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. Golden Door
    Writ small, Golden Door is an absorbing and moving love story; writ large, it's the story we've never stopped telling ourselves.
  2. Day Watch
    Like its predecessor, the movie is a joyous celebration of extravagant pulp and post-Soviet kitsch, joyously trafficking in gore, loud cars, ladies' stilettos and excess for its own sake.
  3. 12:08 East of Bucharest
    A remarkable film from Romania.
  4. Manufactured Landscapes
    Manufactured Landscapes makes an inelegant point elegantly. The point: Humanity is altering the landscape drastically and by implication irrevocably.
  5. 1408
    Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom creates a compelling ride of a movie. Every beat of the film is weighted with significance, and our mounting dread becomes almost intolerable.
  6. Lady Chatterley
    Director Pascale Ferran makes this a sort of opera of two bodies, as the characters discover not only each other but themselves. And the French filmmaker cannily turns their corporeal discoveries into a moral mission, two desperately lonely souls crying for spiritual freedom in a world of moral constriction.
  7. You Kill Me
    Frank (Ben Kingsley) meets Laurel (Tea Leoni), a woman who has been around the block a time or 200, and she likes Frank's directness, while he likes her unflappability. This is one of the greatest screwball relationships in years.
  8. Vitus
    The cast is superb, especially the young actors who portray Vitus; Gheorghiu is a real-life piano prodigy, lending an extra frisson to the intoxicating music that plays throughout the film.
  9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg and director David Yates have transformed J.K. Rowling's garrulous storytelling into something leaner, moodier and more compelling, that ticks with metronomic purpose as the story flits between psychological darkness and cartoonish slapstick.
  10. Sunshine
    Beam yourselves aboard Sunshine, set 50 years in the future. The voyage works, beautifully.
  11. Molière
    An extravagant and thoroughly irresistible story of intrigue, romance, comedy and artistic inspiration.
  12. This Is England
    This Is England, set in the social dystopia of Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain, gives us something far more humane and complex than a culturally specific memoir about Doc Martens shoes, reggae music and mindless aggression.
  13. Live-In Maid
    A vivid portrait of a society in the midst of wrenching change, but it transcends its immediate context to become a thoughtful, even unforgettable, chamber piece, performed with exquisite subtlety by two fine actresses.
  14. The Rape of Europa
    Fascinating facts and testimony.
  15. Lust, Caution
    Though Lust, Caution resounds with these disconcerting themes, it operates on the same principle that distinguishes all lasting romances, be they "Wuthering Heights," "Casablanca" or "When Harry Met Sally."
  16. The Heartbreak Kid
    You can expect to fall about, snort and hoot, at times hard enough to hurt inner body parts that only doctors can identify.
  17. Control
    Corbijn makes us achingly aware of the singer's talent, the haunting poetry of his songs and how, living in the gloomy culture he did, his passing was virtually inevitable.
  18. Kurt Cobain About a Son
    The result is a film exponentially more vivid and absorbing than the garden-variety rock-doc or biopic. "About a Son" is a must for anyone who still loves Cobain, or still has hope for cinematic portraiture.
  19. Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
    One artist's moving tribute to another.
  20. War Dance
    This is documentary-making at its best, not pretending to be journalism, but still playing a crucial role in telling stories that otherwise wouldn't make the front page.
  21. Enchanted
    Even if its most ironic humor will sail over the heads of very little ones, Enchanted is that rare comedy that will appeal to the whole family.
  22. I'm Not There.
    A fascinating experiment that, if the viewer is willing to surrender to Haynes's sometimes hermetic meditations on Dylan's life, heartily rewards the investment.
  23. Margot at the Wedding
    Watching Kidman, Leigh and -- in his nutty, damn-the-torpedoes way -- Black as they torment, confound and torture one another amounts to a vicarious thrill ride in human behavior.
  24. Nanking
    In clothes reminiscent of the '30s (but not, strictly speaking, costumes) the performers read dramatically from the letters, journals and diaries of the Western missionaries and diplomats; they "perform" but in the limited sense, using only face and voice to communicate with the camera. And you have to say: Wow.
  25. The Kite Runner
    For all the pain and loss that The Kite Runner depicts, it is still a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope.
  26. Charlie Wilson's War
    This movie probably gets the Washington process better than any since Otto Preminger's underrated "Advise & Consent" in 1962. It's not about men of virtue doing the impossible, but men of flaws doing the doable, but just barely.
  27. The Water Horse
    Combining the best of fantasy and somber reflection, The Water Horse is a lovely ride.
  28. U2 3D
    In many ways, watching the movie is BETTER than concertgoing. We can enjoy that buzzy feeling of community without the fist-pumping biker obscuring our view.
  29. The Band's Visit
    Smart, subtle, deceptively simple little.
  30. In Bruges
    Those who know McDonagh's work know a vein of darkness will run deeply through the comedy. It has seldom been darker. Or funnier. He has made a hit-man movie in which you don't know what will happen and can't wait to find out. Every movie should be so cliched.
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