Wall Street Journal's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Awakening
    The film benefits enormously from having the luminous Rebecca Hall as its lead. It also gains an ominous gravity from the haunted, wounded and wobbly England in which it's set.
  2. Cosmopolis
    Conventional it is not. Engrossing it is.
  3. The Campaign
    Instead of biting wit, though, the movie settles for sketch humor, standard-brand raunch and toothless slapstick that trivializes everything it touches.
  4. Hope Springs
    The movie perseveres with affecting, sometimes startling candor, and eventually delivers on its promise by confronting the dark fears and furtive hopes of a couple no longer young.
  5. The Bourne Legacy
    A solid success, primarily though not entirely because of Jeremy Renner. He's a star worthy of the term as Aaron Cross, another haunted operative who, like Jason Bourne, is as much a victim of the government's dirty deeds as a covert super-agent. But the production is impressive too.
  6. Celeste and Jesse Forever
    The more these two likable people rattled on, the more I found myself thinking about the elusive distinction between characters talking genuinely smart talk and simply chattering for the camera.
  7. Total Recall (2012)
    The remake has no grace notes, or grace, no nuance, no humanity, no character quirks, no surprises in the dialogue and no humor.
  8. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
    His is a special kind of courage, and it impels him to act with special agility in a brave new world of his own making, where little tweets can challenge big lies and a blog post can echo like thunder.
  9. Ruby Sparks
    What's good in the film, which was shot superbly by Matthew Libatique, is so good - so exuberant and touching and sweet - that you want the whole thing to be perfect, but Ruby Sparks is a closed system that gradually turns in on itself. There isn't enough of someone else.
  10. Killer Joe
    Killer Joe is, at bottom - and I mean bottom - ugly and vile, not to mention dumb and clumsy.
  11. The Dark Knight Rises
    It's spectacular, to be sure, but also remarkable for its all-encompassing gloom. No movie has ever administered more punishment, to its hero or its audience, in the name of mainstream entertainment.
  12. Farewell, My Queen
    The story refuses to combust; it's a strangely unsatisfying combination of bloodless observations and unresolved sexuality.
  13. Trishna
    Michael Winterbottom's films aren't always successful, but they're almost always interesting. And, in the case of this odd transplantation from Thomas Hardy's grim Wessex to the glare and blare of contemporary India, spectacular visually, though awfully somber dramatically.
  14. Ballplayer: Pelotero
    Major League Baseball has passed new rules for the Dominican system, according to the film's closing credits, rules that will limit signing bonuses. Yet the harvest will continue, and it's not a pretty sight.
  15. Easy Money
    JW is played brilliantly by Joel Kinnaman, who is familiar to American audiences of "The Killing" on AMC.
  16. Savages
    The violence is graphic, the dialogue can be awfully arch and the style is often mannered, but this long, dense adventure takes surprising side trips into thoughtfulness, ruefulness, whimsy and romance. It's high-grade entertainment sustained by a buoyant spirit.
  17. The Amazing Spider-Man
    This hugely elaborate production is supposed to be the reboot of a foundering franchise, but rebooting a computer wipes the silicon slate clean. In the movie, what's old is old again.
  18. Beasts of the Southern Wild
    There's no trace of calculation, only artistic ambitions and hopes that have come to fruition in the year's finest film thus far.
  19. Magic Mike
    The process is called acting, and the man (Tatum) in the title role of Steven Soderbergh's flashy, not-so-trashy entertainment does it so well that the debate should be officially ended.
  20. Ted
    Ted is often hilarious, sometimes sweet and, in the spirit of "Family Guy," consistently raunchy. Yet it's seriously overextended and, as the premise wears ever thinner, frantically overproduced.
  21. People Like Us
    Going on too long seems to be the disease of the week; it's certainly what brings this movie down, though the going on here stems from a surfeit of implausible plot that suffocates the main characters and the excellent actors who play them.
  22. Brave
    This is less a film in the lustrous Pixar tradition than a Disney fairy tale told with Pixar's virtuosity. As such, it's enjoyable, consistently beautiful, fairly conventional, occasionally surprising and ultimately disappointing.
  23. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
    What I don't understand is why this extended piece of idiocy chose to sink its stinky teeth into our 16th president. If an axe-wielding hero was required, George Washington would have been the better choice, with the Redcoats as bloodsuckers.
  24. To Rome with Love
    For better or worse, Woody Allen turns out a movie every year. Last year's "Midnight in Paris" was better than better; that is to say, sublime. To Rome With Love is worse than worse, as inert as its predecessor was inspired.
  25. Your Sister's Sister
    Lynn Shelton's lovely tale of swirling feelings was shot in a mere 12 days, on a budget that must have been minuscule. A couple of minutes after it's started, though, you know you're in the presence of people who will surprise and delight you.
  26. Rock of Ages
    What's not fine is the dead zone occupied by the monster of the piece, Tom Cruise's veteran rocker, Stacee Jaxx.
  27. Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding
    The only rewards, and they are real albeit insufficient, involve watching Jane Fonda in full cry and Catherine Keener in a quieter fullness of feeling.
  28. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
    Madagascar 3 is all about exuberant motion, cute characters and gorgeous colors. It aims for the eyes, not the heart.
  29. Prometheus
    Prometheus, in efficient 3-D, places most of its bets on the wonders that today's visual artists and technicians can work with digital tools. This tale of an interstellar search asks cosmic questions about the meaning of life, but comes up with lame answers in a script that screams attention-deficit disorder.
  30. Snow White and the Huntsman
    An evil spell nearly does Snow White in, but it's lifted in the nick of time. The strangest spell afflicts Kristen Stewart; she can't seem to imbue Snow White with anything more than a semblance of feeling. That spell never lifts, but it doesn't make much difference in the end because the forces of good manage to work around it.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »