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 5.3 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. Crimes of the Future
    With its outré images and pulsating shots of human viscera, Crimes of the Future is clearly meant to shock, as well as reference very real anxieties about technology, genetics and environmental degradation. But as the convoluted plot wears on, Cronenberg’s transgressive kink looks more and more played out.
  2. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
    If this all sounds too insufferable and in-jokey, fear not: Gormican, with the help of his fabulously game ensemble cast, keeps the balloon afloat with a light touch, crisp pacing and an overarching mood that’s more goofily endearing than smugly self-amused.
  3. Black Widow
    As gratifying as it is that Johansson has finally gotten the movie her character has long deserved — not to mention a worthy and equally watchable foil in Pugh — “Black Widow” simultaneously feels like too much and too little. Do svidaniya, Natasha — we hardly knew ye.
  4. Whip It
    Arriving on the nastier heels of the horror comedy "Jennifer's Body," Whip It plays like that movie's more wholesome twin, delivering the same jolt of anarchic guerrilla-girl empowerment, only with a far less threatening disposition.
  5. Dick Tracy
    Dick Tracy is an ambitiously vainglorious effort, expensive, beautifully appointed, but at its core empty as a spent bullet. It asks us to read these comics without a grain of salt or a pinch of irony.
  6. Z for Zachariah
    The acting is strong, with Robbie and Ejiofor turning in performances that feel powerfully authentic, even in moments of ethical confusion. Maybe especially in moments of ethical confusion.
  7. Beat Street
    The music is electric on Beat Street, a good-natured, emotional movie, where morals are as sound as they were in the mom's-in-the-kitchen, dad's-in-insurance sitcoms of the '50s and '60s.
  8. Problemista
    The story is a familiar one — a young immigrant fetches up in New York to seek his fortune, only to be buffeted by a bumptious city and cut to the quick by its competitive edge — but Torres reshapes it into something simultaneously more fantastical and far more real.
  9. American Woman
    It’s not an especially profound story. But it is a movingly rendered one, made watchable by an actress whose elastic performance bookends the film with two very different people.
  10. Dragonslayer
    As a movie concept, Dragonslayer seems to have so much going for it that it could scarcely miss. Yet it does miss in crucial respects. [27 June 1981, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  11. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
    If it's art, it's only mildly interesting.
  12. Vazante
    Thomas keeps things at a simmer for the longest time, forestalling the story’s ultimate boil-over until the final minute or so of the tale.
  13. Primer
    As Primer progresses, it just gets murkier and the experience of it more drudgelike.
  14. Rustin
    The movie never exactly loses sight of Bayard Rustin, but neither does it ever let us get inside his heart.
  15. The Falcon and the Snowman
    John Schlesinger, who also directed Midnight Cowboy and The Marathon Man, tries to combine the best of both earlier films by marrying male bonding and spy thrills. But his work is uninspired here, sheepish, and loaded down with obtrusive, overworked symbolism. [25 Jan 1985, p.21]
    • Washington Post
  16. The Good Thief
    In the end, what started off as playful becomes tedious.
  17. Gladiator
    Friends, Washingtonians, countrymen, I come not to praise Gladiator but to bury it.
  18. The Divine Order
    The movie still holds power, mostly thanks to Leuenberger’s arresting, self-contained performance as Nora. She plays the character as an enigma, the last person you’d expect to lead a cause.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Moon
    Storywise, Moon fails to live up to the promise of its premise. There's plenty of atmosphere, but little gravity.
  20. Last Days in the Desert
    The mystical and the mundane come together with captivating force in Last Days in the Desert, Rodrigo Garcia’s thoughtful, intriguingly layered interpretation of the Gospel stories of Jesus’s confrontation with the devil while fasting and praying in the Judean desert.
  21. Band Aid
    I wouldn’t call Band Aid profound, but it’s wiser and deeper than the average pop song, if not by much.
  22. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
    A refreshingly tender treatment of love gone wrong -- we mean, for a movie that's got enough lowdown sexual content to start its own Kinsey Report.
  23. Bottle Rocket
    Gets by on quirky charm and slacker chic-but just barely.
  24. American Promise
    The documentary is unwieldy, unfocused and frustrating at times... But the movie is also, somehow, dazzling.
  25. Dead Man's Wire
    Riveting and darkly comedic, the film nimbly conveys the tragedies of buying into the American Dream.
  26. Concrete Cowboy
    Even within the confines of its generic plot and sometimes stilted dialogue, Concrete Cowboy winds up being an engaging and moving family drama. Its sincerity, accomplished cast and proud Philadelphia roots manage to keep it real.
  27. Avatar: The Way of Water
    The action in “The Way of Water” is ultimately overwhelming, betraying an uncomfortable truth about Cameron: He might preach environmentalism and balance, calling on Indigenous peoples for their gentle worldviews and material culture. But at heart, he’s just as aggressive and all-commanding as the bad guys he portrays with such oorah swagger.
  28. Snow Angels
    Despite the foibles that have affected his films, the dramatic image has always been important to Green, who has developed quite a cult following and deserves it.
  29. Summer of Sam
    If there's any moral to this sorry story, perhaps Lee's stealth-message is it: Even when it's not about race, it is.
  30. The New Rijksmuseum
    Artful yet agonizingly unhurried at times.
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