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. Spiral: From the Book of Saw
    Spiral, which involves the hunt for a serial killer by the police force of a nameless metropolis, is a thriller, a mystery, a police drama, but it hews closely to “Saw’s” grisly curriculum.
  2. Russkies
    Visually bland, well-meaning salute to the brotherhood of man.
  3. The Coca-Cola Kid
    It claims to offer a new formula for comedy, but a lot of filmgoers will probably prefer the classic kind. [30 Aug 1985, p.N23]
    • Washington Post
  4. The Flamingo Kid
    The movie has an engaging surface, but it's all surface -- it's like watching an outsize TV.
  5. Smooth Talk
    Despite a nice performance by Dern, Smooth Talk never gets better than its good intentions. Adapted from a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, the movie is awfully short-storyish -- it meanders through its slight narrative, and the dialogue can be stilted and literary (it's meant to be read, not heard).
  6. After Yang
    After Yang again demonstrates Kogonada’s mastery of form, framing and composition. But audiences will be forgiven for wanting to reach through the screen to mess it up a little, if only to inject some recognizable warmth and spontaneity.
  7. The Mean Season
    We see the atmospherics, and hear them, but never feel the heat. Director Philip ("The Grey Fox") Borsos' style is too dogged to transform Mean Season into a true thriller, though it serves well as a message movie on what news is fit to print. [15 Feb 1985, p.29]
    • Washington Post
  8. Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
    Despite all the talent, form triumphs over substance. Director Hugh (Chariots of Fire) Hudson clutches, and climactic scenes miss their mark. Greystoke is curious entertainment, less satisfying than Planet of the Apes, which begs the same question: noble savage or naked ape? [30 Mar 1984, p.21]
    • Washington Post
  9. Year of the Dragon
    Cimino's instincts are right -- the movie is outsized, and it needs baroque dialogue; you get the sense that he'd recognize the right dialogue if he heard it. But when he actually has to come up with it, the result is a series of outrageous hooters: "I've got scar tissue on my soul"; "I carried the cross with you, in Brooklyn and in Queens."
  10. The Razor's Edge
    The Razor's Edge gives us the quintessential '80s sensibility, Bill Murray, indulging a nostalgia for the '60s masquerading as the '20s. An adaptation of the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, this longtime pet project of Murray's will only disappoint his many fans.
  11. Swing Shift
    Its elaborate and meticulously re-created period settings and moods prove far more interesting and diverting than the undernourished characterizations and love stories that flutter and sputter across the foregrounds. [19 Apr 1984, p.D6]
    • Washington Post
  12. Dreamscape
    The possibilities are intriguing, but more might have been realized. [17 Aug 1984, p.23]
    • Washington Post
  13. Birdy
    Some of director Alan Parker's compositions here are striking, expressionistic shots of dark shapes silhouetted against the blue light streaming through the asylum window. Then again, they're all the same -- after two hours, you're bored by them.
  14. Trouble in Mind
    Trouble in Mind is something of a jumble, but never less than an intriguing one. It's an off-center romance, as unnerving as a half-remembered nightmare. [25 Apr 1986, p.D1]
    • Washington Post
  15. Iceman
    Iceman proves an intriguing premise that is allowed or encouraged to go daftly astray. [13 Apr 1983, p.B10]
    • Washington Post
  16. The Wild Life
    For all the nice turns, this movie can't decide whether to focus on undergraduate fun and fantasy or the tensions of the workaday world. As a result, the film fails to deliver its promised exploration of the last week of summer, when some people find themselves with no way to turn back, and no place to look forward to. [01 Oct 1984, p.B3]
    • Washington Post
  17. All of Me
    The screwball side of All of Me cries out for a latter-day Howard Hawks. Alas, there is no latter-day Howard Hawks. Reiner is only a latter-day Reiner. [21 Sep 1984, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  18. The Brother from Another Planet
    Sayles is no storyteller; despite the verve of its language, The Brother From Another Planet eventually sags of its own weight.
  19. City Heat
    Don't blame the fellas. They're good when they're together, but that doesn't happen nearly often enough in this sporadically amusing script. [07 Dec 1984, p.39]
    • Washington Post
  20. Racing with the Moon
    A would-be endearing romantic entertainment that becomes an exercise in futility, Racing With the Moon concentrates a considerable amount of pictorial polish, acting talent and sincerity on a trifling amount of content. [24 Mar 1984, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  21. No Small Affair
    No Small Affair is a good example of the revised teen sex movie, which centers on a Morose Young Man unimpressed by the wild life swirling around him -- he'll take romance. But even the facile crudeness of a movie like Porky's seems to have demanded too much of screenwriters Charles Bolt and Terence Mulcahy.
  22. Unfaithfully Yours
    Zieff & Co. give it a game, good-humored try, but I don't think they're in jeopardy of being celebrated as inspired farceurs. [14 Feb 1984, p.D8]
    • Washington Post
  23. No Mercy
    Pretty Pouters Kim Basinger and Richard Gere spit and spat and inevitably jump each other's bones in No Mercy, a standard-issue cop thriller that amounts to "Beverly Hills Cop" in a bad mood. It's the old you-killed-my-partner, now-it's-your-turn-dog-breath scenario, warmed over.
  24. Tender Mercies
    Tender Mercies fails because of an apparent dimness of perception that frequently overcomes dramatists: they don't always know when they've got ahold of the wrong end of the story they want to tell. [29 Apr 1983, p.B1]
    • Washington Post
  25. Without a Trace
    Without a Trace provides little sustenance. It keeps serving up overprepared tidbits of torment when you'd prefer to get down to a main course. [04 Feb 1983, p.C4]
    • Washington Post
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Octagon
    Clearly, The Octagon is no real threat to War and Peace or even Beau Geste, but it will appeal to those who are still in mourning for Bruce Lee, who like carefully choreographed fight scenes and who enjoy standing in front of a mirror looking at their muscles. [25 Aug 1980, p.B1]
    • Washington Post
  27. A Force of One
    One detects flickering intentions of enlarging on the formula material -- especially in the byplay between the actors playing narcs -- but the prevailing mood of the entertainment is decidedly bargain-basement. [11 Oct 1979, p.D15]
    • Washington Post
  28. High Spirits
    Writer-director Neil Jordan shows no knack for comedy, nor is he as kinky as he was on Mona Lisa, and kinky is what is called for.
  29. 52 Pick-Up
    52 PICK-UP is "Death Wish" for yuppies...But all the slime and grime can't camouflage the sameness of this standard, divide-and-conquer story.
  30. She Dies Tomorrow
    A vivid but vaporous portrait of collective unease that feels uncannily of this moment.
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