The Playlist's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 4,842 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 1.6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Days of Being Wild (re-release)
Lowest review score: 0 Oh, Ramona!
Score distribution:
4842 movie reviews
  1. Barbarian is nasty. Whether you take that as a positive or a negative will be an entirely personal thing, but it’ll be a word that people on both sides of the opinion aisle will likely use to describe it.
  2. The film’s undoubtedly a gorgeous look at the Australian outback, but those looking for deeper nourishment will be left a touch disappointed.
  3. While a bit too opaque near the end, and perhaps not the horror show that one might expect, it’s nevertheless an impressive debut.
  4. Bornstein has fashioned a cinematic anxiety-fueled experience whether you can relate to having children or not.
  5. The subtlety of [Tatiana Huezo‘s] approach interlaces ideas, resonances and emotions in ever-shifting, eternally edifying ways. And it ultimately promotes the film from human interest journalism to a grand work of socio-political critique and a quietly radical remodeling of familiar documentary formats.
  6. Although the narrative is faithful to the book, del Toro rewrites the dialogue almost completely, an exercise whose only chance of success relies on his ingrained understanding of Shelley’s writing and tonal cadence. The result is a stunning piece of text, acutely aware of the labyrinthine nature of our most primitive emotions, and zigzagging through musings on love and loss and want with the careful rhythms of a writer who gets that tackling the grandiose often merits delicacy.
  7. Too many of the jokes fall flat and as the film moves forward you’re so captivated by the bizarre plot twists that recognizing the humor becomes secondary.
  8. The film is an almost overly thorough look at every single step along the way in the battle to bring Prop 8 down. And while that's admirable, and gay rights is certainly a fight that needs to be documented, the minutely detailed The Case Against 8 has the curious effect of dampening the drama through its approach.
  9. The proximity and intimacy of the technique render Schofield and Blake’s journey more visceral, and more frightening. And as a result, at its conclusion, the catharsis lands with the force of a hammer.
  10. A bold dissection on aging and self-hatred Fargeat’s latest work is an utter visual marvel and features superb performances from its lead actresses; Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.
  11. We can't help but feel that by comparison with the meaty and compelling issues he takes on so fearlessly, so scabrously in the other entries, Paradise: Hope ends up somewhat toothless.
  12. This is a brilliantly constructed, whip-smart, and laugh-out-loud-funny romp from a filmmaker whose precision and craft is nearly unparalleled. It’s hard to think of a movie this year that has been as singularly delightful, one that, with each passing moment, reveals something charming or odd or real.
  13. Not one to shy away from sincerity, Desplechin brings his beloved Paul Dédalus full circle in a satisfying project about the grandeur of the force that unifies the fictional character with the real man.
  14. This is a movie that barely speaks above a whisper, even when its characters are howling in pain inside.
  15. High Life feels longer than it is, and is occasionally so squirrely that it becomes off-putting. But in spite of the aforementioned traceable connections, it’s a true original — sometimes strange, sometimes scary, sometimes kinky.
  16. Bloodcurdling to the last delicious drop, Nosferatu is extraordinarily compelling, one of the best films of the year, and an unforgettable, phantasmagoric experience for theaters that will astonish.
  17. It's an overwrought, stagey muddle that suggests that Davies, ever a-quiver on the extreme high end of the sensitivity meter anyway, has quivered right off it and plunged into the depths of bathos.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The toughest thing about watching ‘Giants’ is the fear of inevitable, the fear that all of this could easily come crashing down, with Youssef displaying a thorough lack of respect for a government he’s long lost faith in, via a program that will certainly violate the country’s censorship laws.
  18. Rasoulof’s film, while understandably angry, is nothing if not singleminded . It’s a saturnine morality tale that unfolds in shades of rainy gray beneath leaden, overcast skies, gritting up the nation’s cinematic tradition of humanist drama to an almost unrecognizable degree.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Meru is a flawed but deeply riveting account of what happens when men walk right up to the edge of madness.
  19. Unfortunately, Iannucci and Blackwell are so intent on making every quip funny, they lose the story.
  20. Alfre Woodard may have graced us with the performance of her career.
  21. While the third act makes a few wonky choices, and the ending comes together a little too neatly, there’s no denying its impact.
  22. By refusing to illuminate the detainees’ stories or the humanitarian crisis—not widely reported enough for Brady to take the audience’s familiarity as a given—they are trapped inside, The Island of Hungry Ghosts relegates itself to being little more than a pretty but wispy curiosity that fails its beleaguered subjects.
  23. Though Till can not rewrite all of history’s wrong, you never doubt the genuineness of Chukwu’s intentions. This isn’t a salacious film. This isn’t taking advantage of Emmett Till’s memory for cheap prestige. Rather Till is an urgent and reverent, albeit flawed, pursuit of justice.
  24. While ‘Life’s Journey’ might be a deeper meditation on the meaning of life and deeper questions of who we are, The IMAX Experience is a more realized version of similar ideas. Ultimately, The IMAX Experience is a tone poem that not only pays tribute to planet Earth and the life that inhabits it, but marvels at how this miracle was created.
  25. Lombroso delivers close, often uncomfortable intimacy. He catches his subjects in the heat of the alt-right’s coming-out period in 2016 and 2017, when the mainstream press was just starting to turn over some rocks and write about what oozed out.
  26. Abuse of Weakness is a frustrating experience, yet one that feels utterly unique and relentlessly watchable.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The movie's pace feels more like a plod, less deliberate than simply unsure of itself. Christmas, Again is a quiet film, but one that could perhaps use a bit more buzz of the holiday season.
  27. It’s super funny, the performances are natural, and the whole endeavor is beyond charming. It’s a movie clearly meant to fit into the studio comedy mold, so it goes down easy.

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