The Associated Press' Scores

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For 1,491 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1 point higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Tootsie
Lowest review score: 0 The King's Daughter
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,074 out of 1491
  2. Mixed: 240 out of 1491
  3. Negative: 177 out of 1491
1491 movie reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Joy Luck Club
    Every once in a while a movie comes along that is so stirring and so moving that it stays with you long after it's over. Like a wonderful memory, it washes over your psyche for days and bathes it in some indescribable richness. The Joy Luck Club is just such a movie. This is filmmaking at its best: a wonderful story that transcends cultures. It is beautifully set and filmed, superbly acted and masterfully directed. [7 Sept 1993]
    • The Associated Press
  2. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
    It goes without saying that the performance is brilliant, and yes, electric, but it’s also heroic. If there had to be a final role, what a gift that it was this, an exclamation point to a career that seems ever more momentous.
  3. Encanto
    It’s only appropriate that Encanto — fueled by eight original songs by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda — turns into that most special thing of all: A triumph in every category: art, songs and heart.
  4. Victor Victoria
    A marvelous mixture of genders, a blatant attack on sexual attitudes that is both challenging and hilarious. [19 Feb 1982]
    • The Associated Press
  5. Minari
    Minari could not be more personal. Filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung based the film on his own childhood in the 1980s, when his Korean American parents moved to Arkansas to start a farm. And it’s the specificity of this delicate tale that makes it so universal and so great.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Peter Pan
    Another of the most cherished cartoon features ever. [05 Mar 2007]
    • The Associated Press
  7. One Battle After Another
    In Paul Thomas Anderson’s gloriously messy, madcap roller coaster ride through modern America, objects in the rear view may go out of sight, but they don’t disappear.
  8. Women Talking
    Women Talking is not melodramatic or desperate or exploitative. It is astute and urgent and may just help those previously unable to find words or even coherent feelings for their own traumatic experiences. And hopefully it might just inspire more works of wild female imagination.
  9. Licorice Pizza
    It’s the performances of Haim and Hoffman that most lend “Licorice Pizza” its authenticity. Neither has acted in a film before and their fresh-faced presences electrify the film.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is Spinal Tap
    Reiner, with McKean, Guest and Harry Shearer (who plays bassist Derek Smalls), have done a great job in creating and portraying characters that are dimwitted, cliched and yet oddly endearing. [20 March 1984]
    • The Associated Press
  11. Aftersun
    Young fathers, especially the single sort, don’t get a lot of love from the movies and “Aftersun” is partly an ode to that very specific, very sweet bond between father and pre-teen daughter that both kind of understand will change into something else soon.
  12. Roma
    Cuaron is content to take his time with Roma, allowing the camera to linger on his subjects and the frustrating banalities of ordinary, everyday life that sneak up on you with poetic significance as the film goes on
  13. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
    Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn’t a flashy movie, but that’s part of its unnerving power. With her empathetic camera and transcendent storytelling, Hittman elevates their story — so ordinary-seeming on the page — to a great lyrical odyssey.
  14. Hamilton
    Kail’s camera captures actors’ intimate faces during key moments in a way impossible for theater-goers and incorporates audience reaction to create an electric filmed version.
  15. La Chimera
    When we talk about “movie magic,” the first thing that comes to mind is often something like the bikes achieving liftoff in “E.T.” But it applies no less to Alice Rohrwacher’s wondrous “La Chimera,” a grubbily transcendent folk tale of a film that finds its enchantment buried in the ground.
  16. Mank
    It’s simply telling a story about a man behind so many of our movie memories and making a new one in the process. And it is, without a doubt one, of the year’s very best.
  17. Good One
    All of the acting is terrific and so naturalistic that it’s easy to forget that these are actors performing lines that they’ve memorized in front of a camera.
  18. Tótem
    For a film about death, Lila Avilés’ “Tótem” is extraordinarily lived in.
  19. The Banshees of Inisherin
    The Banshees of Inisherin is a rich, soulful journey, full of agony, dry Irish wit and big, haunting questions. If it’s answers you’re looking for, however, you’re not going to find them on Inisherin.
  20. The Worst Person in the World
    There is a refreshing honesty in this script, penned by Trier and his longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, that engages with nuance and the impossible complexities of life in a way that most “rom-coms” avoid like the plague.
  21. Fallen Leaves
    Fallen Leaves is the best big-screen romance of the year even though its prospective lovers exchange only a handful of words and, for most of the film, don’t know each other’s names.
  22. Prizzi's Honor
    Huston is the unquestioned master of the greed-fueled plot, crammed with treacherous types aiming to destroy each other. He is in top form once more, presenting a gallery of low-lifes that could even baffle Sam Spade. [17 June 1985]
    • The Associated Press
  23. Perfect Days
    The Wenders’ movie that “Perfect Days” most recalls is “Wings of Desire,” where melancholy angels watched over Cold War-era Berlin and spoke of testifying “day by day for eternity.” “Perfect Days” has no such supernatural element, but its gaze is likewise attuned to what’s beautiful and meaningful in everyday living.
  24. Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
    And though the performances are riveting — standouts include Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples belting out Take My Hand, Precious Lord and the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ O Happy Day — it’s the shots of the all-ages crowd that makes this film come alive, with the vibrant fashions, the incredible faces, the excitement, the boredom and the humanity of it all packed into every frame.
  25. It Was Just an Accident
    Watch it and it will linger in your mind. It’s a movie for Iranians, of course, but it’s valuable for any society hoping to one day mend a divided country.
  26. The Climb
    Utterly original and utterly excellent, the modern bromance The Climb is a thrilling ride, an unconventional and idiosyncratic American film that acts like a old-school arty European one.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé
    The film — written, directed and produced by Beyoncé — perfectly captures her dazzling performances for the big screen and somewhat unveils intimate behind-the-scenes footage from a normally private singer, who has rarely done interviews in the past decade.
  28. Dick Johnson Is Dead
    I’m sure for Johnson, Dick Johnson Is Dead will one day be a heaven-sent reservoir for remembering her father. But its larger gift is in spurring us all to meet mortality with humor and honesty, and appreciate loved ones while they’re here.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Little Mermaid
    The Little Mermaid is magic and joy for everyone, and teaches us all to never lose sight of dreams and hope. [06 Nov 1989]
    • The Associated Press
  30. Nomadland
    This film is a small miracle and a uniquely meditative experience.
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