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. Kandahar
    That's the movie: It's taking us inside the burqa to the woman.
  2. The Abyss
    Before this voyage plummets into Stevie Spielberg's locker, the human stuff is more than worth the descent.
  3. Planet of the Apes
    Forget the heavy stuff. This monkey shines.
  4. Step Into Liquid
    This is pretty much a feel-good film for committed fans and moviegoers looking for some spectacular combination of travelogue, athleticism and slo-mo grace.
  5. L.A. Story
    Martin's poetic elegance turns to sappy mysticism. And if the material had been presented more insistently, it might have been insufferable, too goopy and new-age. Its modesty, though, is its prime virtue.
  6. Lost in La Mancha
    Like rubbernecking motorists, we can't help but watch with lurid fascination.
  7. A Midsummer Night's Dream
    Only the title is clunky in this felicitous marriage of cinematic trickery, theatrical whimsy and the Bard's fabulous tale.
  8. Better Luck Tomorrow
    An exhilarating ride.
  9. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
    Elle fans will likely ignore the narrative shortcomings in favor of a well-loved character.
  10. I Capture the Castle
    The psychological darkness that underpins this film doesn't seem inappropriate to its wit and charm, but rather amplifies it, makes it more real.
  11. The Sea Is Watching
    A mostly unsentimental little gem.
  12. Confidence
    Yes, it's a hyped, hip "Sting" for our times, with goatees, mousse and attitude as part of the update package. It's also Burns's best film since "Saving Private Ryan."
  13. Croupier
    A smoothly executed jab in your solar plexus, a lean, smart film noir that pokes at you with quintessentially English disdain and sarcasm.
  14. The Ignorant Fairies
    A movie that grows better by the minute.
  15. Babe
    A captivating comic allegory about daring to be different in the face of conformity.
  16. Hilary and Jackie
    The movie is exquisitely directed by Anand Tucker in an anti-documentary style that sometimes fractures the time sequence, sometimes re-creates moments impressionistically instead of objectively and is vivid in style.
  17. Slums of Beverly Hills
    Like its Southern California setting, the sunny semi-autobiography is tempered with just the right touch of Jenkins's smoggy cynicism.
  18. Stepmom
    If emotional catharsis is what you seek, Stepmom delivers the goods.
  19. An Ideal Husband
    Parker stays with and even streamlines Wilde's clever manipulations of betrayals and lies and plots and counterplots. Yet the film never feels stagy.
  20. American Pie 2
    The funniest scenes involve Jim and his father, thanks to the brilliant, improvisational skills of Eugene Levy.
  21. Amistad
    Hounsou, a West African model with beauty and presence but no acting experience, carries much of the movie on his broad shoulders with surprising skill and strength.
  22. The Grifters
    [Huston] brings a vital conviction to her scenes; they're scorchingly immediate, and her ability to get in sync with what Lily's feeling is what gives the movie weight. She may be the best we have.
  23. The Fifth Element
    An entertaining tangle of pop aesthetic and comic book myth that occasionally bogs down, but manages to be ingratiating for all its defects.
  24. Yossi & Jagger
    Short but powerful drama.
  25. One True Thing
    An uplifting, superbly acted and intelligent family drama.
  26. The X Files
    Like the TV show, The X-Files movie is stylish, scary, sardonically funny and at times just plain gross.
  27. Bread and Tulips
    Nicely done, sweet, delicately comic and a complete delight.
  28. Edward Scissorhands
    Amusing and inventive.
  29. The Legend of Drunken Master
    You have to see this to believe it.
  30. The Transporter
    A poke in the adrenal gland -- obeys the first law of action movie-making by quickening the heart and dazzling the eye.
  31. Amen.
    It's not every day that movies present a Teutonic character in SS uniform as an unambiguously moral hero, so enjoy this rarity. And the film.
  32. Osama
    In its small, achingly beautiful way, this is the lesson that Osama teaches us: When one human being suffers, it is all of us who share her pain.
  33. Out of Time
    A bleakly comic, palm-sweaty hoot.
  34. Kissing Jessica Stein
    The performers bring freshness to what could have been cliched roles.
  35. Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
    Riveting, gracefully constructed film.
  36. Hearts in Atlantis
    Yes, it's corny and reemerging cynics need not apply. But it is blissfully heartwarming.
  37. Son of the Bride
    Sweet without being saccharine, sad without being maudlin and funny without being forced.
  38. There's Something About Mary
    This one is dumbest. And funniest, as if that matters even a little bit!
  39. Urbania
    There's no denying its surreal, hypnotic effect.
  40. The Eye
    Although almost nothing about The Eye is surprising, the movie is nevertheless engrossing, as it mutates from horror movie to ghost story to psychological drama to disaster flick (a late, stunning twist). It casts a spell strong enough that viewers won't want to look away.
  41. Who Is Cletis Tout?
    A caper film of such postmodernist pretense that it's almost a parody of itself.
  42. Rock Star
    Even though it's weak in the final stages, Rock Star has more than enough sparkle to last you. That's chiefly thanks to Wahlberg, the main firework of this movie.
  43. Scream
    Deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills.
  44. Adorenarin doraibu
    A pleasure because of zany developments like this, and a healthy dose of amusing characters.
  45. The Horse Whisperer
    The movie is not only a better version of the book, it's a work unto itself.
  46. Air Force One
    Takes its absurd premise and keeps itself narrowly focused, pushing its heroic cast through obstacle after obstacle.
  47. Chopper
    Not everyone's cup of tea, but it's actually rather beautiful.
  48. Grazia's Island
    It's slight but in a haunting way, like a half-remembered dream.
  49. Shattered Glass
    In a sense, Shattered Glass is a parenthetical horror movie in which someone discovers (or worse, denies) the monster within themselves.
  50. Godzilla
    Its images of the destruction of the cities is far more powerful than in American films, where the cities are trashed for the pure pleasure of destruction, without any real sense of human loss.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Eight
    Paul Thomas Anderson shows off the same sort of quirky smarts that Joel and Ethan Coen did in "Blood Simple."
  52. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown
    Classy fare, with posh settings, gorgeous scenery and lots and lots of polishing from director John Madden ("Ethan Frome") and writer Jeremy Brock.
  53. Songcatcher
    The haunting beauty of the music, and the people who produce it – that's the chapter and verse of this story.
  54. Cats & Dogs
    Surprisingly witty and sophisticated spy movie spoof that will tickle adult pet lovers and still capture kids 6 and older with its boy-and-his-dog love story and pet slapstick.
  55. Bloody Sunday
    As a terrifying example of what can happen when too many angry people are crowded into too small a space, it's a gripper.
  56. He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not
    Wickedly clever.
  57. The Legend of 1900
    An enchanting, staggeringly beautiful epic at sea, is poetry in motion.
  58. Solomon & Gaenor
    Its pleasures aren't so much in the inevitable plot complications, but in the passion of the performances and the spare beauty of the elegant framing and photography.
  59. Sweet and Lowdown
    Penn's performance is the movie's ultimate grace note. As funny and ingenious as Allen's films can get, they are rarely known for depth of character.
  60. Punch-Drunk Love
    The outlandish story and exaggerated colors ... swirl together to create an ethereal, sometimes sinister dreamscape.
  61. Big Trouble
    This is, after all, the kind of movie in which traffic accidents not only mess up getaways but also liberate goats to wander through the airport. We need more of that stuff.
  62. Crimson Gold
    Unfolds with a marvelously understated humanism.
  63. Tupac: Resurrection
    The result isn't a fragmentary experience so much as an evocative collage.
  64. Harry Is Here to Help
    Very, very funny, in that morbid sort of way that makes you laugh even as you shudder with horror.
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