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. 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.
  2. The Lookout
    The Lookout is Frank's show. He's crafted a haunting and hypnotic film that transcends pulp by creating characters that get under your skin.
  3. Flight
    You might bitch that Flight levels off after its shocking, soaring start. But you'd be missing the point of an exceptional entertainment that Zemeckis shades into something quietly devastating – not an addiction drama, but the deeper spectacle of a man facing the truth about himself.
  4. Two Days, One Night
    From the theme of global downsizing, the filmmakers wring humor, heartbreak, suspense and stirring social drama. Cotillard, a consummate actress, fits like a natural into the workaday world of the Dardennes (Rosetta, The Son, The Kid With a Bike).
  5. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
    Claireece "Precious" Jones, played by Gabourey Sidibe, 24, in an astounding debut that brims with grit and amazing grace.
  6. Gunner Palace
    A riveting and indispensable record of the war in Iraq because it comes from the men who lived it.
  7. Hoffa
    The boldness of director Danny DeVito's violent epic is matched by Nicholson's astonishing physical and vocal transformation into Jimmy Hoffa.
  8. The Beguiled
    Coppola is a virtuoso of image and sound. but don't mistake her delicate touch for weakness. The Beguiled is a hothouse flower of startling power and intimacy. You can't shake it.
  9. Toni Erdmann
    If you're looking for the best and most beguiling foreign-language film of the year, you'll find it in Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann, a German father-daughter story that will leave you laughing and choking back tears, often simultaneously.
  10. Air Force One
    Director Wolfgang Petersen puts such a fresh spin on the familiar that it all works like gangbusters.
  11. Darkest Hour
    Gary Oldman is one of the greatest actors on the planet – and he proves it again as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.
  12. The Insult
    Still, the excitement is palpable, and Karam and El Basha (he justifiably won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival) give the kind of performances that keep you riveted. Even at its most blunt and obvious, this is a movie that stumps for empathy. Who can argue with that?
  13. Wild Tales
    Writer-director Damián Szifron hasn't made one film — he's made six, stitched together under one title and sent out to a world that may not be ready. Screw the pussies. Wild Tales is gleefully out for blood.
  14. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
    Even the opaque hints can drive you cuckoo with frustration. Lanthimos does not coddle his audience. His M.O. is to shock, provoke and leave you talking to the voices inside your own head. The choice is yours.
  15. Bugsy
    Bugsy is less an indictment of the dark side than a black-comic look at our continuing fascination with it. Even when this powerhouse entertainment trips on its ambitions, you can't shake it off.
  16. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
    Spurlock says he's not selling out, he's buying in. I'm buying into Spurlock. As ever, he makes you laugh till it hurts.
  17. 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.
  18. Crash
    The acting is dynamite, notably by Dillon and Newton in their shocking second encounter. Despite its preachy moments, the film is a knockout.
  19. Holy Motors
    Holy Motors, fueled by pure feeling, is a dream of a movie you want to get lost in. It's a thing of beauty.
  20. Moonrise Kingdom
    The top-tier cast, including Tilda Swinton as a character called Social Services, may be star overload, but each actor performs small miracles.
  21. The Sessions
    Just see it. This movie will take a piece out of you.
  22. The Triplets of Belleville
    It's comic, touching and a visual knockout.
  23. Summer Hours
    Writer-director Olivier Assayas crafts a near perfect blend of humor and heartbreak, a lyrical masterwork that measures loss in terms practical and evanescent.
  24. Incendies
    A devastating mystery thriller from Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve that grabs you hard and won't let go.
  25. The Hoax
    Gere gives 'em the old razzle-dazzle with his roguish charm and sharp comic timing. The surprise is the unexpected feeling he brings to this challenging role.
  26. Paranoid Park
    The film's sound design, sampling Beethoven and Nino Rota, among others, links up with visual miracles performed by Rain Kathy Li and Wong Kar-Wai's noted cinematographer, Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love), to take us inside Alex's head. The result, a defiant slap at slick Hollywood formula, is mesmerizing.
  27. Maps to the Stars
    You can laugh with Maps to the Stars, but you can't laugh it off. Prepare to be knocked for a loop.
  28. The Incredibles
    Bird has crafted a film -- one of the year's best -- that doesn't ring cartoonish, it rings true.
  29. The First Wives Club
    The movie, from the 1992 best seller by Olivia Goldsmith, isn't deathless art. But as pure entertainment, this witty revenge romp is sinfully satisfying.
  30. Hacksaw Ridge
    Thanks to some of the greatest battle scenes ever filmed, Gibson once again shows his staggering gifts as a filmmaker, able to juxtapose savagery with aching tenderness.
  31. Infernal Affairs
    Throbs with action, suspense and a seductive rhythm all its own.
  32. 51 Birch Street
    Through haunting home movies, Mina's diaries and interviews with Mike, a raw, riveting portrait emerges of what a child sees in his parents' relationship and what lies beneath.
  33. Loving
    The film sneaks up on you, quiet-like, until its implications accumulate. And then it crushes you.
  34. Mud
    In the hands of Nichols, Mud emerges as a thing of bruised beauty. There's magic in it.
  35. Walk the Line
    Witherspoon has nailed it before, notably in "Election," but her portrayal of June is astounding in its vitality and richness.
  36. Emma
    McGrath's script is faithful: fierce when it needs to be and devilishly funny.
  37. A Bigger Splash
    Everything in this movie is so ripe and voluptuous that watching it doesn't seem enough, you want to take a bite out of it.
  38. 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.
  39. The Witch
    A crafty calling card brimming with beauty and terror. Eggers pulls us into the supernatural with subtle cunning and meticulous attention to detail.
  40. Maggie's Plan
    Without pushing or showing off, Miller creates a breezy comedy that pulls you up short. Buoyed by faultless actors who mesh beautifully, Maggie's Plan tickles you with laughs that can — suddenly or even days later — choke you up with emotion.
  41. Away We Go
    Rudolph, a comic force on "SNL," can speak volumes with the tilt of an eyebrow. She and Krasinski, of "The Office," are absolutely extraordinary. Ditto the film, which sneaks up and floors you.
  42. Blade Runner 2049
    For Blade Runner junkies like myself, who've mainlined five different versions of Ridley Scott's now iconic sci-fi film noir – from the release print to the Director's Cut and the Final Cut (the last two minus that voiceover Scott and Ford hated) – every minute of this mesmerizing mindbender is a visual feast to gorge on.
  43. The Dinner
    There are bumps along the way, transitions from one medium to another will do that, but this filmmaker and his fierce foursome won't be done till they take a piece out of you. It's a gripping psychological thriller with a sting in its tail.
  44. American Sniper
    Eastwood, working from a script that Jason Hall adapted from Kyle's 2012 memoir, fuses the explosive and the sorrowful as only he can. That's why his film takes a piece out of you.
  45. Selma
    The sad fact is that racial injustice is timelier than ever. Righteous fury is in the air. And that fervor to stand up and be counted is all over Selma.
  46. The Adventures of Tintin
    The movie comes at you in a whoosh, like a volcano of creative ideas in full eruption.
  47. Big Fish
    Director Tim Burton finally hooks the one that got away: a script that challenges and deepens his visionary talent.
  48. Lady Chatterley
    It's a movie as timely as it is thrilling to watch.
  49. Unbroken
    Jolie has an army of craftsmen in her corner, notably camera poet Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men). But it's her vision that gives Unbroken a spirit that soars. In honoring Louis' endurance, she does herself proud.
  50. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
    The action, from lightsaber duels to X-wing dogfights with TIE Fighters, is explosive and buoyed by John Williams' exultant score. And the movie is also funny as hell. Abrams knows how to build a laugh and fill the emotional spaces between words.
  51. The World's End
    It'll knock you on you ass from laughing when you're not rubbing your eyes in disbelief.
  52. War Horse
    War Horse gets to you. It's one from the heart.
  53. Blue Valentine
    Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams give two of the most explosive and emotionally naked performances you will see anywhere. Just know you're in for a workout.
  54. Short Term 12
    Rehab movies nearly always make me cringe, as if the audience needs to take medicine, as if hope needs to be force fed. Short Term 12, an exceptional film in every way, breaks the mold.
  55. Arrival
    Adams, her face a reflection of conflicting emotions, is simply stellar in an Oscar-buzzed performance of amazing grit and grace. Without her, Arrival might be too cerebral to warm up to. With her, the film gets inside your head and emerges as something intimate and epic, a linguistics odyssey through space and time. It's the stuff that dreams are made of.
  56. Food, Inc.
    Eating can be one dangerous business. Don't take another bite till you see Robert Kenner's Food, Inc., an essential, indelible documentary that is scarier than anything in the last five Saw horror shows.
  57. Another Year
    Just watch the magnificent Manville, in a raw and riveting award-class performance that exposes a grieving heart under siege. Her last scene is quietly devastating. So is this intimate miracle of a movie.
  58. Munich
    Bana is magnificent in the role.
  59. An Education
    An Education is remarkable for the traps it doesn't fall into. Jenny, for all her naive impulses, isn't a victim.
  60. Room 237
    Ascher's unique and unforgettable film is a tribute to movie love. I couldn't have liked it more.
  61. Avengers: Age of Ultron
    A whole summer of fireworks packed into one movie. It doesn't just go to 11, it starts there.
  62. The Jungle Book
    A visual marvel that cuts a direct path to the heart.
  63. Infinitely Polar Bear
    The movie is a small miracle, lifted by Ruffalo and these two remarkable young actresses. Refusing to soften the edges when Cam is off his meds, Ruffalo is a powerhouse. He and Forbes craft an indelibly intimate portrait of what makes a family when the roles of parent and child are reversed.
  64. Gleason
    It promotes an awareness of ALS that goes beyond the best-intended any ice-bucket challenge — and ranks as a profound achievement.
  65. The Host
    Is it that scary? Yes. Will it reduce you to quivering jelly? Oh, my, yes! Does it bust the bonds of the Godzilla formula to fuse fright with feeling? Better believe it, dudes.
  66. For Your Consideration
    Catherine O'Hara is comic perfection as Marilyn Hack.
  67. Only the Strong Survive
    One for the time capsule.
  68. Graduation
    Graduation, isn't quite on the landmark level of his searing 2007 abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," but this gripping film still sizzles with Mungiu's social-realist concern for people who believe they can't raise their position based on merit alone. In that sense, the filmmaker is working on a universal level.
  69. Dogville
    Kidman gives the most emotionally bruising performance of her career in Dogville, a movie that never met a cliche it didn't stomp on.
  70. Sing Street
    Sing Street is the most romantic movie you'll find anywhere these days, brimming over with music, fun and the thrill of first love.
  71. The Town
    Affleck and Hall make this unlikely love story palpably moving. And Renner (The Hurt Locker) is dynamite - he radiates ferocity and feeling.
  72. Colossal
    Damned if this wildly witty and surprisingly touching swing at movie madness and gender politics isn't on to something deep.
  73. Star Trek Into Darkness
    Kudos to Abrams for going bigger without going stupid. His set pieces, from an erupting volcano to the hell unleashed over London and Frisco Bay, are doozies. So's the movie. It's crazy good.
  74. Trainwreck
    Sweet is not how Schumer wants Trainwreck to go down. She wants to explode rom-com clichés and replace them with something fierce and ready to rumble. Done.
  75. Catfish
    There's more killer suspense and shocking intimacy in this one-of-a-kind documentary than you'll find in a dozen thrillers. You'll laugh hard and cry too.
  76. Saved!
    Fanaticism is Dannelly's target, not faith. That's what makes his film a keeper: It sticks with you.
  77. Stronger
    Based on the bestseller by Bauman and Bret Witter and blessed with a nuanced script by John Pollono, the film makes sure that tears, when they come, are fully earned.
  78. Never Let Me Go
    The melancholy attached to the impermanence of life and love suffuses this film, making it memorably haunting and hypnotic.
  79. The King's Speech
    Two men alone create an epic landscape of feeling in one of the very best movies of the year.
  80. Guardians of the Galaxy
    Guardians of the Galaxy does the impossible. Through dazzle and dumb luck, it turns the clichés of comic-book films on their idiot heads and hits you like an exhilarating blast of fun-fun-fun. It's insanely, shamelessly silly – just one reason to love it.
  81. Waiting for Guffman
    I lost it just watching Corky show off such memorabilia as "My Dinner With Andre" action figures and a "Remains of the Day" lunch box. Priceless.
  82. Knocked Up
    Rogen and Heigl step up to the plate with a tougher task from Coach Apatow: Nail every laugh and the emotions underlying them. No worries. They knock it out of the park.
  83. 21 Grams
    You won't see more explosive acting this year.
  84. Straight Outta Compton
    Straight Outta Compton plays better when it's outside the box, showing us N.W.A power and the consequences of abusing it. Would the movie be better if it didn't sidestep the band's misogyny, gay-bashing and malicious infighting? No shit. But what stands is an amazement, an electrifying piece of hip-hop history that speaks urgently to right now.
  85. Why We Fight
    Why We Fight deserves high praise for making it that much tougher to wear blinders.
  86. Rush
    It's Morgan's core script, full of humor, heartache and verbal fireworks, that lifts Rush above the "Fast & Furious" herd.
  87. The Age of Innocence
    Day-Lewis is smashing as the man caught between his emotions and the social ethic. Not since Olivier in "Wuthering Heights" has an actor matched piercing intelligence with such imposing good looks and physical grace.
  88. Enough Said
    It sounds like rom-com hell. And it would be if Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus weren't such an appealing pair of misfits. It's a pleasure just to watch them spar.
  89. The Imitation Game
    It's been a long time since intellectual sparring created such excitement onscreen. I've heard a few critics dismiss this mind-bender as hopelessly old-hat. Ha! If so, long live retro. ​
  90. The Squid and the Whale
    Without jerking tears or reducing the acid content of his wit, Baumbach's humane movie gets under your skin.
  91. Hidden Figures
    Lots of movies are labeled as "inspirational" – Hidden Figures truly earns the right to the term.
  92. Gone Baby Gone
    Gone Baby Gone is full of dark secrets, and how they unravel will keep you glued.
  93. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    This is a film in which ideas resonate as well as action. Gandalf’s words to Pippin about death have a muscular poetry.
  94. Vera Drake
    Using Staunton's face as his canvas, Leigh crafts a powerfully moving film that is unmissable and unforgettable.
  95. Frances Ha
    Baumbach, in his most compassionate film since The Squid and the Whale, catches Frances in the act of inventing herself. It's a glorious sight to see.
  96. Prisoners
    Some will write off Prisoners as shameless exploitation. But like Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," to which it's been compared, Prisoners is so artfully shaped and forcefully developed that objections fade.
  97. Seabiscuit
    Unabashedly hokey, but would you want it any other way? In an era of cynical junk (did anyone say “Bad Boys II”?), Ross restores the good name of crowd-pleasing.
  98. Better Luck Tomorrow
    Lin is a talent to watch. There's a sting to this film that gets to you.
  99. 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.
  100. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
    The movie will wipe you out. Schnabel's previous two films (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) also focused on artists. But this is his best film yet, a high-wire act of visual daring and unquenchable spirit.
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