Wall Street Journal's Scores

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For 3,942 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 2.6 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: 2,101 out of 3942
  2. Mixed: 1,197 out of 3942
  3. Negative: 644 out of 3942
3942 movie reviews
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  1. Grumpy Old Men
    Despite the numerous predictable jokes about geriatric sex, the movie is very appealing for numerous surprising reasons. Many of them have to do with ice fishing in Minnesota. [9 Dec 1993, p.A14]
    • Wall Street Journal
  2. Philadelphia
    They have also stripped out almost all complexity, reducing the drama to a familiar match between good and evil. You've heard all the speeches before; only the nouns have been changed. [23 Dec 1993, p.A9]
    • Wall Street Journal
  3. Schindler's List
    A movie that falls outside the ordinary, or even the extraordinary. There is enormous passion and artistic integrity throughout this film. [11 Jan 1994, p.A10(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  4. The Piano
    With its breathtaking visual style and careful attention to sound and movement, the movie provokes contemplation about the ways people communicate – through words, through music, through sex, and, most significantly, through touch. [14 Dec 1993, p.A14(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  5. Short Cuts
    Extraordinary...The movie has the intensity of an epic, only its subject matter is everyday life. [19 Oct 1993, p.A18(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  6. The Age of Innocence
    A magnificent movie. [19 Oct 1993, p.A18(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  7. The Man Without a Face
    The Man Without a Face is nothing if not respectable, and occasionally it is something more than that. [26 Aug 1993, p.A9]
    • Wall Street Journal
  8. Mad Dog and Glory
    Mad Dog and Glory also seems like two movies at once, only in this case the split comes off like a case of Siamese twins. Actually, it's girls on one side and boys on the other, and the boys get all the breaks. [4 Mar 1993, p.A12]
    • Wall Street Journal
  9. Swing Kids
    Mr. Carter's intelligent, straight-forward style and the good performances of the young actors prohibit hooting at the story's completely American approach to a German story. [11 Mar 1993]
    • Wall Street Journal
  10. Falling Down
    The filmmakers aren't out to make a crisp action fantasy like the vigilante movies of the 1970s. Their disaffected man has no specific enemy or at least not one that he acknowledges; modern life is his enemy. This realization hits him one day and he begins to act on it, spontaneously. He's an existential vigilante. [25 Feb 1993, p.A12]
    • Wall Street Journal
  11. A Few Good Men
    Though not terribly interesting as political philosophy, A Few Good Men makes for a passably entertaining movie. [31 Dec 1992, p.A5(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  12. The Distinguished Gentleman
    With a refreshing absence of earnestness, the movie mainly spins out many variations on a theme: Easy Street begins and ends on Capitol Hill. [03 Dec 1992]
    • Wall Street Journal
  13. The Crying Game
    Persistently upends expectations without insult, as it pulls you into a netherworld filled with yearning, whimsy, and danger. [15 Dec 1992, p.A16(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  14. A River Runs Through It
    Whatever the movie's failings, it had enough poignancy and beauty to make me want to find out what was missing. [08 Oct 1992]
    • Wall Street Journal
  15. Reservoir Dogs
    The only thing Mr. Tarantino spells out is the violence. I have seen much more blood spilled, yet I felt sickened by the coldness of this picture's visual cruelty. [29 Oct 1992, p.A11(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  16. Unforgiven
    It's powerful entertainment. [22 Sept 1992, p.A16(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  17. Cool World
    A brilliant but completely muddled concoction about the relationship between fantasy and reality. [16 Jul 1992]
    • Wall Street Journal
  18. Far and Away
    Odd as it seems for a film built on such a grand scale, sweet is the operative word here, and that's not meant as an insult. [29 May 1992]
    • Wall Street Journal
  19. Lethal Weapon 3
    It's all played for giggles, this grim anti-humanism. [21 May 1992]
    • Wall Street Journal
  20. The Player
    This brilliant satire, styled as a murder mystery, is the best insider's view of Hollywood since "Sunset Boulevard." [15 Dec 1992, p.A16(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  21. Grand Canyon
    Too often the film languishes as Mr. Kasdan poses Big Questions and then has his characters answer them in conversations that are so casual they seem improvised. [26 Dec 1991]
    • Wall Street Journal
  22. JFK
    It's powerful film making that at the very least accomplishes what Mr. Stone said he set out to do - to offer the world an alternate myth. [20 Dec 1991]
    • Wall Street Journal
  23. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
    They both had a lot to lose, in other words, and Mr. Coppola was quite sure that they would: “The film will not be good,” he states at one point. He was wrong, but in watching “Hearts of Darkness” we can see why he might have thought so, as the making of his mammoth movie, requiring its director to wrestle art from chaos, seems to unfold in its very own fog of war.
  24. My Own Private Idaho
    This is all very strange and a little tedious. Yet there is something arresting and oddly poignant in Mr. Van Sant's playful vision of the road to nowhere. [3 Oct 1991, p.A14(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  25. Barton Fink
    But even as the film's weaknesses make themselves more and more apparent, so does Mr. Turturro's virtuosity. [15 Aug 1991, p.A10(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  26. Trust
    It's a little precious and a little boring, but he has brought out an interesting performance from Adrienne Shelly, who convincingly pulls off a transformation from aimless pregnant teenager to purposeful young woman. [05 Sep 1991]
    • Wall Street Journal
  27. Boyz n the Hood
    Mr. Singleton is a very good storyteller, but every once in a while he stops his story cold with speeches. You can feel the audience lost interest, as though a commercial has suddenly popped on screen. [18 July 1991, p.A9(E)]
    • Wall Street Journal
  28. Hudson Hawk
    Despite all of its failures of wit, sense, and pace, the film does most effectively flaunt the millions spent on it. The inane action takes place in splendiferous settings. [23 May 1991]
    • Wall Street Journal
  29. Green Card
    Green Card is quite pleasant to watch mainly because Mr. Weir hasn't disturbed its simple virtues with undue portent. Sometimes a plate of spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce is just the thing, and this is the movie equivalent of that. [10 Jan 1991, p A12]
    • Wall Street Journal
  30. Awakenings
    The director Penny Marshall has gone straight to the heart of this complex story and made a powerfully poignant and illuminating film. She doesn't hesitate to push for the grand sentimental moment, but balances the teary stuff with restraint and humor. To be sure, Awakenings seems calculated to induce weeping -- and it does, without making the weeper feel cheap. [20 Dec 1990, p.A14]
    • Wall Street Journal
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