly father before humanity goes down for the count. Strong stuff.
  89. The Debt
    Chastain (a nifty match-up with Mirren) is a live wire, and her scenes with Csokas and Worthington have a spark the later scenes lack. No matter. The Debt holds you in its grip.
  90. Higher Ground
    Farmiga expertly guides a large and gifted ensemble cast and proves as fearless a director as she is an actress. She lights up Higher Ground and makes it funny, touching and vital.
  91. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
    With Del Toro's name in the credits, standard chills aren't enough. We want imagination to run riot.
  92. Our Idiot Brother
    Our Idiot Brother comes off as a blueprint for a smart script no one really made. Now that's what I call dumb.
  93. Amigo
    Amigo is combustible filmmaking, something that stays with you long after the final credits. In an entertainment universe of escapism and short attention spans, Amigo is a rousing antidote and a cause for celebration.
  94. One Day
    This tear-jerking twaddle, adapted by David Nicholls from his 2009 bestseller, is nearly as bad as Anne Hathaway's British accent, which is heading for infamy.
  95. Fright Night
    Menace and mirth can cancel each other out. But the combo clicked in 1985's Fright Night (banish the 1988 sequel), and it clicks again in this frisky 3D remake.
  96. Final Destination 5
    The cheap thrills wear off way fast, and we're left with atrocious acting, feeble writing and clueless directing (from first-timer Steven Quale). The horror! The horror!
  97. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie
    The movie plays like an evangelical prayer meeting, though I'd hold the hallelujahs. The characters we came to admire as vulnerable misfits hit the stage like visiting royalty and with a nonstop perkiness that makes the Von Trapps look like manic-depressives.
  98. 30 Minutes or Less
    Fleischer isn't much on details. It's all about the zigzagging rush of the ride. Fair trade.
  99. The Help
    A deeply touching human story filled with humor and heartbreak is rare in any movie season, especially summer. That's what makes The Help an exhilarating gift.
  100. The Whistleblower
    The film swings from melodrama to sermonizing, both blunting the human drama that needs to come to the fore.
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