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. Flash of Genius
    That movie is not half bad, either. The trial, by comparison, will feel familiar to anyone who has ever watched any David take on any corporate Goliath before a court of law ("Erin Brockovich," "A Civil Action," etc., etc.).
  2. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
    The movie based on Young's 2002 memoir is a good bit blunter. One early laugh comes at the expense of a pig urinating on a woman's feet at the BAFTA awards, the British equivalent of the Oscars. And it doesn't get much better, or much smarter, than that.
  3. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
    Like the mix tapes that obsess its main characters, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist builds into something of infectious joy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ballast
    Ballast, though, is less than completely satisfying in a dramatic sense. Events that seem to be important are dropped and left unresolved. Conflicts from the past are mentioned but never explained, as if key scenes were missing. Given that disinterest in conventional narrative techniques, the abrupt ending may be appropriate, but it feels wrong and arbitrary.
  5. The Lucky Ones
    Could be filed under "wacky misfire."
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Eagle Eye
    A sometimes entertaining flick that makes a lot of noise but doesn't have much to say.
  7. Miracle at St. Anna
    The movie winds up a casualty of schmaltzy, patronizing sentiment on the one hand and overweening ambition on the other.
  8. Choke
    A singularly vulgar piece of work.
  9. Nights in Rodanthe
    What really sells this three-hanky tear-jerker -- and there were a lot of women buying it during a recent screening -- is Lane's steely and vulnerable performance. Like Tinker Bell, she almost made me believe in fairies. Almost.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
    May leave you longing for a story to make you care.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Appaloosa
    Harris and Mortensen may not have the combined star power to push Appaloosa to the level of popularity of last year's "3:10," but the film is every bit as enjoyable, and, for traditionalists, more measured.
  12. Battle in Seattle
    It's a movie by a true believer in anti-globalization, and it may win a few converts, but not among devotees of convincing, capable cinema.
  13. The Duchess
    It's too bad there's not more substance to The Duchess, because there's lots of acting and, as is required of a Brit-styled period piece, lushness galore.
  14. 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.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Igor
    Though it has clever moments, it doesn't come close to the polished animation, wit and originality of the big green guy (Shrek).
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Burn After Reading
    Oh, the high-octane cast works hard. But there's nothing to suggest anybody off camera tried that hard, which is fatal to a Coen outing.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Towelhead
    It's clever and original with an excellent cast. Ball's script catches a lot of the novel's pop, often word for word. I laughed a lot.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Righteous Kill
    It's astonishing how much intensity and focus these two have lost, but the picture itself is not all that bad -- if you can get the collapsing-career thing out of your head.
  19. The Women
    Falls flat at every turn.
  20. Mister Foe
    Thanks mainly to Bell's abundant charisma, Hallam makes for a strangely likable antihero.
  21. Save Me
    Save Me is a particularly flattering showcase for Gant, best known for his work on the TV show "Queer as Folk" and ready for a big-screen breakout.
    • 16 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Surfer, Dude
    You can stick around for the only funny line, which involves a breakfast burrito, but the smart surfer would head for the hills and Willie's goat ranch.
  23. The Pool
    The result is a vivid portrait, not just of one unforgettable young man but also of a country in transition.
  24. I Served the King of England
    Pirouettes along a beguiling but treacherous line between horror and whimsy.
  25. Traitor
    Traitor traffics in the cliches of the terrorist chase film -- including the usual stereotypes of Muslims -- while trying not to succumb to outright bigotry.
  26. Death Race
    It isn't so much a movie as a superheated, highly conductive miracle substance for the pure transmission of masculine aggression and misogyny.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Longshots
    The characters have an equally realistic appearance that's rarely seen in Hollywood productions these days
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trouble the Water
    Weaker in its second half than its mesmerizing first, as the story moves away from the intensity of the storm to follow the Robertses in their efforts to resettle.
  29. I.O.U.S.A.
    There is a difference between the importance of a film's subject and the quality of a film's execution. And the execution is lacking. The film just isn't, well, very interesting.
  30. Momma's Man
    Momma's Man takes that germ of an idea and lets it flower, in a way that is both odd and oddly compelling.
  31. The Rocker
    The movie is so tepid and inoffensive: It reminded me of a '70s Disney live-action product, with clean-scrubbed "hippies" like Johnny Whitaker chafing harmlessly under the wise ministrations of Suzanne Pleshette, whose job was to keep the kids in hand.
  32. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
    Unfolds with all the entertainment value of watching somebody else play a video game.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vicky Cristina Barcelona
    Vicky Cristina Barcelona is beautiful because Allen is now decidedly in control of this phase of his career, which blends the sharpness of his older dramas with a newly acquired expatriate hipness.
  34. Fly Me to the Moon 3D
    Despite some Cold War humor, the formulaic film is aimed squarely at the youngest of young children.
  35. Henry Poole Is Here
    A not-quite-funny comedy that devolves into a tedious discussion of miracles and redemption.
  36. The Girl Cut in Two
    For all its charisma, A Girl Cut in Two lacks a certain depth.
  37. 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.
  38. Elegy
    What line is thinner than the one between confession and narcissism? Upon that line, exactly, does Elegy dwell, before tumbling off on the bad side.
  39. Hell Ride
    After all the bloated lines are delivered, and dozens of women are debased, and Bishop has attitudinized the story line into incomprehensibility, audience members will be asking themselves how they got on this Hell Ride and what they did to deserve it.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Red
    Its earnest, always incomplete quest haunts us in ways stock imagery cannot.
  41. What We Do Is Secret
    You are left with the feeling that either Grossman hasn't done justice to the Germs or the justice they deserved was to spend eternity as a historical footnote.
  42. Pineapple Express
    The movie is jampacked with jokes, sight gags and set pieces guaranteed to appeal to the audience's sense of the preposterous.
  43. Bottle Shock
    Whatta movie: booze, unhappy French people, Alan Rickman and really cool pickup trucks.
  44. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
    This is pure, escapist fun -- skepticism and naysaying are best left at home.
  45. Frozen River
    Made with uncommon skill and assurance, the film never succumbs to rank sentimentality, but it manages to get at the nuances of human relationships.
  46. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
    Tiresome and messy.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Swing Vote
    The film's not nearly as idiotic as its trailer made it seem, because it's not really about voting, or politics.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Search of a Midnight Kiss
    Despite some scenes that have the feel of an acting or writing workshop, these are believable, complex characters. Their story has a full measure of Judd Apatow raunch, with a dash of "Swingers" emotional sweetness.
  49. Man on Wire
    Thanks to Marsh's sensitive storytelling, Man on Wire manages to put Petit's performance into another, more ineffable realm: What began as a caper turned into poetry, and poetry became a prayer.
  50. The X Files: I Want to Believe
    A taut, well-acted, not very scary, not very hard to figure out serial-killer mystery.
  51. Step Brothers
    So childish it seems to arrive in diapers, and that's not bad; it's good.
  52. Baghead
    Baghead provides a diverting showcase for actors you may never have heard of but who deserve a shot at fame and fortune.
  53. Brideshead Revisited
    The real question is whether the film moves the "Brideshead" ball down the playing field in any meaningful way since the acclaimed miniseries. And I'd have to say that it doesn't so much advance it as it shrinks it into a golf-ball-size nugget.
  54. The Order of Myths
    Gracefully explores Mobile's Mardi Gras celebrations and profiles the young people playing at royalty at these ceremonies' hearts.
  55. American Teen
    What makes Nanette Burstein's movie so powerful is its uncanny sense of familiarity.
  56. CSNY/Déjà Vu
    One of the great strengths of CSNY is how skillfully it deflects criticism of "four balding hippie millionaires" taking to the stage to criticize American politics; the film is peppered with excerpts from some of the tour's earliest and nastiest critics.
  57. Boy A
    It's beautiful. I loved it. And it broke my heart.
  58. The Dark Knight
    You keep waiting for the movie to clarify, to settle down to its archetypal purity: icon of psychotic evil against icon of neurotic good. Music by Wagner in his "Götterdämmerung" mood, screenplay by Nietzsche, with additional lines by Babaloo Mandel. Oh, what a great big movie wallow, what a transformational blast of cine-pleasure. It never quite arrives
  59. Mamma Mia!
    This is a movie guaranteed to please crowds, if only because it insists on their affection so strenuously.
  60. Space Chimps
    Kids sense when a movie is being noisy and frantic just to keep them distracted; these apes are overcaffeinated.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transsiberian
    All in all, the film is an excellent, if modest, alternative for moviegoers who have been blockbustered into submission this summer.
  62. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    As he has done in all his movies, from creature features such as "Mimic" to serious dramas such as "Pan's Labyrinth," del Toro creates unforgettable images, filled with color, texture, lyricism and horror.
  63. Journey to the Center of the Earth
    Terrific family entertainment, an action comedy on a par with "Night at the Museum" and "National Treasure."
  64. Meet Dave
    The kind of bland, generic, high-concept midsummer comedy that drives a critic to the thesaurus in search of new ways to say "vapid."
  65. Giorni e nuvole
    Sometimes art imitates life; sometimes it is life. If the market gets any worse, Days and Clouds could kill realism outright.
  66. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    It seems to celebrate him more for his attitude, his fashionably leftist politics, his fame and his friendships than for any meaningful accomplishment.
  67. The Wackness
    The dopest thing about The Wackness is Thirlby, who, after supporting turns in "Juno" and "Snow Angels," is quickly becoming reason enough to see any film she's in.
    • Washington Post
  68. Tell No One
    A crafty, swift, subtly stylish thriller.
  69. Hancock
    The problem is that director Peter Berg, aided and abetted by Smith and Theron and third banana Jason Bateman, seem to have made it literally, not realizing its out-of-whack tonalities and grotesque plot twists were meant to be played for laughs.
  70. Finding Amanda
    A slight, modestly funny comedy.
  71. WALL-E
    The idea that a company in the business of mainstream entertainment would make something as creative, substantial and cautionary as WALL-E has to raise your hopes for humanity.
  72. Wanted
    With its pounding, bloody violence, foul-mouthed language and putrid worldview, Wanted isn't comic book-y on a par with "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk." Rather it's an example of revenge of the nerds at its nastiest and most vulgar.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gunnin' for That #1 Spot
    For all the flash and dazzle, Gunnin' for That #1 Spot never comes close to the power and intimacy of 1994's "Hoop Dreams." The comparison may be unfair, but, given the subject matter, it's inevitable.
  74. Trumbo
    What becomes clear is that Trumbo's humor is only one thing that helped him survive the professional and personal hardships of the blacklist, which drove more than one of his Hollywood friends to kill themselves and took a toll on Trumbo's children.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Elsa y Fred
    Elsa & Fred feels not substantial enough to bear the weight of its themes. It dissolves like cotton candy, making proper digestion impossible. The life it shows us is too sweet.
  76. The Last Mistress
    Argento and Aattou deliver appropriately outsize performances to fit the movie's sense of extravagant escapism, and Claude Sarraute delivers a slyly witty performance as the elderly lady carried away by Ryno's Scheherazade-like tale.
  77. Get Smart
    As for Hathaway, she's a revelation. Those eyes are still as big as Beamer hubcaps, but she's able to show more edge than her previous goody-goody roles have allowed.
  78. The Love Guru
    The results are a wheezy, tired attempt to milk more laughs out of the '60s, by doing exactly what "Austin Powers" did.
  79. Brick Lane
    Even as Brick Lane manages to sidestep one formula, it falls prey to another.
  80. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
    The director, Patricia Rozema, has a rare talent: She gets third-rate performances out of first-rate performers with almost startling efficiency. All are bland, some hardly exist at all, and as performance, the whole thing seems a waste.
  81. The Happening
    He still sees dead people, only now they're the best thing in the movie.
  82. The Incredible Hulk
    The result is a classic comic-book hero quest that, while not entirely novel, hews to its own rules and conventions with dignity and artfulness.
  83. Chris & Don. A Love Story
    A celebration -- of love, commitment and devotion until the bitter end. Gay and straight viewers alike are sure to be inspired by this lyrical testament to a corollary of Tolstoy's famous dictum: Every unhappy family might be unhappy in its own way, but every genuinely happy family is a triumph.
  84. My Winnipeg
    Maddin has called his new film a "docu-fantasia," and it's an apt label for an entirely idiosyncratic mix of local myth and history, dubious science, salacious gossip, personal rumination and endless camp humor.
  85. Beauty in Trouble
    Whether they're navigating a recently flooded Prague or the pristine waters of a Tuscan swimming pool, the fiends and angels who populate Beauty in Trouble are like so many scorpions explaining why they sting the fabled frog trying to help them: "It's my nature."
  86. Encounters at the End of the World
    It's as much fun to anticipate what he's (Herzog) going to say as it is to appreciate the snowy landscapes, belching volcanoes and mustachioed seals before his lens. And what could have been a conventional travelogue becomes a sort of ruminative odyssey of the mind.
  87. Kung Fu Panda
    Infectious and inspiring, despite one's best efforts to resist its charms.
  88. You Don't Mess with the Zohan
    The movie is gross but not unfunny as it covers the Zohan's rise through hair culture, aided by his steamy heterosexuality, his lack of inhibition and his stereotypical career aggressiveness, until the old ladies are lined up all the way to the Bronx for a few minutes of bliss in the Zohan's chair.
  89. Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan
    In the end, we're about a third of the way through the great Khan's life; he hasn't even begun to take down the cities of Cathay or spread his seed. That suggests two sequels. I, for one, can't wait.
  90. Mother of Tears
    This lurid celebration of shock, schlock and the shamelessly perverse finds the 67-year-old grandfather of torture porn scraping the bottom of his admittedly limited creative barrel.
  91. The Promotion
    You have to wonder whether writer and director Steve Conrad, who wrote the films "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway," "The Weather Man" and "The Pursuit of Happyness," had something more hefty in mind before Harvey and Bob Weinstein came aboard and marketed his movie as a laugh riot. Regardless, it's not the stuff of lighthearted summer comedy.
  92. Bigger Stronger Faster*
    He treats jocks like humans, not stars or superheroes, and in the end has managed something unique for documentaries these days: It's as entertaining as it is fair.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Foot Fist Way
    Fails to generate a real plot, and the awkward moments work better in a context of adolescence. Quirk isn't funny when accompanied by adultery and brutality -- though a couple of lines zing.
  94. Savage Grace
    What Kalin fails to provide in the slightest degree is energy. The movie just sloshes along in a heavy, slightly overdone way.
  95. Sex and the City
    It's less a movie than a delivery system for sensory pleasures, sunny romance and designer-label stuff that in real life would result in diabetic shock (or at least a ruined credit rating).
  96. The Strangers
    I like watching snakes eat mice just as much as the next fella, maybe even more, but The Strangers turns the gobble-'em-up into an ordeal. It's a fraud from start to finish.
  97. The Unknown Woman
    Falters when it falls into exploitation (Irena's flashbacks to scenes of depraved sexual torture) and fatal contrivance.
  98. Stuck
    The question is why the time, talent and treasure of such energetic and even gifted artists have been marshaled in such a disgusting and trivial genre exercise and what viewers are supposed to get out of it. Isn't life hard enough?
  99. The Children of Huang Shi
    The best thing about "Children" is the cinematography by Zhao Xiaoding ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which is so distracting because it so out-classes the rest of the movie.
  100. War, Inc.
    A film that, in attempting to ridicule the Bush administration, finally just settles for being ridiculous itself.
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