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. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
    Something cold and mechanical has seeped into the sequel. The divas push so hard for fun, it kills the spontaneity that fun needs to breathe.
  2. 28 Days Later...
    Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland plumb the violence of the mind with slashing wit and shocking gravity. Happy nightmares.
  3. Alex & Emma
    Reiner gets lucky with his two stars. Wilson has charm to spare, and Hudson brings humor and sexiness to playing Emma and four au pair girls from different countries. But even they can't float a balloon with lead in it.
  4. Hulk
    Lee's technique is impeccable, but he's chasing more inner demons than one creature feature can handle. No wonder the audience cheers when TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno shows up for a cameo. It's a reminder of a time when it was easier being green and a Hulk could just get pissed off and bust shit up.
  5. Jet Lag
    This is the kind of movie that they show on planes -- white noise that lulls you to sleep.
  6. The Heart of Me
    There's heart but not much heat in this film version of "The Echoing Grove."
  7. Hollywood Homicide
    Escapism with a human touch -- it feels lived-in.
  8. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
    The jokes? "Chicks are for fags," says Lloyd. The film is subtitled When Harry Met Lloyd. Believe me, you don't want to be there.
  9. Love the Hard Way
    To shine in a turd like this shows Brody has the stuff that -- damn the Oscar jinx -- makes an actor last.
  10. The Eye
    The Pangs deliver enough shivery scares to keep you up nights. Eyes wide shut.
  11. Whale Rider
    A film of female empowerment that resonates deeply.
  12. The Italian Job
    A triumph for the machines, more proof that we do indeed live in the Matrix.
  13. Capturing the Friedmans
    It's a modern horror story that gets you where you live.
  14. Finding Nemo
    Leave it to a g-rated cartoon to give the live-action epics a lesson in action, fun and bracing originality.
  15. The In-Laws
    Everything sly and low-key about The In-Laws, a 1979 comedy...is supersized and coarsened in Andrew Fleming's remake.
  16. 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.
  17. Only the Strong Survive
    One for the time capsule.
  18. Daddy Day Care
    Murphy looks comatose delivering the played-out poopy jokes.
  19. The Shape of Things
    The actors nail the comic sting in every line, punctuated by eleven prime Elvis Costello songs.
  20. Down with Love
    What starts as freshly spun cotton candy ends as something pink, sticky and indigestible. You leave the theater wanting to puke it up.
  21. X2: X-Men United
    A summer firecracker. It's also a tribute to outcasts -- teens, gays, minorities, even Dixie Chicks. It's not without thought or feeling, except when its mind gets bent by the gods of box office. Then it's craven and empty.
  22. The Dancer Upstairs
    Malkovich weaves something delicate and devastating.
  23. Blue Car
    Bruckner is an amazement, piercing the heart without begging for sympathy. This small gem of a movie is the perfect setting for her breakthrough performance.
  24. Spellbound
    By the time they're onstage, your pulse is pounding right along with theirs. Spell this movie: g-r-e-a-t.
  25. A Decade Under the Influence
    Here's a fireball documentary about the 1970s, when filmmakers were stoked by sex, drugs, rock and, oh, yeah, social conscience.
  26. Confidence
    Scenes with Burns crackle with the toxic energy that makes Confidence a game worth playing.
  27. Winged Migration
    The result is a movie miracle; it soars.
  28. Lilya 4-Ever
    Lukas Moodysson, a young Swedish director, crafts a stunner of a film out of familiar turf.
  29. A Mighty Wind
    I've seen A Mighty Wind only twice so far. Maybe it is less fresh than "Guffman," more strained than "Best in Show." Who cares? It's still a gift from comedy heaven.
  30. Better Luck Tomorrow
    Lin is a talent to watch. There's a sting to this film that gets to you.
  31. Ghosts of the Abyss
    Despite over-ripe narration and an understandable urge to cram too much in, Ghosts of the Abyss is a thrilling documentary.
  32. Anger Management
    It's good fun for a while, especially the therapy sessions that feature Luis Guzman as a gay hood with a paunch he covers in Day-Glo spandex and John Turturro as Dave's "anger buddy." John C. Reilly also scores as a bully turned Buddhist monk.
  33. Phone Booth
    Farrell is a dynamo. And Kiefer Sutherland, whose sniper role is essentially a voice on the phone, matches Farrell subtle shift for subtle shift.
  34. What a Girl Wants
    It's slick girlie stuff, but the cast makes it go down easy.
  35. Levity
    A dreary film that's damn near torture to sit through.
  36. A Man Apart
    It's a little early for self-parody in the career of Vin Diesel. But he's a calamitous cliché in A Man Apart.
  37. The Good Thief
    Nolte brings a raspy authority to the role, and director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) surrounds him with colorful characters.
  38. Assassination Tango
    Duvall missteps in trying to mesh suspense with a love story that also involves the woman (Kathy Baker) John J. lives with and her young daughter (Katherine Micheaux Miller), on whom he disturbingly dotes.
  39. The Core
    The Core -- with its by-the-numbers plot and performances -- isn't offensive, just unblushingly tacky and derivative.
  40. Head of State
    Doesn't seem directed at all; you half expect the actors to crash into each other. Still, give me the attempted satire of Head of State over the racial stereotyping of "Bringing Down the House" anyday. You can feel a mind at work when you watch Rock.
  41. Raising Victor Vargas
    Writer-director Peter Sollett takes the familiar and turns it into hot, heartfelt movie magic.
  42. Basic
    Their (Travolta/Jackson) teamwork was classic. Basic breaks up the team. What's up with that?
  43. View from the Top
    It's a no-go. View From the Top boasts a first-class cast, but they're all traveling coach.
  44. Dreamcatcher
    Then the aliens show up, chased by Morgan Freeman as a nut-job Army colonel, and the movie degenerates into a sorry, silly, gory, punishingly overlong creature feature.
  45. Willard
    Want your skin to crawl? This one's for you.
  46. The Hunted
    Just a "Rambo" rehash.
  47. Bend It Like Beckham
    Writer-director Gurinder Chadha juggles all the angles with flair and fairness. Like Nagra and Knightley, the movie is a sweetheart.
  48. Laurel Canyon
    A clumsy package of clichés.
  49. Irreversible
    It would be easy and convenient to dismiss Irreversible as blatant sensationalism. But Noe's bruising film is too artfully crafted to write off as exploitation.
  50. Tears of the Sun
    Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) can stage action, but he can't save a trivializing, reactionary script featuring a Hollywood star (read America) as a global savior.
  51. Dark Blue
    A film of wounding power. It stays with you.
  52. Gods and Generals
    What the filmmakers fail to recognize is that history on the page is quite different from what it needs to be onscreen, namely alive and visceral.
  53. Old School
    Only fitfully funny, except when Ferrell is onscreen -- then you won't stop laughing.
  54. The Life of David Gale
    A shock ending may be the best hope for this film, a convoluted mystery that thinks it's way smarter than it is.
  55. Gerry
    Strands Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (both named Gerry) in a desert with little to say and do except lose themselves in an existential wasteland of doomed beauty.
  56. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
    When a chick flick goes wrong -- and this one hits a dead end in hell -- it's a wipeout.
  57. Shanghai Knights
    Grating.
  58. Biker Boyz
    Guy flicks can be just as galling as the chick variety. Here's Exhibit A in how to lose an audience in ten minutes.
  59. Lost in La Mancha
    Fulton and Pepe have created an extraordinary document. Hilarious and heartbreaking.
  60. The Guru
    Graham, back in the porn territory she aced in “Boogie Nights,” steals the show. In the winter doldrums, you don't kick at a movie that puts a smile on your face.
  61. The Recruit
    As a thriller, The Recruit is merely an entertaining ride. But remember: Nothing is what it seems. It's the subtext -- two actors from different generations faking each other out with skill and affection -- that counts.
  62. Darkness Falls
    Do you really need me to tell you how scary this horror show isn't?
  63. Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary
    Just one talking head, that's all. But the head in this mesmerizing documentary belongs to Traudl Junge.
  64. A Guy Thing
    If you ever admired Julia Stiles, Selma Blair and Jason Lee -- and who didn't? -- don't watch them crush their careers in this laugh-free romantic comedy.
  65. National Security
    It's too bad Martin already made “What's the Worst That Could Happen?” The title really fits this one.
  66. Kangaroo Jack
    The 'roo doesn't talk, except in a dream sequence…I'm dying here.
  67. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    Clooney fashions a style all his own: visceral, vital and churning with off-the-wall ideas. That's what makes you want to see Clooney direct again. You can feel his joy in it.
  68. Nicholas Nickleby
    Christopher Plummer steals the show without resorting to camp as Nicholas' wounded and wounding Uncle Ralph. It's a great performance and a reminder of Dickens' grandeur. This Cliff's Notes of a film, though lively fun, only hints at that.
  69. Max
    "You're an awfully hard man to like, Hitler." Few serious films could survive a line like that. Max certainly doesn't.
  70. The Hours
    These three unimprovable actresses make The Hours a thing of beauty.
  71. The Pianist
    Nothing can detract from the film as a portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake.
  72. Chicago
    Chicago, based on Bob Fosse's Broadway smash, kills.
  73. Catch Me If You Can
    What begins brightly gets bogged down over 140 minutes. A film that took off like a hare on speed ends like a winded tortoise.
  74. Morvern Callar
    Despite grim doings involving sexual hysteria and chopped-up body parts (don't ask), Ramsay and Morton fill this character study with poetic force and buoyant feeling.
  75. Spider
    What catches us in Spider's web -- besides the indelible performances of Fiennes and Richardson -- is the director's sympathy with this freak man-child who struggles to order his confused memories into a kind of truth.
  76. Narc
    A no-bull throwback to 1970s action films. It zips along with B-movie verve while adding the rich details and go-for-broke acting that heralds something special.
  77. Gangs of New York
    Gangs of New York is something better than perfect: It's thrillingly alive.
  78. Antwone Fisher
    The uniformly fine performances are a tribute to Washington, who plays the shrink with his customary command.
  79. 25th Hour
    In a multiplex filled with empty New Year vessels (take that, Kangaroo Jack), this holdover grabs you hard.
  80. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
    Spectacular in every sense of the word, even if you don' t know an Orc from a Uruk-Hai.
  81. The Guys
    The film is just two people talking, but director Jim Simpson finds its grieving heart.
  82. About Schmidt
    It is also Nicholson at his bravest and riskiest. By banking his fires and staying alert to the smallest details, he delivers a monumental performance that blasts your expectations and batters your heart.
  83. Analyze That
    The sequel, also directed by Harold Ramis, is painfully padded.
  84. Adaptation.
    Screenwriting this smart, inventive, passionate and rip-roaringly funny is a rare species. It's magic.
  85. Solaris
    Clooney brings raw intensity to his role; his scenes with McElhone are rooted in a fierce romantic yearning.
  86. Eight Crazy Nights
    I'd prefer to think of Sandler in "Punch-Drunk Love," the one good movie of the three he did this year.
  87. Die Another Day
    Brosnan, in his fourth time up at the Bond bat, hits this one out of the park.
  88. The Emperor's Club
    Director Michael Hoffman sprays on the tears like a toxic mist. Avoid like the plague.
  89. The Quiet American
    Caine has never been better, which is saying something. He puts a human face on a tragic era of history in a film that ranks with the year's finest.
  90. Talk to Her
    The actors are outstanding, illuminating four different views of loneliness. But it's Camara's tour-de-force performance that anchors the film, that shocks and unnerves us.
  91. I Spy
    Something lazy, slow, shallow, stupid, amateurish, unfunny, unsuspenseful, uninformed, unspeakably dull and witlessly written, directed and acted (the special effects suck, too).
  92. Frida
    Hamstrung by a script that seems determined to stop at all the big moments in Frida's life (she died in 1954 at age forty-seven) without giving anything time to resonate.
  93. The Truth About Charlie
    Demme can't sustain the fizz, but seeing a real filmmaker try and fall short is still more fun than watching a hack hit the mark.
  94. Waking Up in Reno
    Thornton plays this low-ball farce with deceptive, masterful ease. Appreciate it.
  95. All or Nothing
    Leigh isn't breaking new ground, but he knows how a daily grind can kill love. Strong stuff.
  96. Roger Dodger
    Campbell Scott swings at one of the year's juiciest roles and knocks it out of the park.
  97. Abandon
    Crossing "A Beautiful Mind" with "Sex Kittens Go to College," first-time director Stephen Gaghan (he wrote Traffic) causes a head-on collision.
  98. Auto Focus
    Michael Gerbosi's script might have reduced Crane to a clueless cliche were it not for the bruised humanity that Greg Kinnear brings to the role. Kinnear is dynamite.
  99. The Ring
    The pickings are slim for scares this Halloween season (Ghost Ship, Below), so The Ring wins first prize by default.
  100. Comedian
    It's funny as hell, and like all comedy that stings, sorrowful at its core.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »