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 5.3 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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    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fire
    In filmmaker Mehta's deft hands, the outcome is handled with power and sensitivity. [22 Aug1 997, pg.N40]
    • Washington Post
  2. Last Call at the Oasis
    As a lucid, emotionally involving portrait of the looming crisis surrounding water - supplies of which are dwindling as contamination rises - Jessica Yu's smartly constructed argument works less as a tutorial than as an infectiously impassioned call to arms.
  3. Starting Over
    There's no doubt about Burt Reynolds' skill. Starting Over finds Reynolds at a level of proficiency that approaches the awesome. [05 Oct 1979, p.B1]
    • Washington Post
  4. Ladyhawke
    Donner never quite gets the tone right, and the pace is positively stuporous. The horses gallop, but the film barely canters. [15 Apr 1985, p.B2]
    • Washington Post
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Apprentice
    It has the era’s soundtrack down, from Studio 54 disco to Suicide’s “Ghost Rider.” But it doesn’t have much of a point.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mystic Masseur
    A soft-focused, wistful big-screen art film.
  7. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
    Has its funny moments, but all too often it's a corny, lackluster film in which humans pretend (not always convincingly) to interact with cartoons.
  8. Vengo
    Feels like a song you may have heard before, but one whose aching beauty makes it endlessly listenable.
  9. Blood Work
    It's always nice to see Clint, and especially nice to see him play someone whose humanity -- no, whose mortality -- is all too apparent.
  10. The Fourth Protocol
    An absorbing, intelligent and suspense-filled film... It's streamlined and rich at the same time -- like the best of the James Bond films, but serious.
  11. The Nutty Professor
    Murphy owes much of his success to the amazing special-effects makeup by Rick Baker ("An American Werewolf in London"), but he brings a tenderness and dignity to the performance that he has never shown before.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lymelife
    Directed by first-timer Derick Martini and produced by Martin Scorsese, balances grimness and levity with relative success. It stops short of quirk. It only flirts with "American Beauty"-style hyperbole. It falls somewhere in between, thanks to Martini's steady hand and a bunch of reliable actors working in good form.
  14. The Professional
    Oldman is the least inhibited actor of his generation, and as this deranged detective, he keeps absolutely nothing in reserve.
  15. Shortbus
    The premise -- a roundelay of New Yorkers looking for connection, or to escape it -- feels tired, and Mitchell's portrayal of sex as the ultimate vehicle for transcendence, self-knowledge and healing, while conveyed with authentic sweetness, seems shockingly naive.
  16. The Grey
    The setting and fatalistic musings of The Grey invite comparison to Sean Penn's stirring 2007 ad­ven­ture "Into the Wild"; in its more metaphysical moments, told in impressionistic flashbacks, it recalls last year's "The Tree of Life."
  17. Fast Food Nation
    Works far better as journalism than as drama. One weakness is that poor Linklater has to keep bringing in guest explainers, who lay out one policy or another but have nothing whatsoever to do with the story.
  18. The Bad Guys
    It’s a heist film with heart and humor, and where’s the crime in that?
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Serial Mom
    The real world has caught up with him, and [Waters'] off-kilter comedy seems disappointingly mundane and mainstream.
  20. The Tin Drum
    The Tin Drum is likely to be remembered as another conspicuous example of why the urge to film certain books ought to be resisted. [25 Apr 1980, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Words of War
    There’s no dazzling CGI in “Words of War” — no stalwart, spandexed action figures flying through the air to land nuclear uppercuts on the villain of the hour. There’s just one woman: Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who went up against the villain of our age and paid the ultimate price for it.
  22. Dora and the Lost City of Gold
    Sure, there may be a nugget or two of gold in “Lost City.” But it mostly stays lost, in this convoluted drag of a script. “Dora” should have picked a path and stayed on it. Instead, it’s a movie that is muy aburrido — boring.
  23. Tokyo!
    Tokyo, if anything, becomes more of a mystery after Tokyo! than it was before. That's the strength and curse of the film. If you can't find real connections between its disparate stories, you can always make them up yourself. But if that kind of film frustrates you, think twice before booking a ticket to Tokyo!
  24. Defending Your Life
    Brooks-the-performer embodies the movie's spirit with superb modulation. 
  25. Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
    David Zucker and Segal seem to thrive on the formulaic tomfoolery that propels these rapid-fire spoofs. Naked Gun 33 1/3, as pointlessly plotted as ever, manages to be not only still funny but energetically slapped together and occasionally inventive.
  26. Anna and the Apocalypse
    While the young cast does its best to sell the gleeful music, its delirious premise eventually loses steam, as do the songs, which are stronger in the first part of the film. Yet despite this doomsday setting, Anna and the Apocalypse ultimately delivers an uplifting message.
  27. Dancer in the Dark
    You may leave this movie exhilarated by its no-holds-barred boldness or annoyed and bewildered at the unpredictable course it takes.
  28. Official Secrets
    Although Knightley’s Gun often seems to be a passive figure, buffeted by the machinations of those around her, the film’s honesty about the enormous personal costs of whistleblowing is a welcome relief from more romanticized heroics.
  29. Seoul Searching
    It’s too bad, then, that the comedy spends so much more time mimicking the familiar than trusting in its own fresh perspective.
  30. 16 Blocks
    It seems such a waste to go onto the actual streets of Lower Manhattan and shoot a movie this stupid. Think of the money, the logistics, the interruptions in the city's life -- all that trouble for what? For this? For shame.
  31. Caterina va in città
    Checks in somewhere between a delight and a diversion.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale
    Provides a fascinating glimpse of how the human spirit struggles.
    • Washington Post
  33. Yves Saint Laurent 5 avenue Marceau 75116 Paris
    May be too much Yves Saint Laurent even for those connoisseurs who can differentiate the YSL line from Dior's or Chanel's.
  34. One True Thing
    Admirably restrained melodrama.
  35. Songcatcher
    The haunting beauty of the music, and the people who produce it – that's the chapter and verse of this story.
  36. Sex Is Comedy
    By Breillat's usually dire standards, this is practically a laff riot, and if you want to see her funniest, most accessible movie, this is the one to watch.
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