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. Nobody Knows
    The kids in Nobody Knows are most decidedly not crazy, and we come to care for them to an almost excruciating degree.
  2. The Wedding Date
    Amusing premise, not-so-amusing execution.
  3. The Nomi Song
    There remains a maddening emptiness where the film's ostensible subject should be.
  4. Rory O'Shea Was Here
    If there's such a thing as freedom for everyone, Rory's determined to give the prospect its most grueling road test.
  5. Assisted Living
    This finale turns Assisted Living from fascinating experimental film into something finer.
  6. Travelers and Magicians
    To watch this movie is to be moved not only by an affecting, warmly spirited yarn, but also by the wisdom that seems to waft to us directly from those snow-capped peaks.
  7. Alone in the Dark
    Supremely idiotic.
  8. Hide and Seek
    Jigh class briefly gives way to high camp, which then itself dissipates to an anticlimactic thud.
  9. Fascination
    It plays like a soft-core-porn potboiler left over from the 1970s about a hot vampire chick.
  10. Lost Embrace
    Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman's shaky-camera, cinema-verite-style dramedy meanders in charming fashion.
  11. Are We There Yet?
    The humor's a tad too raunchy for the kids, and the predictable plot won't win over any of the parents.
  12. Head-On
    Has its share of surprises, especially in the performances of its two main players.
  13. Monsieur N.
    In the end Monsieur N. could use a little less cloak-and-dagger and more of what made "The Emperor's New Clothes" work, i.e., heart.
  14. Assault on Precinct 13
    Still breaks the first and only commandment of remakes: Thou shall at the very least do justice to the original, or thou shall not be made at all.
  15. Machuca
    Engaging entertainment and a great work of art.
  16. Coach Carter
    Covers every cliche in the Hollywood sports movie playbook, but it also makes the routine much more enjoyable than you'd expect.
  17. Elektra
    What it suffers from most is the sense of offhand storytelling that lies halfway between creative laziness and cost-cutting sloppiness.
  18. Racing Stripes
    Although this film about a zebra who aspires to win horse races has a marvelous premise, it slows to a mediocre canter right out of the starting gate.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Chorus
    Might have gone down as an endearing fable, if only the route to its finale had been less cliched.
  20. Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
    An overture to the subject rather than a profound study.
  21. White Noise
    Hampered by Niall Johnson's script, which is often confusing, muddy and ultimately cliche-ridden.
  22. Sky Blue
    Unfortunately, the more traditionally drawn 2-D human characters are as flat, in every sense of the word, as can be.
  23. A Love Song for Bobby Long
    Traffics in nearly every trite cliche of the "colorful" South one can think of, from its pseudo-Gothic aesthetic to its overripe dialogue.
  24. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
    It grinds on and on without mercy. You're in the cross hairs. There is no escape. Where is that Secret Service when you need it?
  25. The Merchant of Venice
    As cinematic storytelling, it works.
  26. In Good Company
    Good points aside, In Good Company is a bland, occasionally phlegmatic pastiche of cliches and dull encounters.
  27. Fat Albert
    Seems like a pretty cool movie -- at least, for a remake of a 1970s Saturday morning TV show.
  28. The Woodsman
    Not to be missed, if only for an unforgettable leading performance by Kevin Bacon.
  29. In the Realms of the Unreal
    The path taken by the film is somewhat labyrinthine and obscure, but it offers enough rewards to counterbalance its frustrations.
  30. The Phantom of the Opera
    Isn't just for music fans. It's more accessible than that, thanks to Joel Schumacher's bright direction and a few storytelling embellishments.
  31. Meet the Fockers
    Don't even rent the DVD, it'll only encourage them.
  32. Hotel Rwanda
    It sweeps over you with blunt, unequivocal conviction.
  33. Imaginary Heroes
    Never manages to achieve the balance between authenticity and eccentricity.
  34. Beyond the Sea
    This vainglorious biopic about Bobby Darin is really about what the '60s pop singer and actor means to Kevin Spacey.
  35. Flight of the Phoenix
    This is high-carb filmmaking at its finest. When it's all over, you'll have a knot in your stomach.
  36. The Sea Inside
    I remained strangely dry-eyed up to the final shot.
  37. Spanglish
    So rancid is Brooks's fury that it's clouded his judgment, so that each of his main characters is a stereotype of the most broad-brush, malodorous nature.
  38. The Aviator
    We may enjoy watching the spectacles, but we don't much care for, or even have a feeling for, the guy in the cockpit.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    A gem of a movie, all its adversity and wickedness a backdrop for a story about the remarkable resilience of children
  40. Million Dollar Baby
    The heart of Million Dollar Baby lies in the core relationships among Frankie, Maggie and Scrap, friendships so pure, so genuine, so authentic that it takes actors of Eastwood's, Swank's and Freeman's caliber to sell them in this otherwise cynical world.
  41. Ocean's Twelve
    About halfway through you'll get an incredible hunger to see a movie.
  42. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    Hovers frustratingly somewhere between charming and only mildly amusing.
  43. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
    Doesn't just bring you to the edge of the hopeless zone, it takes you right into its homes where the children play.
  44. Blade: Trinity
    If ever there was a case for quitting while you're behind, this "Blade" is it -- ready to be buried in a vat of garlic.
  45. House of Flying Daggers
    The sheer joy of letting go as a tale overwhelms your senses and drives the known world away -- that's the story.
  46. After Midnight
    So taken with its own love of cinema, it forgets to lead you down the necessary dramaturgical path to make you fall in love, too.
  47. The Green Butchers
    It's the sick humor that's most appealing about this odd little Danish film.
  48. The Aryan Couple
    The whole thing is coarse and vulgar, as it hides its low fascinations behind a scrim of Holocaust piety until it becomes pure kitsch.
  49. Closer
    Everything is tearful confessions, angry interrogations and breakups. But there's nothing underneath.
  50. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
    Stone's film is a case study in cultural analysis that aims at too much and achieves too little.
  51. A Very Long Engagement
    Engagement simply disappears inside its own enormous, intricate and ambitious design.
  52. Notre musique
    A film about war and reconciliation, is deeply Christian, a study in humility and the moral uncertainty at the core of the Christian message.
  53. Christmas with the Kranks
    Everyone in the film is mean-spirited, manipulative and repulsive, and I'm only talking about the women! The men are much worse, particularly Dan Aykroyd.
  54. Alexander
    Like every other second of more than 10,000 seconds in Alexander, it doesn't engage in the least.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fear and Trembling
    This quietly odd and hilarious tale is a bit like a Japanese version of the popular BBC comedy series "The Office" or perhaps the "Dilbert" comic strip at its peak.
  56. Days of Being Wild (re-release)
    Its themes of passion, heartbreak and the inexorable passage of time are eternal.
  57. National Treasure
    Rated PG, which must stand for "particularly gullible," it's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for people who slept through American history class.
  58. Bad Education
    To watch Bad Education is to revel, along with Almodovar, in the power of cinema to take us on journeys of breathtaking mystery and dimension and beauty.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
    An amusing enough romp through his familiar undersea universe.
  60. After the Sunset
    The true crime is the eight bucks the filmmakers want to steal from you. Best advice: Don't let them get away with it.
  61. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
    One singularly unbecoming character, who should, by rights, forever remain a "singleton."
  62. Kinsey
    For all its explosive material, this is a fairly straightforward telling.
  63. Finding Neverland
    You're expected to weep, and perhaps you will weep. But if you do, it's not likely that you'll respect yourself in the morning.
  64. The Polar Express
    A truly satisfying holiday picture, the kind everyone can enjoy.
  65. Fade to Black
    A spectacular concert documentary that also gives some fascinating insights into the making of "The Black Album."
  66. Brother to Brother
    Works far better as an idea than its execution; this has to do with the difficulties of making profound statements with limited budgets and technology, and also grappling with the still-growing sensibilities of an emerging writer.
  67. Cachorro
    Has a refreshingly original attitude.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Alfie
    Occasionally amusing, technically lovely but ultimately dated.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Incredibles
    The movie is full of wonderful little touches: Syndrome, the bad guy, is drawn to remind viewers of "Heat Miser" from the classic Christmas cartoon "The Year Without a Santa Claus."
  70. Voices of Iraq
    Fairly fascinating little documentary.
    • Washington Post
  71. Enduring Love
    Although this script starts off with great zest, it's ultimately a disappointment.
  72. Birth
    Too highbrow for the multiplex and too literal for the hipsters, it's unsatisfying both as gothic camp and serious cinema.
  73. Saw
    But humans who live above ground, including horror fans, will find themselves only fitfully entertained and more consistently appalled.
  74. Ray
    It is to the film's credit -- and Foxx's -- that we are able to see, behind the flash and fury, a man who didn't know how to love, and was so much the lonelier for it.
  75. Sideways
    There's not a false note here, and the entire supporting cast -- is uniformly excellent.
  76. Undertow
    It's just sort of trying.
  77. Hearts and Minds (re-release)
    Davis, who won an Oscar for Best Documentary, may not have agreed with presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon on the war, but he heeded Johnson's call to fight for hearts and minds. His aim was dead on target.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lightning in a Bottle
    The movie manages to educate without losing steam.
  79. Postmen in the Mountains
    It's a love letter to the myriad ways, large and small, that mail handlers change lives the world over.
  80. The Machinist
    Psychological suspense at its finest.
  81. The Grudge
    It's effectively frightening. It's just not the kind of frightening that stays with you very long, unless of course someone decides to make the same movie . . . yet again.
  82. Surviving Christmas
    Absolutely awesome in its relentless mediocrity.
  83. Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain... Begins to Die
    There are some very thought-provoking points, and the movie deserves a balanced listening-to.
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