The Globe and Mail (Toronto)'s Scores

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For 7,291 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 The Red Turtle
Lowest review score: 0 The Mod Squad
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,349 out of 7291
  2. Mixed: 1,826 out of 7291
  3. Negative: 1,116 out of 7291
7291 movie reviews
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  1. Wiener-Dog
    Overly sensitive pet owners, however, would be advised to take a walk.
  2. Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words
    A fascinating and compelling dive into an artist’s uniquely ticking parts, gives voice to a complex dude and broadens the picture.
  3. Last Cab to Darwin
    Director Jeremy Sims probably uses a setting-sun metaphor more than necessary, but otherwise his decisions are immaculate and his film should hold audiences in thrall. On a journey of self-discovery, the metre keeps running. Might as well, Last Cab tells us, get your money’s worth.
  4. The Secret Life of Pets
    If children will be entertained by the unwilling roommates’ narrow escape from cats, dog catchers and the Flushed Pets, it is the mass of surrounding detail, from the glittering Manhattan skyline and Gidget’s sleek modernist pad to the animals’ remarkable mastery of domestic technology, that will impress the adults.
  5. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
    You may think I’m being too hard on this film. It’s possible I saw it on the wrong night, in the wrong mood. But I’m fed up with the cheap laziness of this strain of comedy. When I was eight, I found it side-splitting that Ken’s doll hand was moulded in a curve that fit perfectly over Barbie’s breast. But then I grew up.
  6. Our Kind of Traitor
    Scratch off Lewis as a contender for the new Bond actor. As for McGregor, he may have failed his audition as well. Our Kind of Traitor is tense enough, but lacks lustre and pizzazz. Perhaps a better-utilized Harris could have popped things up.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Weiner
    A case study in blunt-force media trauma.
  8. Swiss Army Man
    That the film – part dark comedy and part cinematic dare – is the most unusual sight you’ll encounter at the movies this year is not up for debate.
  9. The BFG
    The movie trots pleasantly along, but it never races.
  10. The Legend of Tarzan
    There’s also not much chemistry between Skarsgard and Robbie in a film that hints at the Greystokes’ great sex life but barely shows it. Instead, we get flashes of flesh that are hilariously dated in their obviousness.
  11. The Purge: Election Year
    The problem with the Purge films is they feel like they’re made for people who would actually take part in the purge.
  12. Independence Day: Resurgence
    One of the most aggressively stupid blockbusters ever made, a painful exercise in Hollywood greed and artistic incompetence on every level.
  13. Free State of Jones
    Instead of captivating us with swagger, McConaughey chooses to go grim and dogged. Director Ross does the same.
  14. The Shallows
    Will she give up? Or will she fight? Ah, who cares. Sharknado isn’t Shakespeare and The Shallows isn’t deep. School’s out, schlock’s in – no lessons here.
  15. Tickled
    If you have ever heard of the term “catfishing” – and if you haven’t, I’m impressed and envious – then you’re already one step ahead.
  16. The Neon Demon
    There remains a nasty whiff here of a movie that is trotting out lesbian love interests and clawing cat fights for male titillation. With fashion taking the place of ballet, The Neon Demon may well prove controversial in a "Black Swan" kind of way, offering a love-it-or-hate-it debate over the appeal of its melodrama versus the politics of its social critique.
  17. Hunt for the Wilderpeople
    Waititi (who’s also responsible for the best comedy of 2015, "What We Do in the Shadows," and will next tackle the third "Thor" film) executes a series of deft narrative U-turns, twisting the tale into 101 minutes of pure comic joy.
  18. No Stranger Than Love
    The script wants desperately to be about the unfathomable nature of love. The best it can deliver is this: “Love is loving someone who is covered in snot.” It’s all quirked up, but goes nowhere.
  19. De Palma
    De Palma is a true visionary, even if you might not quite agree with what that vision is. Either way, a trip through his wild and hugely influential filmography is mandatory for any film fan, and that’s just what directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow offer in their new documentary.
  20. Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
    If you see only one movie this summer, see the movie about the movie it took seven summers to make. Hype? You bet. But the hard sell is warranted when it comes to a documentary with a high-flying title and an action-adventure blockbuster legacy attached.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Genius
    Not nearly as smart as it should be.
  22. Central Intelligence
    By the time the film reaches its obvious conclusion – by the time Hart expends more energy than Bugs Bunny, by the time the espionage plot twists itself into corners too convoluted for even "Homeland" fans, by the time Thurber exhausts the audience by unleashing cameo after cameo – it’s only Johnson who remains standing tall.
  23. Finding Dory
    DeGeneres goes much further, though, maintaining a delicate balance between Dory’s optimistic personality and the hovering anxieties created by her imperfect memory.
  24. Maggie's Plan
    Miller’s characters are complete, singular people, and her take is thoroughly female. She subverts the genre, and wakes it up.
  25. The Other Side
    In the end, the power of Minervini’s pseudo-fiction gives way to a much blander version of pseudo-reality.
  26. Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt
    This solid intellectual biography painstakingly follows the development of Arendt’s thought as she was forced to flee her privileged surroundings in German academia, where she was Martin Heidegger’s student and lover, to France and then the United States.
  27. Now You See Me 2
    In real life, of course, nobody can be hypnotized against their will. To be mesmerized is to willingly succumb. Just keep that in mind when you head off to see something like Now You See Me 2.
  28. The Conjuring 2
    A supernatural winner.
  29. Warcraft
    The performances of Travis Fimmel, Toby Kebbell and Paula Patton as the warrior Lothar, the orc hero Durotan and the half-orc/half-woman Garona, all awakening to the evil forces around them, are meaty enough to hold attention.
  30. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
    They’re back for an entertaining enough 3-D sequel to their 2014 franchise revival, and so is the rest of the cast that includes foxy Megan Fox and her ability to wear a naughty schoolgirl outfit.
  31. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
    While it also boasts an array of dick jokes (of which there are many, and they are great), it also holds a magnifying glass up to the culture that we’ve all had a hand in creating.
  32. Me Before You
    Despite its $20-million budget, Me Before You is cheap; and just like a person who has more money than he knows what to do with, this film equates wealth with value and vulnerability with death.
  33. Lolo
    Clumsy and erratic, Lolo is a slapdash comedy of errors that slips on its own banana peel but gets few laughs.
  34. X-Men: Apocalypse
    It’s a goofy, confusing mess of a sequel, a cautionary tale of what happens when a filmmaker lives too long inside his own franchise to realize that no one takes it nearly as seriously as he does.
  35. Love & Friendship
    Adapted with great warmth and wit, and with as much of Austen’s crackling dialogue as his own, Stillman shapes lean Austen descriptions such as “He is as silly as ever” into superb character bits for the preposterous twit Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett).
  36. Mr. Right
    The movie wears its situational zaniness lightly and depends on the rapid-fire dialogue, charm and killer chemistry of its romantic duo. Just enjoy its loopy pleasures.
  37. Alice Through the Looking Glass
    As Alice, Wasikowska, who has lost the injured look that made her so effective the first time out, creates a character who is fundamentally sweet, likeable and loyal.
  38. The Boy and the Beast
    The soundscape is rich, and the beast-battles well executed. But the characters never develop beyond their two-word descriptors: Conflicted Boy, Lonely Girl, Angry Son, etc.
  39. To Life
    À la vie is a gentle toast – the film sticks to its subtle tone, which is both its strength and its weakness.
  40. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
    They deliver precisely enough guffaws to give you your money’s worth, with a couple of sweet moments about how daughters break their parents’ hearts tossed in. I guess they had to hold something back for "Neighbors 3: Suburbia, a.k.a. The Cat Catches the Tinfoil."
  41. Men & Chicken
    It’s a twisted existential grotesque that wrings thought-provoking pathos and even affection for the lunatics running the menagerie, no mean feat.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Man Who Knew Infinity
    When one of the most enlightening moments of a film comes during the postscript (black holes!), you know there’s a problem – one that has nothing to do with math.
  43. The Angry Birds Movie
    And, make no mistake, this is a movie that is supposed to be seen from the perspective of a small child.
  44. The Nice Guys
    It’s all delightfully fizzy, bloody fun – even if there’s the teeniest, tiniest hint of sequel ambitions.
  45. High-Rise
    Like Wheatley’s 2011 film "Kill List," High-Rise switches genres effortlessly – black humour one moment, dystopic parable the next – until it becomes its own singular, horrifying, immensely captivating thing.
  46. Dark Horse
    The racer turns out to be a contender, but the small-time syndicate is the real story, an inspiring tale heard, as it were, straight from the horse’s mouth.
  47. A Bigger Splash
    Fiennes really shines here, with an electric-cocaine vigour and lust for life.
  48. Neon Bull
    The film is filthy with nuanced moments of fierce, sweaty intimacy, all shot with a precise eye for detail. At the very least, it will make you rethink your next rodeo.
  49. Sunset Song
    It’s ripe to the point of bursting and, with a plot that tilts to melodrama, Davies flirts dangerously with cliché, creating an over-wrought period piece where every wheat field is bathed in golden sunlight and every childbirth is announced by chilling screams.
  50. Dheepan
    For a while, it’s quietly meditative and riveting – worthy of the Palme d’Or it captured last spring in Cannes. But in the film’s final 10 minutes, Audiard lets his bombastic sensibilities loose, creating an over-the-top revenge tale that’s bewildering.
  51. Money Monster
    Foster, recovering nicely from her last directorial outing in the surprisingly unfunny "The Beaver," proves her smarts by managing to balance these different strands of humour while keeping the action ticking along.
  52. The Meddler
    It’s a sitcom-y, Sarandon-wrapped Mother’s Day valentine.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Disorder
    Beautifully shot, the film is at its best when it’s unclear whether Vincent is intensely paranoid or highly perceptive.
  54. Captain America: Civil War
    In nearly every way Civil War represents the dizzying heights of the genre.
  55. Mother's Day
    Mother’s Day is a concocted market-driven holiday, and so is this M&M’s-obsessed movie – candy for the sweet-toothed among us.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Ratchet & Clank
    The film makes up for any shortcomings with witty writing and vivid, brightly coloured set pieces. Children will be entertained, and parents won’t regret tagging along.
  57. Green Room
    It’s a delightfully cruel work of high tension, perfect in just how quickly and easily it gets under your skin.
  58. Precious Cargo
    A rip-off and a rerun.
  59. Viva
    An unlikely Irish-Cuban co-production, Viva is, like its central subject, beautiful to look at but ultimately lacking depth.
  60. Keanu
    The plot is threadbare, but cutely disarming in its own way.
  61. Body
    Just because Body could be made doesn’t mean it needed to be.
  62. A Hologram for the King
    This time, Tykwer somehow manages to turn Eggers’s attempt at an era-defining story into a weird little cross-cultural comedy with romantic overtones while remaining largely faithful to the original plot and dialogue. Here, globalization’s economic devastation is just a nice backdrop for some amusing – and, thankfully, inoffensive – observation of one American abroad.
  63. The Huntsman: Winter's War
    Unlike the smarter "Maleficent," a revisionist Sleeping Beauty created by the same producers, what The Huntsman series lacks is any intriguing psychology.
  64. Hello, My Name Is Doris
    A sharp dramedy focusing on the romantic stirrings of a lonely office worker, played with considerable wit and verve by the 69-year-old Sally Field.
  65. The First Monday in May
    Perhaps if Rossi had begun where he ends, with the bold assertion that this project is not about raising money for art but about using celebs to sell magazines, The First Monday in May might prove as enlightening as it is titillating. What does Rihanna get paid? We don’t know because, as a staffer names the actual sum, the filmmaker bleeps the words.
  66. Sing Street
    As he did with "Once," Carney with the somewhat autobiographical Sing Street mixes hardscrabble realism with highly charged romanticism, filmed on a low budget with mostly unknown talent.
  67. The Measure of a Man
    The Measure of a Man is about one of those everyday people who lose their livelihood and are at risk of losing everything else, and on this small scale and rather ordinary canvas the human drama is keenly felt.
  68. Miles Ahead
    What hurts Miles Ahead, though, is a lack of imagination.
  69. The Dark Horse
    The cinematography is evocative – rainy, rich, gritty and raw, for this inspiring but not always pretty story – and Curtis is 100-per-cent watchable as a puffy, mumbling shuffler whose chess lessons double as life strategies.
  70. Criminal
    The disappointment here is that an intriguing psychological premise about a personality swap is never used to do anything more than provide the juice for a run-of-the-mill action movie.
  71. Barbershop: The Next Cut
    While the film is well meaning and the joshing crew at Calvin’s Barbershop is a hoot, the Malcolm D. Lee-directed comedy is plagued by relentless mawkishness, indifferent storytelling, willful naiveté and clunky seriousness.
  72. The Jungle Book
    Director Jon Favreau (Iron Man) is highly adept at having his cake and eating it, too, throughout the film, wowing audiences with effects and amusing them with talking animals, all the while insisting The Jungle Book is a difficult story about a human whose presence threatens to disrupt the jungle’s peace.
  73. I Saw the Light
    Perhaps a better name for Marc Abraham’s well-crafted biopic would be His Cheatin’ Heart, for this motion picture concentrates on the marital distress between a philandering Williams and his flat-singing wife (played with vibrancy by Elizabeth Olsen).
  74. The Pearl Button
    This haunting Chilean documentary is more poetry than journalism as filmmaker Patricio Guzman compares the fate of the indigenous people of Patagonia with that of the disappeared of the Pinochet regime.
  75. Demolition
    The trouble here is that neither Bryan Sipe, who wrote this highly original script, nor Vallée, remain true to the bitter whimsy with which they began.
  76. Francofonia
    “Who would we be without museums?” Aleksandr Sokurov wonders as he narrates this challenging philosophical essay, and sifts materials back, forth and around in the Louvre’s history.
  77. Hardcore Henry
    Is it much of a movie? Not really. It’s more of an experience – a passive sort of virtual reality – that uses a bare-bones narrative as a vehicle for a big-time body count.
  78. The Boss
    A lazy Melissa McCarthy vehicle that relies on relentless potty-mouth moments.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Brainwashing of My Dad
    The film’s examination feels shallow.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    City of Gold
    Gold is important because Gold is a great writer. No further argument necessary.
  81. Darling
    Keating’s flattery is sincere, and so is his wish to stylishly freak you silly.
  82. Jim: The James Foley Story
    Directed by Foley’s childhood friend Brian Oakes, the doc does raise some difficult issues – albeit very tactfully.
  83. Midnight Special
    As other worlds reveal themselves, what started with a gripping premise slackens and goes limp.
  84. Everybody Wants Some!!
    It’s hard to imagine another filmmaker who could invest the lives of straight, middle-class, norm-y, aggressively bro-y, immaculately groomed college sports jocks with a sense of vital anarchy and resounding humanity.
  85. Eye in the Sky
    The political buck-passing from all entertains and creates the film’s time-sensitive tension.
  86. The Clan
    Trapero reveals the ways in which truth can be much stranger, more tragic and confused, than fiction.
  87. The Lobster
    The Lobster is a brilliant piece of satire, but largely fails in an attempt to build its wicked wit into a more conventional romance.
  88. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
    There are many plot lines here, but little tension.
  89. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    The film might be pretty to look at, but narratively speaking, it is a disaster.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Boris Without Béatrice
    Beautiful to look at, the film showcases Côté’s talents at building tone and theme through images and sounds.
  91. The Brothers Grimsby
    When the film’s pace slows down every now and then, and Cohen gets room to breathe, the film is a genuine riot.
  92. The Program
    The Program makes passing references to the power of celebrity and the Live Strong narrative – the cyclist admits to telling people what they wanted to hear – but it never goes deep on what it was that produced the awfulness that is Lance Armstrong.
  93. The Bronze
    The Bronze often feels like an extended skit, but Hope is so refreshingly unladylike and the movie is so refreshingly cynical about gymnastics that the results are surprisingly amusing.
  94. Chi-Raq
    This film is many things at once: It is didactic but ambitious, affecting but satirical, absurd but also poignant.
  95. Knight of Cups
    Already being decried as either self-parody or half-assed nonsense, the drama is in fact just as challenging and rewarding as Malick’s previous work, though with a more modern and caustic edge than one-time acolytes might be used to.
  96. The Divergent Series: Allegiant
    Try as I might, I cannnot activate your interest in this bloated excuse for a movie.
  97. Forsaken
    Typical themes (redemption, forgiveness) are laid out with little imagination.
  98. All the Time In The World
    It’s an engrossing nature documentary – of human nature – and while for most it is also a fairy tale, the takeaway can be vicarious.
  99. Miracles from Heaven
    Miracles from Heaven is mostly an embarrassment.
  100. Cemetery of Splendor
    The mesmerizing and lingeringly paced Cemetery of Splendour, picks up where Freud left off.
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