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. The Ultimate Gift
    There's nothing wrong with the moral of The Ultimate Gift's story; in fact there's everything right about it. But director Michael O. Sajbel too often succumbs to movie-of-the-week sentimentality and starchy pacing. Still, Breslin's captivating performance reminds you why she was recently nominated for an Oscar.
  2. Species
    Director Roger Donaldson may have started out aiming for intentional thrills, but ends up with unintentional comedy as his characters do and say the darndest things.
  3. Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
    As alternate history and a showcase for a fine Neeson characterization, “Mark Felt” offers an intriguing if incomplete view of a man who remains inscrutable, 40 years after the fact.
  4. An Unfinished Life
    This unusual convergence of stars doesn't amount to much.
  5. Imagine Me & You
    Imagine settles disappointingly for rom-com cliches. It doesn't even bother to explore its own premise.
  6. Blood Done Sign My Name
    Despite its earnestness and valuable lessons, however, "Blood" feels a little like preaching to the choir.
  7. Stalingrad
    As quickly as the technical elements pull the audience in, the plot pushes us away.
  8. Sold
    Sold is maudlin in a way that makes its audience, paradoxically, feel good, albeit superficially. A story of human trafficking should move us on a deeper, more uncomfortable level.
  9. The Children of Huang Shi
    The best thing about "Children" is the cinematography by Zhao Xiaoding ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which is so distracting because it so out-classes the rest of the movie.
  10. Open Season
    With a slick visual style similar to "Monster House", Open Season trots out tropes that recent animated classics have done with more wit and smarts.
  11. Lola Versus
    Gerwig remains one of the most captivating new stars to hit the big screen, but she's still looking for a movie that deserves her.
  12. The Promise
    Attempting to make an atrocity palatable to a mainstream audience, The Promise delivers the history, but undercuts its impact.
  13. Crazy Like a Fox
    Mary McDonnell, as Nat's patient wife, provides too-brief clarity as Nat goes off the rails, finally taking the movie with him.
  14. Preaching to the Choir
    A religious feel-good message, first and foremost. As for drama, well, it's a distant second. For the right audience, however, this reversal of priorities will work just fine.
  15. Me, Myself & Irene
    If you choose to see this puerile tripe, check your dignity at the door.
  16. Zhou Yu de huo che
    Less a tale of mysterious, tragic love than a three-way Harlequin romance.
  17. My Kingdom
    Director Gao Xiaosong doesn't do anything surprising with this melodramatic material, but the movie boasts sumptuous costumes and several nifty action sequences.
  18. CB4
    As with any band movie, this is a moral, rise-and-fall tale. Rock must learn he's a regular guy, not a nasty poseur. Like Spinal Tap, the movie basically peters out, tying up its narrative loose ends. But for the laughs you get, it's a small price to pay.
  19. Thérèse
    With the exception of one heartbreaking and well-acted scene towards the end of the movie, the atmosphere is oppressive and the characters act as if their personalities have been shot with novocaine.
  20. Despicable Me 3
    Despicable Me 3 disappoints, if only mildly, not because it’s bad, but because it only aspires to be good enough.
  21. Running Scared
    Running Scared, ha. They ought to call this police story "Re-Running Scared." It's as cliche- riddled as Scarface's limo. [27 June 1986, p.29]
    • Washington Post
  22. The Chaperone
    Yet despite the stirring performance at its heart, the movie is ultimately too restricted by its own dramatic conventions, and it only seldom comes to life.
  23. Nine
    It's a film within a film about a film within a film, and seems to lose layers of authenticity with each iteration, finally becoming a profoundly alienating experience.
  24. Oh, God! You Devil
    The movie is full of half-witted Hollywood satire (the Devil's an agent -- get it?), lame wordplay, and easy moralism about family being more important than career blah blah blah. [09 Nov 1984, p.F8]
    • Washington Post
  25. The Man in the Iron Mask
    The Three Musketeers, a rusty trio of middle-aged retirees, have all but changed their motto from "All for one and one for all" to "I have fallen and I can't get up" in this less-than-rollicking adaptation.
  26. 30 Minutes or Less
    Akin to watching a ring-tested champion punch far below his weight. What a comedown.
  27. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
    What it lacks in originality it makes up for with a streamlined story, a sharp pace — there isn’t a superfluous moment or a wasted scene — and quips galore.
  28. Soul Men
    Misbegotten buddy-bonding comedy of errors.
  29. Silent House
    It will make you jump, to be sure, and your heart to beat a little bit faster. But what's truly scariest about it takes place not in the body, but in the mind.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Quick and the Dead
    The Quick and the Dead is made bearable by director Sam Raimi, who bombards us with frenetic editing, crazy-angle shots and enjoyably cartoonish cliches. But all the stylistic sleight of hand in the world can't hide the central problem: The star of the show is more Dead than Quick.
  31. The Best of Enemies
    The Best of Enemies is perhaps the first account of the United States’s traumatic racial history that could be adapted into a sitcom.
  32. Hart's War
    Follows all these rules, which is why you'll get the enjoyable basic minimum. But not a whit more.
  33. Dr. Dolittle 2
    Best news: over in 87 minutes.
  34. The Emperor's Club
    It's a simpering, ineffective ersatz-drama, so simple-minded and unrealistic and so full of fussy stupidity, it exiles you.
  35. K-PAX
    Entertaining for so long it's a downer to sit through the dumbed-down finale.
  36. Jeepers Creepers
    After introducing a provocative opening, the movie settles in for some pretty cheap scare effects, as well as by-the-numbers computer graphic imagery for the actual marauder.
  37. The Price of Milk
    Like nothing else that's played in months.
  38. The Mechanic
    Despite a certain emotional chill, what holds this Mechanic together is - no surprise - the core Carlino story.
  39. Taps
    An opportunity for an unusual film about teen-agers was thrown away, in Taps, in favor of what its own screenplay characterizes as a cinematic stereotype. [18 Dec 1981, p.21]
    • Washington Post
  40. Gold
    The most ironic thing about Gold is this: For all its efforts, the movie seems to know it’s sitting on a gold mine of a backstory, but it just can’t figure out how to get the stuff out of the ground.
  41. Griff the Invisible
    Here's a better title for Griff the Invisible, a well-meaning but unengaging love story about two 20-something misfits: "Griff the Implausible."
  42. 7 Days in Entebbe
    The dance itself makes a much more powerful, and ultimately poetic, point. On the most superficial level, it serves as a blunt metaphor for the elaborate choreography of the rescue operation, which entailed its own intense rehearsals, undertaken in a scale mock-up of the Entebbe airport that had been re-created back in Israel.
  43. The Tomorrow Man
    The movie’s ending could be called a twist. But it’s really more of a belly flop.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Blind Date
    There are no sparks in Blind Date. And the script, written by Dale Launer (Ruthless People), is so devoid of laughs it's impossible to understand why Willis chose it for his first film outing. [02 Apr 1987, p.B11]
    • Washington Post
  45. The Front Room
    Despite what the singer/actress says, there’s not much to scream, let alone clap, about here.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
    Maybe there’s an epic novel in his head, but what [Costner's] given us with “Chapter 1” is a table of contents instead.
  47. Rio 2
    The movie feels at once too busy and too derivative. That’s no easy feat, but it’s also one sequel-makers probably shouldn’t aspire to.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Killing Zoe
    There have to be better ways of wasting money and killing time than the fashionable nihilism of Killing Zoe.
  49. Live by Night
    The visual and performative elements are polished enough in Live by Night, but it lacks any sense of urgency.
  50. The Beanie Bubble
    The power of the story, such as it is, is not enhanced by the nonlinear narrative structure. In fact, it makes it needlessly confusing.
  51. Scary Movie 3
    It's outrageous. It's obnoxious. It's offensive. And yes, it's also really, really, really funny. Or, at least, it is for the first 40 minutes or so.
  52. Oldboy
    In general, Lee directs with less visual verve than Park. Anchored by Brolin, who brings an almost simian physicality to his portrayal, this Oldboy feels simultaneously less showy, less nightmarish and less epic than the original.
  53. Class Act
    Unfortunately, director Randall Miller can't put an original spin on the familiar material; he just doesn't have the offbeat comic gifts that the Hudlin brothers brought to the rap duo's first film outing in House Party.
  54. Heartburn
    Heartburn is a masterpiece, a collaboration of mature artists at the peak of their craft, and something of a summing up for Mike Nichols, who, more successfully than any other American director, has staked out the terrain where men and women meet as his own. Here it is -- a movie that is seriously funny.
  55. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
    Chase presides amiably over this uneven but affable slapstick comedy.
  56. Inkheart
    For the young people in its demographic wheelhouse, Inkheart packs a welcome amount of entertainment value, creating a genuinely original world of enchantment.
  57. Return to Never Land
    Even if you tap only a little of the magic of "Peter Pan," you'll come away with some pixie dust.
  58. Scotland, Pa.
    It's simple, sizzly and very funny.
  59. Rosenstrasse
    An extraordinary collective act of moral and physical courage is relegated to a backdrop for a mushy, synthetic family melodrama.
  60. Pitch Black
    You are allowed to come up with a monster we haven't seen before.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
    Less weird than "Spellbound" and less fun than your average episode of "America's Top Model," Ten9Eight shoots for the moon, but scans like the background noise at a philanthropic retreat.
  62. Cake
    There’s no doubt that Aniston deserves more roles like this one but, with luck, in less maudlin, more surprising movies.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 37 Reviewed by
      Ty Burr
    The Instigators
    If you’re already a subscriber to Apple TV Plus and have absolutely nothing else to do, “The Instigators” is worth a look.
  64. Angel-A
    Angel-A is counterfeit art-house chic writ large -- a French film that fails to produce the ineffable charms of the yesteryear movies it brazenly imitates.
  65. Run, Fatboy, Run
    Rather like the faltering way Dennis runs the race, Pegg the performer insists that we keep watching, ever hopeful for a decent gag. And we spend most of our time thinking back to movies that better showcased his talents, such as "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."
  66. Scoop
    This gives nobody, least of all me, any pleasure, but a truth must be faced: Scoop is the worst movie Woody Allen has ever made.
  67. The Exorcist III
    It is unsparing when it comes to gruesome descriptions and ominous characters, but it's got more giggles than goose bumps. The Exorcist III isn't about to scare anybody.
  68. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
    As an action film, it is intense and gripping. As a drama, it is bombastic and unsubtle.
  69. Gung Ho
    Howard entices us into overlooking the film's faults with some genuinely amusing scenes, particularly those featuring Japanese-American Gedde Watanabe as a beleaguered Assan executive who doesn't fit the corporate mold. [14 Mar 1986, p.27]
    • Washington Post
  70. Less Than Zero
    Less Than Zero, an aptly titled tale of snooty California drug snorters, is dumber and duller than primordial ooze. It's one of those silly speed-bumps-in-the-fast-lane laments, though it does have a significant message: Get off the freeway or take the last exit ramp to the Betty Ford Clinic in the sky.
  71. Jennifer 8
    British writer-director Bruce Robinson, who won kudos for his screenplay "The Killing Fields" and his novel adaptation "Withnail & I" doesn't have a clue when it comes to this populist genre. What he has are cliches.
  72. A Lot Like Love
    It starts with a bang and ends with a whimper.
  73. Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter)
    The picture is not a social satire. It’s a mess.
  74. Golda
    The film does have its moments, mostly involving the relationship between Meir and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, nicely played by Liev Schreiber, whose character engages in delicate negotiations with her over a bowl of borscht, speaking in a seductive, diplomatic rumble.
  75. Titan A.E.
    It continually crashes and burns on its own banality.
  76. The Banger Sisters
    From opening to closing credits, there isn't a single genuine moment -- as phony as a dime bag of oregano.
  77. Charlotte Gray
    Those who do go with the fantasy are probably hopeless romantics.
  78. Kingdom Come
    You're hard-pressed to dislike the film.
  79. Brothers in Arms
    Will this film do Kerry any good, or the Swifties any harm? My bet is: Not a bit, one way or the other.
  80. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
    Two-hour exercise in chaotic action and coarse, annoyingly coy sexuality.
  81. Remember the Titans
    So smug and so proud of itself, and you can tell that everybody involved conceives of it as a civics lesson instead of a story, that they squeeze all the life out of it.
  82. The Predator
    In his effort to inject fresh blood into this gory franchise, which has already seen four sequels (including two “Alien” crossovers), the filmmaker can’t seem to summon up that old Black magic.
  83. We're No Angels
    This We're No Angels isn't funny and it isn't smart -- it's a dumb show, almost literally, in fact. So few lines have been written for these actors that you almost believe that the script intentionally parodies their renowned inarticulateness.
  84. Outland
    The conventions that worked for High Noon break down in the high-tech atmosphere of Outland and the story seems trite and dinky. [23 May 1981, p.C6]
    • Washington Post
  85. We the Party
    With the raunch of "American Pie" and the heart of an after-school special, the comedy turns out to be a lot less than the sum of its parts.
  86. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II
    Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II may be derivative, but for the most part it's clever enough to trade on its sources with humor and class. It's "Peggy Sue Lives on Elm Street," with dollops of "Carrie," "The Exorcist" and a half dozen other genre stalwarts.
  87. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
    This sequel is just as profligate as its 2009 predecessor with explosions, anachronisms and quick cuts. But the dialogue is a little sharper, and Holmes gets a worthy opponent in Professor Moriarty.
  88. Switch
    If it's subtle, insightful satire you're after, don't look to this coarse farce. It's simply more vulgar, insidiously homophobic Victor/Victoriana from the sexually confused writer-director.
  89. The Protégé
    The Protege may not rise to the level of art, but like Anna herself, it does demonstrate a mastery of a certain set of skills, however limited.
  90. Timecop
    Timecop is good dumb fun, but it's likely to receive the same sentence most Van Damme projects do: a few weeks in movie theaters and eternity on video store shelves and cable television.
  91. The Pick-up Artist
    The movie's ending is overly sentimental -- something I never thought I'd see in a Toback movie. What it delivers is a message about commitment -- and it's pretty much of a crock. You don't feel that Toback's heart is in it either, especially as an explanation for Jack's behavior. It's too pat a resolution.
  92. The Real Blonde
    Never manages to make its characters anything other than cartoons.
  93. King of the Mountain
    Harry Hamlin remains in a depressing, narcissistic low gear in King of the Mountain. Part of the problem is a blah role: Steve is not a protagonist of many words, or even many revealing looks. [06 May 1981, p.E7]
    • Washington Post
  94. My First Mister
    The movie is fussy and organized rather than moving. It follows a pattern so precisely, it's as if Lahti thought points would be taken off if she colored outside the lines.
  95. Bush's Brain
    They succeed in presenting a compelling series of dots, to use the current parlance, but they don't succeed in connecting them.
  96. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie
    At its best, it's joyful, uplifting and even, occasionally, moving. And at its worst, it's a propaganda piece designed to win our undying loyalty to a TV show/cash cow that advocates for the little guy even though it's clearly turned into a diva.
  97. Ted 2
    As he proved with his misbegotten A Million Ways to Die in the West, MacFarlane is essentially a guy who’s gotten appallingly lucky on television. He exhibits zero proficiency in cinematic staging and no sense of pace.
  98. Albino Alligator
    A character study with underdeveloped characters.
  99. The Theory of Flight
    The Theory of Flight, an unlikely marriage of malady movie and romantic comedy, never quite soars, but beats its wings with the desperate tenacity of a wounded butterfly. Alas, the proportion of lift to drag isn't quite enough to defy the gravity of its subject.
    • Washington Post
  100. Divergent
    Director Neil Burger (“Limitless”) has crafted a popcorn flick that’s leaner, more propulsive and more satisfying than the bestseller that inspired it.
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