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. Ghost Town
    A sweet and hilarious romantic comedy featuring a breakout performance by British comic genius Ricky Gervais, inspires viewers to pause, reflect and praise one of the most rare and wondrous occurrences in contemporary cinema: the Good Movie.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pressure Cooker
    Pressure Cooker may not get the royal, Conde Nast-magazine hype accorded that upcoming Julia Child movie (starring, who else, Meryl Streep), but it merits a place of honor at the table.
  3. Escapes
    Escapes is an eccentric portrait of a not especially eccentric — or even terribly interesting — subject: Hampton Fancher.
  4. Tiny Furniture
    A funny, affecting movie about growing up in the shadow of a formidable mom.
  5. Bringing Out the Dead
    Doesn't pack the punch of Schrader and Scorsese's career-best collaborations ("Raging Bull," "Taxi Driver").
  6. The Closet
    The French originals are always much breezier, the characters more genuine and the actors subtler even if the situations are just as silly.
  7. Mostly Martha
    A sweet, even delectable diversion from the more explosive cinematic fare of the season.
  8. In Search of Greatness
    The film lacks the very imagination it touts, along with another trait that it links to exceptional athleticism. That’s obsession.
  9. Walk the Line
    Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line slides -- very, very slowly -- downhill.
  10. Six Degrees of Separation
    The relationships feel contrived, less a drama than an exercise in cuteness.
  11. When Marnie Was There
    There is a quality of enchantment to When Marnie Was There that can’t be faked, and that the studio behind this animated feature is justifiably famous for.
  12. Control
    Visually stylish surrealist drama.
  13. Terri
    Tender, observant coming-of-age comedy.
  14. The Storms of Jeremy Thomas
    British documentarian Mark Cousins’s The Storms of Jeremy Thomas is a fine introduction to the 70 or so films produced by the titular London-born impresario. It’s barely an introduction at all, however, to Thomas himself.
  15. Obit
    It is fascinating to watch the writers in “Obit” strive to do right by their subjects, warts and all.
  16. Nas: Time Is Illmatic
    The movie is inspiring and tragic, and, directed by street artist One9, it’s captured in an artful, emotional way that will speak to an audience beyond rap fans.
  17. 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.
  18. Still Alice
    The filmmakers invite the audience to get close enough to feel the pain without having to relive the depths of the real-life horror.
  19. My Donkey, My Lover & I
    With its easy pace and genial company, “My Donkey, My Lover & I” is a journey worth taking, even if, at the end of the day, there’s no cozy French inn waiting for you.
  20. Siddharth
    The story itself never wavers when it comes to portraying the truth.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Truly Madly Deeply
    In Truly, Madly, Deeply comparisons with "Ghost" are inevitable. But this British production, starring Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman, takes a wide berth around the kind of button-pushing found in "Ghost." It presses with lighter fingers.
  22. My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea
    It’s crazy and ridiculous at times. But I can’t help agreeing with Assaf, who observes, of his companions’ rescue plans, “I like it. It has the logic of a dream.”
  23. Manifesto
    It’s a treat to watch an actress at the top of her game, flexing her interpretive muscles in a showcase that is inventive and thought-provoking.
  24. Strictly Ballroom
    It practically celebrates convenience of plot, over-the-top acting and follow-the-footprints dialogue, but mostly it is a salute to sequins and sashay. With just a hint of sarcasm.
  25. Surfwise
    Insightful, free-roaming but tautly constructed.
  26. 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.
  27. Mulan
    Mulan may be exotic, but it's hardly a risky enterprise, what with its sentimental show tunes, wholesome morals and plucky teen heroine.
  28. Despicable Me
    Hang in there and Despicable Me turns into an improbably heartwarming, not to mention visually delightful, diversion.
  29. Salad Days
    While the movie is best viewed as an examination of a specific place and time, it also can be seen as a celebration of a larger, more generic cultural phenomenon that one might call creative foment.
  30. Donald Cried
    Donald Cried succeeds on its own modest terms, but watching its title character can be painful. This is not a movie for people who’d just as soon forget their own teenage mortifications.
  31. The Year of the Everlasting Storm
    The Year of the Everlasting Storm doesn’t end with catharsis, but even insects may have something to teach humanity: to endure the best way we can, however minuscule we may feel in the face of an incomprehensible world.
  32. Eileen
    A film that is by turns darkly comic and disturbing, both sensations brought into vivid, caustic relief by the film's mesmerizing star.
  33. The Shrouds
    The film also suffers from erratic pacing and half-baked reveals, but at its best, it throbs with raw, human, horrific honesty.
  34. Kiss of Death
    All Jimmy wants is for his life to return to normal. But Price and director Barbet Schroeder haven't done a very good job of letting us know who this guy is—or even what normal is to him. Schroeder also shifts back and forth between a tone of earnest homage to the mood and feel of the classic thriller to one that sends up the genre, laughing slyly behind its back.
  35. The Kill Team
    The Kill Team is expertly edited, at one point overlaying interviews with the men who participated in the war crimes with B-roll of infantrymen milling about, weapons in hand. And it’s all set to a brilliantly spare and evocative soundtrack. It’s a beautiful way to lose faith in humanity.
  36. The Rainmaker
    This movie has all the same elements as other Grisham fare: raw young lawyer trying to make it in the South; helpless client treated badly; sleazy, star-chamber villains. Wake me up when the last-minute surprise witness comes out of her hidey hole to turn the case around.
  37. Bobi Wine: The People's President
    The documentary’s resulting mix of intimate portrait and raw street warfare proves visceral, dynamic and sometimes upsetting — although Sharp and Bwayo say they excluded the most horrific footage.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    12
    Mikhalkov's 12 breathes and floats.
  39. The Invisible Man
    It’s just a giant missed opportunity to be something more.
  40. The Batman
    Welcome to “The Batman,” yet another lugubrious, laboriously grim slog masquerading as a fun comic book movie.
  41. The Ice Storm
    Unfortunately, the drama operates on a see-through, easily shatterable metaphor: the frigidity of the WASP soul. [17 October 1997, p.N32]
    • Washington Post
  42. Arctic
    A thoroughly engrossing take on a familiar scenario.
  43. Real Genius
    Many of the scenes, already badly written, fail to fulfill their screwball potential. Real Genius should be applauded as a higher class of passage movie. But despite its enthusiastic young cast and its many good intentions, it doesn't quite succeed. I guess there's a leak in the think tank. [9 Aug 1985, p.19]
    • Washington Post
  44. Tuya's Marriage
    It's not a great movie, but Yu Nan's performance is superb without being showy or melodramatic.
  45. Undefeated
    Absorbing, inspiring and terrifically entertaining, Undefeated earns its title: It's a winner all the way.
  46. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg and director David Yates have transformed J.K. Rowling's garrulous storytelling into something leaner, moodier and more compelling, that ticks with metronomic purpose as the story flits between psychological darkness and cartoonish slapstick.
  47. 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.
  48. Smashed
    Smashed never really rises much above the level of a dramatic public service announcement. That's not so much because of its tone, but because what it's announcing isn't exactly news. Alcoholism is a disease. Alcoholics aren't bad people. Quitting is hard.
  49. Paradise Now
    Paradise may not change anyone's ideology, but it should convince some that, but for some deeply divisive views of religious morality, people are pretty much the same on either side of the holy fence.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cry, the Beloved Country
    Alan Paton's haunting novel is brought rather splendidly to life in this moving production.
  51. Swimming
    Absolutely refuse to make predictable patterns in the sand. Instead, they set their characters loose.
  52. Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
    Riveting, gracefully constructed film.
  53. Waking Ned Devine
    Writer-director Kirk Jones III keeps the movie resolutely brisk and light, twisting mildly this way and that but never detouring for long.
  54. Land of the Dead
    Too bad the plot held no surprises and the acting no revelations. No actor could be said to stand out and the movie never acquires much tension or momentum.
  55. A Family Thing
    The potential for hokum is there, but Duvall and co-star James Earl Jones capably avoid the sticky pitfalls of Tom Epperson and Billy Bob Thornton's sugar-cured script.
  56. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
    And that's the moral of this story. Or one of them, anyway. Clash's success is shown as the result of a combination of talent, gumption, pluck, misadventure, supportive parents, following your dreams, luck and, yes, love.
  57. Monument Ave.
    Monument Ave. is a cinematic dead-end street that is not without its gloomy, gritty thrills -- assuming, that is, that you're not in the market for a hero or even the slightest feather of that thing called hope. [09 Oct 1998, Pg.N.49]
    • Washington Post
  58. The Imitation Game
    Viewers may get the sense that The Imitation Game leaves Turing’s essential mysteries intact, but they will nonetheless find even the most public contours of his story ripe with drama, excitement and deeply affecting resonance.
  59. London Road
    London Road comes across as no more than tabloid karaoke.
  60. 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Chasing Amy
    Can a script exploring some truly deep questions about human sexuality and emotions be any shoddier and wooden?
  62. Married to the Mob
    Director Jonathan Demme has nailed one with this playful, but dangerous, gangster farce.
  63. The Water Horse
    Combining the best of fantasy and somber reflection, The Water Horse is a lovely ride.
  64. A Monster with a Thousand Heads
    Director Rodrigo Plá, working from a spare yet jangly screenplay by Laura Santullo, steadily builds suspense, craftily calibrating subtle shifts in perspective that allow us to alternate, seamlessly, between impartial observers and, as it were, active participants.
  65. Maria by Callas
    In this immersive, often deliciously sensuous documentary portrait of the late opera star Maria Callas, viewers are treated to another rise-and-fall story of a great but tortured artist, this one punctuated by the occasional real-life bed of roses and pleasure cruise.
  66. Beetlejuice
    Not since "Ghostbusters" have the spirits been so uplifting. [30 Mar 1988]
  67. Tadpole
    Doesn't need the passage of time to become a classic. It's one already.
  68. Spy Kids
    Energetic and slickly done, but also somewhat soulless.
  69. Wonderland
    Grim, yes, and great viewing.
  70. All the Real Girls
    It's a movie of deft impressions and telling human moments. Whether or not those impressions and moments add up to anything is almost beside the point.
  71. Time of the Wolf
    I would rather have a more interesting group of desperate people to spend my post-apocalyptic time with.
  72. The Raid 2
    The brawling itself is every bit as inventive and exhilarating this time around... The script and acting, however, prove less successful.
  73. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    It remembers to have fun. It’s a kick to watch — often literally — and the kind of popcorn movie summer is made for.
  74. Searching
    Like most mysteries, this one relies heavily on coincidental discoveries, even if they arrive via Gmail or FaceTime, rather than more traditional means. But the plot’s contrivances are less problematic than the movie’s insistence on maintaining its artifice even after it becomes a hindrance.
  75. La Moustache
    An enigma inside a conundrum inside an escargot shell, the French puzzler La Moustache will delight some people even as it annoys others.
  76. The Menu
    "Eat the rich” might be a popular theme this movie season, but The Menu takes the idea to extremes that finally overpower the palate.
  77. Cookie's Fortune
    Seems to go sideways as often as it goes forward. Altman can't help noticing things more interesting than the story.
  78. Seeking Mavis Beacon
    When the pair’s natural curiosity and humor seep into the film, their scrappy enthusiasm is infectious.
  79. Rudy
    It's a sweet-natured family drama in which years of effort are rewarded by a brief moment of glory. Its corny, cartoonish finale makes "Rocky" look like "Bullwinkle." Still, you'll have to forgive the lump in your throat and the tear in your eye.
  80. The Big Lebowski
    The movie is as visually inventive and wildly eccentric as the Coens' earlier movies, but it lacks the emotional maturity and moral clarity of 1996's "Fargo."
  81. Thank You for Smoking
    As a satire on Tobacco Inc.'s outrageous ability to market carbon monoxide as the elixir of life, this movie should be packing more nicotine.
  82. Heretic
    Written and directed by “A Quiet Place” scribes Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, “Heretic” builds suspense through ideas and argument, allowing both sides to score points when it comes to organized religion.
  83. Pete's Dragon
    Despite the vastly improved visuals, the new film is just as soft-hearted — and, unfortunately, just as mush-headed — as the earlier one.
  84. Monkey Shines
    While Romero's past films have for the most part been experiments in horror (or at best, terror), Monkey Shines moves in another direction -- the psychological thriller, with a difference. It's not just "a man and a woman" story; it's a man-woman-monkey triangle, and how the sparks do fly.
  85. Map of the Human Heart
    A marvelous breakthrough, a film of incantatory intensity and moment by a prodigiously gifted young filmmaker.
  86. Ema
    Di Girólamo delivers a performance that is, like the combustible fuel inside the tank strapped to her back here and there throughout the film, intense, hot, destructive — and hard to look away from.
  87. The Long Walk
    That existential paradox — are we all in this thing called life together, or is it every man for himself? — gives the film and its protagonists something meaty to chew on as it, and they, progress. But “The Long Walk” doesn’t dig into it in any deeply satisfying way.
  88. Factotum
    The film looks great on the screen, and Hamer has commissioned a terrific musical score from Kristin Asbjornsen, who has set a few of Bukowski's poems to haunting, jazzy music.
  89. The Good Girl
    It's tough, astringent, darkly funny and . . . well, it's also generic, untidy, condescending and mild of impact rather than stunning.
  90. Intolerable Cruelty
    Smart, silly, splenetic and a bit smug, it's a movie that might put a viewer's teeth on edge were it not for its winning lead performances.
  91. Intimate Strangers
    It's at once too restrained and too perversely funny to have emanated from the play-it-big-but-play-it-safe sensibilities of Hollywood, U.S.A.
  92. Tropic Thunder
    The history of filmmakers skewering Hollywood's darker excesses is a long and rich one, from Billy Wilder through Robert Altman. With Tropic Thunder, a rude, crude, over-the-top satire about rude, crude, over-the-top action movies, Ben Stiller makes an ambitious and surprisingly effective bid to join those vaunted ranks.
  93. Disgrace
    Is it a great movie? John Malkovich's portrayal of an aging and sexually aggressive professor of poetry is enough to make the film worth anyone's while.
  94. The Birdcage
    A spirited remake of the French drag farce, has everything in place, from eyeliner to one-liner.
  95. Good Will Hunting
    Director Van Sant, who made the lyrical "Mala Noche," "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho," returns to his favorite hunting ground -- the subworlds of grimy, poetic lost boys -- and pulls us right in
  96. Spider-Man: No Way Home
    For more casual consumers of the costumed comic-book superhero’s exploits, mileage may vary. But there’s a whole lot to like here.
  97. Ralph Breaks the Internet
    Ralph and Vanellope’s growth in the first film was what brought them together. Here, it’s what might force them apart. In Ralph Breaks the Internet, they’re attempting to hold on to one another while also trying to let go, and the film treats that struggle with sensitivity and care (along with some flatulence jokes).
  98. Mozart's Sister
    Mozart's Sister feels like a rococo reverie. The film was shot inside Versailles, which borders on the best sensory overload when you factor in the gorgeous classical soundtrack.
  99. October Sky
    Paint-by-numbers feel-gooder, in which Homer and his friends decide to win a national science fair for their little town and, ultimately, for America.
  100. Mad Dog and Glory
    It's the rapport between the two actors, De Niro and Murray, that saves Mad Dog and Glory from being something less than just another buddy movie. Their real-life friendship spills over into this jittery, very funny look at the male bonding experience.
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