TV Guide Magazine's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Select another publication »
For 7,979 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Badlands
Lowest review score: 0 Terror Firmer
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,504 out of 7979
  2. Mixed: 3,561 out of 7979
  3. Negative: 914 out of 7979
7979 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Butterfly Tongues
    Though beautifully photographed, acted and written (the three source stories are skillfully blended into a single narrative), this leisurely, bittersweet look at a child's loss of innocence ends rather abruptly and inconclusively.
  2. Boys and Girls
    So shallow and brainless it's in perpetual danger of drying up and blowing away.
  3. Groove
    A sweet-natured ode to rave culture saddled with a ridiculously clichéd plot line.
  4. Pop & Me
    A funny, perceptive and seductively engaging movie.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Sunshine
    That this handsome, three-hour extravaganza coheres at all is a small miracle; that it actually leaves you wanting more is a major one.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Love's Labour's Lost
    As if to prove that light romantic comedy can be just as difficult to stage as Shakespeare, Kenneth Branagh fails at both, simultaneously.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    BookWars
    Rosette's film takes on a seriously Orwellian cast when the sellers mobilize to wage a civil war of words against the Big Brotherly NYC bureaucrats and academics trying to sweep them off the street.
  8. American Pimp
    It's funny stuff, though most of the pimps seem like such buffoons it's hard to imagine how they actually make a living.
  9. Gone in Sixty Seconds
    The car stunts are ridiculous, all lightning-fast editing and computer enhancement -- by the time action is this far removed from reality, who cares?
  10. Running Free
    Bodrov's staging and cutting does a perfectly good job conveying their anthropomorphized feelings and motives; the spoken drivel is just a distraction. The film's human characters are largely inconsequential.
  11. American Virgin
    A lightweight parody of the porn industry and daytime talk shows that has the look and feel of a middling direct-to-video feature.
  12. Thirteen
    This quietly gripping film is both universal and particular.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Grass
    He's (Mann) a solid historian and this film is full of fascinating facts, but he's a cultural critic at heart, and a good one at that.
  14. Big Momma's House
    Lawrence -- with the help of Oscar-winning makeup effects artist Greg Cannom ("Mrs. Doubtfire") -- has created yet another prosthetic screen wonder.
  15. Shanghai Noon
    It's too bad screenwriters Gough and Millar didn't have enough faith in their premise to play it straight; if they had, they might have produced a classic rather than a "Blazing Saddles" without the courage of its convictions.
  16. Better Living Through Circuitry
    Intelligent and engaging, this documentary about rave culture overcomes the challenge inherent in its subject; rave's appeal is by nature nonanalytical and experiential, while documentary films play to the intellectual observer.
  17. Passion of Mind
    What may have looked good on paper across the Atlantic gets lost in the translation to our shores.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Kikujirô no natsu
    Appears to be a complete about-face for Kitano, and yet it's unmistakably his, both stylistically (the film is gorgeous to look at) and thematically.
  19. 8 ½ Women
    Though his film is breathtakingly art-directed, Greenaway wallows in epater le bourgeois nastiness -- his inner naughty child could use a good paddling.
  20. Mission: Impossible II
    It's actually sharper, less reverential and generally better than "Misson: Impossible."
  21. Dinosaur
    An old-fashioned dinosaur opera, in the worst sense of the term. An obviously formulaic effort, designed more as a cash machine than a piece of cinema.
  22. Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man
    A hokey, more-than-a-little-annoying mystical journey of self-discovery.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Luminous Motion
    Gordon makes the mistake of preserving Bradfield's highly idiosyncratic dialogue -- dazzling on the page, deadly in any actor's mouths -- and the otherwise talented Lloyd is miscast.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Well
    A grim and deliciously twisted Gothic chiller from the dark side of sunny Down Under.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Young Dr. Freud
    An entertaining, insightful and handsomely illustrated "Freud for Dummies."
  26. Small Time Crooks
    This thin, clichéd comedy of crime and social climbing contains some scattered laughs and whole lot of padding.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Road Trip
    When it's not wasting time with character, this deliberately dumb collegiate comedy is good for a few laughs of the big butts and sex variety, but not much else.
  28. Held Up
    A hick-town, screwball comedy version of "Dog Day Afternoon," and surprisingly palatable despite its sitcom soul and star.
  29. Shadow Boxers
    By trying to be both a portrait of Rijker and an introduction to women's boxing, it shortchanges both subjects.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Kadosh
    The acting is uniformly superb, as is the rich, somber cinematography.
  31. Center Stage
    The story is shallow stuff, but pretty entertaining until it becomes utterly preposterous.
  32. Screwed
    As bad as the title, and much longer.
  33. Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000
    The story's broad strokes are painfully clichéd and its details make no sense at all.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Coming Soon
    Just because it was written and directed by a woman doesn't mean the title isn't exactly the vulgar double entendre you think.
  35. Hamlet
    Has an interesting look, several sensational performances (notably from Kyle MacLachlan and Liev Schreiber) and in general works far better than it has any right to.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Human Traffic
    Brimming with fun and a few great ideas, it's little more than a foggy memory the minute it's over.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Dream of Light
    An enthusiastic recommendation.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Into My Heart
    The results are only so-so.
  39. La Nouvelle Ève
    Camille's desperate, destructive antics just don't seem especially cute or funny.
  40. Up at the Villa
    The surprise is how tame and passionless it all seems, particularly after director Philip Haas's fevered "Angels and Insects."
  41. I Dreamed of Africa
    Though beautifully acted by Basinger (everyone else is relegated to a supporting role), there's a strange vagueness to much of this sumptuous, stunningly photographed melodrama.
  42. Michael Jordan to the Max
    There's not much substantive food for thought.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Basket
    Despite the overplotting, there's scarcely any of the characterization that might have made some of it interesting.
  44. Gladiator
    Brawny, he-man spectacle combined with a surprisingly solid story and buttressed by excellent performances.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Adorenarin doraibu
    Supremely silly on the surface but full of sophisticated sight gags and deadpan humor.
  46. Luminarias
    Breezy and eminently watchable.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Big Kahuna
    It's a chamber piece that probably should have stayed where it started, in regional theater.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Committed
    But one can only imagine how different the film might have been with, say, Parker Posey or Catherine Keener -- truly funky actresses with some real edge -- in the lead.
  49. Frequency
    What do you get when you cross a serial-killer movie with a sappy father/son drama and give it a time-travel twist?
  50. Bossa Nova
    The city looks breathtakingly lovely, the movie's Brazilian characters are charming and filled with joie de vivre, and using excerpts would take care of the fact that the pacing's a bit sluggish for such fluffy material.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Idiots
    It's overtly about provocation, set in a tony Danish suburb where a group of men and women living commune-style in an empty house are discovering their "inner idiots" by pretending to be developmentally challenged.
  52. The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
    The best thing about it is the cast. Baldwin's moronic Barney is an acquired taste, but Krakowski is an adorable, sassy Betty, and Johnston brings an endearing coltishness to the sensible Wilma.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Timecode
    Figgis's bold narrative strategy turns what could have been a standard-issue chronicle of shallow Hollywood lives into a fluid and enthralling experience.
  54. Where the Heart Is
    To be fair, this could have been worse.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Croupier
    The film fires off too many intriguing plot possibilities that remain nothing more than that.
  56. Gossip
    Thoroughly preposterous on every level.
  57. The Last September
    There's a certain built-in poignance to the end-of-an-era proceedings here, regardless of how frostily they're dramatized.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    From the Edge of the City
    If it's not an entirely wholesome portrait of the immigrant experience, it's certainly an entertaining one.
  59. J'aimerais pas crever un dimanche
    If not an entirely successful film, it's a bold and haunting one.
  60. U-571
    It's straightforwardly entertaining and a genuine nail-biter.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Virgin Suicides
    The soundtrack (Heart, ELO, Todd Rundgren, and an original score by the French duo Air) is spot-on and the costume design (pukka shells and knee-socks) is hideously accurate.
  62. Love & Basketball
    The movie's performances, especially Lathan's, are strong enough to balance out the sometimes-clichéd script.
  63. Keeping the Faith
    A very entertaining, hugely neurotic romantic comedy.
  64. The Girl Next Door
    (Fugate's) portrait of Valentine/Baker is rich and compelling.
  65. Set Me Free
    Spare and quietly heartbreaking, this French-Canadian feature uses a fine brush to depict a teenage girl in the midst of a quiet crisis.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Specialist
    Presents the salient points of this troubling case with gripping concision.
  67. Third World Cop
    The script recycles clichés that go back to 1937'S "Dead End," the performances are one-note, and the whole thing has the flat, bright look of a TV cop show.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    American Psycho
    It's not a great film, but let's face it: Considering the source, this is as good as it was ever going to get.
  69. 28 Days
    Funny, thought-provoking and, yes, touching.
  70. Where the Money Is
    There's a caper and there are some laughs, but this isn't a larky caper flick; it's a pulpy little story that could at any minute go straight to hell.
  71. East Is East
    Mixes broad humor with a surprisingly subtle portrait of a family pulled in a bewildering variety of directions.
  72. Est - Ouest
    It's Deneuve, in little more than a cameo, who commands your attention and doesn't release you until she's good and ready.
  73. Restaurant
    Cudworth's script gives the characters more depth than is the genre norm, and the ensemble acting is terrific.
  74. La sindrome di Stendhal
    This psychological horror picture is harrowing and occasionally macabre -- you'll come away wondering what kind of father would cast his daughter in such a sexually brutal film.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Southpaw
    If ever an English-language film needed English subtitles it's this.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Filth and the Fury
    This loud and exhilarating documentary from director Julien Temple brings it all back in a vitriolic spray of spite, spittle and raw rock and roll that still hits like a heart attack.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Joe Gould's Secret
    Makes for a great story.
  78. Rules of Engagement
    It's a deftly executed crowd-pleaser, but it's dishonest to the core.
  79. Return to Me
    Essentially a romantic comedy with a heavier-than-usual dramatic component.
  80. Ready to Rumble
    An extremely loud and simpleminded cross between TV's "WWF Smackdown!" and "Dumb and Dumber."
  81. Me Myself I
    If you were watching it at home you wouldn't feel compelled to pause the film before going into the kitchen to fix a snack.
  82. Black and White
    Strident and bombastic.
  83. Price of Glory
    Despite excellent performances all around, the actors can't overcome the script's limitations.
  84. The Road to El Dorado
    An often spectacular but ultimately rather tedious musical/adventure/comedy.
  85. The Skulls
    Dopey "thriller."
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Beau Travail
    Denis dispenses with most of Melville's hefty Christian symbolism in favor of the story's other great theme -- repressed homoerotic desire.
  87. High Fidelity
    One of the sharpest and emotionally resonant romantic comedies in what seems like years.
  88. Here on Earth
    As for first-time feature director Mark Piznarski, he should be cited for excessive use of slow motion, sun-dappled trees and golden light; one more cliche violation and his license to direct would be forfeit.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Waking the Dead
    A tale of conscience lost and found becomes little more than a smart but tepid ghost story for idealists and '60s survivors, and not a terribly spooky one at that.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    The Color of Paradise
    The surprisingly tragic climax may make it rough going for kids too young to grasp the film's comforting message.
  91. Such a Long Journey
    Director Sturla Gunnarsson crams each sequence with subtle, telling detail while avoiding "exotic India" clichés.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Buddy Boy
    Such a compellingly repulsive freak show it's hard to pay attention to any serious concerns.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    All I Wanna Do
    Under the candy coating and girl group soundtrack, the film acknowledges some hard truths about women and education that haven't changed much since the '60s. But it never loses sight of having a good time, and the girls are great.
  94. X
    This film will doubtless interest serious anime fans, but it won't win any converts.
  95. Whatever It Takes
    It's larded with blinding glimpse-of-the-obvious homilies.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Reviewed by
      Ken Fox
    Winter Sleepers
    From its ominous opening to its spectacular climactic stunt, the hypnotic precursor to director Tom Tykwer's "Run Lola Run" is a quieter but creepier affair.
  97. Romeo Must Die
    Then there's the utter lack of sexual chemistry between Li and Aaliyah, sucking all the urgency out of the relationship between the star-crossed lovers.
  98. Erin Brockovich
    Entertaining -- if predictable.
  99. Beyond the Mat
    A behind-the-scenes documentary that manages to be unabashedly sympathetic without being a puff piece.
  100. Babymother
    A fresh and spirited fairy tale.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »