The Hollywood Reporter's Scores

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For 12,913 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 45% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lowest review score: 0 Dirty Love
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6,616 out of 12913
  2. Mixed: 5,131 out of 12913
  3. Negative: 1,166 out of 12913
12913 movie reviews
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  1. John Dies at the End
    A supernatural action comedy that can never live up to its exciting opening scenes, Don Coscarelli's John Dies at the End mixes horror-tinged mayhem with smart-alec laughs but loses momentum early and gets bogged down in exposition.
  2. Brief Reunion
    The film's failure to raise the temperature gradually leaves viewers less involved than we should be.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola
    What Vishal Bhardwaj's Indian comedy brings in star power, it lacks in humor.
  4. The Brass Teapot
    While its supernatural premise might have fueled a perfectly good Twilight Zone episode, The Brass Teapot strains to fill its feature-length running time.
  5. The Fifth Estate
    The most compelling thing here by far is the film's vision of Assange, by all accounts a man of enormous self-regard and slippery ethics. Benedict Cumberbatch has the character in hand from the start.
  6. Trance
    Danny Boyle has great and plainly evident fun adding twists and curves and tunnels and endless style to his modern London noir Trance, but he makes so many left turns that the film turns in on itself rather than going anywhere.
  7. The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia
    Actually offers some decent scares before descending into typical horror film bombast.
  8. Muppets Most Wanted
    The repetitive storyline about successive heists during a Muppets European tour grows tiresome and the fun is intermittent.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    She's All That
    Visually, the film is skin and bones. Iscove and cinematographer Francis Kenny ("A Night at the Roxbury") have the most fun with "Grease"-like dance numbers in the finale. [27 January 1999]
    • The Hollywood Reporter
  10. Planes
    While visually engaging, this production of Disneytoon Studios -- it was originally slated to go direct-to-DVD -- lacks the sort of character depth and dramatic scope normally associated with the Pixar brand.
  11. Kafka
    A distinguished and able cast headed by Jeremy Irons; beautiful, mostly black-and-white cinematography; and the enchanting Prague backgrounds make for a diverting feature-length eyeful and earful, but the reconstruction of the Kafkaesque worldview never quite takes. [3 Dec. 1991]
    • The Hollywood Reporter
  12. Saving Lincoln
    A curiosity telling the President's story through the eyes of longtime friend Ward Hill Lamon, it's of interest only to serious history-hounds and techies curious about its unusual green-screen production.
  13. Reality
    Half comedy and half drama, the film struggles to find its tone amid stock characters and leisurely plotting, with nods to Fellini and Italian neorealism that leave the taste of a big, reheated pizza. It all should be funnier; still the atmospheric local kitsch wins some smiles.
  14. Lotus Eaters
    Less a succinct narrative than a meandering portrait of several ultra-rich, ultra-empty thirtysomethings who waste away their days with sex, drugs and ennui, the film offers a few decent performances captured with New Wave-style visuals, but is not quite the social exposé or melancholic drama it aims to be.
  15. Erased
    Depending on your age and memory, you’ll recognize cinematic DNA from everything from "Three Days of the Condor" to the "Taken" and "Bourne" franchises in this tale of a father and daughter on the run from an evil conspiracy.
  16. Transcendence
    Pfister, who, like his mentor Nolan, adamantly continues to shoot on film (not digital), shows a sure hand at staging scenes, creating visuals and setting a tone -- if only all the diverse elements here fit comfortably under the same tent.
  17. Language of a Broken Heart
    The film lacks the originality or wit to differentiate it from the countless other indie romantic comedies littering our screens.
  18. Black Nativity
    This holiday extravaganza with an all-star cast has a lot of failings. But it seems likely to tap into the audience’s enthusiasm for uplifting entertainment.
  19. V/H/S/2
    The scares are as hit-or-miss as the filmmaking in the second installment of the “VHS” found-footage horror anthology series.
  20. Hamesima X
    While its blending of philosophy and B-movie conventions will produce more bemused chuckles than converts, the film certainly earns points for sheer audacity.
  21. The Wall
    There's plenty of time for the viewer to muse on what The Wall might or might not symbolize -- when events finally take an abruptly surprising and violent turn, the tonal shift is unsatisfyingly awkward.
  22. Dog Pound
    Although it has a visceral intensity, this teen-centered prison movie doesn't avoid the familiar tropes of its genre.
  23. Bert Stern: Original Madman
    Despite its admittedly intriguing parts, the film ultimately feels too diffuse and self-indulgent to represent a truly incisive portrait of its subject.
  24. Midnight's Children
    Despite the solid work of cast and crew, the film dawdles and fails to justify its two-and-a-half-hour running time. Midnight reaches its tender conclusion without ever achieving the emotional or dramatic heft that such an epic tale requires.
  25. Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal
    It winds up as little more than a mildly fun spatter picture that will be best enjoyed by undemanding patrons at midnight screenings.
  26. Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner
    Although Andre Gregory's fans will find much here to savor, this rambling and unfocused portrait smacks of self-indulgence.
  27. Aftershock
    A movie that tends to stick to formula, offering up minimal scares amid scattered moments of gross-out bliss.
  28. Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's
    Propelled by enthusiastic reviews, the entertaining but ultimately disappointing documentary will entice the fashion-forward and fashion-curious.
  29. Copperhead
    Named for a slur used against Northerners who opposed waging war on the South, the film works best when focused on Abner Beech (Billy Campbell), whose conscience-driven minority opinion makes him a pariah in his upstate New York village.
  30. Heaven Is for Real
    Wallace made a lot of shrewd decisions to sock this movie home, but he can’t entirely overcome the dramatic thinness of the original material.
  31. Memories Look at Me
    The pace is gently hypnotic and the topic fitfully interesting, but the format will test the patience of all but serious art-cinema fans with its narrow focus and chilly film-school minimalism.
  32. Deliver Us From Evil
    While the supernatural side of the film suffers a flaw or two — continued references to The Doors are superfluous and sometimes chuckle-inducing — its central conflict works.
  33. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das
    Despite the performer’s engaging charisma, One Track Heart ultimately lacks the contextual depth to make it more than mildly interesting.
  34. The Painting (Le Tableau)
    Kids with healthy attention spans may warm to its (literally) colorful characters and outside-the-frame action, but most will find it as lifeless as their parents do.
  35. Redemption
    Part somber character study and part revenge thriller, Steven Knight‘s debut feature lacks the thematic depth necessary to take it seriously while not featuring enough of the high-octane action that its star’s fans have come to expect.
  36. A Million Ways to Die in the West
    Stocking the supporting cast with top-drawer talent, he gives most of his costars little to do besides attract our attention on movie posters.
  37. Old Dog
    Crude production values are a stumbling block for bare-bones tale.
  38. Non-Stop
    A constant low-boil of ridiculousness both mocks and sustains Non-Stop, a jerry-rigged terror-on-a-plane thriller with a premise so far-fetched as to create a degree of suspense over how the writers will wriggle out of the knot of their own making.
  39. The Expendables 3
    Hughes and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. handle the assignment skillfully enough, but without much imagination, sticking to a conventional action style that is more about the quantity of explosions than nuances of execution.
  40. Coffee Town
    Copeland's film benefits from a cast familiar from such offbeat TV comedies as "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Parks and Recreation," but it tends to embody conventions instead of subverting them, resulting in a product with only a bit more personality than the generic caffeine dispensary at its heart.
  41. Petunia
    Features a top-notch cast, a few beautifully observed moments, and some amusingly bitchy dialogue. But its rambling, episodic structure and gallery of troubled characters will ultimately prove too off-putting to attract theatrical audiences.
  42. Spider-Man: Homecoming
    Where Garfield's Peter Parker displayed a believable 21st-century angst, we return largely to the character's wide-eyed roots with Tom Holland, whose performance is thoroughly winning even when the script isn't helping him.
  43. That Awkward Moment
    Even when Gormican’s material tries too hard to be wackily crude, and not hard enough to make dramatic sense, the actors suggest layers of experience that help to fill in the gaps.
  44. The Nut Job
    The production squeaks by on the visual charm of art director Ian Hastings’ period touches and warm autumnal hues. The voice talent is a decidedly mixed bag.
  45. Thanks for Sharing
    Too much of what happens as the characters undergo their various brushes with failure and redemption feels predetermined, slapping what aims to be a much savvier film with a debilitating touch of the formulaic.
  46. Mood Indigo
    An exhausting pièce d’indulgence from the veteran video/feature director, who can never quite shape all the bric-a-brac, not to mention an all-star Gallic cast, into a workable whole.
  47. Dealin' with Idiots
    The problem is, despite the fact that the cast is filled with a gallery of veteran comic performers, few of the characters they portray are very interesting.
  48. First Comes Love
    You ought to have to be an unusually interesting person, or at least be capable of presenting your commonplace tribulations in an interesting light, before you can ask moviegoers to spend fifteen bucks to watch you onscreen. Nina Davenport's First Comes Love doesn't buy into this rule.
  49. Romeo & Juliet
    The older the actors here the better they are, as pros like Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis have it all over low-voltage young leads Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld. Relativity will be lucky to milk anything more than a moderate take from this pretty but unexciting enactment.
  50. Men at Lunch
    Cartoonish hyperbole aside, the investigation does have its high points.
  51. The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear
    As a National Geographic-style pictorial, The Machine is modestly engaging.
  52. Dom Hemingway
    Richard Shepard’s film is far from dull, but it just doesn’t feel like the real thing, more like an artificial construct inspired by pumped-up crime favorites from a couple of decades ago.
  53. The Judge
    The Judge is well served by intense performances from stars Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall, but is undercut by obvious note-hitting in the writing and a deliberate pace that drags things out about twenty minutes past their due date.
  54. The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete
    The real defeat in this ambling fairy tale of hardship, abandonment and resilience is that two potentially winning central characters -- and the tender young actors who play them -- are let down by a programmed screenplay that’s short on narrative muscle.
  55. Off Label
    Though it lacks the specific argumentative point of view that might have carried it into the mainstream, its sympathetic approach to subjects offers a compelling human perspective on questions that get too little attention in debates about health care.
  56. Mademoiselle C
    Mademoiselle C should please fashion devotees while leaving everyone else scratching their heads.
  57. Standing Up
    While its theme of youthful empowerment inevitably strikes an emotional chord, the film never manages to achieve any dramatic steam, plodding along in mildly diverting but essentially bland fashion.
  58. C.O.G.
    It’s not bad, but it’s ineffectual -- shuffling from one semi-satirical vignette to the next and then veering into soul-searching territory while generating only mild engagement.
  59. Five Dances
    The gorgeous physicality is more impressive than the sketchy storyline of this dance-centric drama.
  60. Broadway Idiot
    The doc is slickly packaged, but it suffers from the pat reality-TV feel of manicured sound bites where greater candor and fly-on-the-wall observation might have been welcome.
  61. Willow Creek
    This disappointingly conventional effort pales in comparison to the filmmaker's wildly audacious comedies.
  62. American Made Movie
    For all its thoughtful analysis, the film is more anecdotal than truly enlightening. While its cheerleading approach to the problem is admirable, it seems more designed to appeal to the heart than the head.
  63. Abigail Harm
    The actress (Amanda Plummer) delivers a beautifully understated, emotive turn that gives this otherwise opaque movie some much needed heart.
  64. Sweetwater
    The Old West is portrayed as a venal loony bin in Sweetwater, a handsomely designed, occasionally funny but ultimately empty female vengeance yarn.
  65. The Railway Man
    The Railway Man is well-acted and handsomely produced, but its honorable intentions are not matched with sustained emotional impact or psychological suspense.
  66. Moebius
    What undermines Moebius is how Kim has let high concepts and philosophical subtexts run amok without anchoring them to a substantial narrative
  67. The Green Inferno
    Izzo, who co-starred with Roth-the-actor in Aftershock, is a fine genre actress, standing out from a cast of blonde women with her naturalistic performance and signs of courage and initiative.
  68. How I Live Now
    What starts as potentially interesting apocalyptic speculative fiction devolves into dreary sub-Hunger Games survivalism and banal teen romance.
  69. The Unknown Known
    An unsuccessful attempt to get inside the head, under the skin or through the looking glass of Bush administration Secretary of Defense and Iraq War proponent Donald Rumsfeld.
  70. Sal
    While this heartfelt, rough-edged tribute to now largely-forgotten Hollywood actor Sal Mineo isn’t without interest, it’s too small-scale and sketchy.
  71. In the Heart of the Sea
    A sort of maritime Donner Party, In the Heart of the Sea is a rugged but underwhelming true-life drama of a cursed 19th century whaling voyage.
  72. Sunshine on Leith
    Shamelessly contrived in the manner of most jukebox musicals, and more than a wee bit precious, the movie has little use for emotional shadings as it flogs its feel-good charms.
  73. Horrible Bosses 2
    Anders’ well-attuned comic sensibility makes for moments of hilarity in some of the more originally conceived scenes, but bogs down in predictability with reliance on too many stock situations that absorb the bulk of the running time.
  74. CBGB
    Alan Rickman's lead performance highlights a sincere but insubstantial rock pic.
  75. 2 Jacks
    Ultimately, it’s little more than a trifle that’s enlivened by the older Huston’s inevitably referential performance.
  76. Narco Cultura
    Passably absorbing to start, Shaul Schwarz’s examination of the issues surrounding Mexican and immigrant musicians who glorify drug lords and their exploits gradually bogs down in repetition and narrative inertia.
  77. Last Love
    The main problem of Mr. Morgan’s Last Love is a structural one, as it is really two films in one.
  78. The Human Scale
    Handsome and weighty-feeling but less substantial than it seems.
  79. The Snitch Cartel
    Some of the film’s acerbic touches are welcome, but Snitch doesn’t offer nearly enough fresh variations on the Scarface formula.
  80. Son of God
    This quite mediocre spawned-from-television feature feels like a Jesus film designed primarily for true believers, meaning that the faith-based public that has already been put on alert by seal-of-approval-dispensing church leaders that this is a film to see will make the Fox release into a significant Heartland attraction.
  81. Nurse 3D
    Voyeurs, at least, will relish the opportunity to ogle, in 3D no less, the frequently unclothed star as well as the equally gorgeous Bowden, who spends much of the proceedings clad only in sexy underwear.
  82. The Quiet Ones
    The film relies on high production values and sense-battering shock tactics to make up for wooden performances and an illogical, silly script. As an exercise in retro pastiche, it impresses. But as a postmodern genre reinvention, it fails to deliver.
  83. The Ghosts in Our Machine
    Liz Marshall's Ghosts in Our Machine trades didacticism for first-person atmospherics.
  84. Paris Countdown
    Slickly executed with glossy, neon-drenched cinematography and a throbbing techno-music score, Paris Countdown sacrifices substance for stylishness, as has become the distressing tendency of so many recent crime dramas. But its fast pacing, compelling lead performances and frequent doses of action prevent boredom from settling in.
  85. The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box
    Boasting uncommonly handsome production values and a stellar cast, the awkwardly titled The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box nonetheless feels like a stillborn attempt at a franchise starter.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Body Bags
    If you like gruesome stuff and familiar faces in unfamiliar roles, you might be entertained by Body Bags. If you're a fan of these fright-meister masters, you might enjoy the wit and style. But I'm not sure many others will, given the production's graphic nature. One maybe, but a trilogy is just too much. [06 Aug 1993]
    • The Hollywood Reporter
  87. Commitment
    Park Hong-soo’s debut feature includes enough kinetic action sequences to satisfy genre fans even while its dramatic elements leave something to be desired.
  88. Passengers
    While Passengers offers a few shrewd observations about our increasingly tech-enabled, corporatized lives, its heavy-handed mix of life-or-death exigencies and feel-good bromides finally feels like a case of more being less.
  89. San Andreas
    The movie is at its strongest when it integrates family dynamics into the plot rather than indulging in extreme couples therapy.
  90. Self/less
    The intriguing story degenerates into a flat-out action movie with car chases and violent shootouts that are competently filmed by Singh but seem to come from a far more conventional film.
  91. Child 44
    This $50 million Ridley Scott production does benefit from strong performances and a few worthy scenes that director Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) pulls off with an effective amount of grit. Yet the movie doesn’t really captivate the way it should, and as the manhunt stretches on it actually diminishes in suspense, ultimately overstaying its two-plus-hour running time.
  92. The Wait
    An art film whose seductive qualities don't entirely erase the suspicion that its weirder elements might be empty affectation.
  93. Adult World
    The film’s true MVP is Cusack, delivering a wittily subtle and acerbic turn that well displays his gift for deadpan comedy. He elevates the material whenever he’s onscreen, providing hints as to the more interestingly subversive film Adult World might have been.
  94. Miss Julie
    Both Chastain and Farrell are resourceful, intelligent actors who can be riveting together moment to moment. But the disconcerting thing about Ullmann’s blandly handsome movie is that neither of these key characters comes fully into focus.
  95. Before I Go to Sleep
    Writer-director Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of S.J. Watson’s bestseller honors the lurid spirit of the page-turner enough to satisfy fans, but he doesn’t transmute the material into something richer and deeper the way.
  96. G.B.F.
    Despite a premise with broad appeal and a script boasting plenty of laughs among its misfires, the high school fable falters.
  97. The Cobbler
    In a movie built on the idea of walking in someone else's shoes, shouldn't learning to see others as more than stereotypes be fairly central to the plot's development?
  98. The Cut
    Rahim has a great face but isn’t given enough opportunity to make it clear to audiences what his character is going through beyond the most basic emotions.
  99. The Interview
    An intensely sophomoric and rampantly uneven comic takedown of an easy but worrisomely unpredictable target.
  100. Knight of Cups
    Malick's most distinctive ambition here is his attempt to create an almost pointilistic portrait of a man by evoking acute moments of his past and present, and this sustains real interest for a while, as you wait to see how it all might come together. But as the film just keeps offering more of the same...it doesn't build or pay off with what it seems designed to do, which is to provide either a dramatic or philosophical apotheosis.
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