Washington Post's Scores

Select another publication »
For 11,478 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 52% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Oppenheimer
Lowest review score: 0 Dolittle
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6,014 out of 11478
  2. Mixed: 3,069 out of 11478
  3. Negative: 2,395 out of 11478
11478 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
    Raiders of the Lost Ark is sensational. This awesomely entertaining adventure spectacle, directed by Steven Spielberg from an idea hatched by executive producer George Lucas, succeeds in fusing the most playful and exciting elements of Spielberg's "Jaws" and Lucas' "Star Wars" in a fresh format. It is a transcendent blend of heroic exploits, cliffhangers and chases distilled with nostalgia and wit from the pulp thrillers, comic books and Republic serials of the World War II era. [12 June 1981, p.E1]
    • Washington Post
  2. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
    Spielberg has always demonstrated extraordinary aptitude for filmmaking, but "E.T." is far and away his most satisfying work to date. He knows how to transform the raw material of his childhood into an appealing popular fable. There are sequences that touch you to the quick in mysteriously casual ways
  3. The Quiet American
    The narrative is lean, the supporting performances are solid, and, perhaps most crucially, the emotional tone of the piece is spot-on.
  4. Addicted to Love
    Misanthropic, cruel, hostile, corrupt, blasphemous and basically pretty evil. I loved it.
  5. The Remains of the Day
    Hopkins and Thompson's downright marvelous duet is supported by a host of deft players, and the detailed re-creation of this small universe is in all ways remarkable.
  6. To Die For
    Kidman grabs center stage and never relinquishes the position. Playing mercilessly against her pinup girl image, she's an unforgettable, comic archetype—a more slapsticky corollary to William Hurt's bumbling, handsome newscaster in "Broadcast News."
  7. The Company
    It is sheer brilliance and testament to the vitality of an old master.
  8. Dark City
    If you don't fall in love with it, you've probably never fallen in love with a movie, and never will.
  9. Bloody Sunday
    An extraordinary film ... that's impossible to dismiss or leave unmoved.
  10. Punch-Drunk Love
    Through this miasma of pain and suffering, love may not flicker more strongly than a dim lamp. But it's the only beacon to consider. Can Barry find his? Thanks to Anderson's assured picture, a symphony of cinematic textures, that disarmingly simple question becomes incredibly compelling.
  11. Chicken Run
    The visual comedy is brilliant.
  12. Manhunter
    A gory and gorgeous cop thriller -- you'll forgive it almost anything, so full is your eye with the beauties of its design and photography, and your ear with its supercool electronic music. For all its faults, it's one of the most sensually thrilling movies of the year.
  13. The Score
    The best heist flick since "The Usual Suspects," a perfect 10 of a movie.
  14. Raising Arizona
    Raising Arizona is a prize package and a bundle of joy, one that puts a fresh, funny face on the American comedy movie. It's as encouraging as it is entertaining. [20 March 1987, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  15. The Manchurian Candidate
    Manchurian, with its fatalistic, dreamlike quality, comprises two of [Frankenheimer's] finest hours. [Re-release]
  16. Bus 174
    The results are as riveting as any action movie ever made.
  17. Y Tu Mamá También
    There are so many good things to say about this film it's hard to find a statement that really nails it. Perhaps we can leave at this: Y Tu Mama Tambien is originality writ large.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Shakespeare in Love
    Paltrow and Fiennes are so good and the script, referencing not only "Romeo and Juliet" but "Twelfth Night," is so consistently intelligent that seduction is inevitable.
  19. American Splendor
    Superbly conceived anti-biopic.
  20. Run Lola Run
    Fabulously kinetic.
  21. The English Patient
    A tour de force so haunting that other films can't exorcise the memory of its radiant cast, exquisite craftsmanship or complex system of metaphors. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a movie.
  22. Catch Me If You Can
    It's brilliantly acted. But best of all, it's brilliantly made.
  23. You Can Count on Me
    A humanistic gem of a movie, with unforgettable performances from Linney and Ruffalo.
  24. The Leopard (re-release)
    Watching this masterwork allows you to return to the filmmaking sensibility of the 1960s, when epics looked like epics.
  25. Russian Ark
    Dramatically, this is something of a waking dream.
  26. Shrek
    A movie that appeals to the eye, mind, heart and funny bone; that's a pretty good quadruple for any movie.
  27. All or Nothing
    Exquisitely textured film.
  28. Secrets & Lies
    A magnificent melodrama that draws both tears and laughter from the everyday give-and-take of seemingly ordinary souls.
  29. To Be and to Have
    Hypnotically absorbing film.
  30. Das Boot
    You emerge from this experience rather like a returning U-boat crewman -- drained, blinking in the light, but oddly triumphant. [Director's cut]
  31. Saving Private Ryan
    Searing, heartbreaking, so intense it turns your body into a single tube of clenched muscle, this is simply the greatest war movie ever made, and one of the great American movies.
  32. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    A stunning successor, a tense and pictorially dazzling science-fiction chase melodrama that sustains two hours of elaborate adventure while sneaking up on you emotionally.
  33. Election
    A wonderful, piercing and hilarious examination of high school politics and how bitter and ruinous it can become.
  34. Festival Express
    Most of Festival Express resonates with the power and passion, even the innocence, of the era.
  35. About Schmidt
    What gives About Schmidt its ultimate boost, what pushes it into the stirring heavens is Nicholson, who produces the most understated -– and one of the most powerful –- performances of his career.
  36. The Hours
    With its deft intercutting of place and time, the film creates a powerful sense of mysticism and fate.
  37. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    It's a comic book at heart, albeit a thoroughly, grandly romantic one in the end.
  38. Memento
    You're exhilarated from beginning to end.
  39. 10 Things I Hate About You
    It's a celebration of young American women, finding them smarter, tougher, shrewder, more rigorous, more persistent and more honest than any movie in many a moon.
  40. 2001: A Space Odyssey
    Maintains its artistic magnificence after more than 30 years.
  41. Blade Runner
    Grand enough in scale to carry its many Biblical and mythological references, Blade Runner never feels heavy or pretentious -- only more and more engrossing with each viewing. It helps, too, that it works as pure entertainment.
  42. My Own Private Idaho
    It gets you below the emotional belt in a searing, delicate way. No movie this year approaches such magnificent imagery, such delectable poetry.
  43. Sling Blade
    Like the eloquent, darkly funny dialogue, the film's characters, setting and cadences draw us into its world, with all its terrors and tenderness. What emerges is a masterpiece of Southern storytelling that draws a sharp line between good and evil.
  44. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    An instant slapstick classic from Disney and Steven Spielberg. Already, it's a hare's breadth away from legend. [22 June 1988]
  45. Toy Story 2
    A sequel that eclipses the original. The toys are back with even more hilarious vengeance. The story's twice as inventive as its predecessor.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Toy Story
    What the bright minds of Walt Disney have produced here is a must-see movie. Must-see, must-talk-about, must-plan-to-see-again.
  47. High Fidelity
    A guaranteed pleasure for anyone who ever loved pop music, owned a record collection or suffered in love
  48. Moolaadé
    Moolaade, in short, is a movie to rock the soul.
  49. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
    The aerial dogfight Dykstra and Stears have helped Lucas perfect as his climactic piece de resistance looks more exciting than its antecedents in live-action war movies. It’s the most gorgeous stylized combat sequence since the underwater battle at the end of "Thunderball," a project that won an Oscar for Stears.
  50. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
    Isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages.
  51. Dances with Wolves
    A gigantic achievement, an endowment of riches.
  52. Full Metal Jacket
    The most eloquent and exacting vision of the war to date... Inspired with technique rather than overblown with it, Kubrick, the filmmaker's filmmaker, lays one on you.
  53. In the Mood for Love
    The sexiest movie of the year.
  54. Adaptation.
    May not be the first movie to examine the creative process. But it's the most playfully brilliant.
  55. Batman
    The movie fixes you in its gravitational pull. It's an enveloping, walk-in vision... As rich and satisfying a movie as you're likely to see all year.
  56. Amélie
    A movie for aesthetically hungry moviegoers: wildly amusing, sometimes sardonic and always touching. There's so much here, and all of it delightful.
  57. Reservoir Dogs
    With the exception of the opening scene -- whose purpose is chiefly comic -- the movie is one, extended climax. Even with flashbacks and other time jumps, it never lets up. You have to go back to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1952 "The Wages of Fear" to recall suspense this relentless.
  58. Capturing the Friedmans
    Jarecki has created a tour de force of narrative ambiguity, and in doing so has made one of the most honest reality shows ever.
  59. Jaws
    The movie version of Jaws is one of the most exciting and satisfying thrillers ever made.
  60. Pulp Fiction
    Brilliant and brutal, funny and exhilarating, jaw-droppingly cruel and disarmingly sweet...To watch this movie (whose 2 1/2 hours speed by unnoticed) is to experience a near-assault of creativity.
  61. The Truman Show
    One of the smartest, most inventive movies in memory, it manages to be as endearing as it is provocative.
  62. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
    Magnificently nonchalant about its magic.
  63. Days of Being Wild (re-release)
    Its themes of passion, heartbreak and the inexorable passage of time are eternal.
  64. Lost in Translation
    Thanks to two delightful performers, you're drawn powerfully to the outcome.
  65. The Pianist
    A beautiful story, told in measured cadences by a master of old-timey narrative compression and expression.
  66. Waking Life
    A smart cartoon about the life of the mind. It's about the fuzzy border between dreaming and living. It's thoughtful, provocative, liberating and fun.
  67. Do the Right Thing
    There's no doubt about the film's sheer power and taut originality.
  68. Spirited Away
    This movie -- which is equally appealing to children (those of adventurous, non-freak-outable spirit), Japanese animation (anime) fans, and any surviving acquaintances of Timothy Leary -- is so full of invention, you might want to take a breather now and then.
  69. I'm Going Home
    Simple, yet quietly astonishing film.
  70. Mystic River
    Eastwood's elegantly directed Mystic River, a deeply textured drama in which the sins (or perceived sins) of the past weigh heavily on the present.
  71. The Silence of the Lambs
    Delicious with foreboding, a masterly suspense thriller that toys with our anticipation like a well-fed cat.
  72. Yi Yi
    On one level, Yi Yi is classic soap opera, with a suicide attempt, a wedding ceremony, even a brutal 11 o'clock news murder, all in the mix. But Yang's direction is so admirably restrained, it lends rich heft to everything.
  73. Goodfellas
    One of Martin Scorsese's most brutal but stunning movies, an incredible, relentless experience about the singleminded pursuit of crime.
  74. The Age of Innocence
    Instead of "Masterpiece Theatre"-style fawning, [Scorsese] fills this movie with visual flow, masterful cinematography and assured direction. There's an alert, thinking presence behind the camera.
  75. Hukkle
    An extraordinary and brilliant (and almost wordless) film that takes us above ground and below it, up in the air and deep below water, to follow its conundrum of a story.
  76. Shrek 2
    Sure, the animation work is great, but it's the actors and their subtle, complex vocal performances that make us care about these fairy-tale characters. Shrek 2 is all about fantasy, but its characters are rousingly, affectingly real -- not to mention real, real funny.
  77. Whale Rider
    One of the best performances -- and movies -- of the year so far.
  78. Barton Fink
    What "Raising Arizona" was to baby lust, "Barton Fink" is to writer's block -- a rapturously funny, strangely bittersweet, moderately horrifying and, yes, truly apt description of the condition and its symptoms.
  79. Cold Mountain
    It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it's scary, it's exhilarating. It's got love stuff and lots of laughs and cool gunfights. It's really long and it feels like it's over in 15 minutes. It does something so few movies do these days: It satisfies.
  80. Dangerous Liaisons
    A delectably naughty experience. This sort of wit and immediacy is extraordinarily rare in a period film.
  81. Finding Nemo
    The great joy of watching a Pixar production is how it rewards not only younger viewers but their older companions as well.
  82. Dogville
    No matter how you come down on this movie politically, Dogville is a compelling chamber piece with constant cinematic surprises. And you remember that von Trier is, above everything else, a consummate filmmaker.
  83. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
    Delivered with such high panache and brio, it's mesmerizing.
  84. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    The film's not only funny and weird, it's oddly poignant. I miss Hedwig already.
  85. City of God
    One of the most startling, grittily brilliant films in recent years.
  86. Diamond Men
    A great little film, dignified by a superb performance, Diamond Men is a gem.
  87. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    Ingenious, exhilarating, funny and profound.
  88. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    Stanley Kubrick's wicked sendup of the then-burgeoning military-industrial complex is still lacerating today. Which is better, George C. Scott's bull-like portrayal of Gen. Buck Turgidson ("Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed") or the Peter Sellers trifecta of Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake, Dr. Strangelove and President Merkin Muffley? You'll watch it and weep -- from laughter and maybe just a hint of despair. [13 June 2004, p.N03]
    • Washington Post
  89. Ghost World
    Buscemi makes Seymour into a character you simply want to see again and again. He's the most appealing, amusing "loser" anyone could ever share old records with.
  90. The Incredibles
    It's easily the best and brightest family-friendly movie of the year.
  91. The Last Waltz
    Is "The Last Waltz" the greatest rock movie of all time? It makes its case persuasively in a restoration overseen by director Martin Scorsese and producer Robbie Robertson that's been released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the concert it made famous.
  92. Maria Full of Grace
    A story that rips fleshy holes through your heart.
  93. The Piano
    The Piano is dark, sublime music, and after it's over, you won't be able to get it out of your head.
  94. School of Rock
    An exuberant, raucous and thoroughly endearing comedy
  95. Team America: World Police
    Wickedly funny and devilishly subversive. It is satire at its most fearless.
  96. The Twilight Samurai
    This is an absolutely brilliant film but in a quiet way.
  97. Riding Giants
    An exhilarating, often mind-blowing history of surfing.
  98. Chicago
    Not since the 1972 'Cabaret' has there been a movie musical this stirring, intelligent and exciting.
  99. Bad Education
    To watch Bad Education is to revel, along with Almodovar, in the power of cinema to take us on journeys of breathtaking mystery and dimension and beauty.
  100. The Godfather
    A great American picture, full of incredible images and lasting moments.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »