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
    JFK
    Stone creates a riveting marriage of fact and fiction, hypothesis and empirical proof in the edge-of-the-seat spirit of a conspiracy thriller.
  2. Days of Thunder
    If "Top Gun" was a stylish bimbo of a movie, all cleavage, white teeth and aerodynamic flash, then Days of Thunder is its paradoxical twin -- a bimbo with brains.
  3. What About Bob?
    Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss star in this hilarious brain-teaser about a patient who suffers acute separation anxiety when his psychiatrist goes on vacation.
  4. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
    Director Frank Oz has brought a devilish tang to the machinations here, and the actors bring a sense of a spoiled grandeur to their characters' mingy souls.
  5. Mississippi Burning
    Parker, a director of breadth, not depth, never supplies the big answers, but he does powerfully depict the climate of the Confederacy in the "Freedom Summer" of 1964.
  6. Ghostbusters II
    Here, the comedy breathes, and the illusion that it's not a factory-assembled product (which it most certainly is) is a nifty one. For a major studio blockbuster, the thing is darned chummy, and above all, that rare, modest thing, a good show.
  7. Parenthood
    Weaned on the homilies of "Happy Days" and the hominy grits of Mayberry, Ron Howard brings sitcom aphorisms to bear on the sticky-fingered realities of the beamish Parenthood.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Henry V
    An alert, rousing interpretation of "Henry V," Branagh beats down the doors of high art and drags the sleeping bard into the light of modern day.
  9. Little Women
    Armstrong applies a dusting of contemporary feminism, but the stubborn sentimentalism of Alcott's endearing family portrait endures. [21 Dec 1994]
    • Washington Post
  10. Broadcast News
    As it turns out, big secrets aren't revealed in Broadcast News, but the film is so ingratiatingly high-spirited, and the performances so full of sass and vigor, that in the long run it doesn't really matter much.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Big
    Big is never condescending to or smuttily smirky about kids. And it doesn't make fun of grownups, either. It just feels sorry for them a little. [3 Jun 1988, p.n37]
    • Washington Post
  12. Animal House
    Belushi also controls a wicked array of conspiratorial expressions with the audience. His smoldering pouts, crazed gleams, elevating eyebrows and erotically-contended smiles generate gleeful rabble-rousing excitement. And he can seem irresistibly funny in repose or invest minor slapstick opportunities with a streak of genius.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hairspray
    It seems inappropriate to call ick noir auteur Waters a breath of fresh air. But, amid the stale odor of our man-made, musty, Muzaked lives, he's a welcome gust of Renuzit.
  14. Little Shop of Horrors
    The pleasures of Little Shop carry you past its dull stretches -- you enjoy its quick-witted wordplay, inventive sketch comedy and the Broadway- and Motown-influenced music (by Alan Menken). And most of all, you enjoy watching a story told through song, as the Hollywood musical, with its glitz and sass, is reborn.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Favor
    The Favor is a frisky, frank and funny female-buddy film - as if "Thelma and Louise" had stayed in the suburbs, making girl-talk about sex and satisfaction, married vs. single.
  16. A Christmas Story
    Oh, there's no doubt about it, Clark is manipulating his audience right down to those "Jingle Bells," but only an unreformed Scrooge would hate him for it. "A Christmas Story" is a joy to the world, right down to the moment Mom slips downstairs to unplug the tree lights.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Home Alone
    This holiday contender from John Hughes is too crass, too loud and too violent to be added blithely to Christmas viewing traditions. But it is funny.
  18. Too Much Sleep
    It's nothing less than a spiritual journey set in New Jersey.
  19. New Suit
    New Suit is devilishly good fun.
  20. Stealing the Fire
    The documentary makes an effective and rather chilling case that there is an almost unbroken chain between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein.
  21. Eat This New York
    The ending is enormously satisfying and moving.
  22. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    A picture that is surely one of the oddest ever made.
  23. Titanic Town
    In its heart burns the indomitable flame of the human spirit.
  24. The Other Side of the Street
    More love story than thriller, with the mystery providing only slack tension and the December-December romance that ultimately develops between Regina and Camargo crackling with drama and sexual tension aplenty.
  25. March of the Penguins
    It doesn't take a screenwriter, for example, to point out the uncanny fact that, when two parent penguins perform a neck-curving pas de deux above their tiny chick, they resemble nothing so much as a perfect heart.
  26. Heading South
    In its way, the film is a piercing indictment, though it makes its point without much screaming, hectoring or preening. It's quietly terrific.
  27. House of Sand
    Visually dazzling, epic in its sweep and deeply romantic in its sensibility, The House of Sand is one of those films whose images and ideas linger long after the lights come on, having been burned into the viewer's consciousness.
  28. 51 Birch Street
    Block, an experienced documentarian, does an outstanding job walking the knife-edge between personal and self-absorbed.
  29. Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
    Deeply absorbing and moving with the caffeinated speed of Smith's own feisty campaign, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? is at once a celebration of small-d democracy and an elegy to it, a portrait that will surely inspire and infuriate viewers.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Man of No Importance
    Albert Finney is a beautifully mannered, lilting charm; he's more than ably supported by Dubliners Michael Gambon, Brenda Fricker, Tara Fitzgerald and others. [27 Jan 1995]
    • Washington Post
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