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. Disturbia
    LaBeouf is appealing as the frustrated shut-in, and comic-relief cred goes to Aaron Yoo, who plays his neurotic buddy Ronnie. The ending, though, drags, and the film quickly shifts from a clever homage to "Rear Window" to a bad parody of "The Silence of the Lambs."
  2. The Good House
    The Good House has a lot of potential and features some attractive amenities, including dramatic conflict and a seasoned cast. But like a subpar property, it just doesn’t show well in a highly competitive market.
  3. Jackie Brown
    The film occasionally drags -- a money transfer scene set in a department store lasts longer than several geologic epochs -- but it's so funny and the plot twists are so sudden and violent it's great fun.
  4. Piglet's Big Movie
    Sure it's slight, but also as cute as the curly tail on its tender protagonist.
  5. Outside Providence
    Fitfully amusing but nothing remarkable
  6. Dual
    Dual takes awhile to get into gear, ending on an unresolved note. But it’s a funny and provocative struggle over the meaning of life.
  7. Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
    Despite all the talent, form triumphs over substance. Director Hugh (Chariots of Fire) Hudson clutches, and climactic scenes miss their mark. Greystoke is curious entertainment, less satisfying than Planet of the Apes, which begs the same question: noble savage or naked ape? [30 Mar 1984, p.21]
    • Washington Post
  8. Godzilla
    Fortunately, the monsters are actually kind of a kick. And isn’t that why you go to see a movie like this anyway?
  9. Jesus Camp
    Often funny (just listen to Becky fulminate against Harry Potter), but it's also a scary.
  10. Wristcutters: A Love Story
    Seems to me, teenage suicide isn't that funny, and nothing in this movie changed my mind.
  11. Jacob's Ladder
    Here, Lyne indulges more in misdirection than in direction; he's a magician turning a sleazy trick. But even his technical skill breaks down. The picture is garbled and cliched.
  12. Cherry Blossoms
    Thanks to an accomplished cast, anchored by Elsner and Wepper, and observant filmmakers, very little in Cherry Blossoms is lost in translation.
  13. Killer Joe
    The action and dialogue find the same squalid level in time for the climactic scene, the cruel humiliation of a central character. That's when sensitive viewers should do what the bloody-minded Joe could never imagine: Walk away from the mess he has made.
  14. Lord of War
    Tells Yuri's story with the same bravado and stylishness as Scorsese at his finest, with bigger-than-life characters and situations splashing across the screen in breathtaking scale.
    • Washington Post
  15. Prelude to a Kiss
    Adapted by Craig Lucas from his Broadway play, "Prelude" is worth watching for the human interaction, and for the pleasure of watching a love story with engaging partners.
  16. Dead Man
    Bad movies have a way of writing their own epitaphs.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bitter Moon
    With its musty scenario of a dissolute middle-aged man and a clingy, devouring child-woman, 60-year-old co-writer/director/producer Polanski's film smacks of wish-fulfillment and self-justification.
  18. Loving Vincent
    Visually, it’s spectacular. Conceptually, it’s jaw-dropping to simply considering the effort that went into this. The story, however, doesn’t always hold its own.
  19. The German Doctor
    Puenzo has a knack for plumbing the heads and hearts of teenage girls. The director coaxes a mesmerizing, unmannered performance out of Bado, who is making her feature-film debut.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Young Woman and the Sea
    It’s rote, sure, but undeniably rousing.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    American Folk
    To his credit, Heinz leaves their relationship hovering in a state of unresolved potential. If only more of the movie’s scenes were like that: left to play out naturally, without the need to hammer home a theme of coming together.
  22. White Fang
    Though slow and overlong, the movie is at least scenic family fare. This easily understood yarn should appeal primarily to boys who still think girls are yucky.
  23. Begin Again
    Begin Again may not always swing, but it makes up for that in sincerity and a welcome willingness to ambush expectations.
  24. The Dying Gaul
    A small, self-contained gem of incisive writing, superb acting and rich, expressive visuals.
  25. Shopgirl
    You keep expecting Shopgirl to get funny or sad or poignant; it never does. It just starts, then it's over.
  26. Catch a Fire
    Director Phillip Noyce has made a serious movie that switches to almost popcorn entertainment.
  27. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
    The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is like the family movie equivalent of a Krabby Patty: It tastes fine and will satisfy some cravings. But it’s ultimately a product cranked out to make money and keep our consumer-driven society, much like Bikini Bottom’s, chugging along without significant disruption.
  28. Ocean's Thirteen
    Ocean's Thirteen is too complicated for its own mediocrity.
  29. Made
    There are laughs -- lots of them, too -- but at some point the source of the laughs -- Vaughan's Ricky, a yammering loose cannon -- goes from entertaining to obnoxious.
  30. Southpaw
    If Southpaw leaves you hungry, this much is also true: The "food" was good in the first place.
  31. The Human Factor
    The complications of international diplomacy have been ridiculously simplified -- a bare room with an obviously pasteboard view symbolizes Soviet duplicity. Scenes that ought to be suspenseful are put into flashbacks, so that you know in advance that the dangers were survived. [18 Apr 1980, p.19]
    • Washington Post
  32. Newlyweeds
    The wispy premise of Newlyweeds, written and directed by Shaka King, is kept afloat by its attractive, youthfully vital cast (along with some well-timed comic relief by way of some familiar faces).
  33. 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.
  34. New Order
    New Order recalls 2019’s Oscar-winning Parasite, but unlike that film’s superficial rich-people-bad/Quentin-Tarantino-good message, this one is far more grounded, both in reality and genuinely original thinking.
  35. Patty Hearst
    Though the movie suggests that Hearst was brainwashed -- or at least coerced through fear to act as she did -- it maintains a safe distance from any definitive position. In the end, we have not come any closer to an understanding of Patty Hearst. But ambiguity, in this case, isn't an indication of complexity; it's a refuge. It's an admission of failure.
  36. Toe to Toe
    Resourceful, if occasionally forced, teen melodrama.
  37. Beautiful Boy
    As the chief avatar for parental distress, Carell is sympathetic if not always entirely convincing: The toughest moments of Beautiful Boy simply seem out of his range as an actor, especially when he takes reportorial zeal one step too far by trying hard drugs himself.
  38. Torremolinos 73
    Starting out as a wacky little comedy about a mousy Spanish couple who become unwitting porn stars, Torremolinos 73 suddenly morphs, during the third act, into a far more sober and tender story about the lengths to which a man will go to give his wife what she wants.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
    It’s sprightly enough to make a lot of audiences and Warner Bros. bean-counters happy, but it also confirms that one of the most distinct visionaries in American film history has become a corporate repurposing machine. It’s not insane, and that hurts.
  40. Big Eyes
    As provocative as the questions it raises are — questions about connoisseurship vs. populism, personal expression vs. the market, and the dark arts of press, publicity and shrewd self-invention — the film’s achievements stay on the surface of those themes rather than plunging deeper.
  41. Postmen in the Mountains
    It's a love letter to the myriad ways, large and small, that mail handlers change lives the world over.
  42. Air Force One
    Takes its absurd premise and keeps itself narrowly focused, pushing its heroic cast through obstacle after obstacle.
  43. OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
    The comedy is strained to the point of lameness, most of it exaggerated clumsiness, stupidity or inappropriateness.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Gift
    So chock-full of stereotypes as to be a filmic Southern Country Safari.
  45. Black Sea
    The film’s patina of richly textured grime lends the film a gloomy, claustrophobic beauty that serves its mood, as well as its satisfyingly misanthropic message: Greed isn’t good, and most people aren’t either.
  46. The Bounty
    Like so many modern movies, The Bounty appears interesting and even spellbinding when preoccupied with settings and textures, but maddeningly obtuse when obliged to clarify basic dramatic conflicts. [17 May 1984, p.E8]
    • Washington Post
  47. Curious George
    It's pretty elementary.
  48. Careful
    Careful, the hilariously bizarre new film from Canadian director Guy Maddin, is like some lost masterpiece from a time-warped alternative dimension -- a strange artifact that time forgot.
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