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. Tootsie
    The most nagging impediment to wholehearted acceptance of Tootsie and its little storytelling subterfuges is a failure to recognize the hypocritical aspects of Dorsey's imposture and alleged character improvement. Although Dorsey is supposedly sensitized to the desirability of honesty and consideration in romantic dealings by being forced to seethe on the sidelines while Ron treats Julie badly, the hero never does square things with Sandy, the woman whose trust he betrays in a far more deliberate, systematic fashion. Indeed, it seems downright outrageous for Dorsey to get indignant about Ron's oblivious sort of misbehavior when he's conning Sandy in premeditated ways. [17 Dec 1982, p.F1]
    • Washington Post
  2. Henry Fool
    Henry Fool, the fascinating and often infuriating new film from the idiosyncratic Hal Hartley. [24 Jul 1998]
    • Washington Post
  3. The Last Temptation of Christ
    The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese's provocative, punishing, weirdly brilliant adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, has a feverish intensity. And undeniably, there's a prodigious greatness on display here. But just as undeniably, it is failed work.
  4. Nixon
    Nixon is an audacious biography rich in imagination and originality, with a provocative, often subversive sense of character and history. Dense and challenging, it is also undermined in places by Stone's obsessions just as dramatically as Richard Nixon was undermined by his.
  5. The Unbelievable Truth
    A jumble of subplots and suppositions, The Unbelievable Truth ultimately comes together as suburban farce in a door-banging conclusion to all the wild speculation.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Action Hero
    If there's one thing going for Last Action Hero, it's the construction of it all. Even if this intermixing of kid fantasy and adult shoot'em-up, Hollywood insider jokes and cheap Arnold puns, doesn't completely bowl you over, it's clever and intriguing.
  7. Mad Dog and Glory
    It's the rapport between the two actors, De Niro and Murray, that saves Mad Dog and Glory from being something less than just another buddy movie. Their real-life friendship spills over into this jittery, very funny look at the male bonding experience.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Falling Down
    Douglas's intentionally robotic -- and intense -- performance holds its own. He's scary, normal and funny all at once.
  9. Disclosure
    The spirit of the film, though, is snazzier and more playful than Crichton’s rather thin, humorless schematic. The subject is serious; thankfully, the movie is not.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Awakenings
    Knee-jerk tears aside, there's nothing tremendously special. It's very watchable, but it doesn't stand out. Which is not to say the film is badly done; it's just decently done.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Postcards from the Edge
    But for all the jagged, witty chatter -- and Streep and MacLaine do their tragicomic damnedest with it -- Postcard provides the most rudimentary and jury-rigged of outcomes.
  12. Traveller
    Green proves adept at capturing the quiet intensity and peculiar rhythms of Traveller culture.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Corruptor
    If you're in the mood for loud, fast-moving action trash, The Corruptor is waiting to meet you in a dark alley.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ghostbusters II
    Everything and everyone you liked in the original are there. But GB II often seems like "Ghostbusters: The Preview Reel, Extended Mix," with its rather see-through buffet of special effects, comic bits and music-video transitions.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Look Who's Talking
    Heckerling's central hokum is definitely silly, based on the notion that Mikey (and all babies, in fact) has somewhat adult, slightly cynical thoughts on everything that goes on around him, from conception to end credits -- and that these thoughts and embryonic wisecracks and creative interpretations are heard only by the audience via the aptly cast voice of overgrown kid Willis.
  16. Newsies
    Its intentions seem fairly modest, and so are its achievements. It's a modestly enjoyable diversion.
  17. Metroland
    It's a thoughtfully constructed story, with nuanced performances all around and even a mild surprise thrown in, but the whole thing feels ever so slightly enervated, like a game of chess between codgers in the park.
    • Washington Post
  18. Big
    Big has a warmhearted sweetness that's invigorating; it makes you want to break out the Legos. It's only near the end of the film, when Hanks has to play the scenes for pathos, that the movie becomes cloying.
  19. Hairspray
    Hairspray is definitely self-congratulatory, like the message movies it aims to spoof. But there's a sweet morality mixed with the camp clumsiness of this nostalgic goof. Waters couldn't care less about the subtleties of plot or character. He writes and directs the way a kid finger paints. As usual, he's gathered a tantalizing cast from the so-out-they're-in crowd. [26 Feb 1988, p.b1]
    • Washington Post
  20. A River Runs Through It
    The words - taken directly from the book - are beautifully cast, but they encapsulate the emotions too conveniently.
  21. Popeye
    Considering how firmly the image of Popeye is fixed in the minds of all spinach-bred Americans, it's daring of the film to open by showing the character in its familiar cartoon form. But Robin Williams so utterly captures the Popeye idea as to justify this, and Shelley Duvall is such a perfect Olive Oyl that it will always be difficult to imagine her impersonating a human being. [19 Dec 1980, p.20]
    • Washington Post
  22. The Lost Boys
    It starts slow, but finishes fast with some clever plot twists. In the end, all is not lost with these boys.
  23. Home Alone
    The movie has a big payoff; it's the setup that's the drag. But Kevin's antics will touch the budding subversive in every kid. My advice? Hide the car keys.
  24. Santa vs. the Snowman
    This is sweet-natured fun for the very young.
  25. Imelda
    But even though Marcos, in this film, provides enough material for a few hundred giggles and head-shakings, she also shows a pathetically human side.
  26. Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain... Begins to Die
    There are some very thought-provoking points, and the movie deserves a balanced listening-to.
  27. James' Journey to Jerusalem
    A wonderfully unsentimental parable that backs no horses in the movie's secular/religious dualities.
  28. Sky Blue
    It's a handsome thing, familiar and new at once, thoroughly entertaining if hardly memorable.
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