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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    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    12
    Mikhalkov's 12 breathes and floats.
  2. Tokyo Sonata
    At its best, Tokyo Sonata is a deft interweaving of seemingly dissonant ideas -- war and music, family and politics, authority and freedom.
  3. Frost/Nixon
    Neither the title nor the subject matter prepares you for the pure fun of Frost/Nixon.
  4. Treeless Mountain
    It's in this final chapter that the director states his message, which is handled so lightly, almost incidentally, you might miss it. But it's a profound one. For what the girls learn is that the way to get what they want -- no, need -- isn't by hoarding something, but by letting go.
  5. Three Monkeys
    It's a film filled with excellent acting, beautifully composed shots, and one or two legitimate storytelling surprises.
  6. Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land
    Thanks to the new guerrilla narrative, the world has a constant flow of images to file in its collective consciousness. And that camera-testable accountability slowly becomes a global civic right that fulfills the noblest purpose of journalism -- to bring truth to power.
  7. Afghan Star
    Afghan Star goes much deeper, eloquently conveying the tensions, small victories and shattering setbacks of a fragile democracy struggling to regain a once-flourishing culture.
  8. Lorna's Silence
    While the Dardennes may be moralists, they are also makers of thrillers: The story within Lorna' Silence is built on tiny increments of tantalizing details, meted out in penurious droplets and with chest-tightening tension that suggests that what the brothers wanted to be when they grew up were boa constrictors -- Belgian boas, with degrees in Marxist theory.
  9. Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
    All in all, this is a celebration of Australian exuberance, a national ethic of adventurousness and enormous charisma.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bandslam
    the script's earnest intelligence and the actors' charm (Connell, Hudgens and Kudrow are especially fun to watch) make this film an entertaining ode to teenage joie de vivre.
  11. The Baader Meinhof Complex
    Seems propelled by a doomed sense of inevitability and is all the more gripping for it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amreeka
    Abetted by an observant cast, she (Dabis) navigates across politically and emotionally fraught terrain with a warming inflection of humor and a mother-hen's attention to the needs of all of her characters.
  13. The Horse Boy
    A lovely, amazing, wonderfully provocative film.
  14. Good Hair
    Thanks to Rock's running monologue, combining scathing humor with trenchant observations, the film manages to be side-splitting even while making its most poignant points.
  15. Swimming
    Absolutely refuse to make predictable patterns in the sand. Instead, they set their characters loose.
  16. The Brothers
    A politically incorrect but often hilarious jam session, in which men and women trade insults like musical licks.
  17. The Dish
    Simple fare, a feel-good movie that re-creates a time and place with gentle humor and a reminder that the Aussies have the right stuff, too.
  18. Black Knight
    Lawrence is miraculous, as always.
  19. End of the Century
    The interviews with band members, managers, friends and peer fans confirm not only how influential, but how beloved the Ramones were.
  20. Trolösa
    Held together by the intensity of its focus.
  21. Cinema Paradiso
    Just about everything you ever loved (or hated) about Italian films can be found.
  22. The Fluffer
    More tasteful, sensitive and original than you might imagine.
  23. Frequency
    It's like a chick flick for men--and the women who love them, sniff-sniff.
  24. The Adventures of Felix
    This French film has a breezy, documentary air that belies the important issues is raises.
  25. The In-Laws
    Subtle it's not. Still, the film, directed by Andrew Fleming ("Dick"), gets large and plentiful laughs where it's supposed to.
  26. Anywhere But Here
    So closely observed, so funny and so true to the junk that is everybody's real--as opposed to movie--life that it comes to feel like some kind of a miracle.
  27. The Cider House Rules
    More honest than any conventional morality tale. Here there are no heroes and no real villains; the good guys are all flawed and even bad guys are sometimes capable of the noblest of acts.
  28. Divine Intervention
    Antic, puzzling and disturbing film.
  29. Open Hearts
    Like the director, the cast seems to have burrowed into the material, made all the more wrenchingly realistic by Dogme precepts.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mystic Masseur
    A soft-focused, wistful big-screen art film.
  31. Life and Debt
    After viewing documentarian Stephanie Black's dour exegesis of the wrecked Jamaican economy -- only the most insensitive vacationer will want to set foot anywhere near the resorts and beaches of Montego Bay.
  32. Big Night
    It's the moviegoing equivalent of great eating.
  33. DysFunktional Family
    Wickedly funny.
  34. The Guys
    This is a superb theatrical situation, and you have two great performers doing the emoting.
  35. In Too Deep
    Has a gritty authenticity to it … captures the spectacularly crazed quality of urban violence.
  36. Beautiful Creatures
    Wonderfully empowering to watch Petula and Dorothy turn the tables on their testosterone-crazed tormentors.
  37. The Luzhin Defence
    Where it succeeds best is not in describing how Luzhin got broken but how love fixed him, albeit temporarily.
  38. A Love Divided
    Stunningly acted by Liam Cunningham and Orla Brady as the Cloneys.
  39. Little Voice
    Little Voice may be more of a confection than a square meal, but it's proof of how good a dish can be when the ingredients are of the highest order.
  40. Sidewalks of New York
    The chatty, romantic roundelay takes a lighthearted look at the misadventures of six in the city.
  41. In July
    Unabashedly, un-graphically romantic.
  42. Scratch
    Engrossing and infectiously enthusiastic documentary.
  43. The Emperor's New Clothes
    Engaging, witty and touching film, one that defies categories to become a romantic comedy, historical biopic and philosophical rumination, all in one.
    • Washington Post
  44. Lovely & Amazing
    Warmhearted and slightly edgy seriocomedy, these sisters experience some pretty entertaining ups and downs. Entertaining, that is, for people who appreciate irony.
  45. Shanghai Ghetto
    A touching documentary.
  46. Le bossu
    Great sword fights, great acting, fabulous sword fights and, of course, really cool sword fights.
  47. Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
    The Cortez family flies into action with the same testy family dynamics, silly humor and cool gadgetry that animated the first Spy Kids.
  48. Comedian
    What begins as an indulgent vanity piece (Seinfeld was a producer of the film) ends up as a fascinating portrait of creativity at its most compulsive.
  49. Evelyn
    It's full of good heart, and you can't help but like its unequivocal sentimentality.
  50. Red Satin
    Although the movie is slow-going at first, it gradually awakens, like Lilia. And then it dances.
  51. Murder by Numbers
    Turns potentially forgettable formula into something strangely diverting.
  52. Judy Berlin
    Something to get excited about.
  53. The Cockettes
    An absorbing primer in one of the most fascinating chapters in American social history.
  54. Blow Dry
    It's fun. Hey, it's almost spring, Rickman is fabulous and so is Richardson. Warren Clarke is continually funny. And Heidi Klum alone will melt the snows of yesteryear.
  55. When Brendan Met Trudy
    An Irish lark that blows in, trailing daffodils and the sniff of spring, from that adventurous releasing company Shooting Gallery Films.
  56. Southpaw
    If Southpaw leaves you hungry, this much is also true: The "food" was good in the first place.
  57. Greenfingers
    Big muscular guys pruning roses IS funny and charming.
  58. Innocence
    A film that's tender and disarming for its intimate honesty. It's also deeply refreshing to see a movie that dares to explore sexuality among mature characters.
  59. Grateful Dawg
    Think of this movie as a glorified home video rather than a bitingly insightful documentary. But for Garcia and Grisman, this soft-shoe approach couldn't be more appropriate.
  60. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
    A portrait of a hero.
  61. The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack
    This curious documentary is something rare, evincing opposites: It's both delightful and powerful.
  62. Keeping the Faith
    May be the most ruggedly decent film to come along in a couple of decades.
  63. East Is East
    An edgy, irreverent, thoroughly winning comedy.
  64. Notorious C.H.O.
    A raunchy and frequently hilarious follow-up to the gifted Korean American stand-up's "I'm the One That I Want."
  65. The Way Home
    Simple without being slight, and profoundly moving without dipping into mawkishness.
  66. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
    It testifies to art's vitality and endurance, despite its marketers' -- and sometimes even its makers' -- efforts to the contrary.
  67. Mansfield Park
    It isn't Austen, but it's delicious fun.
  68. Beautiful People
    The movie's devil-may-care freneticism is edgily amusing, almost liberating.
  69. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    It's a thrill to listen to the seasoned survivors offering witty, evocative anecdotes about themselves and others.
  70. Interview with the Assassin
    Barry's deliberately unspectacular performance makes this even more powerful. He gives "Assassin" a disquieting authority.
  71. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
    Embraces reality, humanity and compassion, as leavened by wisdom and wit.
  72. Tattoo
    Well acted, moodily shot and tautly written, this Tattoo may feel like you've seen some of it (or its ilk) before. Still, its haunting images get under the skin, leaving an indelible impression.
  73. The Caveman's Valentine
    An intriguing, visually startling murder mystery that showcases the virtuosity of Samuel L. Jackson.
  74. Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale
    He (Tobias) had a life, however, that was way off the charts in its unpredictability, and sharing it with him is fascinating.
  75. The Day I Became a Woman
    An episodic drama rich in sly humor and symbolic imagery.
  76. The Low Down
    A well-acted first effort written and directed by Jamie Thraves.
  77. One Night at McCool's
    First-time feature director Harald Zwart has a real flair for farce, and he keeps the outrageous high jinks of the script lively yet grounded in reality.
  78. Our Song
    It's more a collection of episodes that build to a complex, richly layered picture of these girls' lives. And the more time we spend with them, the more endearing they become.
  79. Chutney Popcorn
    Its easygoing, disarming air will endear it to its target audience, who will appreciate this movie as much for the lifestyle it depicts as its actual story.
  80. Happenstance
    Utterly delightful fable of romantic destiny.
  81. Maelstrom
    Sensual, funny and, in the end, very touching.
  82. The Son's Room
    A deceivingly simple film, one that grows in power in retrospect, as the cumulative impact of so many quiet moments makes itself felt.
  83. Lucky Break
    Apart from the deja vu all over again, Lucky Break is no worse a film than "Breaking Out," and "Breaking Out" was utterly charming.
  84. Sade
    What an amazing little film. God love the French. They make movies with ideas in them, other than: How many cars can we blow up?
  85. Bounce
    It's a love story, yes, but one whose sweetness is cut by honest performances, a sharply drawn supporting cast and a fairly serious, yet never self-pitying, tone.
  86. The Color of Paradise
    A heartbreaker, plain and simple.
  87. Elling
    Bighearted audience pleaser.
  88. Theeviravaathi: The Terrorist
    Extraordinarily poetic, suspenseful film.
  89. Secret Ballot
    A psychic journey deep into the very fabric of Iranian (and by extension, all) life.
  90. Undisputed
    It's so gritty it'll get under your fingernails. And it harks back to one of Hill's greatest films from the '70s, "Hard Times."
  91. La bûche
    A confection that is ultimately better because of its bitterness.
  92. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
    Viewers will leave Amandla! moved by the music, impressed by the musicians and dubious about the possibility of political and social healing.
  93. Till Human Voices Wake Us
    Like the best of poems, it doesn't lend itself to easy understanding. But, like the best of poems, it's extremely provocative, to both imagination and intellect.
  94. Fever Heat [re-release]
    Great picture? No. Cool picture? Oui. Not as good, I must say, as the sort of thing we moron yanks were doing on our own over here – "D.O.A." is much better.
  95. Chunhyangdyun
    Demonstrates that sometimes the simplest stories are the most profound, and certainly possess the most moral authority. It's a film that emphasizes loyalty and sacrifice, values that have become jokes in most other films these days.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lady and the Duke
    Still, it is a decidedly fresh take. Rohmer has said he came upon a condensed version of Elliott's diary by chance, in a history magazine. His rendering of her story focuses not so much on the politics of the time -- though they are the basis of much of the dialogue -- but on the emotional thicket.
  97. The Backyard
    The movie is not for the squeamish, but for those who are unafraid to look at what is, perhaps, their own metaphorical "backyard," for those willing to stare into the long, dark night of the contemporary American soul, its bone-crunching message is worth hearing.
  98. Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
    An absorbing and inspiring portrait of two musicians whose unerring sense of what's right -- both artistically and ethically -- has not just held them in good stead but driven their particular brand of success.
  99. Late Marriage
    Late Marriage is a closely observed, somewhat funny, ultimately very sad movie.
  100. Stuart Little 2
    It's a pleasant experience. But that's what it is: a sequel that replays every aspect of the original movie.
  101. All Over the Guy
    The movie's entertaining for some wickedly funny situations and witticisms.
  102. The Crime of Padre Amaro
    May be morally tangled, pessimistic, lurid and foreboding, but it's also humanistic.
  103. Chaos
    One heck of a tale of deliciously unladylike payback.
  104. Stevie
    A heart-stirrer at times. More often, it's a heartbreaker.
  105. Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
    Extraordinary documentary.
  106. The Princess and the Warrior
    You don't have any idea what's going to happen next. You're not caught in a movie, so much as a narrative stratagem.
  107. Affliction
    Like the bitter cold in which it's set, Affliction bites hard and true.
  108. The Ballad of Bering Strait
    It isn't wildly imaginative, but its subjects are novel enough in their own right. They're a little bit country and a little bit Rachmaninoff.
  109. Waking Ned Devine
    Writer-director Kirk Jones III keeps the movie resolutely brisk and light, twisting mildly this way and that but never detouring for long.
  110. Mondays in the Sun
    To the patient viewer, the rewards are many, especially Bardem's performance.
  111. The Circle
    In its brisk way, it's a devastating piece of work, and very brave too.
  112. The Endurance
    An engrossing chronicle.
  113. Ulee's Gold
    The film becomes a modest delight.
  114. Vertical Limit
    Possibly the most suspense-charged mountain-climbing movie ever made.
  115. Pleasantville
    I can't get over the nagging feeling that Pleasantville's beguiling spell was cast by a real magician, only to be carelessly broken by the same clumsy charlatan.
  116. Eight Legged Freaks
    This is postmodern folk art, a tricky transaction in which the work isn't just a story, it's a genre survey, a homage, a meditation, a parody and, oh yeah, while it's at it, still a pretty good story.
  117. Finding Forrester
    Manages to take the cerebral act of literary creation and make it exciting, sexy even.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Madame Satã
    Shot almost entirely on location with a hand-held camera, director Karim Ainouz's film draws you in close. The charisma and intensity of Lazaro Ramos as Joao holds you there.
  119. Bulworth
    It's daring, deliberately offensive and, for a comedy, it has far more ideas in it than actual laughs.
  120. The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
    When I say this movie's a charm, I'm really talking about Irwin.
  121. Legally Blonde
    Blondes may or may not have more fun, but in this one case, they certainly provide more fun.
  122. One Day in September
    The film, built of interviews with participants, is fast-paced, utterly absorbing and ultimately tragic.
  123. Charlotte Gray
    Has an intoxicating, old-fashioned feel about it. We are instantly lost in the period, thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe's almost haloed images and Joseph Bennett's authentic, restrained production design.
  124. Manic
    It's without posturing or phony outrage, and offers instead something far more affecting: a deep sense of melancholy. This is the way it is, it says, and not much can be done about it.
  125. Jet Lag
    Rather wonderful to sit through. It's fluff with flavor. And a cell phone.
  126. Willard
    This is a one-riff movie and instant cult classic.
  127. Repo Man
    Cox gives the denizens of Edge City wacky ways of expressing themselves whether they're principals, passers-by or disembodied voices. [14 Sept 1984, p.C1]
    • Washington Post
  128. Colors
    It's an exhilarating sparring match between Duvall's workmanlike fine-tuning and Penn's raw energy. [15 Apr 1988]
  129. The Hunt for Red October
    This is a Reagan youth's wet dream of underwater ballistics and East-West conflict.
  130. The Hot Spot
    A crazy, intentionally ludicrous movie that's a lot of film-noir fun.
  131. ABC Africa
    A gorgeous and surprisingly profound meditation on a place and its people.
  132. On the Run
    The most cinematic of the three films. It tells its story in stark, often wordless scenes.
  133. An Amazing Couple
    In this comedy, Cecile misinterprets husband Alain's furtive attempt to have himself medically tested as suspicious extramarital behavior.
  134. After the Life
    The most assured of the three films.
  135. Tumbleweeds
    Janet McTeer doesn't imitate Mary Jo Walker, and she doesn't act her. She becomes her. It's almost spooky.
  136. Carnage
    A gorgeously morbid meditation on the interconnectivity of life.
  137. Primal Fear
    A crackling courtroom drama with more twists than O.J. had alibis.
  138. Rounders
    This isn't a movie where story matters that much: It's a movie of character and milieu, both of which it evokes brilliantly.
  139. Analyze This
    Ramis...does extract every last yuk from this lively clash of id and superego, this spoofy buddies' odyssey from underworld to Prozac nation.
  140. Big Eden
    The key to success: The audience must really like both characters and believe that they deserve a fairy-tale ending. That's definitely the case in this nicely acted love story.
  141. Babí léto
    Though the story line seems grim at times, it's always made lighter by Brodsky's gentle, often hilarious presence.
  142. Mission: Impossible II
    Such a feast of outlandish pleasures it'll send you home steam-cleaned and shrink-wrapped.
  143. The Secret Lives of Dentists
    Roundly entertaining.
  144. Dark Blue
    Shelton's harrowing and compulsively watchable morality play.
  145. Charlotte Sometimes
    Wonderful images, hues, sensations and faces.
  146. Menace II Society
    May just be the best in its genre… Entertainment and radical street preaching, all rolled into one. If it tells black kids not to try this at home, it also revels cinematically in blam-blam-you're-dead. This is what makes the movie maddening -- and what gives it strength.
  147. Northfork
    Isn't everyone's cup of tea -- as the Polishes admit in a clever bit of critical preemption -- but it possesses an undeniable, haunting grandeur.
  148. The Fugitive
    A flurry of stunts, close shaves and deeds of desperate daring, it easily transcends its television origins to become a stylish pacemaker-buster.
  149. The Man Without a Past
    It's a gentle, surprising little movie whose rewards lie in what its characters don't say as much as in what they do.
  150. The Joy Luck Club
    Gives refreshing -- and bittersweet -- dimension to the age-old clash between generations.
  151. Dark Blue World
    The last word you'd expect for it is "sweet," yet it is exactly the right one. That may come as no surprise to some, since the director is Jan Sverak, who brought sweetness to his breakthrough film "Koyla," but it caught me by total surprise.
  152. Two Family House
    The story, which deals straightforwardly with racism, miscegenation, adultery and consumerism, is a fascinating combination: a movie with an almost Capraesque heart and pristine, almost stagey lighting schemes, that addresses uncomfortable moral issues with today's perspectives.
  153. Quiz Show
    As taut, sleek and guiltily comfortable as the classic Chrysler automobile we see at the beginning, Quiz Show is built for entertaining road performance.
  154. Phone Booth
    What keeps Phone Booth going, despite its premise, is the acting and the writing, both of which are top-notch.
  155. Midnight Run
    Robert De Niro is one extended pleasure in Midnight Run -- a real actor putting his considerable talent to work in a well-scripted comedy. And he's more than complemented by Charles Grodin, a brilliant comic performer who has been wasted up to now in small roles or lousy movies. [22 July 1988]
  156. Demonlover
    Disturbing, darkly beautiful.
  157. The Spanish Prisoner
    Pure David Mamet is an acquired, but delicious, taste.
  158. Nurse Betty
    Nurse Betty is this year's "Being John Malkovich"-an utter original with a little something to say and a way of saying it that manages to be at once delightful and bilious.
  159. Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
    And if the movie's not particularly visual -- apart from the excerpted scenes from Fellini's extremely visual films -- it's entertaining for the ears. Fellini talks and talks. And like many directors, he talks a good life.
  160. The Man Who Wasn't There
    It's the latest and one of the best entries in a genre whose highest philosophical expression is the whiplash realization that the universe doesn't play fair.
  161. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    In this movie, only one thing is certain: No one remains the same.
  162. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    Tried hard to honor the spirit of the franchise, not exploit it, and take it to a new level and a surprising destination.
  163. Real Women Have Curves
    Handsomely shot by cinematographer Jim Denault, the film immerses the audience in Ana's world, its mosaic of colors and sounds and people, to create a vivid cinematic portrait not only of one girl but of an entire community.
  164. The Hunted
    It's a good ride, briskly paced, well played and vividly photographed by Caleb Deschanel.
  165. Under solen
    Makes a virtue of its own simplicity. But don't be fooled. That simplicity is mere cover. You're kept wondering about the outcome until the very end.
  166. One Hour Photo
    Intense and absorbing experience.
  167. Dopamine
    A lot of bigger movies won't provoke you half as much.
  168. Stone Reader
    While he dithers around in search of a movie and a theme, Moskowitz meets intriguing people -- almost all of them older men. And because they are hungry readers, they have interesting things to say.
  169. The Thomas Crown Affair
    A full-throttle fantasy, about as heady a movie experience as it gets.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zero Day
    Will chill you to your core.
  171. Hamlet
    These are great, primal stories that pull you in, make you care and put you on the edge of madness and violence.
  172. The Cuckoo
    It's a whimsical tale of war and redemption, of faith, hope and even some charity...It's quite a treat, as a matter of fact.
  173. Love and Diane
    It is a movie about the real challenge of heroism.
  174. The Core
    A two-hour pleasure cruise.
  175. Italian for Beginners
    It's all done without special effects, soaring strings or manufactured sentiment. Now, that's entertainment.
  176. Nowhere in Africa
    Consistently absorbing family saga is primarily a safari of the soul.
  177. Le divorce
    A relaxed delight, a series of delicately tongue-in-cheek musings about the clash between American and French cultures.
  178. Bull Durham
    You may catch yourself trying to remember where you parked a little before the end.
  179. Tarzan
    Speaking of Jane, Minnie Driver gets the big banana for top off-screen performance. She brims over with prissiness and pep, tenderness and visionary appreciation.
  180. The Embalmer
    A bummer, but one that manages to stick to its depraved convictions until the strange and bitter end.
  181. Along Came a Spider
    Freeman fills Cross's gumshoes with distinction.
  182. Together
    Moodysson's cornball sentimentality about the many shapes of the human family is tempered by his honesty about personal frailty and the silliness of utopian living experiments.
  183. The Object of My Affection
    It's just more wry than funny, more a gently subversive comedy of modern manners than the simpering date movie it seems to be masquerading as.
  184. Die Hard
    A firepowered, blood-drenched action picture that doesn't let up.
  185. Ha-Chaverim Shel Yana
    You probably never dreamed a charming romantic movie could be staged against a backdrop of Scud attacks from Saddam Hussein.
  186. Together
    A true original, thanks to some memorable characters, an engaging story and a thrilling classical soundtrack.
  187. Lawless Heart
    It's an intriguing experience.
  188. The Weather Underground
    A smart, absorbing, often exhilarating documentary.
  189. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
    Engrossing, educational, amusing and disturbing. And who could ask for more than that from a film?
  190. S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine
    Cinema at its most intellectually honest and morally necessary.
  191. Life
    We have been treated to something we normally would never get in a prison comedy like this: a little delicacy with the humor.
  192. Jerry Maguire
    Cruise is at the top of his form, and Gooding makes a brilliant opponent.
  193. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
    You have the right to remain silent. But if you do, call 911 -- your funny bone is busted. [2 Dec 1988]
    • Washington Post
  194. The Princess Blade
    It's all story, character and dazzling martial arts violence, as orchestrated by fight choreographer Donnie Yen at breakneck speed.
  195. Sliding Doors
    This is the lightest, brightest and tightest film confection to come down the date pike in quite some time.
  196. A Few Good Men
    An entertainment to be seen and appreciated in momentum. As such, it is constantly gripping
  197. Startup.com
    Astute and entertaining documentary.
  198. Frida
    Endlessly interesting. It's about people who thought ideas and art mattered, which makes it a rarity today.
  199. Our Lady of the Assassins
    The grimness of the movie becomes not only too unbearable, its point is clear about halfway through. After that, everything comes across as redundant retreading of the same perspective. But for atmosphere, great cinematography and eye-opening directness, this movie can't be beat.
  200. L.A. Confidential
    Hanson delivers something ever rarer in film culture, not a new film noir but an old-fashioned total movie, somehow of a single piece.
  201. Kandahar
    That's the movie: It's taking us inside the burqa to the woman.
  202. The Abyss
    Before this voyage plummets into Stevie Spielberg's locker, the human stuff is more than worth the descent.
  203. Planet of the Apes
    Forget the heavy stuff. This monkey shines.
  204. Step Into Liquid
    This is pretty much a feel-good film for committed fans and moviegoers looking for some spectacular combination of travelogue, athleticism and slo-mo grace.
  205. L.A. Story
    Martin's poetic elegance turns to sappy mysticism. And if the material had been presented more insistently, it might have been insufferable, too goopy and new-age. Its modesty, though, is its prime virtue.
  206. Lost in La Mancha
    Like rubbernecking motorists, we can't help but watch with lurid fascination.
  207. A Midsummer Night's Dream
    Only the title is clunky in this felicitous marriage of cinematic trickery, theatrical whimsy and the Bard's fabulous tale.
  208. Better Luck Tomorrow
    An exhilarating ride.
  209. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
    Elle fans will likely ignore the narrative shortcomings in favor of a well-loved character.
  210. I Capture the Castle
    The psychological darkness that underpins this film doesn't seem inappropriate to its wit and charm, but rather amplifies it, makes it more real.
  211. The Sea Is Watching
    A mostly unsentimental little gem.
  212. Confidence
    Yes, it's a hyped, hip "Sting" for our times, with goatees, mousse and attitude as part of the update package. It's also Burns's best film since "Saving Private Ryan."
  213. Croupier
    A smoothly executed jab in your solar plexus, a lean, smart film noir that pokes at you with quintessentially English disdain and sarcasm.
  214. The Ignorant Fairies
    A movie that grows better by the minute.
  215. Babe
    A captivating comic allegory about daring to be different in the face of conformity.
  216. Hilary and Jackie
    The movie is exquisitely directed by Anand Tucker in an anti-documentary style that sometimes fractures the time sequence, sometimes re-creates moments impressionistically instead of objectively and is vivid in style.
  217. Slums of Beverly Hills
    Like its Southern California setting, the sunny semi-autobiography is tempered with just the right touch of Jenkins's smoggy cynicism.
  218. Stepmom
    If emotional catharsis is what you seek, Stepmom delivers the goods.
  219. An Ideal Husband
    Parker stays with and even streamlines Wilde's clever manipulations of betrayals and lies and plots and counterplots. Yet the film never feels stagy.
  220. American Pie 2
    The funniest scenes involve Jim and his father, thanks to the brilliant, improvisational skills of Eugene Levy.
  221. Amistad
    Hounsou, a West African model with beauty and presence but no acting experience, carries much of the movie on his broad shoulders with surprising skill and strength.
  222. The Grifters
    [Huston] brings a vital conviction to her scenes; they're scorchingly immediate, and her ability to get in sync with what Lily's feeling is what gives the movie weight. She may be the best we have.
  223. The Fifth Element
    An entertaining tangle of pop aesthetic and comic book myth that occasionally bogs down, but manages to be ingratiating for all its defects.
  224. Yossi & Jagger
    Short but powerful drama.
  225. One True Thing
    An uplifting, superbly acted and intelligent family drama.
  226. The X Files
    Like the TV show, The X-Files movie is stylish, scary, sardonically funny and at times just plain gross.
  227. Bread and Tulips
    Nicely done, sweet, delicately comic and a complete delight.
  228. Edward Scissorhands
    Amusing and inventive.
  229. The Legend of Drunken Master
    You have to see this to believe it.
  230. The Transporter
    A poke in the adrenal gland -- obeys the first law of action movie-making by quickening the heart and dazzling the eye.
  231. Amen.
    It's not every day that movies present a Teutonic character in SS uniform as an unambiguously moral hero, so enjoy this rarity. And the film.
  232. Osama
    In its small, achingly beautiful way, this is the lesson that Osama teaches us: When one human being suffers, it is all of us who share her pain.
  233. Out of Time
    A bleakly comic, palm-sweaty hoot.
  234. Kissing Jessica Stein
    The performers bring freshness to what could have been cliched roles.
  235. Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
    Riveting, gracefully constructed film.
  236. Hearts in Atlantis
    Yes, it's corny and reemerging cynics need not apply. But it is blissfully heartwarming.
  237. Son of the Bride
    Sweet without being saccharine, sad without being maudlin and funny without being forced.
  238. There's Something About Mary
    This one is dumbest. And funniest, as if that matters even a little bit!
  239. Urbania
    There's no denying its surreal, hypnotic effect.
  240. The Eye
    Although almost nothing about The Eye is surprising, the movie is nevertheless engrossing, as it mutates from horror movie to ghost story to psychological drama to disaster flick (a late, stunning twist). It casts a spell strong enough that viewers won't want to look away.
  241. Who Is Cletis Tout?
    A caper film of such postmodernist pretense that it's almost a parody of itself.
  242. Rock Star
    Even though it's weak in the final stages, Rock Star has more than enough sparkle to last you. That's chiefly thanks to Wahlberg, the main firework of this movie.
  243. Scream
    Deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills.
  244. Adorenarin doraibu
    A pleasure because of zany developments like this, and a healthy dose of amusing characters.
  245. The Horse Whisperer
    The movie is not only a better version of the book, it's a work unto itself.
  246. Air Force One
    Takes its absurd premise and keeps itself narrowly focused, pushing its heroic cast through obstacle after obstacle.
  247. Chopper
    Not everyone's cup of tea, but it's actually rather beautiful.
  248. Grazia's Island
    It's slight but in a haunting way, like a half-remembered dream.
  249. Shattered Glass
    In a sense, Shattered Glass is a parenthetical horror movie in which someone discovers (or worse, denies) the monster within themselves.
  250. Godzilla
    Its images of the destruction of the cities is far more powerful than in American films, where the cities are trashed for the pure pleasure of destruction, without any real sense of human loss.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Eight
    Paul Thomas Anderson shows off the same sort of quirky smarts that Joel and Ethan Coen did in "Blood Simple."
  252. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown
    Classy fare, with posh settings, gorgeous scenery and lots and lots of polishing from director John Madden ("Ethan Frome") and writer Jeremy Brock.
  253. Songcatcher
    The haunting beauty of the music, and the people who produce it – that's the chapter and verse of this story.
  254. Cats & Dogs
    Surprisingly witty and sophisticated spy movie spoof that will tickle adult pet lovers and still capture kids 6 and older with its boy-and-his-dog love story and pet slapstick.
  255. Bloody Sunday
    As a terrifying example of what can happen when too many angry people are crowded into too small a space, it's a gripper.
  256. He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not
    Wickedly clever.
  257. The Legend of 1900
    An enchanting, staggeringly beautiful epic at sea, is poetry in motion.
  258. Solomon & Gaenor
    Its pleasures aren't so much in the inevitable plot complications, but in the passion of the performances and the spare beauty of the elegant framing and photography.
  259. Sweet and Lowdown
    Penn's performance is the movie's ultimate grace note. As funny and ingenious as Allen's films can get, they are rarely known for depth of character.
  260. Punch-Drunk Love
    The outlandish story and exaggerated colors ... swirl together to create an ethereal, sometimes sinister dreamscape.
  261. Big Trouble
    This is, after all, the kind of movie in which traffic accidents not only mess up getaways but also liberate goats to wander through the airport. We need more of that stuff.
  262. Crimson Gold
    Unfolds with a marvelously understated humanism.
  263. Tupac: Resurrection
    The result isn't a fragmentary experience so much as an evocative collage.
  264. Harry Is Here to Help
    Very, very funny, in that morbid sort of way that makes you laugh even as you shudder with horror.
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