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. Happy Christmas
    What is often surprising in this entertaining and fluidly acted portrait of females in flux is the specific way things get messy.
  2. Louder Than Words
    At every turn, the movie is less moving than the real-life events that inspired it.
  3. Child of God
    Franco’s hand-held camerawork draws the story forward as unfussily as a shepherd leads a sheep, and yet with a kind of ghastly grandeur. This is functional filmmaking more than it is flashy. But there is, at its heart, a single virtuosic performance.
  4. Mood Indigo
    The sense, in the first half of the film, that love and contentment are attainable dreams slowly gives way to the more existential notion that happiness is really just a fairy tale.
  5. Get On Up
    One could describe Boseman’s performance in Get on Up as electrifying, and that would not be wrong. But it’s more accurate to say that watching Boseman transform into James Brown, who died in 2006 at 73, is like watching a dude invent electricity while the idea for electricity is still occurring to him.
  6. Guardians of the Galaxy
    It manages the trick of being both an unironic sci-fi action-adventure flick and a zippy parody of one. It’s exciting, funny, self-aware, beautiful to watch and even, for a flickering instant or two, almost touching.
  7. The Killer Inside Me
    A film that reduces everything and everyone in its well-worn path to a pretentious trope and, in its final Grand Guignol moments, high camp.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Hercules
    This outing does not suffer the epic badness one associates with films that aren’t screened early for critics, and in fact it offers moments of actual entertainment. It simply fails to exploit its assets: an amusing, revisionist take on the mythological strongman, and the charisma of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
  9. The Fluffy Movie
    The Fluffy Movie’s principal weakness is that it’s not much of a movie. There’s no particular reason to watch this in a theater rather than on television.
  10. I Origins
    The film ends with an ambiguous, yet powerful conclusion. It doesn’t answer the question it raises, yet the way it’s asked keeps it echoing in your head. Except that Cahill can’t seem to leave well enough alone.
  11. Le Chef
    After evoking only warm smiles in its first half, Le Chef ultimately veers into farce.
  12. Closed Curtain
    Closed Curtain is at times slow and constantly puzzling. It doesn’t carry the impact of some of Panahi’s more conventional films. It’s not his best movie, but the fact that he’s making a movie at all is remarkable.
  13. Alive Inside
    As the movie makes clear, none of these conditions are reversible. Music isn’t a cure for anything. But it does seem to be a key to unlocking long-closed doors and establishing connections with people who have become, through age or infirmity, imprisoned inside themselves.
  14. And So It Goes
    Reiner assembles a square meal of rom-com pleasure points, but it’s bland, by-the-numbers and not particularly memorable.
  15. Magic in the Moonlight
    It may not be wholly original or without its flaws, but Magic in the Moonlight offers a pleasant vacation from reality, and what more could you want from a summer movie?
  16. A Most Wanted Man
    Although the cast is uniformly fine, Hoffman shines in a role that demands not showmanship, but a kind of complexity and contradiction that can be rendered only through the kind of dull character details that he excelled in, accumulating them from the inside out.
  17. Planes: Fire & Rescue
    The Disney animators still take great care to capture the majestic beauty in the jagged landscapes and towering conifers of the Yellowstone-esque Piston Peak Park. Unfortunately, the same contours and shading don’t apply to the characters.
  18. Sex Tape
    Segel and Diaz are gifted and game comedians, with a lot of audience appeal. But Lowe clearly upstages them, consummating their Sex Tape — and making you want to roll over and have a cigarette — while there’s still one reel to go.
  19. Me and You
    Though the setting is a retreat from the world, where not terribly much happens, within its confines Lorenzo gets an eye-opener about both human frailty and interconnectedness, courtesy of someone even more troubled than he is.
  20. Ilo Ilo
    Sensitive performances by the four main players suit the tone, which is naturalistic and even earthy — most of the characters are shown going to the bathroom — yet ultimately poignant.
  21. Yves Saint Laurent
    The film is artfully shot with eye candy galore: sumptuous dresses, beautiful people and scenes from Pierre and Yves’s time in Morocco. But for all its visual stimulation, the story does little to awaken emotions.
  22. The Purge: Anarchy
    The film defies one of the fundamental rules of capitalism: Exploitation of the proletariat may be well and good, but don’t execute them all. At the same time, “The Purge: Anarchy” obeys a cardinal law of Hollywood: Shoot first and ask questions later.
  23. Wish I Was Here
    Wish I Was Here touches on some timely themes and does so with an artistic vulnerability.
  24. Boyhood
    As a film that dares to honor small moments and the life they add up to, Boyhood isn’t just a masterpiece. It’s a miracle.
  25. The Perfect Wave
    The movie’s transition from surfer flick to a story about faith is swift and not particularly smooth.
  26. Code Black
    Code Black is a powerful and quietly damning film. While training his lens narrowly on the heroic workers in a single emergency department, McGarry has made a broad indictment of a system that is badly in need of surgery.
  27. A Summer's Tale
    Like most of Rohmer’s movies, A Summer’s Tale is comic, humane and much more complicated than it seems at first. The fresh-faced actors, realistic dialogue and naturalistic performances suggest a casual approach, but as the story progresses, the filmmaker’s control is increasingly evident.
  28. The Last Sentence
    It’s a thoughtful and workmanlike portrait, but a less than profoundly moving one.
  29. A Coffee In Berlin
    It manages to make an entertaining story out of nothing in particular. And just when you get comfortable passively observing a passive observer, the minutest of twists becomes its own call to action. It urges the audience to consider this small story in a broader context.
  30. Venus in Fur
    This may not be Roman Polanski’s finest movie; it may not even be his best adaptation of a play. But it’s masterfully done in a way that does justice to its source material.
  31. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
    Dawn of the Planet of the Apes works both as allegory and action-adventure film. The internecine conflict between apes mirrors the troubled history of our own race.
  32. Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
    The absence of legal details makes the movie something of a cheat. It offers few insights about the case from the official side, let alone about the machinations of Ai’s legal team.
  33. La Bare
    In a jovial, if superficial way, he offers some perspective on the men behind the banana hammocks.
  34. Life Itself
    You may not have agreed with Ebert’s reviews — you may not have thought he was such a nice guy. But if you aren’t moved by Life Itself, you ought to have your heart examined.
  35. Snowpiercer
    Subtlety may not be the film’s strong suit, but it creates a richly imagined world, as glitteringly arresting as it is savagely merciless.
  36. Begin Again
    Begin Again may not always swing, but it makes up for that in sincerity and a welcome willingness to ambush expectations.
  37. America: Imagine a World Without Her
    America is less successful as a debate, since it isn’t one. D’Souza controls the conversation, and thus goes unchallenged when he tries to make real-world points with make-believe scenarios.
  38. Deliver Us From Evil
    The question at the heart of Deliver Us From Evil, a garden-variety serial-killer thriller tarted up as an exorcism drama, is not whether good will triumph over evil. Rather, it’s this: What in God’s name possesses good actors to make dreck like this?
  39. Earth to Echo
    Yes, it’s plainly derivative, but Dave Green’s debut feature is heartfelt and fun, particularly for children craving live-action films beyond big-budget superhero reboots and animated sequels.
  40. Tammy
    Tammy is a bummer, not least because McCarthy’s fans know she’s better than this.
  41. In Bloom
    There is an obliqueness to In Bloom. Writer Nana Ekvtimishvili, who directed the movie with Simon Gross, doesn’t spell things out, and the complete story never comes into focus... But when the truth is so troubling, sometimes part of the story is more than enough.
  42. The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
    Knappenberger’s documentary is smart and focused, homing in on a recurring theme of independence.
  43. Korengal
    “Restrepo” felt like the story of how boys become men. Korengal feels like the story of how strangers become family.
  44. Third Person
    As is true with so much of Haggis’s work, Third Person suffers from an airless, too-neat lack of connection with organic life.
  45. Violette
    Violette mostly avoids the pitfalls associated with movies about writers by limiting the scenes of Violette scribbling furiously in a notebook.
  46. Transformers: Age Of Extinction
    The problem is quantity. There are so many action sequences related to so many story lines that midway through an epic fight, you might find yourself wondering what exactly started this particular battle and what the objective is other than destruction for the sake of it.
  47. They Came Together
    Larky, witty and sometimes even wise, this spoof on every rom-com ever made is less a fully realized film than an extended skit, a series of set pieces that poke gentle and sometimes transgressively crude fun at the tropes of girl-meets-boy that have enchanted and addled audiences for generations.
  48. Citizen Koch
    If you have a shred of idealism left, it’s hard to watch Citizen Koch without a mounting sense of despair and outrage over the influence that money has come to wield over modern elections.
  49. Ivory Tower
    Ivory Tower covers a lot of ground, and sometimes the focus feels diffuse.
  50. The Rover
    What makes The Rover more watchable than the average self-conscious genre exercise is Pearce, who exudes such weary authority and palpable vulnerability that he’s sympathetic even in the film’s most brutalizing moments.
  51. Young & Beautiful
    Ozon has created a monster that he can’t seem to let go of. Isabelle doesn’t just frighten her mother (and us). She seems to terrify Ozon, and I’m not sure I want to know why.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Chinese Puzzle
    A reasonably diverting tale of pre-middle-aged floundering that can’t stop pointing out how unexpected everything is.
  53. Flex Is Kings
    The movie’s great strength is the way it captures these dancers, sometimes in slow motion, as they contort their bodies in ways that don’t seem possible. When it comes to the narrative, though, the movie struggles a bit.
  54. Think Like a Man Too
    Think Like a Man Too, the derivative, intermittently amusing follow-up to the surprise hit rom-com from 2012, is so frenetically paced and hysterically pitched that it makes almost no room for simple enjoyment.
  55. Jersey Boys
    Fans of the play will be pleased. And for those that love the Four Seasons’ music but haven’t made it to the play, you can put your fear of missing out to rest. This is a much more affordable way to very nearly re-create the experience.
  56. The Case Against 8
    A sprawling yet engrossing documentary.
  57. Obvious Child
    There are as many awkward, discomfiting sequences in Obvious Child as there are interludes of genuine fun and romance. The result is a movie that feels risky and forgiving and, despite its traditional rom-com contours, refreshingly new.
  58. Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
    The movie’s focus on good vibes and high times leaves little room to contemplate the more human story. Regardless, the movie is good-natured and an enjoyable watch. If Myers really just wanted to show his appreciation, he went above and beyond.
  59. The Grand Seduction
    Even with the odd misgiving or two, The Grand Seduction will effortlessly charm anyone susceptible to an endearing story told with modesty, wit and unprepossessing sweetness.
  60. Bicycling With Molière
    This may be a buddy comedy on its surface, but Bicycling With Molière also gives some insight into the way art imitates life, and also the way life informs art.
  61. The Signal
    The Signal has visual style to burn. And it takes good advantage of the current state of paranoia arising from our surveillance culture and the pervasive mistrust in government. On paper, this sounds like a good formula. If handled well, it could really pay off.
  62. 22 Jump Street
    This is a sequel that wears its well-worn formula, mocking inside jokes and gleeful taste for overkill proudly, flying the high-lowbrow flag for audiences that like their comedy just smart enough to be not-too-dumb.
  63. How to Train Your Dragon 2
    A riveting, moving and beautifully animated film.
  64. Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago
    Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago may not be entirely brilliant, but it’s at the very least inspiring.
  65. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
    It does exactly what its subject didn’t do: toe the line.
  66. Night Moves
    It’s a richly engrossing drama, so long as you understand that it’s aiming for the head, not the gut.
  67. Ping Pong Summer
    Ping Pong Summer may not be an instant classic, but it knows its time and place. There’s a humble honor in that.
  68. Words and Pictures
    None of the movie’s faults can undo the power of Binoche and Owen. Their interactions look so naturalistic that they seem unscripted.
  69. Edge of Tomorrow
    Like summer movies themselves, it’s become so easy to be glib in dismissing Tom Cruise. “Edge of Tomorrow” provides welcome and hugely entertaining evidence that he’s still a star of considerable gifts, and savvy enough not to let them be squandered just yet.
  70. The Fault in Our Stars
    A wise, warm, funny and touching romantic drama.
  71. Documented
    As agenda-driven as Documented is, it also is a deeply engrossing self-portrait.
  72. The Dance of Reality
    For all the spectacular weirdness, Jodorowsky manages to generate real emotion.
  73. A Million Ways to Die in the West
    The real problem with A Million Ways to Die in the West is one of editing. There are a million jokes in it, but only 500,000 of them are funny.
  74. Maleficent
    For all its limitations, Maleficent manages to be improbably entertaining to watch, due solely to its title character. As befits a star of her regal standing and superb self-awareness, Angelina Jolie has managed to bend even the Brothers Grimm to her indomitable will.
  75. 50 to 1
    Even if you’ve never heard any of this back story — let alone anything about Mine That Bird — the outcome of the film is never seriously in doubt. That leaves filmmaker Jim Wilson in the predicament of having to entertain us by showing how the horse and his handlers get their act together. Unfortunately, 50 to 1 never really does that.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Immigrant
    Gray directs this handsome and evocative film with emotional restraint, making its archetypal title character a living individual whose moral journey is never simple.
  77. Teenage
    Wolf — who wrote Teenage with Jon Savage, author of “Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture 1875-1945” — deftly weaves together various media in a way that breathes its own youthful, stream-of-conscious life into the documentary genre.
  78. Ida
    Each and every detail accrues to create a vivid, unforgettable portrait, and all are absorbed and reflected by Anna, portrayed by Trzebuchowska with the transparency and wonder of a woman for whom not just history but secular life itself is almost totally abstract.
  79. The German Doctor
    Puenzo has a knack for plumbing the heads and hearts of teenage girls. The director coaxes a mesmerizing, unmannered performance out of Bado, who is making her feature-film debut.
  80. Cold in July
    The first half of Cold is tense and suspenseful, albeit in a conventional way; the second half is sickeningly compelling. It’s hard to watch and hard to look away from.
  81. Blended
    Each sweet moment is inevitably punctuated by some in-your-face joke that’s at least as stupid as the preceding moments were heartfelt. Blended has other problems, too, including some faulty editing and a typically predictable finale. But there are some genuinely sweet and funny moments, which are more than enough to exceed expectations.
  82. X-Men: Days of Future Past
    Days of Future Past is, in itself, as intoxicating as a shot of adrenaline. It’s what summer movies are meant to be.
  83. A Night in Old Mexico
    A Night in Old Mexico succeeds when it comes to suspense, and the ever-evolving plot will keep viewers guessing. But the movie doesn’t have the same kind of emotional depth that Duvall and Wittliff managed to pull off decades ago. Worse, the dialogue often sounds stilted.
  84. Palo Alto
    Palo Alto starts strong but runs out of momentum. Strangely, as aimless vignettes give way to bigger life events.
  85. Chef
    There’s nothing terribly profound about Chef. But its message — that relationships, like cooking, take a hands-on approach — is a sweet and sustaining one.
  86. God's Pocket
    You might call it a black comedy of errors, but the humorous side of the film is less well executed than Slattery’s impeccable creation of a certain neighborhood feel.
  87. The Double
    The Double retains all of Dostoevsky’s central themes. Madness, alienation and the loss of identity swirl around the film’s edges like film-noir fog. At the same time, the filmmakers inject a much-needed dose of dark humor into the tale.
  88. Million Dollar Arm
    Million Dollar Arm doesn’t break the familiar mold of come-from-behind sports movies — indeed, it obeys every convention of the genre. But it does so with understatement, style and an exceptional group of actors who bring just the right balance of humor and restraint to their roles.
  89. Godzilla
    Fortunately, the monsters are actually kind of a kick. And isn’t that why you go to see a movie like this anyway?
  90. Soundtrack for a Revolution
    Through vivid archival material and voice-overs, the filmmakers create moving vignettes that, taken together, form a fascinating primer on nonviolence as a political force and discipline.
  91. Belle
    The movie packs a lot in, and the quick pace of early scenes can feel like running on a treadmill, but Belle settles into a nice rhythm. It ends up having all the requisites of a period drama — a strings-heavy soundtrack, lavish costumes and passionate declarations of love — plus a good deal more.
  92. Fed Up
    Fed Up isn’t so much a warning to the ignorant shopper or a tip for the unimaginative chef as it is a rallying cry. It succeeds in firing up the choir. Whether it will convert the complacent is an open question.
  93. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
    The Galapagos Affair spins a strange and compelling tale, with perfectly sinister music by Laura Karpman setting the mood. But the movie is better at building suspense than following through.
  94. Stage Fright
    Whether it’s being sexy, jokey or homicidal, Stage Fright doesn’t deliver the goods with sufficient spirit. It lacks the sparkle to be a truly killer show.
  95. Moms' Night Out
    [A] strained, clunkily orchestrated and dismally retrograde film.
  96. Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return
    Animated in form but completely listless in content.
  97. Locke
    Locke is so distilled, such a pure example of cinematic storytelling, that it almost feels abstract.
  98. Neighbors
    A shaggy, baggy collegiate comedy that is less a coherent movie than a loosely assembled series of lewd jokes and punishing slapstick routines.
  99. Friended to Death
    The story’s message may not be the most original one in the world — put down your device and make eye contact — but it’s fun to watch it unfold in a world that, while far from realistic, feels real enough.
  100. Decoding Annie Parker
    Decoding Annie Parker could have shown much more effectively and deeply that the fight against an often ruthless disease can be won by women attacking it from multiple sides. Instead, it sticks mostly to one track, taking audience members on a journey that, sadly, via the movies or their own lives, they already may know a little too well.
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