Washington Post's Scores

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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
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  1. Oldboy
    Its magnificence is that it takes itself dead serious. It's not entertainment, but it's sure a piece of toughness.
  2. Tell No One
    A crafty, swift, subtly stylish thriller.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Miss Sunshine
    Mostly it's just funny. Really, really funny.
  4. I Love You, Man
    After delivering scene-stealing turns in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" Rudd claims the much-deserved spotlight in I Love You, Man, which in its own endearing way tweaks the very same male-bonding pieties that those movies made a fortune celebrating.
  5. Duplicity
    It's smart, it's for grown-ups and it lets Julia Roberts laugh, if just once.
  6. Casino Royale
    Turns out to be cracking good entertainment, as well as a fresh start for the perdurable 21-picture franchise.
  7. Gladiator
    One extended guilty pleasure.
  8. Coco Before Chanel
    This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coach Carter
    This entry in a rather stale genre deserves to be put at the head of the class.
  10. Travelers and Magicians
    To watch this movie is to be moved not only by an affecting, warmly spirited yarn, but also by the wisdom that seems to waft to us directly from those snow-capped peaks.
  11. Machuca
    Engaging entertainment and a great work of art.
  12. Head-On
    Has its share of surprises, especially in the performances of its two main players.
  13. Assisted Living
    This finale turns Assisted Living from fascinating experimental film into something finer.
  14. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
    Quite simply, a beautiful film, in both form and content.
  15. Up and Down
    Haunting little film, whose chaotic universe is churned up by the conflict between the haves and the have-nots.
  16. Gunner Palace
    The film is more of an anthropological essay on the way young Americans relate while they make war, not love, and try to survive in the meantime.
  17. Walk on Water
    It denotes a minor movie miracle: how with intelligence, imagination and craft a small film can work in really large ways.
  18. Millions
    The movie, though quite funny in parts, turns organically dark, and it refuses to paint a picture of a cotton-candy world. It prefers the real one.
  19. Off the Map
    There's a collective scintillation about its rich, distinctive characters, narrative serendipity and ineffable magic.
  20. Control
    Visually stylish surrealist drama.
  21. Look at Me
    A movie of biting social observation. And it masterfully avoids Manichaean simplicity.
  22. Kung Fu Hustle
    It won't be long before you feel the compulsion to watch again. There is too much to appreciate in one sitting.
  23. Winter Solstice
    Sternfeld has created a garden on film that opens up its blooms for us, not in the dark of the movie house, but long after we've left the theater.
  24. Major Dundee (re-release)
    What's important is that Major Dundee, not a great movie but a great star-driven, big budget 1965 studio western, is back in all its fractured glory and confidence.
  25. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
    It's a story of jaw-dropping chutzpah, grim, mostly hindsight-based humor and more stomach-churning drama than you could find in 10 screenplays.
  26. 3-Iron
    It's a film that will stay with you.
  27. The Holy Girl
    It's a document that suggests that the road to hell is paved with bad communication skills.
  28. Ladies in Lavender.
    The film is a small study in the dignity of letting go.
  29. The Tunnel
    Good old-fashioned movie storytelling that steadily builds, over the course of nearly three hours, to a white-knuckle conclusion that satisfies on nearly every level.
  30. House of Wax
    This movie gives it to you, as no movie has in some years. Okay, if that's not your part of the swamp, don't go into it.
  31. Kingdom of Heaven
    Full of astonishments, not the least of which are its ideas.
  32. Mysterious Skin
    A startling portrayal of how the cycle of abuse plays itself out in the lives of its victims.
  33. Brothers
    There's such a sense of overall intensity, you know you have been though something powerful.
  34. Mad Hot Ballroom
    Sweet and wise little film.
  35. Layer Cake
    The director Vaughn has a flair not merely for action and ambiance but also for character.
  36. Kings & Queen
    Odd, complex and charming.
  37. Tell Them Who You Are
    Possibly without meaning to, the younger Wexler has made a superb examination not of professional cinematography -- really, who cares? -- but of the eternal bad business between fathers and sons.
  38. Madagascar
    Despite Madagascar's formulaic tendencies, it's a formula that works, so parents are urged to sit back, relax and enjoy -- the kids surely will.
  39. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire
    A compelling, compact story about a country that was left to destroy itself while one man presided futilely over the carnage.
  40. Saving Face
    A sweet, true and, at times, universal love story it is.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    The emotional story and fine acting are enough to make this a must-see movie for teen girls. The real surprise is that they can make a grown man cry.
  42. Deep Blue
    This is as good a visual treat as you and your kids can expect.
  43. Caterina va in città
    A blend of gentle comedy and poignant drama.
  44. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
    A kicky, twisted thrill ride, with enough laughs to leaven what can be read, at heart, as a metaphor for the modern marriage.
  45. 5x2
    Plays a little like a mystery, the central question of which is not whodunit but why.
  46. Me and You and Everyone We Know
    A wise, funny film about the little leaps of faith it takes to just get through the day.
  47. My Summer of Love
    Remains highly watchable throughout, for its atmosphere and the actors.
  48. Lila Says
    Startlingly erotic and surprisingly moving.
  49. Memories of Murder
    As exciting for its narrative twists and turns as for its Korean textures and rhythms.
  50. War of the Worlds
    The audience is treated to one extraordinary vision after another; the sense of a world literally being destroyed around the principal actors, the sense of their flight through panic and destruction, the sense of concussion, collapse, rubble and ruin.
  51. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
    A nifty piece of work -- with, by the way, a fantastic musical score and soundtrack -- that, if there's any justice in the movie world, will eventually earn a mystique all its own.
  52. Wedding Crashers
    Lung-bloatingly funny.
  53. Bad News Bears
    Matthau was merely worthless, while Thornton, God bless his soul, rises to the actual level of sociopathic. I love it when that happens.
  54. The Edukators
    What makes the film so affecting, however, is its matter-of-fact evocation of character. Each person in the four-character cast is vivid and specific and believable.
  55. Last Days
    It's definitely NOT a conventional biopic about Kurt Cobain. (Nor, as its title oddly suggests, is it about the demise of writer-director Van Sant.) It's a tone poem, an elliptical, fictionalized meditation about the ill-fated rock 'n' roll superstar.
  56. Sky High
    With one foot planted in the world of comic book fantasy and the other firmly stuck in the grim realities of high school, this is one of those rare family films that truly work for the whole family, even if Mom and Pop might find themselves needing earplugs during some exceedingly long and loud passages.
  57. The Aristocrats
    Under normal circumstances, nothing kills a joke faster than trying to explain it. Yet here, such examination is the film's strong suit and provides much-needed respite, quite frankly, from the exhaustion of constant laughter.
  58. Tony Takitani
    A marvelously moody meditation, beautiful to look at and beautiful to ponder as the camera slowly pans from one scene to the next, framing life as still life.
  59. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    If the movie is straightforward and predictable in its attitude, it also exudes a sort of documentary lyricism.
  60. The Dukes of Hazzard
    Director Jay Chandrasekhar ... has found the perfect balance of old-fashioned charm and postmodern touches -- but not too many to overshadow the show's precious texture.
  61. Junebug
    With its wise understanding of the magnetic pull (and invisible polarities) of family, Junebug is an auspicious debut for Morrison.
  62. Broken Flowers
    Jarmusch manages to imbue banality with surprising beauty and humor.
  63. Darwin's Nightmare
    What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.
  64. Duma
    Documentary makers struggle for this effect -- a feeling for the land that is both grand and unsentimental. The makers of Duma, a fable fit for children, have found it.
  65. Pulse
    Like the best horror movies, it doesn't beat you over the head, splatter you, or fold, spindle and mutilate you. Rather, slowly and subtly, it creeps you out. You may go home and throw out your computer and lock the doors.
  66. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    What keeps The 40-Year-Old Virgin out of Rob Schneider territory, however, is: 1) the fact that it's pretty darn funny, and in a way that feels consistently real, and 2) the fact that it's actually an excellent date movie.
  67. Valiant
    A smart, marvelously drawn account of the bravery of homing pigeons during World War II.
  68. The Constant Gardener
    Isn't quite a great espionage movie or a great Africa movie, but in a summer of heat and wind, it's the next best thing.
  69. The Memory of a Killer
    Belgian actor [Jan] Decleir's tough-guy vulnerability ... gives an otherwise standard police procedural extraordinary grace and power.
  70. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
    With a cast like this, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a superior performance vehicle and on that count alone is never less than riveting.
  71. Lord of War
    Tells Yuri's story with the same bravado and stylishness as Scorsese at his finest, with bigger-than-life characters and situations splashing across the screen in breathtaking scale.
    • Washington Post
  72. Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D
    A gee-wonderful virtual visit to the arid orb, which uses ingenious technical sleight of hand to -- let's face it -- fake it beautifully.
  73. Serenity
    No matter what's coming their way, post-apocalyptic doom or gloom, this James Gang of the galaxy is just plain fun to watch.
  74. The Squid and the Whale
    This story doesn't just belong to them anymore. This richly observed, sometimes heartbreaking movie has become ours, too.
  75. North Country
    An engrossing, well-crafted story of a grave injustice avenged, hitting all the right notes of sympathy, outrage and, finally, relief.
  76. Nine Lives
    The beauty of Nine Lives is that its occasionally overlapping stories feel entirely unforced; Garcia's is a filmmaking style of rare lyricism, compassion and discretion.
  77. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Macabre, yes, but the movie's also inventive and funny. You get a lot of smart bang-bang for your buck.
  78. After Innocence
    The moral purity of After Innocence is so overwhelming that it simply leaves you with nothing to say or do. It's kind of beyond criticism.
  79. Three... Extremes
    Like a bouquet of poisoned flowers -- beautiful, delicate and lethal. A trio of horror films from three "extreme" Asian directors, it shows how much evil fun talented bad boys can have on a very small scale.
  80. Gay Sex in the 70s
    An engrossing piece of social history, a lively, astonishingly well-documented excavation of that period.
  81. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    She is so funny she should come with a seven-day waiting period.
  82. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    Probably the most engaging Potter film of the series thus far.
  83. The Ice Harvest
    This often macabre comedy allows us to doff such civilized traits as taste and decency. We're free to laugh at anything, and we do. Oh, the shame -- and the good time.
  84. The Boys of Baraka
    Rich, sweet, densely layered and deeply satisfying. A film that might have been a dry exercise in earnest nonfiction filmmaking becomes a soaring, artistically complex testament to survival, character and hope.
  85. Match Point
    A sort of romance noir -- spruced up in pressed white linens -- this British-made film is elegant, uncompromising and oh-so- veddy nasty.
  86. Glory Road
    From its sepia-toned palette to the Motown hits that drive its terrific soundtrack, Glory Road is utterly authentic. But most astonishing is an unrecognizable Jon Voight as Adolph Rupp.
  87. Why We Fight
    Memo to left-wing anti-Bushies: Stories like this work. Don't lecture. Tell stories! Much better!
  88. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    It's pretty funny. You don't actually watch it so much as indulge it and admire its cleverness.
  89. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    Director Demme is smart and sensitive enough to sit back and listen to the music without attention-getting intrusions. The tunes are subtly compelling.
  90. Eight Below
    Although the dogs have surely been Disney-fied to some extent, the sequences of them trying to survive are magnificent and deeply moving. Bring the Kleenex, and hug your pups when you get home.
  91. Tsotsi
    As Tsotsi, Chweneyagae turns his face into a living battle mask -- curved, molded and sandpapered into smooth ruthlessness. But as the story unfolds, Tsotsi's mask begins to crack, and his humanity begins to flow through.
  92. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
    There is a clear festive buzz, as attendees laugh, bob and listen to Chappelle's impish, inventive comedy, and some of the best music hip-hop has to offer.
  93. Failure to Launch
    The movie is one of the best American films in months and months and the best comedy since I don't know when. It even makes you sorta kinda like Matthew McConaughey.
  94. The Hills Have Eyes
    Even as he reinvents, Aja invents. He's clearly working on a big budget for his first American film and has been told he can do anything he can think of. Visually, the movie is wildly alive, full of sure touches.
  95. Duck Season
    Director Fernando Eimbcke, in an extraordinary debut, never expresses contempt for his characters. By examining their inner lives with compassion and respect, he inspires us to do the same.
  96. Inside Man
    A deft, tense, pure thriller, the movie has great star turns and is brilliantly directed, but it began as an extremely well-crated screenplay by Russell Gewirtz. It's professionally entertaining.
  97. L'Enfant (The Child)
    Like all the Dardennes' films, L'Enfant is a vivid, Dickensian report from the most dispossessed precincts of society. But the film concludes on an optimistic note, at least for the Dardennes. It's still the worst of times, the filmmakers seem to suggest, but we're still capable of humanity, if not hope.
  98. Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!
    A killer concert film, an ecstatic testament to the joys of fandom and a tribute to the democratizing potential of moviemaking technology.
  99. Look Both Ways
    Though Watt's emphasis on coincidence and fate seems strained at times, Look Both Ways is rich in dreamy summer atmosphere and deadpan wit.
  100. Somersault
    Somersault faces the difficulty of representing a girl's unspoken desires and anxieties, a challenge Shortland rises to with terrific skill and aplomb.
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