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. Art School Confidential
    Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity.
  2. An American Haunting
    Tries -- and fails -- to evoke that whoa-did-this-really-happen edge.
  3. Hoot
    Hoot may be warm and fuzzy with its adorable owls, triumphant kids and inviting Florida groves. But its forced, innocuous humor is unlikely to amuse anyone but the very young -- and the extremely forgiving.
  4. Down in the Valley
    Down in the Valley is exactly what we don't have enough of: It's singular, unusual, unexpected, fresh and familiar at once.
  5. The Proposition
    The Australian director John Hillcoat makes an audacious, unsettling American feature debut with The Proposition, a revisionist western that brings its own brand of sanguinary honesty to the genre.
  6. One Last Thing...
    The mawkishness is ultimately too formidable.
  7. United 93
    United 93 unfolds with the terrible inevitability of a modern-day "Battle of Algiers," with Greengrass exerting superb control of tone, structure and pace...United 93 may be the best movie I ever hated.
  8. Stick It
    Instead of gold-medal-winning, last-minute heroics, the movie weirdly becomes about the scandal of arbitrary gymnastics judges. Is it a movie or an episode of "Real Sports"? It veers into fresh territory but not dramatically satisfying territory.
  9. Akeelah and the Bee
    By turns funny, affecting tale.
  10. RV
    Why did director Barry Sonnenfeld take on this project? Just to sully a fine comedic resume that includes "The Addams Family" and "Get Shorty"? And one last one: Which one of these levers do you push to send the RV careering off the mountain for good?
  11. The Lost City
    Some of the tropes of The Lost City are ineffective. What does work is the sense of loss. The late Cuban novelist and screenwriter G. Cabrera Infante finds a brilliant device in the love affair between Fico and Aurora (Ines Sastre), his sister-in-law, in that Aurora in some way becomes Cuba.
  12. Water
    Water, set in 1930s India, is something pretty rare in the world of movies: an artistic muckraker. It is superb and strange at once, a discreet and self-disciplined attack dog of a movie.
  13. Lady Vengeance
    What you get for your entertainment dollar in Lady Vengeance is Korean director Chan-wook Park's brilliantly orchestrated story of how Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young-ae ) got her groove back.
  14. Army of Shadows
    It's a strange enough film, yet weirdly great. No movie has quite gotten the clammy weight of fear, the sense of hopelessness that would necessarily haunt underground workers. To see it is to sweat through your underclothes. It'll melt the pep out of your weekend.
  15. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
    It's long, but it's also very real and worth every minute.
  16. Three Times
    The first section of Three Times is fabulous; the second is fascinating if remote; and the third a jangly, modernist mess.
  17. American Dreamz
    Weitz co-directed the wonderful "About a Boy" in 2002, but in "Dreamz" -- a tediously facile satire -- his comic instincts fail him.
  18. The Sentinel
    Sentinel is a medium-dumb thriller that starts out with momentary promise but gets progressively sillier.
  19. Somersault
    Somersault faces the difficulty of representing a girl's unspoken desires and anxieties, a challenge Shortland rises to with terrific skill and aplomb.
  20. Mongolian Ping Pong
    This is one of the most becalming films ever made. The grasslands seem oddly serene, and to watch them is to feel your pulse rate flatten out -- yet another aspect of Mongolian Ping Pong's transcendent charm.
  21. Stolen
    In the end, we're treated to an overture of possibilities rather than a satisfying film.
  22. The Wild
    Adult humor in kiddie films -- of which there is plenty in The Wild -- is not only welcome but, for many adult viewers, essential.
  23. Kinky Boots
    Ejiofor was a revelation in "Dirty Pretty Things" as a Nigerian doctor forced to live illegally in London. Though he's charismatic as the husky-voiced Simon, he never transcends the movie's pandering agenda.
  24. Hard Candy
    Though Hard Candy clearly believes pedophiles should be chopped into little pieces and buried in an unmarked grave, its only purpose is exploitative. Sure, it's a cautionary tale for all those sicko wolves out there, but it's nothing more than an unabashed lurk-and-dread fest.
  25. The Notorious Bettie Page
    Director Mary Harron may have more courage than talent -- and she's got a lot of talent. It's too bad Bettie's story isn't more dramatic.
  26. Look Both Ways
    Though Watt's emphasis on coincidence and fate seems strained at times, Look Both Ways is rich in dreamy summer atmosphere and deadpan wit.
  27. Mountain Patrol
    Extraordinary on many levels...because Mountain Patrol instead becomes what might be the first Chinese conservationist spaghetti western ever made.
  28. La Mujer de Mi Hermano
    The movie feels more like a thriller than a drama; it's paced like a thriller, building to a murder that never happens, exciting passions that are never unleashed, waiting for a crime to occur. The only crimes, however, are of the heart. Meanwhile, the movie knows exactly what it's doing, and does exactly what it intends, without making one false move.
  29. Preaching to the Choir
    A religious feel-good message, first and foremost. As for drama, well, it's a distant second. For the right audience, however, this reversal of priorities will work just fine.
  30. Lucky Number Slevin
    There's just too much death, it comes too quickly, it has no moral import, it becomes ultimately meaningless. It's not that hyper-violent movies are axiomatically a bad thing, it's just that this particular example is so laden with shootings that it becomes somehow tedious.
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