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. Spirited Away
    Old myths and wonder tales spun afresh.
  2. Ciao America
    Its heart is vaguely in the right place.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Experiment
    The film's hysterically pitched action overshadows its more subtle psychological points.
  4. Quitting
    Unfortunately, the experience of actually watching the movie is less compelling than the circumstances of its making.
  5. Igby Goes Down
    A dead-on sense of how rich kids live and talk today, a sense of the melancholy of a dysfunctional family, and some great dark laughs.
  6. Barbershop
    Doesn't always cut it -- and, somewhat embarrassingly, boom mikes hover on screen so frequently they deserve co-billing -- but it's a likable venture that just misses being a lovable one.
  7. Alias Betty
    The good news might be that Huppert wasn't available for Alias Betty, but the bad news is that it didn't stop France from exporting yet one more cold, pretentious, thoroughly dislikable study in sociopathy.
  8. Stealing Harvard
    Here's the best thing about Stealing Harvard: A dog bites Green in the crotch for a really long time. Priceless.
  9. City by the Sea
    Yields the same sort of archetype and the usual results: De Niro's workmanlike in a dismayingly familiar role.
  10. In Praise of Love
    Maybe the easiest thing would be to skip the movie altogether. Godard has created such a hermetic, uncompromising world that only the hardiest cinematic spelunkers are likely to appreciate its depths.
  11. Mad Love
    A bodice-ripper for intellectuals.
  12. FeardotCom
    A depraved, incoherent, instantly disposable piece of hackery.
  13. Red Satin
    Although the movie is slow-going at first, it gradually awakens, like Lilia. And then it dances.
  14. Undisputed
    Even by its own please-the-mob standards, this movie is lacking.
  15. Serving Sara
    As a child, I thought pure hell meant eternal agony in the flames of Satan. Now I know it's looking down at your watch and realizing Serving Sara isn't even halfway through.
  16. The Isle
    "Spring, Summer" fans should only have their appreciation of that film expanded by seeing this rougher take on similar themes.
  17. S1m0ne
    Each plot twist trumps its predecessor into ludicrousness.
  18. One Hour Photo
    Intense and absorbing experience.
  19. Possession
    How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
  20. Mostly Martha
    A sweet, even delectable diversion from the more explosive cinematic fare of the season.
  21. Blue Crush
    A big, sexy, sun-splashed thrill ride, is what a summer movie ought to be: not totally mindless, but more interested in jangling your nerves than engaging your brain.
  22. I'm Going Home
    Viewers who come to this delicate creation with expectations of just another quaint or sad story are in for a surprise.
  23. Secret Ballot
    A psychic journey deep into the very fabric of Iranian (and by extension, all) life.
  24. xXx
    Essentially a dumb guy's day in Heaven. The movie's retrofitted with stunts, fights, explosions, drugs, babes and cars -- not necessarily in that order.
  25. 24 Hour Party People
    The manic swirl of characters (most speaking in thick Northern accents that are sometimes muffled and incomprehensible) may leave you exhausted and confused.
  26. 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.
  27. Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
    One overly busy (not to mention shopworn) story, which regurgitates everything from H.G. Wells's "The Island of Dr. Moreau" to the herky-jerky monsters of Ray Harryhausen to James Bond to "The Mummy."
  28. Caravaggio
    Less a movie than an act of vandalism.
  29. The Good Girl
    It's tough, astringent, darkly funny and . . . well, it's also generic, untidy, condescending and mild of impact rather than stunning.
  30. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
    Lawrence's material runs between mediocre and offensive, and then he rescues it with his physical humor. He's at his best when he lets his face or inflection do the talking.
  31. Full Frontal
    The only way a self-absorbed treatise like this can get any kind of audience (not to mention distribution) is to cast famous people in it.
  32. One Last Kiss
    It's not Fellini, by any means, but it's lively. Never stops moving, even though it crashes into cliches along the way.
  33. Signs
    Even though he shows some master touches throughout the movie, Shyamalan flits a little too lightly across the surface, like a pond skater.
  34. Gaza Strip
    Its one-sidedness flirts with propaganda.
  35. Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    Every moment of the way, there is a delectable sense of subtle menace and, at the center of it all, Huppert's haunting expression, part sphinx, part grace and maybe part scary.
  36. The Kid Stays in the Picture
    Has to be one of the must-see films for any student of Hollywood fame and infamy.
  37. Swimming
    Absolutely refuse to make predictable patterns in the sand. Instead, they set their characters loose.
  38. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
    The unexpected drama captured puts I Am Trying to Break Your Heart in the good company, if not quite the league, of "Let It Be" and "Gimme Shelter."
  39. The Country Bears
    If you're looking for some good family interspecies entertainment, take the little ones to see "Stuart Little 2" again; in the meantime, you might want to crawl into your cave and sleep through this one.
  40. Who Is Cletis Tout?
    Cletis Tout is both in love with and able to laugh at the conventions it adopts, which is exactly where it goes wrong. It's just a little too self-satisfied.
  41. Austin Powers in Goldmember
    Mike Myers unleashes (or seems to unleash) the entire contents of his comic mind.
  42. Happy Times
    The film's maudlin focus on the young woman's infirmity and her naive dreams play like the worst kind of Hollywood heart-string plucking.
  43. K-19: The Widowmaker
    Despite drawing from one of the most powerful and true stories from the Cold War, K-19 is only moderately moving.
  44. Stuart Little 2
    It's a pleasant experience. But that's what it is: a sequel that replays every aspect of the original movie.
  45. Tadpole
    Doesn't need the passage of time to become a classic. It's one already.
  46. Eight Legged Freaks
    The actual movie is the cinematic equivalent of cheap Chinese egg rolls: all flour and cabbage shreds, maybe half a nibble of pork.
  47. My Wife Is an Actress
    Attal, who resembles a young Robert De Niro, seems as addled as a director as his character is as a husband, throwing all manner of distractions onto the screen in order to divert the audience.
  48. The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
    When I say this movie's a charm, I'm really talking about Irwin.
  49. Reign of Fire
    A disaster of a drama, saved only by its winged assailants. You know a picture's in trouble when you find yourself rooting for humankind to lose.
  50. Sex and Lucia
    It's still pretty darn good, despite its smarty-pants aura.
  51. Never Again
    A meet-cute whimsy set among divorced fifty-somethings in New York, it blunders on toward oblivion, excruciatingly unfunny and pitifully unromantic.
  52. Road to Perdition
    There's something impressive and yet lacking about everything.
  53. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
    For the first time in 30 years, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars appear on the movie screen as Pennebaker intended. It's almost worth the wait.
  54. Me Without You
    Michelle Williams turns in a performance that is seamless, canny and artistically mature.
  55. Read My Lips
    Fascinating and transgressive love story.
  56. Like Mike
    The frightening myths about adoption that run through Like Mike make even its happiest endings a little bit creepy.
  57. Men in Black II
    Smith and Jones seem like superannuated company men: They're going through the motions, but the zip is gone.
  58. Songs from the Second Floor
    Want to see something strange, funny, twisted, brilliant and macabre? Sure you do.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Powerpuff Girls
    Offers cleverness and charm that are hard to come by in the summertime multiplex.
  60. Lovely & Amazing
    Warmhearted and slightly edgy seriocomedy, these sisters experience some pretty entertaining ups and downs. Entertaining, that is, for people who appreciate irony.
  61. The Cockettes
    An absorbing primer in one of the most fascinating chapters in American social history.
  62. Notorious C.H.O.
    A raunchy and frequently hilarious follow-up to the gifted Korean American stand-up's "I'm the One That I Want."
  63. Hey Arnold! The Movie
    Neither funny nor suspenseful nor particularly well drawn.
  64. Pumpkin
    A brain and a heart, two things that, along with a good story, believable characters and anything resembling style or flair, Pumpkin is fatally missing.
  65. Mr. Deeds
    The projectors in the theater practically shut down with boredom.
  66. Juwanna Mann
    If this sounds like "Tootsie" with a ball, well, it is. Screenwriter Bradley Allenstein should be hauled up in writer's court for his shameless cribbing of that far superior comedy. Someone call a foul.
  67. Sunshine State
    Part of the joy of watching a John Sayles film is to see how he knits together so many people and stories into a densely layered, always absorbing whole.
  68. Lilo & Stitch
    Fresh and rainbowy as a midday Hawaiian sun shower.
  69. Minority Report
    Spielberg's dark side may not be where everyone wants to live, but it's somehow encouraging to know that he has one.
  70. The Emperor's New Clothes
    Charming but slight.
  71. Windtalkers
    For all this potential, and the appealing presence of Nicolas Cage and newcomer Adam Beach, Windtalkers remains almost obstinately flat.
  72. Scooby-Doo
    The gratuitous vulgarity is just one more reason that Scooby-Doo should never have left the pound.
  73. The Bourne Identity
    As for Damon, this may not be a performance so much as an appearance. But he cares so utterly, it works.
  74. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    Sharp, lively, funny and ultimately sobering film.
  75. Bad Company
    A longwinded, predictable scenario.
  76. Cherish
    This is a downbeat, indulgent and self-consciously quirky little movie.
  77. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    What is perhaps most disappointing about this ham-handed film, though, particularly since it was directed by the screenwriter of the righteously raging "Thelma and Louise," is its crypto-misogyny.
  78. The Sum of All Fears
    Surprisingly uninvolving, the least effective of Neufeld's Clancy-based movies. Surely he was not looking for this kind of film: one that bombs literally and figuratively.
  79. Undercover Brother
    Some of it is funny in a Zucker brothers slapstick way. And as the Man's geeky lieutenant, Chris Kattan has some amusingly kooky business. But there's not enough to sustain the comedy. Ultimately, the movie's short running time becomes its finest quality.
  80. Elling
    Charming but slight comedy.
  81. Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky
    Those who are only mildly curious, I fear, will be put to sleep or bewildered by the artsy and often pointless visuals.
  82. CQ
    A charming, spirited movie for cinephiles, or those who aspire to be. It's the kind of movie every kid in film school wanted to make but didn't have the father to produce.
  83. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    In this movie, only one thing is certain: No one remains the same.
  84. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
    The movie's big action scenes, at times, make you forget you're even watching animation. There's an in-your-face sequence involving a runaway, crashing train that will make you squirm in your seat trying to get out of the way.
  85. Enough
    In terms of actual social conscience, the movie gets a demagogic, rabble-rousing F. It also gets a failed grade for honest writing.
  86. Insomnia
    In this film, Nolan seems overwhelmed by the budget, the egos of the stars, the thinness of the script, and he doesn't impose much personality on the picture. It's all Pacino.
  87. The Importance of Being Earnest
    The real importance of "Earnest" is the thrill of brilliant repartee. And as we laugh, an amazing thing happens: Oscar Wilde comes alive.
  88. Late Marriage
    Late Marriage is a closely observed, somewhat funny, ultimately very sad movie.
  89. About a Boy
    Hilarious, touching and wonderfully dyspeptic.
  90. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
    It's too long, it's too dull, it's too lame.
  91. The Lady and the Duke
    The effect, in this French period drama, is something like a moving pop-up book, in which characters seem to be two-dimensional cardboard cutouts come to life.
  92. Unfaithful
    In the end, Unfaithful leaves you dispirited and grumpy: All that money spent, all that talent wasted, all that time gone forever, and for what? It's an ill movie that bloweth no man to good.
  93. The New Guy
    A particularly loathsome piece of cultural detritus, a trashy, crass piece of work that panders to the anxieties and desires of adolescents without a scintilla of sympathy or coherence.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mystic Masseur
    A soft-focused, wistful big-screen art film.
  95. ABC Africa
    This slight but insinuating documentary by Abbas Kiarostami...will do nothing to advance or detract from the reputation of the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker.
  96. Hollywood Ending
    It feels old, tired and given-up-on, maybe three drafts shy of minimal production level.
  97. Spider-Man
    With disarmingly entertaining movies like this, dare I say, who needs big bad superhero movies?
  98. Sade
    Although the movie adheres more closely to history than "Quills," it lacks dramatic punch and depth.
  99. For da Love of Money
    For da love of God, spare me.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dogtown and Z-Boys
    Using home movies, photos, a brilliant soundtrack and candid, articulate interviews, director Stacy Peralta (one of the original Z-boys) details the birth of a pop culture phenomenon.
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