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. Pelican Dreams
    The fate of these birds, which, the film tells us, could live into their 40s, becomes as engrossing as many a human drama.
  2. Roofman
    This internal struggle transforms “Roofman” from what could have been a run-of-the-mill heist movie into an intriguing character study, even if it falls just short of success.
  3. Winter in Wartime
    The most compelling thing about Winter in Wartime, the Netherlands' official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars, is not the story. And the story is pretty darn compelling.
  4. Shall We Dance?
    But the movie has a great deal of zest and charm, and Yakusho gets so exactly that crest of melancholy that is a man’s early 40s, until he decides to go for another kind of life, that the movie is infinitely touching.
  5. Scream
    Deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills.
  6. Swan Song
    As a fairly soggy, two-hankie melodrama, “Swan Song” is effective. But I wouldn’t recommend thinking about it for too long.
  7. Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy
    Obliquely but evocatively, “Desperate Souls” ponders the many roles of the cowboy: gay icon, cinematic hero and symbol of American manifest destiny from the Rockies to the Mekong. Yet the documentary acknowledges that neither Schlesinger’s film nor its era could change everything.
  8. Maelstrom
    Sensual, funny and, in the end, very touching.
  9. Kick-Ass
    Kick-Ass should delight fans of the original comics and garden-variety action junkies as well. Suggested subtitle: "Iron Man, You Just Got Served."
  10. King of New York
    [Abel Ferrara's] specialty is a kind of hallucinatory tawdriness, and here, he's made a hepped-up film about drugs that plays as if the filmmakers themselves kept a healthy supply of the stuff at hand.
  11. A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries
    The events of the movie are filament-thin and insubstantial but, like fine silk threads, they weave together a fabric of surpassing warmth and texture. [25 Sep 1998, Pg.N.63]
    • Washington Post
  12. Mean Girls
    Smart, funny, well-acted and visually lively.
  13. Transamerica
    If Tucker's road map often feels a little too confining and the screwball comedy too contrived, he can take credit for introducing viewers to a character they have almost certainly never met before.
  14. 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."
  15. The Tailor of Panama
    The rhythms excite expectations that go unanswered.
  16. Moulin Rouge!
    McGregor, the movie's most engaging performer, is convincing enough to sell the mutual attraction. The "Trainspotting" star is usually playing some kind of freak, and this is a nice stretch for him.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Philadelphia
    Directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, this AIDS courtroom drama is so pumped full of nitrous oxide, you could get your teeth drilled on it.
  18. Sidewalk Stories
    Lane's comic bits are sodden, and as a result, the film is listless and fatiguing.
  19. Dumb Money
    As a feel-good fact-based fable of financial comeuppance, Dumb Money is funny enough. But as its name suggests, it isn’t especially smart. Unlike its protagonists, it isn’t interested in making a quick buck, just an easy laugh.
  20. The Good Dinosaur
    The Good Dinosaur is hardly catastrophic. But the movie is a lot like Arlo. On its own, it seems fine; just don’t compare it to its capable siblings.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Soldier's Story
    Almost as powerful as the stage version, craftily recreating the small Louisiana town and the nearby military barracks housing companies of black soldiers in 1944 -- and incidentally providing a splendid showcase for a squadron of black performers who should rarely be out of work from now on. [28 Sep 1984, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  22. Miami Vice
    Farrell appears to be a rarity in undercover culture, a vice cop who goes on the lowdown as an Irish beatnik. Oh, that's a good disguise for South Beach. As for Foxx, he's still channeling Ray Charles through squinty eyes and a kind of shaky head. They have zero chemistry.
  23. Breaking
    In the end, “Breaking” feels like a foregone conclusion: a dismal portrait of a system — and a someone — already irreparably broken.
  24. Paris, je t'aime
    Paris, je t'aime builds into something quite wonderful.
  25. Master
    Master might be a horror film, but its scariest elements are off screen, in the form of the persistent social realities that inspired it.
  26. La Vie en Rose
    Cotillard leaves you loving her Piaf, wishing you could reach through the screen and steer her life a bit differently.
  27. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
    The second part of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” trilogy goes a long way — and at 2 1/2 hours, I do mean long — toward righting the wrongs of the first movie, which was even longer.
  28. Another Earth
    As large as Earth Two looms - literally - in the frames of Mike Cahill's film, so do its implications. It's one big, honking metaphor, as much as a special effect. As a symbol of second chances, it's as intriguing as it is frustratingly obvious.
  29. E-Team
    Exciting, absorbing and stubbornly optimistic in the face of overwhelming devastation, E-Team will, with any luck, shed deserved light on the routine sacrifices these activists and professionals make for the sake of human values.
  30. Mid90s
    Mid90s” is often painful to watch as Stevie puts himself through the punishing rituals of proving his street bona fides. But Hill takes even the most treacherous dangers in stride, suffusing his story with as much tenderness as stark terror.
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