Wall Street Journal's Scores

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For 3,961 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 54% 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 Les Misérables
Lowest review score: 0 The Limits of Control
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,111 out of 3961
  2. Mixed: 1,202 out of 3961
  3. Negative: 648 out of 3961
3961 movie reviews
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  1. Adaptation.
    Adaptation, like "Being John Malkovich" before it, is far from a well-made film, even on its own flaky terms. But it's a brave, sometimes brilliant one, with a phantasmagoric ending, full of love and hope, that defeats prose description. Never was an adaptation more original.
    • Wall Street Journal
  2. Russian Ark
    By turns intriguing, boring, frustrating, amazing and stirring, this is a tour de force that, necessarily, lacks dramatic force, but one that creates a dream state of seemingly limitless dimensions.
    • Wall Street Journal
  3. Rabbit-Proof Fence
    A movie of minimalist moments (Molly's tiniest gestures speak volumes) and lovely, almost holy tableaux.
    • Wall Street Journal
  4. Eight Crazy Nights
    An appallingly tedious Hanukkah comedy that must have bubbled up from the Porta Potti of his subconscious.
    • Wall Street Journal
  5. Solaris
    Unexpectedly thoughtful, as well as touching.
    • Wall Street Journal
  6. The Emperor's Club
    A movie's script is its fate, which means this one is doomed.
    • Wall Street Journal
  7. Die Another Day
    What's new here is a severe deficit of style, or even craftsmanship, both in the action sequences and what passes for human interludes.
    • Wall Street Journal
  8. Talk to Her
    Beautiful (sometimes sublimely so), daring (sometimes outrageously so), seriously crazed and terrifically funny.
    • Wall Street Journal
  9. The Quiet American
    Ever since the movie made a brief appearance late last year to qualify for Oscar consideration, Mr. Caine's performance has been hailed as the best of his career, and surely that's true.
    • Wall Street Journal
  10. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
    Everything and everyone is observed sharply, succinctly and indelibly.
    • Wall Street Journal
  11. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    Has its flaws, but it's better, as well as darker, than the first. It's also longer, by nine minutes, but hold that protest to the Kidney Foundation; the time flies, albeit in fits and starts, like players on a Quidditch field.
    • Wall Street Journal
  12. Interview with the Assassin
    May be something of a stunt, but it's a fascinating stunt that holds your attention from the start to shortly before the finish.
    • Wall Street Journal
  13. The Way Home
    Affecting, even touching, provided you can put up with its sclerotic pace.
    • Wall Street Journal
  14. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    A glorious feature-length documentary -- This film will leave an indentment, and a deep one, on anyone who loves great, joyous music and cares about the people who make it.
    • Wall Street Journal
  15. The Crime of Padre Amaro
    The tone is that of a telenovela -- soap-operatic at heart -- even though the film was adapted from a 19th-century novel.
    • Wall Street Journal
  16. 8 Mile
    Transcends its star's controversial career and, in the bargain, stands head, shoulders and heart above every other Hollywood movie that we've seen so far this year.
    • Wall Street Journal
  17. Far From Heaven
    Yet dramatic energy is in short supply. The actors move about this elaborate movie museum in a modified dream state, as if living in the present while rooted in the past. But the strategy doesn't work. It's an imitation of lifelessness.
    • Wall Street Journal
  18. Treasure Planet
    Comes briefly to life, after many longeurs -- many large longeurs in IMAX -- with the discombobulated entrance of B.E.N., a dysfunctional, hyperverbal robot voiced by Martin Short.
    • Wall Street Journal
  19. The Santa Clause 2
    The only parts of the film that ring true -- and they sometimes ring touchingly true -- are the ones that give Mr. Allen simple human themes to work with.
    • Wall Street Journal
  20. Santa vs. the Snowman
    A strange anomaly. It's both cutting-edge entertainment and primitive precursor of unimagined wonders to come.
    • Wall Street Journal
  21. I Spy
    Stinker doesn't begin to describe this movie's character -- both frenzied and dispiriting.
    • Wall Street Journal
  22. Roger Dodger
    All three performances are excellent, in their different ways.
    • Wall Street Journal
  23. The Truth About Charlie
    So the awful truth about The Truth About Charlie is that it needed two movie stars and got one.
    • Wall Street Journal
  24. Frida
    Skips from episode to episode without illuminating the essence of the woman or her art.
    • Wall Street Journal
  25. All or Nothing
    This feelbad movie makes you glad when it's over.
    • Wall Street Journal
  26. Derrida
    Challenging and fascinating -- everything you didn't know you didn't know about Derrida's life and work.
    • Wall Street Journal
  27. The Grey Zone
    With all its flaws, though, The Grey Zone deserves to be respected, and to be seen.
    • Wall Street Journal
  28. Real Women Have Curves
    Ms. Ferrera is an engaging performer; you find yourself rooting for Ana from the start, even though you know, from the predictable script by George LaVoo and Josefina Lopez, that rooting isn't required for a happy outcome.
  29. The Ring
    Won't kill you, but it could bore you half to death.
    • Wall Street Journal
  30. Auto Focus
    It grows repetitious, both in its account of Crane's ritual behavior and in clumsily written -- and stolidly directed -- scenes between Crane and Carpenter, two men acting out their own unacknowledged sexual drama.
    • Wall Street Journal
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