The Playlist's Scores

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For 4,829 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 1.8 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:
4829 movie reviews
  1. “Bride” is remarkable for how honestly it earns every tiny tick of pleasure it gives — for it gives many.
  2. Overall, State Like Sleep is a satisfying movie about grief and an unsatisfying mystery.
  3. Although the majority of Beirut proves to be quite the task to watch, it’s still rather refreshing to witness Hamm continue to come into his own as a genuine A-list talent.
  4. 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.
  5. One of the most undersung and most potent pleasures of genre cinema is the excuse it has given us, time and again, to watch attractive people fall in love with each other, and if you’re in a romantic frame of mind, Racer and the Jailbird delivers so wholly on that front that it goes a fair way toward compensating for the film’s deficiencies elsewhere.
  6. While Vitali is frank about the nature of his demanding and subservient relationship to the man, his warmhearted, dazzled, Everest-high respect for Kubrick’s talent remains undimmed even now. It is truly inspiring and touching just how little bitterness Vitali has in him, and it stems from his having no regrets over a life dedicated to something he believes in with utterly selfless purity.
  7. Fascinating, atmospheric, and utterly strange in ways both good and bad, Ghostbox Cowboy pulls back the curtain on those trying to export the American dream and reaping the whirlwind.
  8. Jones makes both narrative and formalistic leaps, which won’t be spoiled here, that initially are jarring in comparison to the lo-fi aesthetic that precedes it, but truly open the film up to broader implications about how we hold onto the past events and how they constantly resurface.
  9. Zoe
    Though the film attempts to introduce a future laden with fascinating social implications, it maddeningly ignores them in favor of an overwrought, plodding, and inherently sexist romance.
  10. Brownson’s misguided and desperate attempts to humanize Dolezal only expose how deeply selfish and self-absorbed this woman is. There is something sick, twisted and insulting about America’s fixation with Rachel Dolezal and the way her lies have given her a platform, albeit a negative one, that most Black people don’t have.
  11. This debut marks a bright future for Vives and is an excellent entry in the romantic comedy format that doesn’t lose sight of who its heroine is the moment she falls for someone.
  12. The film is a trifle, albeit one spiked with mirth and malice.
  13. Beast takes a storytelling gamble, presenting itself as a psychological whodunit, before pivoting toward a more genre oriented plot. The risk doesn’t quite pay off, undercutting its thematic potential for thrills that aren’t quite that effective.
  14. Ultimately, the latest Marvel event is ‘Civil War’ on steroids and as enormous a spectacle as you’ll ever see on the screen that’ll leave you shook. For a movie plot this thin and basic, ‘Infinity War,’ is remarkably gripping, supersized entertainment that should exhilarate audiences, electrify the box office and continue the Marvel hegemony for years to come.
  15. It’s the kind of smoothly rounded, edgeless historical drama that’s built for maximum appeal, with a broad perspective and an easy to digest tone. Well-crafted and ably told, this is a film that’s wholly respectable though not particularly memorable, but still manages to connect with its earnest good intentions and desire to please.
  16. Like its characters, Duck Butter is imperfect, but unlike human objects of our affection, it’s attractive despite its flaws rather than because of them.
  17. The Devil and Father Amorth will polarize audiences, and while a good portion of Friedkin’s documentary will fail to change anyone’s minds, it will keep viewers gravitated to its sales pitch—the exorcism itself.
  18. For Driver’s movie, Basquiat is a ghostly presence, popping up in snapshots or scraps of footage.
  19. Marked with a conveyer belt quality, Kodachrome is every indie dramedy you’ve seen before, just like more of you’ll see after, and unlikely to create a cherished memory that you’ll want to revisit.
  20. For all its faults – both in its construction and the execution of its themes – I Feel Pretty still manages to be fun in the moment. It’s sweet and silly with a scene-stealing performance from Williams, but it ultimately could learn from its own lessons. It’s not confident enough in its central premise, leaving the audience wanting something more.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The ugly truth here would be to tell you to just skip the film, and the dare is to actually pay money to see it.
  21. Handsomely shot, evocatively designed, solidly cast and terribly daft, it also presents your friendly neighborhood reviewer with something of a challenge. With what seems like almost premeditated skill, it saves its worst instincts for the backend of its convoluted and barely credible narrative, a good arm-and-a-half’s-length beyond the impassible “spoiler wall.”
  22. Dumont’s uncompromising approach to the material makes for a love-it-or-hate-it affair, and it should be clear where this particular viewer fell on that spectrum.
  23. By allowing Ejiofor the time and narrative space, even allowing many of the sermons to play out in full, to express Pearson’s confliction, Marston has created one of the more restrained explorations of faith in quite some time.
  24. In the right moments, Brad Peyton can stage a ceremoniously ludicrous set piece with grace and ease. It’s easy to follow the nonsense found in the last act thanks to his assured hand, and you can tell that he is having an absolute ball with its silliness. If only we could share in that enthusiasm for its tedious first two acts.
  25. The cinematic equivalent of a bath bomb, this fizzy feature is sure to delight — at least until the charm fades. So unfurl your towel, dust off your bathing suit, and soak up that warmth.
  26. Blockers is the kind of movie that Hollywood typically gets wrong. They make it too crude or too wild or too inconsiderate. Thankfully, Blockers is an unexpected triumph, even if it’s not quite as great as it could’ve been.
  27. Revenge is a hugely satisfying horror movie, a real achievement on the parts of all involved.
  28. Sweet Country is unmistakably a western in iconography and spare, taciturn tone, but it is also an incendiary slave narrative, in which the poetry of the filmmaking can barely contain a simmering fury and disgust at this most shameful of human institutions.
  29. First Match is a culturally significant, capably-crafted film, but it leans on safe familiarities when it should seek risky rewards.

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