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 5.2 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. Spanking the Monkey
    A director with a more sensationalistic temperament might have milked this last section of the picture for melodramatic effect, but Russell's direction becomes, if anything, more brisk and more clipped.
  2. In the Name of the Father
    In the Name of the Father is as good a compromise of fact and fiction as you could hope for -- and still call it a movie.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sleepless in Seattle
    There are no surprises in Sleepless, and the audience is ahead of the characters every step of the way. But people seem to like it that way. And, hey, it works like a charm.
  4. Free Willy
    Actually, the film's more serious side is beautifully balanced by the joy we experience as both Jesse and Willy come into their own.
  5. 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
  6. The Truth About Cats & Dogs
    Written by former deejay Audrey Wells, the observant and funny script includes some wonderful scenes for the leading ladies.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Clockers
    As always, Lee fills his story with bold, vivid, glib characters who manage to be entertaining even as they flail at one another.
  8. Devil in a Blue Dress
    Few films are more assured in their storytelling or build more forcefully, irrevocably toward their resolution.
  9. Strictly Ballroom
    Grabbing every backstage musical cliche by the lapels, it sends each one pirouetting, then sprawling hysterically across the floor. It's hard not to love this kind of tribute.
  10. Cold Comfort Farm
    The filmmakers have done a beautiful job of preserving the satirical snap of Gibbons's original. But the real joy of Cold Comfort Farm is watching these actors play so freely and exuberantly off each other.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Crumb
    One of the most extraordinary films of the year.
  12. Cronos
    Cronos is a horror genre film about vampires - but one so well conceived and executed that it satisfies both mainstream and art-film expectations.
  13. Married to the Mob
    Director Jonathan Demme has nailed one with this playful, but dangerous, gangster farce.
  14. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
    X marks the G-spot perhaps, for this is an orgiastic comedy of terrors and errors.
  15. Drugstore Cowboy
    Van Sant gives his material shape and an invigorating, syncopated style. It keeps coming at you in surprising, dazzling ways.
  16. Fatal Attraction
    This is a spectacularly well-made thriller. It is an odd thing, really -- the movie is sexy and at the same time a warning about the costs of sex.
  17. Boomerang
    Boomerang is the funniest, most sophisticated movie of Eddie Murphy's career; it's a sleek, dexterous satire, with a slew of rich comic performances that remind us of everything we loved about Murphy in the first place.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lethal Weapon 2
    But no, Lethal Weapon 2 is no artless, autopiloted waste of precious movie-theater air conditioning. It's fun stuff -- crackling, playfully escapist summer fare that doesn't make you feel taken advantage of later.
  19. JFK
    JFK is Stone's best and most emotional film since "Platoon."
  20. Awakenings
    Marshall masterfully plays our strings without becoming either melodramatic or maudlin. Like Brian De Palma's "Bonfire of the Vanities," hers is an adaptation that ends with a wake-up call, only here it's done successfully and in context.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mississippi Burning
    Mississippi Burning speeds down the complicated, painful path of civil rights in search of a good thriller. Surprisingly, it finds it
    • 62 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tequila Sunrise
    But the greater credit goes to writer/director Towne. In this adult adventure with a twist, he has mixed a good one. [2 Dec 1988, p.n41]
    • Washington Post
  23. Henry V
    Most astounding, though, is the power of the film's leading actor. While Branagh's direction is forthright and articulate, his acting is brash and flamboyant.
  24. Lethal Weapon
    Lethal Weapon opens with a shot of Mel Gibson in his birthday suit and just gets better. Likewise we meet costar Danny Glover in the bathtub, fêted by his family on his 50th birthday. This endearing double exposure introduces us to the vulnerabilities of these superduper heroes, an odd couple of cops who mature into friends as they quell crime.
  25. Pump Up the Volume
    Unlike "Heathers," a satiric treatment of teen suicide, Pump Up the Volume is passionately caring. It's a howl from the heart, a relentlessly involving movie that gives a kid every reason to believe that he or she can come of age. It appreciates the pimples and pitfalls of this frightening passage, the transit commonly known as adolescence.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
    Terry Gilliam is the wit behind this lavish display of sieges, sea-creature tussles and trips to the moon. Adapting the handed-down stories of Baron Von Munchausen, an 18th-century spinner of tall tales, this modern maker of similar flights of fancy has created another brilliantly inventive epic of fantasy and satire.
  27. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    A darkly enjoyable roller-coaster ride -- Clooney and Kaufman deftly interweave the macabre with lightheartedness.
  28. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
    Gets viewers inside these tense, emotional and occasionally terrifying events with immediacy and, given the confusion of the time, remarkable clarity.
  29. Still Walking
    One of the more accomplished and beautiful films released thus far this year.
  30. A Nightmare on Elm Street
    For such a low-budget movie, Nightmare on Elm Street is extraordinarily polished. The script is consistently witty, the camera work (by cinematographer Jacques Haitkin) crisp and expressive.
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