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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    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Green Card
    It is slightly disconcerting to realize that this pleasant but lightweight movie was produced, directed and written by Peter Weir. This means Touchstone Pictures didn't throw this the Australian director's way; he came up with it himself.
  2. High Heels
    It feels more like a prosaic knockoff than a classically inspired original.
  3. Jack
    When a master dedicates his genius to the production of schmaltz, it's not a pretty sight.
  4. Tucker: The Man and His Dream
    Tucker came up with a classic, but poor Coppola has turned a great American tragedy into a gas-guzzling human comedy
  5. M. Butterfly
    David Cronenberg's film version of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning play, is no more successful in solving it than any other versions of this fantastic tale have been.... "The Crying Game" it's not. [09 Oct 1993]
    • Washington Post
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Naked Lunch
    It feels studiously surrealistic, an excuse for cinematic buggery; deep in its center there's a lack of conviction.
  7. Demolition Man
    Demolition Man is a futuristic cop picture with slightly more imagination and wit than the typical example of the slash-and-burn genre.
  8. Father of the Bride
    At first, Father of the Bride is so funny, it's almost sublime. The rest of the movie, alas, is regrets only.
  9. The Outsiders
    The Outsiders works itself up into overstylized tizzies during things like the rumble sequence, but its overall energy level is alarmingly faint, and the failure to add new dimensions or new material to the Hinton original suggests an exhausted imagination.
  10. The Distinguished Gentleman
    Alas, it's too coarsely drawn and broadly directed by Brit Jonathan Lynn to effectively skewer what ought to have been an easy target.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Two Jakes
    At best, the movie comes across as a competently assembled job, a wistful tribute to its former self. At worst, it's wordy, confusing and - here's an ugly word - boring.
  12. Young Guns
    The movie is showy without having any noticeably coherent style. Indeed, it might have been possible to enjoy Young Guns as a larky spree if the photogenic stars didn't carry themselves with such a smug, self-congratulatory air. But they behave as if our adoration were their birthright.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Newsies
    Newsies is all left feet, noise and clutter.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Telling Lies in America
    Telling Lies in America may not be terrible. But it flickers inconclusively between ordinary and not-so-good. [24 Oct 1997]
    • Washington Post
  15. Nightwatch
    Tasteless and without redeeming social value, and also dank with the stench of decomposition masked by not enough formaldehyde, Nightwatch is the best kind of movie pleasure, a completely guilty one. [17 Apr 1998]
    • Washington Post
  16. Cool World
    Technically, Bakshi's work is uneven; some of the characters in his Cool universe are hilarious, while others are flat.
  17. All Dogs Go to Heaven
    With 10 writers gnawing on it, there is little originality left in the story.
  18. The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
    Under the direction of "Die Harder's" Renny Harlin, the movie has a crackling pace and a glossy look. It's all the more pernicious for that, this slick glorification of hate and loathing that portrays women as sexually promiscuous and men as infantile, violent and feeble-minded. Here's one Ford that doesn't have a better idea.
  19. Virtuosity
    Even with its cyberspace connection, the story comes across as flat and tired, merely a pretext for the filmmakers' occasionally dazzling but ultimately numbing special effects. The world of Virtuosity may be spanking new, but the ideas are yesterday's news.
  20. Clockstoppers
    Benign but forgettable sci-fi diversion.
  21. In the Face of Evil: Reagan's War in Word and Deed
    This is for the pre-converted, certainly not the left, or even those who consider themselves detached observers.
  22. Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain... Begins to Die
    There's really nothing more here than you can find watching dreadful political advertisements and dreadful political talk shows.
  23. Surviving Picasso
    Producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala bring the customary polish, but no pizzazz, to this simplistic portrait of the artist as a dirty old man.
  24. Severance
    None of the killings has any suspense, and the capital I irony -- that these people make their living selling death in small mechanical packages and munitions to the world and are now being hunted down by the same devices -- never begins to produce any results. Put it on a level with a mid-series "Halloween."
  25. Fay Grim
    The trouble is, this is Hartley all over again. What seemed cutting edge and sharp in the 1990s -- the smart-alecky references to obscure filmmakers (Werner Herzog, Andrei Konchalovsky), the self-mocking tone in the actors' voices, the overall sense that this movie is subverting itself -- feels rehashed and old.
  26. O Jerusalem
    Makes the mistake of including too sweeping a scope in too small a movie and with too few resources.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Elsa y Fred
    Elsa & Fred feels not substantial enough to bear the weight of its themes. It dissolves like cotton candy, making proper digestion impossible. The life it shows us is too sweet.
  28. An American Werewolf in London
    Gratuitous gore prevents this monstrous movie from becoming the competent comedy it might have been. [21 Aug 1981, p.17]
    • Washington Post
  29. Xanadu
    Xanadu cannot possibly be described as a good movie, but it can be recommended to those who can tolerate large amounts of intravenous marzipan. The music is highly enjoyable -- though perhaps more so once one gets the record album home and isn't bothered with the story -- and the film so unerringly airy that it has a beneficent, tranquilizing, bemusing effect.
    • Washington Post
  30. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
    Star Trek is an essentially passive adventure movie, made more so by director Robert Wise's failure to prevent the protracted effects sequences from retarding the narrative pace. [8 Dec. 1979, p.E1]
    • Washington Post
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