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. Catch and Release
    Throughout, Garner retains a permanent grimace, as if persuasive acting can be achieved by contorting cheek muscles and pouting lips. It's not just depressing to watch; it's tiring. We want to tell her to relax -- for our own relief.
  2. Smokin' Aces
    It's kind of like a hit man's Olympics. Isn't this grown-up? In a word, no, and that's what's so much fun about it.
  3. Becket (re-release)
    It is a snapshot of a great actor in his prime and a chance for us to see one of yesteryear's great films in all its kingly luster.
  4. Mafioso [re-release]
    Mafioso may have been made in another era, but it stands as a classy, even radical rebuke to the film school posers who keep recycling the same tired gangster tropes.
  5. Alpha Dog
    The movie suffers from an uncertain structure, but it boasts an extraordinary naturalism, not particularly flattering. Sharon Stone has a brilliant, harsh turn as Zack's mom, and both Bruce Willis and Harry Dean Stanton have good turns as the elder generations of Trueloves. But the movie belongs to its youngsters, and it's a real eye-opener.
  6. Stomp the Yard
    Short is a professional choreographer, and his dancing seems unstuck in time. How he can break his movements down to such small elements, keep them so precise and in such rigorous rhythm, yet keep the whole thing on track and moving forward with Nureyev's beauty and discipline is something to see.
  7. Tears of the Black Tiger
    The movie alternates between cornball and ridiculous, and the frequent violence is extremely bloody if stylized. Love it or hate it, and I'm not sure which applies to me, you've never seen and never will see anything quite like Tears of the Black Tiger.
  8. Happily N'Ever After
    Winds up answering the question of what "Shrek" hath wrought, and between its plastic-looking visuals and cynical attitude, the news isn't good. Lacking the genuine wit and humanism of that film and any number of forebears, this one deserves its dumpin'.
  9. Freedom Writers
    It offers a sort of Chinese food poignancy, the kind that may seem satisfying at the time but ultimately leaves us hungering for more, for something authentic.
  10. Code Name: The Cleaner
    Aside from Cedric's admittedly appealing persona -- he's always watchable, even in dreck like this -- there's absolutely nothing to recommend The Cleaner.
  11. Thr3e
    Thr3e needs help with more than spelling.
  12. Pan's Labyrinth
    With this film, del Toro seems to have created his manifesto, a tour de force of cautionary zeal, humanism and magic. At this writing, Pan's Labyrinth is the best-reviewed film of 2006 listed on the movie review Web site Metacritic.com, and for a reason: It's just that great.
  13. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
    It's simultaneously arty, arcane and nasty.
  14. Miss Potter
    Zellweger is certainly likable as Beatrix, but as an upper-class English lady of a century ago, she enunciates her words as if sucking a lemon -- you almost start to wonder if you've stumbled into a satire of "Masterpiece Theatre."
  15. Factory Girl
    We find ourselves wondering about the real story, not this version.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Flying Scotsman
    Miller is key to the film's success, with his earnest, sweet-faced looks and evident dark side. He plays Obree with just the right understated intensity, a believable competitor who fights back fiercely with his wits and a few tight-lipped words.
  17. Arthur and the Invisibles
    None of the characters are compelling, despite the star-studded vocal cast behind them, including Madonna, Robert De Niro, Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Fallon. Our attitude toward them is casual interest, not anxious concern.
  18. Notes on a Scandal
    I can't remember a film that sees the here and now more precisely, one that offers total believability in the tone and motive of its characters and then goes further, showing us a whole and completely recognizable world.
  19. Children of Men
    Working with his longtime cinematographer Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, Cuaron creates the most deeply imagined and fully realized world to be seen on screen this year, not to mention bravura sequences that bring to mind names like Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick.
  20. Black Christmas
    The remake neither pays perceptive tribute to the original nor updates it in anything but hackneyed form.
  21. The Good Shepherd
    The Good Shepherd is serious adult moviemaking, a truly surprising effort from De Niro, a man deeply interested in the art, craft and psychology of espionage. He seems to believe that we'd better be interested in it, because it's interested in us.
  22. Night at the Museum
    It's a fun ride, and the big payoff -- that history turns out to be way cooler than its reputation suggests -- is even more gratifying. Bully!
  23. We Are Marshall
    "Lost" star Matthew Fox pitches in with a strong performance as a coach who, by the laws of whimsy, didn't take the final flight home and had to struggle with survivor's guilt.
  24. Venus
    Director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi take a deeper, edifying interest in the moral ambiguities that arise between Maurice and Jessie. And thanks to our warm investment in both characters, we're more than willing to sign up for this existential ride. We allow this relationship -- and the movie -- to take us places we'd never usually go.
  25. Curse of the Golden Flower
    Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower is a kind of feast, an over-the-top, all-stops-pulled-out lollapalooza that means to play kitschy and grand at once.
  26. Letters from Iwo Jima
    In the last half-hour, the story, like the Japanese, loses its way; lacking any clear-cut goals except survival, the film becomes repetitive. Letters From Iwo Jima is a necessary movie; too bad it's not a great movie.
  27. The Painted Veil
    The result is a movie that feels weirdly disconnected from reality.
  28. Rocky Balboa
    It matters because this boxer taps into something deeper in our collective souls than the desire for entertainment. It's the hope that one day we're going to win big, too, after everyone's given up on us. It's as hokey as it's true.
  29. Dreamgirls
    Even with Hudson's triumphant arrival and an overall fizzy mood of singing, dancing, pop nostalgia and camp, Dreamgirls is an uneven crowd pleaser.
  30. The Good German
    Of The Good German, it can be said that the operation was a brilliant success, even if the patient is not merely dead but most sincerely dead. The movie, in other words, lies there as if on a slab in a morgue, while you admire the corpse for its beauty.
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