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 5.4 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. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    A picture that is surely one of the oddest ever made.
  2. The Way I See It
    There’s some very, very funny stuff here. But the laughs gradually give way to a feeling of not just sadness and loss for a quality we no longer seem to see very much of in political life and public discourse, but a sense of creeping despair that we may never see it again.
  3. The Russia House
    In The Russia House, an extremely pleasant but lightweight espionage drama set in the glasnost age, Connery brings that charisma to bear and, with co-star Michelle Pfeiffer's help, makes the movie work.
  4. Solaris
    It could hardly be called rip-roaring. I should report that it drives about a quarter of the audience out of the theater before it is half over. That's because it's slower than molasses in Siberia.
  5. As Good as It Gets
    Gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rudo y Cursi
    Enjoyable but forgettable.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trust
    Trust is always interesting. And always interesting, as someone once said, is always good.
  8. Nancy
    The mopey, midwinter atmosphere of Nancy becomes increasingly and oppressively bleak, leavened only by Smith-Cameron’s spot-on portrayal of her character’s trembling, painfully fragile optimism.
  9. Fight Club
    A provocative experience that lights you up even as it brutalizes you. And I don't even like Brad Pitt very much.
  10. The Final Year
    The fly-on-the-wall film is fascinating at times, but less than essential.
  11. Sublet
    Directed and co-written by Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox, whose films often deal with gay themes, Sublet feels like it’s setting itself up, just a little bit, as a same-sex version of How Stella Got Got Her Groove Back.
  12. Seasons
    By showing animals in all their mundane splendor, Seasons makes a case for conservation.
  13. True Stories
    True Stories is united not by narrative, but by Byrne's sensibility, and this is where it descends from being a boring piece of whimsy into something reprehensible.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    This Is It
    For a man who so desperately wanted to show us perfection -- or at least project the illusion of it -- Jackson would never, ever want us to see this film.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Way We Get By
    Not so much a slice of life as the whole pie, the highs and lows of twilight living, all found and filmed in a terminal at an airport in Maine. What a country.
  16. Somewhere
    "Don't tell, show" has been the writer's imperative for generations; Coppola takes that edict to its most visual and satisfying extremes.
  17. Frequency
    It's like a chick flick for men--and the women who love them, sniff-sniff.
  18. Dracula
    The new Dracula is a dazzler, a classic retelling of a classic text. From opening wolf howls through ominous, ambiguous concluding images, it sustains an exciting, witty, erotically compelling illusion of supernatural mystery and terror. [13 Jul 1979, p.E1]
    • Washington Post
  19. Queen of Glory
    Actress Nana Mensah (“After Yang”) makes an impressive debut as a writer-director with “Queen of Glory,” a dry comedy of culture clashes, both ethnic and generational.
  20. The Alpinist
    There is a revealing narrative here: a conflict, a climax and a denouement that you may not expect. The Alpinist has built-in drama, simply by virtue of who and what it sets out to document.
  21. Barbershop: The Next Cut
    If “Chi-Raq” aimed to shock us out of complacency, “The Next Cut” creates a more welcoming groove, encouraging greater openness to outside perspectives.
  22. The Book of Life
    The Book of Life may use state-of-the-art animation, but it derives its strength from the wisdom of antiquity. It only looks new, but it’s as old as life (and death) itself.
  23. The Wrecking Crew
    Nostalgia trips are fun, but when they intersect with genius, virtuosity and genuine revelatory insight, they take viewers to a higher place.
  24. The Page Turner
    What The Page Turner lacks in scale and ambition, it makes up for in precision. It's a small French delicacy, tart, acerbic and cynical, that focuses on three or four characters and yet manages to bring them and their dilemmas to vivid life.
  25. Flanders
    Flanders, which takes us from the rustic heartland of northern France to the killing fields of an unnamed foreign locale, has such a primitive poetry, we are moved even by its most gruesome moments.
  26. The Unbelievable Truth
    A jumble of subplots and suppositions, The Unbelievable Truth ultimately comes together as suburban farce in a door-banging conclusion to all the wild speculation.
  27. The Future
    What does The Future hold? Wonders, each of them weirder and more unnerving than the last.
  28. Cinderella
    For all its gossamer, gauze, filigree and refinement, Cinderella drags when it should skip as lightly as its title character when she’s late getting home from the ball.
  29. The Spy Behind Home Plate
    The film has more than enough true material to fuel an effective thriller, but director Aviva Kempner doesn’t quite manage to bring this fascinating figure to life.
  30. Alice
    At its best the movie displays a vital playfulness. But at its worst -- and there's far too much of that -- Alice continues Allen's endless, banal quest for the Big Answers. All, of course, at the mild-mannered elbow of Farrow.
  31. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
    Informative and entertaining.
  32. Mr. Holmes
    Like any good Sherlockian case, the stories interweave into a satisfying conclusion. And the cinematic elements fit together as neatly as the plot lines.
  33. Ruby Sparks
    For a movie so bent on skewering illusions, Ruby Sparks ultimately can't entirely let go of its own.
  34. Rock School
    Until the last 20 minutes or so of Rock School, the actual playing, while often startlingly good, is kind of boring.
  35. You Will Be My Son
    You Will Be My Son is not a subtle movie. Some of the characterizations and music feel heavy-handed, and one major plot point late in the film feels inauthentic.
  36. Demonlover
    Meant to be a sleek, dark, disturbing David Cronenberg-style thriller, Olivier Assayas's film is just an annoying concoction.
  37. A Simple Favor
    The most surprising performance is Lively’s. As the cheeky Emily, the star of such recent thrillers as “All I See Is You” and “The Shallows” finally gets the chance to be funny. She proves quite adept at it
  38. The Witches of Eastwick
    Hell's belles! Nicholson's back. And that old Jack magic has us in his spell.
  39. Time to Leave
    The splendid, painterly melodramas of Douglas Sirk lurk behind every shot, but the tone is essentially pre-Raphaelite, sexy and cold.
  40. 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.
  41. Giant Little Ones
    There are some amusing (and even poignant) moments between Franky and the two girls, who are the movie’s most interesting characters. But all the parents come across as stiff and hollow, and so does Ballas.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Blink Twice
    In sum, the movie’s a passable time-waster, but it might be better — for Kravitz’s filmmaking future and for us — if we just forgot the whole thing.
  43. Tupac: Resurrection
    The result isn't a fragmentary experience so much as an evocative collage.
  44. Two Girls and a Guy
    Cerebral, frenetic and funny, this chamber piece from filmmaker James Toback provides a timely if inconclusive comment on monogamy.
  45. Kung Fu Panda 3
    Directors Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni deploy a gorgeous color palette for the Chinese countryside, using vibrant, swirling shades of green, blue and red for the panda hideaway....The directors also make sure to let Po stay the charming bumbler he’s always been. That’s what makes him such an earnest, lovable hero.
  46. The Journey of Natty Gann
    The Journey of Natty Gann shows how skillful filmmaking can take something that's almost unendurably hokey and make it charming. Beautifully photographed and designed, evocatively scored, it's a pleasantly archaic family entertainment in the Disney tradition. [18 Jan 1986, p.G1]
    • Washington Post
  47. The Boys Next Door
    The Boys Next Door is just another exploitation movie about murderous nuts -- exactly what you wouldn't expect from Penelope Spheeris, the director of "Suburbia." [12 Nov 1985, p.B11]
    • Washington Post
  48. Speak No Evil
    Speak No Evil is the rowdiest horror flick in ages, a hilarious and venomous little nasty that cattle-prods the audience to scream everything its lead characters choke down.
  49. World Trade Center
    It telegraphs its emotions loud and clear, but somehow they don't reach us.
  50. Wonder
    Wonder does occasionally suffer from kid-movie pitfalls, straining to be cute or mining humor from ridiculously precocious little ones. But mostly it succeeds in telling not one complicated story, but many, and giving the experience of being a confused or lonely or scared youngster the space it deserves.
  51. Jimi: All Is by My Side
    Liberated from playing the hits, Benjamin eloquently captures Hendrix’s emerging style without having to succumb to jukebox-musical opportunism.
  52. The Breakfast Club
    It's the kind of undigested vision that might have come from the kids themselves. [15 Feb 1985, p.B1]
    • Washington Post
  53. Innerspace
    The film is never inspired; it's not imaginative enough to be any more than an entertainingly good time. But it's an enormously unassuming, likable comedy, and surprisingly uninsistent for a big summer entertainment.
  54. The Take
    It's also genuinely moving to see disenfranchised individuals discovering self-determination from the hard ground up.
  55. The Girl Who Played with Fire
    All too often, the second movie of a trilogy is a bridge. ("The Matrix Reloaded," anyone?) As often as not, it feels more like the first half of the last movie than a film in its own right. The Girl Who Played With Fire is no exception.
  56. Darfur Now
    See Darfur Now, and you won't read the daily news the same way again.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Trip to Spain
    What’s different this time around is how frequently these largely improvised conversations (between actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing fictionalized versions of themselves) veer into the abyss of impending mortality.
  58. Zelary
    For fans of old-fashioned European filmmaking, this may have its pleasing qualities.
  59. Racing with the Moon
    A would-be endearing romantic entertainment that becomes an exercise in futility, Racing With the Moon concentrates a considerable amount of pictorial polish, acting talent and sincerity on a trifling amount of content. [24 Mar 1984, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  60. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
    The movie has more cleverness than violence, and its breakdown of cliches is vivid and witty. Baesel is an extraordinary presence, holding the film together with his mesmerizing performance, charm and openness, and Goethals measures up to him.
  61. Son of Rambow
    A crowd-pleasing combination of buoyant spirit and occasionally dark humor.
  62. In Good Company
    Good points aside, In Good Company is a bland, occasionally phlegmatic pastiche of cliches and dull encounters.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Unmistaken Child
    Unmistaken Child: adorable, moving, bewildering, sad and, ultimately, peaceful.
  64. Cop Car
    The film is full of quiet little truths.
  65. To Dust
    There’s something in the relationship between these two partnerless men — their yearning for connection — that feels, beneath the jokes, very real and very recognizable.
  66. On the Outs
    On the Outs has its rewards, especially in the mesmerizing performance of Marte.
  67. Chutney Popcorn
    Its easygoing, disarming air will endear it to its target audience, who will appreciate this movie as much for the lifestyle it depicts as its actual story.
  68. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    Wastes no time getting very loud and very silly and never really lets up.
  69. Shadow Magic
    It's a film about culture clash, the generation gap and the loss of tradition that inevitably accompanies the arrival of anything new.
  70. Julie & Julia
    A movie that soars whenever Child is on the screen and sags when Powell shows up.
  71. Emma
    Director McGrath retains the novel's highlights, but he slices everything to ribbons.
  72. Avengers: Age of Ultron
    As he did in the first “Avengers,” writer-director Joss Whedon avoids the fatal trap of comic-book ­self-seriousness, leavening a baggy, busy, overpopulated story with zippy one-liners, quippy asides and an overarching tone of jaunty good fun.
  73. Captain America: The First Avenger
    Captain America might hold the most promise, not just of saving the world, but of saving comic book movies from themselves.
  74. 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.
  75. Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers
    It’s a fascinating inside look, made all the more thrilling by Marking’s access to actual Pink Panthers.
  76. Brian and Charles
    Like Charles himself (and maybe Brian, too), it’s an odd hodgepodge of a story: a sweet, eccentric misfit, just waiting for someone to find it, and love it, despite its flaws.
  77. 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.
  78. Missing
    While “Missing” is just a cheap thriller, one can’t help but wonder whether, in the hands of more inventive filmmakers, the screen time that has come to define personal interaction might find a richer dramatic purpose.
  79. Something's Gotta Give
    It is a well written, nicely acted and smoothly directed battle of the sexes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Girlfriend Experience
    The film manages a career-spanning panache: Soderbergh taps into the nervy impulses of his earliest endeavor, "sex, lies and videotape" as well as "Ocean's Eleven." The Girlfriend Experience has something to elevate and exasperate fans of both.
  81. Beverly Hills Cop
    The result is a movie that can be wonderfully languid and wonderfully breakneck as well, a formula movie so gleefully bedizened with quirks that it always seems better than it is. [5 Dec. 1984, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  82. The Life Ahead
    The Life Ahead might be a familiar story, but as a showcase for Loren’s sensuality, star power and unfailing instincts, it feels both classic and exhilaratingly new. She’s still got it, and as this performance reminds us at every turn, she always did.
  83. Peterloo
    The end result is a movie that feels oddly detached, especially considering the raw intimacy of Leigh’s previous films.
  84. White Hunter Black Heart
    It's Mondo Machismo, Hollywood on safari, a self-aggrandizing epic reeking of man scent.
  85. Alan Partridge
    Partridge is such a fatuous, superficial figure that the trick is to make him palatable enough to sustain interest for more than an hour. The filmmakers meet with uneven success.
  86. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
    Although Hamilton — who is not widely known to a general audience — is inarguably a legend in his sport, and an engaging enough subject, Take Every Wave doesn’t give us a reason to invest deeply in his story.
  87. Innocent Voices
    What's so powerful about Mandoki's film, which he co-scripted with Torres, is the complex, ever-surprising course that Chava takes toward manhood.
  88. Me You Them
    The region's stark beauty and the filmmaker's eye for composition compensate somewhat for its predictability and obvious if misguided feminist agenda.
  89. Stuart Little 2
    It's a pleasant experience. But that's what it is: a sequel that replays every aspect of the original movie.
  90. Auto Focus
    It never answers the key question: Why should we care?
  91. Miller's Crossing
    Crossing should be watched not because it's their finest achievement (that's still to come), but because the brothers are keeping things refreshingly different and building a career, their minds still very much fixed on originality.
  92. Devotion
    The movie’s climactic sequence is less expected, and a bit messier than the other episodes. It’s powerful because it effectively evokes the chaos and cost of war. Most of the rest of Devotion just apes clunky old war movies.
  93. Dead Again
    Directing with an eye to "Rebecca," Branagh brings more mood than suspense to this apparent hommage to Hitchcock. Still, he raises no goose bumps.
  94. Creed II
    Creed II is a respectable if not revelatory sequel to the sequel, even if it lacks its predecessor’s grace and narrative texture.
  95. The Tiger Hunter
    Thanks to the director Khan — who co-wrote the script and has an obvious fondness for her characters — The Tiger Hunter transcends comic stereotypes. But its predictable success-story arc isn’t entirely convincing.
  96. Ben Is Back
    The tight time frame gives the movie a welcome urgency, but it doesn’t prevent its second half from becoming lurid and melodramatic.
  97. Rush
    Rush is a powerhouse movie but not a cheap one. It hits you hard, but never below the belt.
  98. Wiener-Dog
    You wouldn’t exactly call the movie a thrill, but it’s curiously engrossing all the same.
  99. L.A. Story
    Taxes the threshold of acceptable cuteness.
  100. Ever After
    In this modern retelling of the well-known fable, she is one princess-in-waiting who does not need rescuing by any knight in shining armor. [31 Jul 1998, Pg. N.47]
    • Washington Post
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