Rolling Stone's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Lucky Number Slevin
    If "Pulp Fiction" impregnated "The Usual Suspects," the spawn would look a lot like Lucky Number Slevin. Great genes, but you keep wondering when the kid is going to grow up and find an identity of his own.
  2. Take the Lead
    Inspired by a true story (translation: a lot of it is made up), the movie shucks its corn straight from the cob. But it's no less engaging for that, thanks to the enthusiasm of the young cast and the fusion of classic dance with hip-hop moves courtesy of Rich and Tone Talauega.
  3. Friends with Money
    Smart, witty and alert to the buried resentments that poke through the shiny surface of affluence, Holofcener's film recognizes that money is the new sex.
  4. Basic Instinct 2
    The laughs to be had in this deliciously awful sequel are all unintentional. A bummer for film buffs, but a ball for fans of the misbegotten.
  5. Brick
    "Sensational" is the word for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (equally striking in Mysterious Skin), who stars as Brendan, the teen outsider who becomes a budding Bogart.
  6. Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!
    Get ready to be shaken and stirred.
  7. The Devil and Daniel Johnston
    No wonder Kurt Cobain was a fan. But it's the way Feuerzeig walks with him on the line between creativity and madness that digs this haunting and hypnotic film into your memory.
  8. Inside Man
    The suspense crackles, the acting sizzles and the script, by promising first-timer Russell Gewirtz, keeps tossing surprises like grenades.
  9. Lonesome Jim
    Buscemi does not act in Lonesome Jim, but his sly humor and keen eye for nuance resonate in every frame. I can't recall having a better time at a movie about depression.
  10. L'Enfant (The Child)
    Renier and Francois give deeply affecting performances that help soften the film's harsh blows. But only in the compassionate eye of the Dardennes do these three children achieve a state of grace.
  11. Stoned
    Could 1960s-style sex, drugs and rock & roll really have been this dull?
  12. Find Me Guilty
    Sadly, Lumet's skill at bringing out the juice in actors isn't enough to save the film from overkill.
  13. She's the Man
    There I sit, suffering total numbness of body and brain, no longer having to wonder what it might be like to be buried alive in gooey marshmallow.
  14. V for Vendetta
    The explosive V for Vendetta is powered by ideas that are not computer-generated. It's something rare in Teflon Hollywood: a movie that sticks with you.
  15. Thank You for Smoking
    Both sides of the political fence will feel royally skewered. All that's lacking is a warning from the Surgeon General: This film will make you laugh till it hurts.
  16. The Hills Have Eyes
    What good is a wallow in sicko sadism if you take all the fun out of it?
  17. Ask the Dust
    The film, which is literary to a fault, includes an earthquake, but if the earth moves at all, thank Hayek, who gives the tale a smoldering life that finally lifts it from the page.
  18. 16 Blocks
    Until Richard Wenk's script drives the characters into a brick wall of pukey sentiment, it's a wild ride.
  19. Tsotsi
    Based on a play by Athol Fugard, Tsotsi is South Africa's entry in this year's Oscar race for Best Foreign-Language Film. This remarkable movie means to shake you, and boy does it ever.
  20. Freedomland
    Roth takes three powerhouse actors -- Julianne Moore as the mother, Samuel L. Jackson as the cop who interrogates her and Edie Falco as another woman who lost her son -- and reduces their talents to rubble and their characters to screeching cliches.
  21. Firewall
    As a thriller, Firewall is flabby and familiar.
  22. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    This is more than a movie, it's a privilege.
  23. A Good Woman
    Hunt's flat delivery is mercilessly cruel to Wilde's delicious epigrams. That sound you hear is Oscar spinning madly in his grave.
  24. Bubble
    A potent and provocative look at life unhinged. Bubble is said to be the first in a series of six low-budget films from Soderbergh. If they all rock the boat like this one, bring 'em on.
  25. Manderlay
    Howard struggles with the role Kidman nailed. And the graphic nude scene in which "proudy slave" Timothy (Isaach De Bankole) puts a towel over Grace's head before ravishing her pale body is as rugged on the audience as it is on the actors.
  26. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    It's really inventive and bizarre and marvelously entertaining.
  27. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    This Brooks is a comedian who forgets the golden rule of "know your audience." He thinks he'll get his laughs if he keeps doing the same act with better lighting.
  28. Why We Fight
    Why We Fight deserves high praise for making it that much tougher to wear blinders.
  29. Glory Road
    Josh Lucas plays Haskins with a no-bull vigor that comes in handy when the script saddles him with all-bull platitudes.
  30. Fateless
    This unique and devastating look at the Holocaust is drawn from the autobiographical novel of 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz.
  31. Match Point
    Woody Allen's best movie in years means to trip us up: Sexual sizzle. London instead of Manhattan. Brit actors. Dark humor with a sting that leaves welts. You bet it's a change. And it looks good on the Woodman.
  32. Casanova
    Ledger's comic flair is a big plus in a film that is fanatically busy and fatally sexless.
  33. Rumor Has It...
    Following "Derailed," this comic turd makes it two strikes for Jennifer Aniston. She looks great, but her acting is board-stiff.
  34. The New World
    Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki -- a grandmaster at blending color and natural light -- craft a tone poem that may throw some audiences through its use of interior monologues.
  35. The Matador
    Writer-director Richard Shepard gives Brosnan his meatiest role ever, and he digs in with relish.
  36. Munich
    Bana is magnificent in the role.
  37. Caché (Hidden)
    Casts a spell that grips you and won't let go. The film works as a provocation, on a personal and a political level.
  38. The Ringer
    It's getting harder to sustain a rooting interest in the career of Johnny Knoxville.
  39. Cheaper by the Dozen 2
    There's something pernicious about a toxic mix of sitcom and snickering sex jokes getting packaged and effectively sold as wholesome fun for the family.
  40. Fun with Dick and Jane
    Build a comedy around Jim Carrey in manic mode and they will come. Case in point: Fun With Dick and Jane, a pointless, painfully unfunny and yet inexplicably popular remake of the 1977 fizzle with Jane Fonda and George Segal.
  41. The White Countess
    Richardson -- acting with her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, who plays her aunt, and her aunt Lynn Redgrave, who plays her mother -- finds the story's grieving heart. Fiennes is her match in soulful artistry.
  42. The Family Stone
    Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory.
  43. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
    Sam Peckinpah lives! The rampaging spirit of the late filmmaker, known as Bloody Sam for films such as "The Wild Bunch" and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," is all over this blistering modern Western from first-time director Tommy Lee Jones.
  44. The Producers
    Stroman should have studied the original Producers that Brooks directed in 1968, with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. It answers the question "Where did they go right?"
  45. King Kong
    Here is the jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping movie epic we've been waiting for all year.
  46. Memoirs of a Geisha
    Any doubts about three Chinese actresses speaking English with Japanese accents vanish in the face of their deeply felt performances and the world Marshall conjures with magical finesse.
  47. Brokeback Mountain
    Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
  48. Mrs Henderson Presents
    The subplot involving a tragic romance between a soldier and one of the living statues (the lovely Kelly Reilly) is hell on the humor and on a movie that stays content to do the trite thing.
  49. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    This PG-rated movie feels safe and constricted in a way the story never does on the page. It leaves out the deep magic of a good movie, or a good sermon: the feeling that something vital is at stake.
  50. The World's Fastest Indian
    Even a nice chianti couldn't help you wash down this lump of tear-jerking twaddle.
  51. 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.
  52. Down to the Bone
    If there were an ounce of taste left in Hollywood, the magnificent Vera Farmiga would be a front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar.
  53. The Libertine
    This one-of-a-kind spellbinder from first-time director Laurence Dunmore is not afraid to shock. Depp is a raunchy wonder, especially in a time-capsule-worthy opening monologue.
  54. Syriana
    Takes off with the lightning speed of a thriller, the gonzo force of frontline journalism and the emotional wallop of a drama that puts a human face on shocking statistics.
  55. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    With the cast getting looser and the mind games kinkier, it's hard to resist.
  56. Walk the Line
    Witherspoon has nailed it before, notably in "Election," but her portrayal of June is astounding in its vitality and richness.
  57. Breakfast on Pluto
    In substance and style, the movie is more than a few tears short of Jordan's "The Crying Game." But Murphy is an actor to watch. Even in heels.
  58. Derailed
    The strapping Owen as a guy who can't handle himself and cutie-pie Aniston as a witchy woman? I don't think so. Talk about derailed.
  59. Pride & Prejudice
    Romantic yearning hasn't looked this sexy onscreen in years.
  60. Bee Season
    Fine directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel take a detour into mumbo jumbo.
  61. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    Sarah Silverman is the most outrageously funny woman alive.
  62. Get Rich or Die Tryin'
    The film is shockingly light on music and heavy on crime scenes that play as bogus.
  63. Jarhead
    Even when the script slips into sermonizing -- a Swoff voice-over informs us that we're all still "in the desert" -- Mendes keeps invading us with emotions. The jolt of Jarhead is undeniable, and it comes when you least expect it.
  64. The Dying Gaul
    The actors could not be better. Sarsgaard, Scott and the luminous Clarkson negotiate the film's razor-sharp laughs and bone-deep tragedy with resonant skill. Lucas' powerfully haunting film gets under your skin.
  65. Prime
    Younger knows it's fun to watch Rafi and David cross lines of age, culture and religion. He also knows it's painful. That's what makes his movie hilarious and heartfelt.
  66. The Weather Man
    Cage works hard to find traces of humanity in a man that God forgot, as do screenwriter Steven Conrad and director Gore Verbinski. But in the face of a character no one cares about, can audiences be faulted for asking: Why should we?
  67. Paradise Now
    Shot in the West Bank, the film radiates authenticity. Even when he plays the action like a thriller, Abu-Assad is in search of a deeper truth.
  68. The Passenger (re-release)
    The script, co-written by Antonioni and Peter Wollen, focuses on a TV journalist (a superb Jack Nicholson).
  69. Shopgirl
    Even the film's missteps (the score, by Barrington Pheloung, is cringe-inducing) can't stop this meditation on love -- Martin calls it "Jane Austen for the twenty-first century" -- from melting into heartbreak.
  70. Stay
    Some people find this twisty and twisted psychological thriller arty and pretentious. I find it arty and provocative.
  71. 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.
  72. Domino
    The movie is full of possibilities. Frustratingly, only a few of them are realized.
  73. Elizabethtown
    The film's problems lie with the lack of spark between a wired Dunst and a bland Bloom, and the meltdown of Drew's mother (Susan Sarandon), who grieves by tap-dancing.
  74. Where the Truth Lies
    This movie isn't over-the-top -- it doesn't know where the top is. Trash addicts will eat up every graphic minute, even if they prefer to wait for the DVD.
  75. North Country
    Any similarities between Josey and Lois Jenson, the real woman who made Eveleth Mines pay for their sins in a landmark 1988 class-action suit, are purely coincidental. Instead, we get a TV-movie fantasy of female empowerment glazed with soap-opera theatrics.
  76. Good Night, and Good Luck.
    In ninety-three tight, terrifically exciting minutes, Clooney makes integrity look mighty sexy.
  77. In Her Shoes
    It's Hanson's astute directing that makes the film's life lessons go down painlessly, turning the smartly entertaining In Her Shoes into a comfy fit for both sexes.
  78. The Squid and the Whale
    Without jerking tears or reducing the acid content of his wit, Baumbach's humane movie gets under your skin.
  79. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
    You will laugh yourself silly.
  80. Capote
    Capote is a movie that doesn't pull its punches. It's a knockout.
  81. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
    It's tough to imagine a guy who won't squirm through this tale of 1950s housewife Evelyn Ryan.
  82. A History of Violence
    Other films this year will have to sweat bullets to match the explosive power and subversive wit of David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. It slams you like a body punch and then starts messing with your head.
  83. Oliver Twist
    It's unlikely audiences will be echoing a starving Oliver's most famous line: "Please, sir, I want some more."
  84. Proof
    Madden directed Paltrow in the play on the London stage, but he does his "Shakespeare in Love" goddess no favors by filling the screen with big close-ups that betray the theatrical origins of the piece and drain the movie of life and urgency. Proof hasn't been filmed at all -- it's been embalmed.
  85. Lord of War
    Niccol is too good a screenwriter (The Truman Show, Gattaca) not to know that Hollywood cliches are hell on a film's political bite. They muzzle it.
  86. Everything Is Illuminated
    Wood, whose mostly mute turn is defined by his black suit and glasses, can only stare in stupefaction at Schreiber's jittery mix of broad laughs and sentiment. Audiences will share the feeling.
  87. Corpse Bride
    It's warped and wonderfully effervescent. Ditto the songs by Danny Elfman, who sings the role of Bonejangles, the frontman for a skeleton jazz band at a swinging underworld club. Best of all is the love story.
  88. Thumbsucker
    Pucci is an actor to watch: He rides this spellbinder without softening the truths that plague the thumbsucker in all of us.
  89. Separate Lies
    Watson and Everett, both superb, bring ferocity and feeling to their roles. But the one you won't forget is Wilkinson (In the Bedroom) in a towering performance of grace and grit that deserves to put him on Oscar's shortlist. Good show.
  90. An Unfinished Life
    It's not just that Jennifer Lopez looks lost and out of her league acting with Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman. That's to be expected. It's the drag-ass solemnity of this turgid family drama that makes you crazy.
  91. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
    Oh, how good actors can trap themselves in drivel.
  92. Keane
    Keane means to shakes us, and does.
  93. The Constant Gardener
    Director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Jeffrey Caine put a human face on John le Carre's novel of sex, lies and dirty politics in modern Africa. Prepare for a thrilling ride.
  94. The Brothers Grimm
    If you're a Gilliam junkie, as I am, you go with it, even when the script by Ehren Kruger (The Skeleton Key) loses its shaky hold on coherence.
  95. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    Steve Carell, best known as a team player on "The Daily Show," "The Office" and such movies as "Anchorman," earns top-banana status as Andy. He is flat-out hilarious.
  96. Red Eye
    The gripping, seat- clutching suspense in this baby will pin you to your seat.
  97. Four Brothers
    What holds us are the actors, including Terrence Howard as a cop who grew up with the brothers.
  98. Grizzly Man
    Herzog conducts his own expedition into knowing the unknowable -- the true task of any filmmaker. Herzog makes it an art.
  99. Pulse
    Just know that Pulse possesses the dark art to make your pulse pound and your hair stand on end -- with no cheating.
  100. The Dukes of Hazzard
    There is no wrong time to flush this turd. The only bright spot comes during the outtakes over the final credits.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »