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. Friday After Next
    Lacks the spirit of the previous two, and makes all those jokes about hos and even more unmentionable subjects seem like mere splashing around in the muck.
  2. The Way Home
    Simple without being slight, and profoundly moving without dipping into mawkishness.
  3. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    The film is a testament to art, life and survival like the similar but superior "Buena Vista Social Club."
  4. Interview with the Assassin
    It's just a gimmick, right down to its Washington release date.
  5. Half Past Dead
    Here, common sense flies out the window, along with the hail of bullets.
  6. The Crime of Padre Amaro
    May be morally tangled, pessimistic, lurid and foreboding, but it's also humanistic.
  7. Ararat
    Doesn't connect with its audience in the one place that matters most: the heart.
  8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    Big, dull and empty -- nobody associated with this production appears to have thought hard about storytelling.
  9. Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite
    Too infuriatingly quirky and taken with its own style to get down to telling a story.
  10. The Bread, My Sweet
    The film would be insufferable if it weren't for the total sincerity and commitment of its players.
  11. Far From Heaven
    The movie has the sense of being embalmed, or pickled. With its stilted dialogue not quite kitschy enough to be funny and not quite authentic enough to be realistic, the whole movie feels as if it's taking place in formaldehyde.
  12. 8 Mile
    There's no doubt that Eminem has the talent and presence of a star. It's just a shame that the filmmakers didn't capture his power with mad skillz of their own.
  13. Femme Fatale
    A passionate film buff's valentine to the two directors he loves most: Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma. The film that this worship has inspired is pretty amusing when the director apes Hitchcock, and pretty awful when he apes himself.
  14. Treasure Planet
    Boasts the purest of Disney raptures: It unites the generations, rather than driving them apart.
  15. Tully
    It resides in that cinematic middle ground of not-bad, not-great, just okay.
  16. Love in the Time of Money
    Manages to make sex look like no fun at all.
  17. Daughter from Danang
    Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right: You can't go home again
  18. The Santa Clause 2
    Allen, who's a natural charmer, seems to be at half-strength here.
  19. I Spy
    Nothing is real, but at the same time, nothing is fake. Nothing is, period. You don't believe a second of it for a second, so banal and predictable is it.
  20. Santa vs. the Snowman
    This is sweet-natured fun for the very young.
  21. Quai des Orfèvres [re-release]
    It is in fact a traditional mystery more reminiscent of Agatha Christie than the reigning film noir aesthetic of 1947. But it's fabulously entertaining.
  22. Frida
    Ultimately, the movie's biggest crime is its inability to convey the delicate, damaged texture of Kahlo's life, but also the triumph of her will over intimidating defeat.
  23. The Truth About Charlie
    At once listless and overheated, giddy and utterly zipless, the current incarnation lacks not just the savoir-faire of its stylish predecessor but also the sex appeal.
  24. Paid in Full
    The direction has a fluid, no-nonsense authority, and the performances by Harris, Phifer and Cam'ron seal the deal.
  25. All or Nothing
    Will probably appeal only to the most committed of Leigh fans.
  26. Roger Dodger
    Takes both its characters and the audience to the depths, but it's a journey Kidd redeems with wit and fluency and, ultimately, a deeply persistent humanism.
  27. Ghost Ship
    Doesn't orchestrate the scares with much finesse.
  28. Fidel
    Castro remains the star of the show. You can't stop watching him.
  29. Le bossu
    Great sword fights, great acting, fabulous sword fights and, of course, really cool sword fights.
  30. Naqoyqatsi
    Pretentious, ponderous and redundant -- You may not need linear narrative to create a great movie, but you do need some original ideas.
  31. Real Women Have Curves
    Handsomely shot by cinematographer Jim Denault, the film immerses the audience in Ana's world, its mosaic of colors and sounds and people, to create a vivid cinematic portrait not only of one girl but of an entire community.
  32. Abandon
    Consider the title your best advice.
  33. The Grey Zone
    Nelson certainly passes muster for sincerity but, unfortunately, his movie doesn't have the same clear-cut quality.
  34. Auto Focus
    It never answers the key question: Why should we care?
  35. The Ring
    Has its creepy moments, but also its cliches.
  36. Formula 51
    Stars Samuel L. Jackson in the worst role of his career -- one hopes.
  37. Stealing the Fire
    The documentary makes an effective and rather chilling case that there is an almost unbroken chain between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein.
  38. Comedian
    Despite amazing access to Seinfeld backstage, we don't get a peek into the real man.
  39. Brown Sugar
    Isn't much more than another conveyer-belt romantic comedy.
  40. Pokémon 4: The Movie
    A fairly straightforward, if preachy, tale about environmentalism.
  41. Knockaround Guys
    Will satisfy only those who can't tell the difference between the good, the bad and the ugly.
  42. Below
    It just never began to work for me, and the sub story behind the ghost story is far more interesting than the ghost story in front of the sub story.
  43. The Rules of Attraction
    Oddly compelling.
  44. The Transporter
    Sadly, the last 40-odd minutes are essentially one fight, pushed to the point of absurdity.
  45. Punch-Drunk Love
    The outlandish story and exaggerated colors ... swirl together to create an ethereal, sometimes sinister dreamscape.
  46. Tuck Everlasting
    Rather than sparkle and dance, it plods.
  47. White Oleander
    The worst mistake is the screenplay, which not only cuts everything into superficial pieces but fails to make authentic moments of anything. In the end, White Oleander isn't an adaptation of a novel. It's a flashy, star-splashed reduction.
  48. Bowling for Columbine
    The only thing wrong with Bowling for Columbine is Moore himself.
  49. Swept Away
    The film turns out to have nothing going for it at all, except a small charge for soul-deep Madonna haters.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
    There are entertaining little anachronisms, amusing lines and enough wacky frenzy to please the little ones. The movie clearly comes from a Christian perspective, but without being overly preachy.
  51. Heaven
    It's a mannered, precious exercise that seems to have less to do with lived moral dilemmas than with the smug piety of its makers.
  52. Welcome to Collinwood
    This ensemble comedy has its inventively funny moments. But ultimately, it gets a little too cute for its own good.
  53. Bloody Sunday
    As a terrifying example of what can happen when too many angry people are crowded into too small a space, it's a gripper.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Red Dragon
    Red Dragon is merely the distant echoes of what we liked about "Lambs."
    • 39 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Just a Kiss
    Clumsily written and numbly performed comedy of yammers.
  56. The Tuxedo
    The result isn't merely ludicrous, it's something far worse. It's drab. It's uninteresting. It squanders Chan's uniqueness; it could even be said to squander Jennifer Love Hewitt!
    • Washington Post
  57. Skins
    Its strength is the documentary-textured depiction of Native Americans in their social environment. Its weakness is a story that's a patchy combination of soap opera, low-tech magic realism and, at times, ploddingly sociological commentary.
  58. Shanghai Ghetto
    Despite the film's shortcomings, the stories are quietly moving.
  59. Biggie and Tupac
    Tends to speculation, conspiracy theories or, at best, circumstantial evidence.
  60. The Man from Elysian Fields
    From the get-go, the story remains bogged down in its rather limited morass.
  61. Sweet Home Alabama
    At the movie's thoroughly expected conclusion, a visual joke has a bedraggled cat licking at the icing on a wedding cake, but it's really Melanie who gets to have it and eat it, too.
    • Washington Post
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Moonlight Mile
    It's a combination of good story, nice moments and appealing texture.
  63. The Trials of Henry Kissinger
    Damning legal brief against the former secretary of state.
  64. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
    This movie pulls out so many bad-action-movie cliches, you wonder if this is a how-not-to primer.
  65. The Four Feathers
    The movie's deeper problem and its primary disappointment: its unwillingness to deal directly with the issue of colonialism.
  66. The Banger Sisters
    From opening to closing credits, there isn't a single genuine moment -- as phony as a dime bag of oregano.
  67. Snipes
    Both a snore and utter tripe.
  68. The Ignorant Fairies
    A movie that grows better by the minute.
  69. 8 Women
    A gorgeous, if disjointed, spectacle, made endurable – if not entirely comprehensible – by its eye-popping cast.
  70. Secretary
    In a movie as unrewarding as this, there's really only one burning question: When does the spanking begin?
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