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. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
    Igor may be the most important composer of the 20th century, but he is a mere human. Coco, in this beautiful but indulgent French film, is a work of art.
  2. Winter's Bone
    A tough movie to love.
  3. Splice
    The yuck factor spins off the charts in Splice, a thoroughly repulsive science fiction-horror flick that slicks up its B-movie tawdriness with high-gloss production values and two otherwise classy stars.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Get Him to the Greek
    Unlike its forebears, "Greek" lacks a truly sympathetic central character to hold things together when it's time to get sappy.
  5. Marmaduke
    The movie itself is already like one long commercial.
  6. Micmacs
    Micmacs brings an infectious note of caprice to the old-fashioned caper film.
  7. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
    An energetic if empty-headed adventure based on the popular video game.
  8. Agora
    Agora, Alejandro Amenábar's absorbing historical drama, proves that, in an era of movies made for iPhones with artistic ambitions to match, there are still filmmakers willing to swing for the fences.
  9. Sex and the City 2
    The biggest sin of Sex and the City 2 is its lack of beauty. It's garish when it should be sumptuous, tacky when it should be luxe, wafer-thin when it should be whip-smart and sophisticated.
  10. Shrek Forever After
    Believe it or not, there's life in the old boy yet. After a disappointing third outing, this "Shrek" brings the cycle of fairy-tale-themed films to a fine finish.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    MacGruber
    For all the wacky, taboo, parodic situations that MacGruber plunges into, the film seems content to simply point at its hero, yell "What a schmuck!" and leave it at that.
  12. Robin Hood
    Except for the last five minutes, Robin Hood is the story of the radicalization of some guy named Longstride. Who?
  13. Letters to Juliet
    Save yourself 10 bucks, and an hour and 45 minutes of your precious time.
  14. Just Wright
    Telegraphs its every move. There are simply no surprises.
  15. Iron Man 2
    "Everything is achievable through technology," a character says more than once in Iron Man 2. Not so.
  16. Casino Jack and the United States of Money
    Gibney's documentary strains to make sense of the minutiae without losing the audience's attention over its formidable, two-hour length.
  17. Mother and Child
    Garca brings his finely calibrated sense of drama to the subject of adoption, which he handles with characteristic restraint and insight -- at least until the film's maudlin, too-pat finale. That sharp melodramatic turn is a shame, because so much of what has gone before in Mother and Child is of real quality.
  18. Babies
    A mesmerizing and weirdly manipulative experience.
  19. A Nightmare on Elm Street
    Good ol' Fred loses any sense of playful shock he once possessed and turns into a generic figure meticulously manufactured to simultaneously gross and freak us out. It doesn't work.
  20. Furry Vengeance
    The problem, or problems, stem from the lazy, unfunny script; the weak computer-generated animals (never have God's creatures looked less lifelike while dancing to Chic's "Le Freak"); and the squandering of so much talent.
  21. Harry Brown
    Michael Caine delivers a stunning performance in Harry Brown, a rancid little revenge fantasy that probably doesn't deserve him.
  22. Please Give
    Holofcener has accrued a rabid, loyal following for her singular brand of observant wit and aching tenderness. Both pour forth in abundance in Please Give, a wry, wistful portrait of contemporary urban manners.
  23. The Back-up Plan
    A not-as-bad-as-you-think-it-is romantic comedy.
  24. The Losers
    The first dumb-fun action movie of the summer season has arrived early with The Losers, a loud, loving homage to guns and testosterone based on a series of comic books about a renegade band of CIA operatives. How dumb is it? You might actually kill a few million brain cells just watching it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Oceans
    But for all Oceans does to please the eyes and ears, it does nothing to engage the brain.
  26. Death at a Funeral
    Still, if for the most part Death at a Funeral is as tame as the tasteful parlor where most of its action takes place, it manages to explode one taboo, in casting mostly black actors in roles originally played by whites.
  27. Kick-Ass
    Kick-Ass should delight fans of the original comics and garden-variety action junkies as well. Suggested subtitle: "Iron Man, You Just Got Served."
  28. The Joneses
    Unfortunately, the movie's second half drags, never again achieving the first half's level of narrative dexterity.
  29. The Secret in Their Eyes
    An elegant romantic thriller adapted from a novel of the same name, is a terrific film.
  30. Date Night
    Regardless of the silliness of the situation -- or, in truth, because of it -- they're a joy to watch.
  31. Why Did I Get Married Too?
    Plays like an empty but diverting beach read. Your brain recognizes that the dialogue, for example, doesn't come from any place that remotely resembles relationship reality.
  32. Warlords
    There's a visceral, albeit somewhat goofy, satisfaction to this stuff.
  33. Clash of the Titans
    In striving for a combination of grit and grandeur, Leterrier misses a chance to make the kind of camp classic that could have endured for generations. Instead, it's a muddled disappointment.
  34. The Last Song
    Hews closely enough to the Sparks pattern of romance and bathos that tears will flow as copiously in the audience as they do on screen.
  35. Hot Tub Time Machine
    The raunchy, guy-centric comedy Hot Tub Time Machine makes a vertiginously high-concept bid to be this year's version of "The Hangover" and darned if it doesn't succeed.
  36. The Eclipse
    McPherson has managed a rare hat trick in genre mash-up, fashioning a deeply absorbing movie that balances horror, romance, comedy and observant humanism with surprising finesse.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    How to Train Your Dragon
    A briskly paced computer-animated entertainment that uses the format to maximum effect, the way "Avatar" does.
  38. Repo Men
    Repo Men grafts moral ambiguity onto the action thriller, and the result is a weird but likably misshapen beast.
  39. The Bounty Hunter
    Slack when it should be tight, dull when it needs to be sharp, The Bounty Hunter represents a failed attempt to make an Elmore Leonard movie without having to pay Elmore Leonard money.
  40. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
    Kids who realize they're fully ordinary -- that is, pretty much all of them -- will be pleased to see a world they recognize on the big screen.
  41. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    It's the rare 2 1/2 -hour film that doesn't make you look at your watch once. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is such a film.
  42. Greenberg
    A delicate, if slightly smoggy, feeling of regret hangs over Greenberg, a quietly funny portrait of grown-ups growing up.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    IMAX: Hubble 3D
    The daring mission by astronauts to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009 is the perfect subject for a brilliant, thrilling 3-D Imax movie. Such a movie, alas, has yet to be made.
  44. The Runaways
    A soaring, sympathetic ode to the outlaws, subversives and insurgents who occupy the edges of popular culture, making them safe for everyone else's dreams.
  45. City Island
    In this story, everyone, man or woman, is a walled fortress of paranoia, secrecy, unsatisfied yearnings and anger-at-low-tide, all of which will rise and collapse over the course of what is a very funny film, and one that operates at the sea level of humanity. Quaint. Slightly peculiar.
  46. Neil Young Trunk Show
    May not achieve the transcendent heights of "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," but it has its own pleasures.
  47. Mid-August Lunch
    It's tasty enough, and probably good for you, but at 73 minutes, the film is hardly a very filling entree.
  48. She's Out of My League
    There are only two really good jokes -- or two really gross ones, depending on your sensibility -- in She's Out of My League. Both of them are stolen.
  49. Green Zone
    The jittery, scattershot camerawork of Greengrass's longtime cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd, was used far more coherently in Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," and the constant blurry close-ups of computer screens and street-level scrums lose their power with each successive cut.
  50. Remember Me
    In attitude, if not aptitude, Robert Pattinson in Remember Me comes across like a latter-day James Dean.
  51. Alice in Wonderland
    Burton finely balances excess and restraint to create an absorbing, visually rich world of his very own.
  52. Brooklyn's Finest
    The misapprehension about Brooklyn's Finest -- which was first shown at Sundance last year and has been heavily edited since -- is that it's a movie about police. It isn't: It's a movie about movies about police.
  53. The Secret of Kells
    Not nearly as accomplished narratively as it is visually.
  54. Cop Out
    It's a performance in search of a movie.
  55. A Prophet
    Audiard delivers on and exceeds the promise he evinced in that earlier film, drawing viewers into the densely layered, ruthless ecology of a French prison and, against all odds, making them not mind staying there awhile.
  56. The Crazies
    What's disappointing about The Crazies, though, is the lack of care that Eisner and screenwriters Scott Kosar and Ray Wright put into their film's atmosphere. There's little in the way of Romero-esque dread; Eisner substitutes a grim lack of humor and frequent splashes of gore.
  57. The Yellow Handkerchief
    This trio of losers somehow forms a kind of loony family. Like the one in "Little Miss Sunshine," which also used the metaphor of a broken-down car to drive home its point, the interpersonal dynamics are out of whack, but not unworkable.
  58. Toe to Toe
    Resourceful, if occasionally forced, teen melodrama.
  59. Shutter Island
    If Shutter Island, a gothic thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, were put to a free association test, the word most likely to come to mind would certainly be "weird."
  60. Blood Done Sign My Name
    Despite its earnestness and valuable lessons, however, "Blood" feels a little like preaching to the choir.
  61. The Ghost Writer
    Offers an unusually astute glimpse of power at its most alluring and corrosive.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    The Wolfman
    It's all too predictable and by the book. Even with a few plot twists that aren't in the original, I was hardly shocked or awed. While it's sleeker and more sophisticated than the Chaney version, this new Wolfman isn't any scarier.
  63. Valentine's Day
    Largely relies on stale gender stereotypes and tired comedy routines that don't elicit much laughter.
  64. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    The movie suffers by taking itself a little too seriously. It's not just that it's a lot less funny than the book. It's also a lot less fun.
  65. From Paris with Love
    It's a hyper-violent buddy comedy. If you like that sort of thing -- think "Training Day," with laughs -- you'll love this.
  66. Dear John
    Dear Nicholas Sparks, There's no easy way to say this. But with Dear John, the latest of the five films made so far from your sentimental, best-selling novels, I think our relationship is in trouble.
  67. Ajami
    While its themes of revenge, mutual resentment and grim fatalism offer little hope for a ready solutions, the movie itself testifies to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground.
  68. Edge of Darkness
    The movie isn't exactly full of twists and turns, but neither is it a long, hard slog.
  69. When in Rome
    The problem is not the credulity-stretching script. Or even that much of the movie just isn't all that funny. The problem is that it thinks it's freakin' hilarious.
  70. Extraordinary Measures
    For real sparks keep a look out for Jared Harris in a supporting role that injects a mildly diverting note of corporate intrigue into an otherwise unsurprising procedural.
  71. Creation
    Creation is fatally weakened by an excess of pathos; in a Darwinian universe, it would be quickly swallowed up by a leaner, fitter movie.
  72. Tooth Fairy
    Tooth Fairy is cute. Which is to say that Dwayne Johnson is cute. How could anybody with the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger (circa 1984) and the smile of Cameron Diaz not be, especially when dressed -- albeit briefly -- in a pink tutu?
  73. The Book of Eli
    A hyper-violent, post-apocalyptic Western in the mold of "Mad Max" that can't make up its mind whether it wants to be corny or misanthropic.
  74. Fish Tank
    In many ways Fish Tank joins "An Education" and "Precious" as an acute, empathic portrait of a girl growing up, but more than those films Arnold leaves viewers with a feeling of unsettled ambiguity.
  75. 44 Inch Chest
    The best reason to see 44 Inch Chest is simply to behold some of the finest actors working today, especially Winstone -- who can embody winsomeness and menace in one sweaty, unkempt glance -- and the woefully underemployed Dillane.
  76. Daybreakers
    In the end, Daybreakers doesn't really want to make anyone think too hard. If that were to happen, they might stop to wonder why all the human survivors out there hiding in fear of their lives don't just become garlic farmers and call it a day.
  77. Youth in Revolt
    A movie that feels written rather than lived; from "The Catcher in the Rye" to "Rushmore," it's a story we've seen in better versions before.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 12 Critic Score
    Leap Year
    A retread of just about every rom-com cliche ever turned.
  79. Wonderful World
    Broderick, for his part, is playing a role solidly in his late-career wheelhouse: a middle-age disappointment, Ferris Bueller gone to seed. So affecting is Broderick in these parts -- at this point, only Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a better schlub.
  80. Sherlock Holmes
    This "Holmes" is just about as silly as it awesome. At times, Ritchie and company try so hard to make sure this isn't your father's "Sherlock Holmes" that it comes across as, well, cartoonish.
  81. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
    Shot through with a bold, extravagant generosity of spirit, this journey behind the literal and figurative looking glass marks a gratifying return to form for Gilliam.
  82. It's Complicated
    The romantic comedy about a divorced couple having an affair manages to be both light on its feet and heavy enough to deliver something of a message.
  83. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
    Call it a Christmas miracle, albeit a minor one: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel isn't entirely awful.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Police, Adjective
    Like a dark-comedy sequel to the masterful German film "The Lives of Others," Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective gives viewers a penetrating glimpse of surveillance culture, in this case as it plays out in post-communist Romania.
  85. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    Did you hear about the Morgans? Trust me, you don't want to.
  86. Avatar
    By presenting Avatar in 3-D, Cameron is staking his claim and building a fence around his own precious resource, making it unobtainable on any but his own terms to increasingly emboldened and technologically savvy natives.
  87. Nine
    It's a film within a film about a film within a film, and seems to lose layers of authenticity with each iteration, finally becoming a profoundly alienating experience.
  88. The Young Victoria
    A sumptuous period drama.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Crazy Heart
    The virtues of Crazy Heart only begin with Bridges: Music fans will rejoice at the movie's songs.
  90. Invictus
    Invictus, which features outstanding performances from both its lead actors, succeeds wonderfully on its simplest level, as a portrait of political genius.
  91. The Lovely Bones
    It leaves audiences in a limbo every bit as torturous as the one the protagonist is in.
  92. A Single Man
    How fitting that Firth should carry A Single Man, a movie of quiet but potent emotional power, perfectly suited to his singular gifts.
  93. The Slammin' Salmon
    Much of the film's humor hovers around crotch level. If jokes about mental illness, terminal disease and sex with orangutans sound funny to you, go for it.
  94. Up in the Air
    A smart, alert, supremely entertaining movie.
  95. The Last Station
    At its best, The Last Station vividly illustrates the enduring Russian gift for iconography, whether spiritual, secular or something in between.
  96. Brothers
    It does take half the movie before the story --really kicks in. When it does, it'll knock the air out of you.
  97. Everybody's Fine
    At one point, Frank contemplates a wheeled suitcase and infuses in that one moment the sweetness and vulnerability of E.T. See Everybody's Fine, but one piece of advice: Phone home first.
  98. The Road
    The Road possesses undeniable sweep and a grim kind of grandeur, but it ultimately plays like a zombie movie with literary pretensions.
  99. The Princess and the Frog
    The Princess and the Frog invite viewers to see the world as a lively, mixed-up, even confounding place, to recognize essential parts of ourselves in what we see, and to say: This is what we look like.
  100. Old Dogs
    Travolta is simply useless in Old Dogs, but Williams is actively offensive.
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