The Daily Beast's Scores

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For 698 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 59% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Sentimental Value
Lowest review score: 0 Melania
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 436 out of 698
  2. Mixed: 219 out of 698
  3. Negative: 43 out of 698
698 movie reviews
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  1. The Menendez Brothers
    It’s quite a shortcoming when a documentary avoids so many elements of its own story that it proves less comprehensive and compelling than a Ryan Murphy drama.
  2. Hold Your Breath
    In a genre overly taken as of late with “elevated” trauma scares, its gritty, skillful menace is a breath of fresh air.
  3. It's What's Inside
    Cares far less about scares than thrills, and it generates plenty of giddy ones as it mires its characters in a predicament of head-spinning proportions.
  4. Salem's Lot
    A reasonably faithful and effective thriller, light on legitimate frights but polished and unnerving.
  5. Nickel Boys
    Its formal showmanship unconvincing and off-putting, the film is a case study in the hazards of prizing style over substance.
  6. Apartment 7A
    What ensues is the exact same thing that happened to Mia Farrow’s wife, except minus the creepy surprise and, thus, any reason to pay attention.
  7. Megalopolis
    Megalopolis is the kind of thing that has to be seen to be believed. Many will find it uproarious, others may locate some profundity, most will have to shake their heads. Whatever it is, it’s a lot.
  8. Jailbreak: Love on the Run
    Flails in trying to cast itself as a heartening story about seizing happiness, but as a snapshot of the foolhardy acts that amour can drive sane individuals to commit, it plays as an eye-opening cautionary tale.
  9. The Substance
    The horror is so creative and over the top, you don’t mind the lack of world building.
  10. Separated
    There’s something damning that comes through watching Separated—the idea that things happened and were allowed to happen because of ambition. To advance in their careers, people were willing to enact laws that would cause unspeakable and irreversible harm.
  11. Never Let Go
    What’s missing, however, is a payoff worthy of his set-up, resulting in a diverting thriller that drags its way to an underwhelming finale.
  12. The Girl with the Needle
    As grim, and transfixing, as they come.
  13. Uglies
    To say that it’s a fourth-generation knock-off of myriad similar YA sagas that have come before it would be an understatement.
  14. The End
    With his maiden foray into drama, the writer/director continues to prove himself one of modern cinema’s true greats.
  15. Heretic
    Even when Heretic slides into nonsense, it's always fun to watch thanks to the excellent trio of performances with Grant setting the kooky tone.
  16. The Wild Robot
    The lessons of The Wild Robot are simple, but the artistry it uses to get there is anything but. It’s the kind of kids movie that feels all too rare with its painterly backdrops and genuine earnestness. The whole family is likely to fall in love.
  17. Queer
    The film may be as fragmented as its protagonist and, ultimately, unable to reconcile its disparate facets, but its headliner’s portrait of desire, degradation, and delirium is a sight to behold—and the performance of his career.
  18. Conclave
    Fine performances abound, including from Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, but the film is ultimately at odds with itself, its handsome appearance and severe attitude clashing with its pulpy impulses.
  19. Speak No Evil
    There’s no mystery to Speak No Evil, and even less disquieting creepiness; instead, it’s a bludgeoning beast, epitomized by McAvoy’s Paddy.
  20. The Return
    As tender and somber as it is thrilling, The Return proves a sword-and-sandals saga rooted in life’s biggest issues, all of them written on the unforgettable countenance of its illustrious star.
  21. Friendship
    Partnered with the always ridiculous Rudd, Robinson reconfirms his standing as the reigning master of discomfort. Together, they make "Friendship" the funniest movie of the year.
  22. Without Blood
    By choosing to reside in abstraction, it imparts only generic and empty truths.
  23. Bring Them Down
    Taut and mournful, it’s a lament for the mistakes made in anger, the wounds that fail to heal, and the past that never truly seems to be past at all.
  24. Ick
    Playfully mocking today’s always-online, virtual-signaling teen generation while simultaneously embracing its bevy of old-school tropes, it’s exactly the sort of crowd-pleaser designed to be seen in a theater, after dark, with a rowdy audience.
  25. Eden
    Never dull if also only intermittently surprising, it’s another of the director’s sturdy star-studded genre efforts.
  26. Nightbitch
    Resembling a bonkers marriage of “Young Tully” and “Teen Wolf,” and led by a ferociously naked and unafraid performance by its star, it’s an amusingly incisive howl of maternal pain, frustration, disappointment, resentment, and feral strength.
  27. The Quiet Ones
    Invigorates its well-worn formula through meticulous stewardship and an excellent performance from headliner Gustav Dyekjær Giese as a boxer who attempts to realize his dreams of glory in the most daringly illicit manner imaginable.
  28. The Life of Chuck
    A film that’s as sweet as it is scary, and whose frights are the sort that come from all-too-relatable fears about being alone, being apart, and being unable to hold onto the people and memories that matter most.
  29. Bird
    Barry Keoghan is arguably the most electric actor working today, and he absolutely ignites Bird.
  30. The Last Showgirl
    A shallow and slender tale of lousy dreams, worse decisions, and painful regrets, all of it predicated on a lead turn that’s too one-note to wow.
  31. We Live in Time
    Pulling on the heartstrings with tug-of-war-grade might, it’s a carpe diem fable that elicits more exasperated eye rolls than tears or laughs.
  32. The Apprentice
    Whenever Stan and Strong are on screen together, The Apprentice can be magnetic, two actors at the top of their game trying to locate the malevolent soul of these public figures.
  33. The Luckiest Man in America
    A pleasant and well-acted curio, and little more.
  34. Went Up the Hill
    Despite a premise that begets one of the strangest lovemaking scenes in recent memory—a quasi-incestuous gender-bending head-spinner—the film is too frequently the epitome of pretentiousness.
  35. Look Into My Eyes
    [Its] genuine focus is the emotional turmoil that drives people to practice this profession as well as to patronize its “experts” in search of guidance and insights into the biggest questions of their lives.
  36. Rebel Ridge
    Doesn’t ultimately put its star through the slam-bang paces often enough, but as a human weapon pushed to the limit, the actor proves ideally fit for such rugged genre environs.
  37. The Room Next Door
    This is not the film you may have expected, but this is a film you can cherish. Its characters bursting with life, its music playful, its visuals astonishing, its plot inviting, and its heart is open. All you have to do is listen.
  38. Wolfs
    It repeats the same joke over and over (and over again). And just when you think Wolfs might be interested in moving onto fresh new material, it attempts the same punchline again, in its 400th variation.
  39. September 5
    What it does present is a powerfully told, tightly wound, and riveting story of an American sports broadcasting team on a single day reporting on a major event in world history. It’s entirely apolitical in scope.
  40. The Brutalist
    This film is monumental. It’s thrilling and emotional, quiet and observant, loud and furious. Corbet’s film is a provocative portrait of the pursuit of the American dream.
  41. The Order
    A history lesson that compensates for a lack of breakneck thrills with ominous timeliness.
  42. Cloud
    Kurosawa creates such an eerie atmosphere in the first hour of Cloud that watching it crumble into more generic action territory is challenging, and feels like a miscalculation. It doesn’t help that much of the action in the second half isn’t particularly interesting.
  43. Babygirl
    Babygirl is an exhilarating thriller that’s piercingly funny. Its real radicalism comes in its bracingly honest approach to sex, power, and discovering what makes you tick.
  44. Maria
    Maria is a swirling, fragmented recollection of Callas’ life, one that leaves things frustratingly on the surface.
  45. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
    While Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t quite capture the irresistible magic of the original, it’s full of stylistic wonder and fun characters.
  46. Reagan
    Regardless of how you feel about Ronald Reagan the president, most will be united in finding this biopic a preachy, plodding, graceless groaner.
  47. The Deliverance
    A subpar exorcism movie that’s all the more depressing for being directed by Lee Daniels, whose distinctive flair is only sporadically spied amidst its shopworn clichés.
  48. Gary
    A thorough non-fiction recap of the rise and fall of the pint-sized phenom, whose mega-watt charm and expert comedic timing made him a sensation, and whose later years were marred by lawsuits, scandals, misery, and premature death at age 42.
  49. Hinckley
    Omits as much as it reveals, fixating so doggedly on its subject that it fails to dig into the various pertinent questions and dilemmas raised by his tale.
  50. Strange Darling
    An electric thriller with blood on its hands, flesh in its mouth, and deviance on its mind.
  51. The Killer
    A mediocre remix that, for all its familiar elements, fails to improve upon a single aspect of its trailblazing predecessor.
  52. The Crow
    Most notable for excessively straining for R-rated credibility at every turn.
  53. Blink Twice
    There’s nothing very unsettling about its eventual horrors, in large part because the film is too infatuated with its sleek style to get its hands dirty.
  54. Alien: Romulus
    Proves that forty-five years after the xenomorph first terrified audiences, there’s still plenty of acid-bloody life left in the franchise’s monstrous bones.
  55. Good One
    A quietly explosive tale of disconnection and betrayal, its placid exterior masking a wellspring of combustible tensions that are both impossible to ignore and difficult to resolve.
  56. It Ends with Us
    Devoid of plausible characterizations, decision-making, and plotting, it’s a dud of epic proportions—literally, as its 130-minute runtime makes it feel like it’ll never end.
  57. Borderlands
    So drearily routine and slapdash that even an A.I. would deem it too plagiaristic.
  58. Trap
    As a pulpy game of cat-and-mouse, however, it provides enough thrills to compensate for its illogicalities, and in Josh Harnett, it boasts a star adept at locating the fiendishness in fatherhood.
  59. The Instigators
    The sole thing it instigates is frustration over its lethargic unoriginality.
  60. Cuckoo
    A bewildering and gripping saga about reproduction, identity, and family that, at its finest, taps into a legitimately demented vein.
  61. Deadpool & Wolverine
    As with its predecessors, those who can’t stand Deadpool or aren’t educated in Marvel movie lore won’t tolerate a second of it. The rest will be in bleeping heaven.
  62. Dìdi
    A superb coming-of-age saga that lives in the intersection of youthful euphoria, despair, insecurity, irresponsibility, and fearlessness.
  63. MaXXXine
    MaXXXine may be less intimate to its detriment, but it does such interesting things with its scale that the lack of closeness doesn’t matter. It’s small compared to most movies, but massive compared to West’s first two installments.
  64. Hollywoodgate
    Suggests that the Taliban are engaged in an elaborate role-playing performance for which they’re unqualified.
  65. Crossing
    Akin doesn’t untangle his main character’s inner life; rather, he simply recognizes that healing is a process that both begins with oneself and is aided by those we allow into our lives and hearts.
  66. Twisters
    By minimizing its predecessor’s goofiness in favor of vacuous character drama, winds up only sporadically kicking into gale-force gear.
  67. Oddity
    It’s a feature debut that portends big things for the up-and-coming filmmaker.
  68. Longlegs
    A thriller that grows fouler and scarier with each step toward damnation, as well as providing an unforgettable showcase for Nicolas Cage as a zealous maniac unlike any other.
  69. The Mandela Effect Phenomenon
    A documentary that not only formally resembles a conspiracy-minded YouTube post, but is about as reliable and convincing as one.
  70. Fly Me to the Moon
    Aiming for the stars, it proves a laborious affair that rarely gets off the ground.
  71. Kill
    A model midnight-movie beat-’em-up.
  72. Despicable Me 4
    Kids will undoubtedly chuckle at their familiar exploits; the rest will view the film as an excuse to take a nice air-conditioned nap.
  73. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
    Far better than anticipated (or has any right to be), thanks in large part to Murphy recapturing some of the wisecracking magic that originally made Axel a sensation.
  74. Last Summer
    A drama expertly modulated to raise both eyebrows and pulse rates, led by a superb Léa Drucker performance that’s rooted in uncontrollable self-destructive passions and intense self-preservation instincts.
  75. A Quiet Place: Day One
    Courtesy of an intense lead performance from Lupita Nyong’o, it packs a moderate silent-but-deadly punch.
  76. Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
    The biggest problem with Horizon is that, even with its lengthy running time, Costner has only scratched the surface of the “saga” he’s trying to tell. There is no arc to what happens, just the seemingly unending introduction of characters.
  77. TikTok Star Murders
    A 21st-century cautionary tale about the desire for fame and the platforms which make that dream seem so easily attainable.
  78. The Exorcism
    Silly and slipshod, it’s not the role that will catapult the acclaimed actor back into the types of projects he deserves.
  79. The Devil's Bath
    A fiery sermon of despondency and damnation, as well as a memorable nightmare of marriage, motherhood, and madness.
  80. The Bikeriders
    Unabashedly romanticizing its subjects as paragons of strength and style, it doesn’t have much substance lurking beneath its surface—but then, with a surface like this, it doesn’t really need any.
  81. Kinds of Kindness
    It’s a movie that laughs in the face of a happy ending, refusing to let you get too comfortable. It is evil in the best way.
  82. Hacking Hate
    A morass of the worst of humanity and, also, a tech industry that seems perfectly comfortable profiting from it.
  83. Tell Them You Love Me
    Destined—depending on one’s perspective on this matter—to inspire either heartfelt sympathy or blood-boiling outrage.
  84. Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer
    A tale whose creative inspiration seems to be Three’s Company—and that’s not a compliment.
  85. Inside Out 2
    Thanks to its stellar animation, some great gags, and unique twists on one of Pixar’s smartest concepts, the film should be a memory that audiences find worth keeping in their minds’ headquarters.
  86. They're Here
    Cares less about saying something significant than about imparting quirky vibes.
  87. A Desert
    It’s a nightmare that burrows under one’s skin like a virus (or a curse), and it heralds its creator as a bracing new genre-filmmaking voice.
  88. Brats
    Chronicles the whirlwind phenomenon and, it turns out, the tricky process of looking back and learning to both accept the good and let go of the bad.
  89. The Watchers
    Follows the same basic pattern as the work of her dad M. Night Shyamalan—namely, it starts strong and then slowly falls apart under the weight of its obligations to clarify its baffling scenario.
  90. Bad Boys: Ride or Die
    A rehash that—in the interest of staving off franchise death for a little while longer—could stand to learn a few new tricks.
  91. How to Rob a Bank
    Full of the very thrills one might expect from a summer blockbuster.
  92. The Dead Don't Hurt
    Occasionally stumbles along its well-worn path. Still, courtesy of [Mortensen] and Vicky Krieps’ excellent lead performances, it delivers moving measures of the genre’s beauty, brutality, and sorrow.
  93. The Commandant's Shadow
    An overpowering work of excavation and confrontation—as well as a timely and urgent warning about the continuing threat of antisemitism.
  94. Gaga Chromatica Ball
    Gaga Chromatica Ball feels as all-consuming as being at the show yourself. It’s a mobilizing watch experience, one that will make you dance, sing, and sweat. It’s rare to have such proximity to a performer where she’s most in her element: on the stage.
  95. The Garfield Movie
    The Garfield Movie fundamentally misunderstands the charm of Garfield.
  96. Atlas
    Instead of weaving any thoughtful critique into the film’s subtext, Atlas grounds its assessment of artificial intelligence into a powder so fine that it’s near translucent.
  97. Queen of the Deuce
    An affectionate portrait of Chelly as a one-of-a-kind trailblazer who lived life to the fullest, and always on her own iconoclastic terms, all while also providing a vivid snapshot of New York City during its daring and dangerous pre-sanitized era.
  98. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
    It harkens back to the more sprawling nature of the original Mad Max films, but it’s also a spiritual work that grapples with how humanity reacts to grief and loss— whether sorrow perverts you or makes you stronger—all while delivering on the visual spectacle you could hope for from Miller.
  99. Anora
    The film is very funny, until it punches you in the gut with a beautiful ending, and it entirely rests on Madison’s performance as the tough-as-nails Anora.
  100. Emilia Pérez
    Emilia Perez wins you over by being unabashedly sincere. It takes its mission in all of its various genres—musical, crime thriller, and soap opera—seriously thanks to the committed performances and Audiard’s expressive direction. Nothing is treated as a gag despite the inherent zaniness of the performances. Ultimately, it’s really earnest, above all else.
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