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. AKA Mr. Chow
    The seductive visual rhythms of “Mr. Chow” are the result of Ms. Tsien’s editing (with Anita H.M. Yu and Eugene Yi), accessorized to no small degree by the magical animation of Rohan Patrick McDonald.
  2. The Pigeon Tunnel
    Based on the Le Carré memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel allows Mr. Morris to exercise his extraordinary gift for making the interview format irresistibly cinematic, and feels like a collaboration of kindred spirits.
  3. Old Dads
    The writing sometimes collapses into overkill, but sometimes it is precisely on point.
  4. The Delinquents
    the narrative, despite its crime-drama trappings, ends up as an ambling, affecting, sometimes funny exploration of what it means to live freely in the modern world.
  5. Butcher's Crossing
    It has a classical moral that would have made Aesop salute: Greed is not only corrupting, it can be self-defeating. Moreover, suspense lies both in wanting to know whether Miller’s quest will succeed and in what lessons might be learned. Though Miller’s actions drive the story, it is mainly an education for Will, the observer.
  6. Killers of the Flower Moon
    Ms. Gladstone draws a lot of sympathy as the modest, helpless Mollie, but like everything else here her performance suffers from inertia. She spends the bulk of the movie mired in illness and despondency, and her look mirrors how I felt as I watched: numb and trapped.
  7. The Road Dance
    The film too often feels like the plodding presentation of a sad story. And it gets sadder still, though as the plot goes on the movie tends to skirt genuine awfulness, reaching instead for the inspiring flashback, the righteous moment of justice or the happy, improbable surprise.
  8. The Mission
    It’s a hefty, substantial, at times dizzying experience despite lacking some elements that might have elevated it to the highest levels of its form.
  9. Anatomy of a Fall
    What you take away from Anatomy of a Fall is largely up to you, but it’s a thoroughly engrossing case study.
  10. The Burial
    The film is better couch fare than most of what we will see at any time of year.
  11. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
    The divide between Mr. Sutherland and the rest of the cast is striking: The way Friedkin shoots him, and the nature of his portrayal, are in sharp contrast to the more stage-bound performances of his co-stars; it may have been intentional, though it doesn’t really work.
  12. The Exorcist: Believer
    Successfully stringing together shocking, disgusting and terrifying moments counts as a solid day’s work for most horror directors, and since The Exorcist: Believer achieves all that it’s competent enough. But I expected better from Mr. Green.
  13. The Royal Hotel
    While the subject has been the province of clichés and exaggeration, the movie’s points are well-crafted, despite a wild Hollywood ending at odds with this indie offering’s otherwise gritty appeal. As it decries a social problem it adds layers and surprises. It can’t be dismissed as an overwrought message movie.
  14. She Came to Me
    The movie—consistently amusing, amiably performed and never really credible—concerns itself with questions of artistic inspiration, and one leaves it thinking that Ms. Miller has, at the very least, an eccentric muse.
  15. Heist 88
    As directed by Menhaj Huda (“The Flash” TV series), Heist 88 is tidy, economical, forward-moving and not out to expand anyone’s visual vocabulary.
  16. Mami Wata
    Cinema’s power to transport is vividly on display in Nigerian writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s eerie but beautiful visit to a rich and unfamiliar setting.
  17. Story Ave
    Attempting to keep so many stories aloft, the film ends up making them all seem superficial.
  18. The Creator
    The more the film trumpets its thematic seriousness, the sillier it gets.
  19. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
    You can hear many an echo emanating from The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, sometimes to the point of cacophony. But there’s music here, too, and it is more than a requiem.
  20. Neither Confirm Nor Deny
    In exploring the issues that were and are involved, the film goes far deeper, as it were, than the seagoing Cold War caper thriller it naturally wants to be.
  21. Dumb Money
    There’s a more interesting, less strident film under the surface, but it never manages to get out.
  22. Flora and Son
    Heart and soul—those two concepts beaten to death by lyricists—suffuse every scene of this modest, perfect picture.
  23. The Inventor
    The Inventor falls awkwardly between a kids’ movie and one for grown-ups.
  24. Radical Wolfe
    Though the film can’t capture Wolfe’s writing, it does a public service in passing along its subject’s wisdom.
  25. A Haunting in Venice
    I was at least interested in the spooky goings-on, even as I grew increasingly tired of Mr. Branagh’s labored attempts to twist an ordinary detective story into a horror flick.
  26. A Million Miles Away
    Writer-director Alejandra Márquez Abella never makes the slightest suggestion that José isn’t going to get where he’s going, but neither does she make A Million Miles Away into any kind of ethnic agitprop.
  27. Scout's Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America
    The tone is funereal; the tears are abundant. But the evidence that the organization knew that criminals were infiltrating its leadership—the documents referred to in the title were commonly known as the “perversion files”—is substantial and goes largely unchallenged.
  28. The Mountain
    For all of the moments of splendor and awe in The Mountain, I’d have preferred a less open-ended film.
  29. The Equalizer 3
    For those who can tolerate—or better yet, relish—extreme violence, The Equalizer 3 is diverting enough. If the script is so-so, the beautiful Italian locations, Mr. Washington’s still-world-class charm and an eerie, frightening musical score by Marcelo Zarvos lift it (slightly) above average for the action-thriller genre.
  30. While We Watched
    He may not be the most charismatic news anchor in the history of TV but Mr. Kumar has nerve, arguing with bellicose callers, singing to them while they rant (and promise to kill him) and sometimes getting them to sing along. As captured by Mr. Shukla, he also works tirelessly on behalf of something that you suspect wouldn’t be quite so despised if it weren’t also the truth.
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