Washington Post's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
    The tale grows only more toxic with time.
  2. 16 Blocks
    It seems such a waste to go onto the actual streets of Lower Manhattan and shoot a movie this stupid. Think of the money, the logistics, the interruptions in the city's life -- all that trouble for what? For this? For shame.
  3. Aquamarine
    Aquamarine is better than nothing for its woefully underserved audience.
  4. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
    There is a clear festive buzz, as attendees laugh, bob and listen to Chappelle's impish, inventive comedy, and some of the best music hip-hop has to offer.
  5. Merry Christmas
    The first two-thirds of Joyeux Noel are strangely inert, but the film ends with a moving and surprisingly sophisticated meditation on the definition of moral duty.
  6. Our Brand Is Crisis
    Political junkies will love this movie.
  7. Tsotsi
    As Tsotsi, Chweneyagae turns his face into a living battle mask -- curved, molded and sandpapered into smooth ruthlessness. But as the story unfolds, Tsotsi's mask begins to crack, and his humanity begins to flow through.
  8. Running Scared
    Not surprisingly, everything feels begged, borrowed and stolen from other better movies, from Quentin Tarantino's exclamation-point violence to the slo-mo bullet trajectory shots from "The Matrix."
  9. Unknown White Male
    Fake or not, Unknown White Male doesn't live up to its tantalizing potential.
  10. Black Orpheus
    A riotous, rapturous explosion of sound and color, Black Orpheus is less about Orpheus's doomed love for Eurydice than about Camus's love for cinema at its most gestural and kinetic.
  11. Date Movie
    Date Movie, alas, is here to remind us that slapstick can be just plain bad. These are sight gags best appreciated with a blindfold.
  12. Eight Below
    Although the dogs have surely been Disney-fied to some extent, the sequences of them trying to survive are magnificent and deeply moving. Bring the Kleenex, and hug your pups when you get home.
  13. Freedomland
    This would have made a fascinating film if Freedomland were one movie. Instead, it turns into several movies, none fully realized. What could have been an unusually smart police procedural becomes a sprawling, overwrought melodrama that itself morphs into a sort of spiritual romance.
  14. Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor
    Bekmambetov handles these narrative bumps with ease, infusing even the hoariest -- and goriest -- of horror movie cliches with equal parts macabre fascination and jaunty humor. The film lives up to its hype with a style, swagger and substance that will appeal not just to the fanboys (and girls) but to their uninitiated friends as well.
  15. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
    Andre Hennicke is particularly chilling as the yappy mad dog judge who sends them to death.
  16. Winter Passing
    Winter Passing is one dull, extended encounter session among hackneyed characters -- although Deschanel gets the most points for almost imitating a human.
  17. C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
    With surprisingly good production values and sly, underhanded wit, Willmott never tips his hand, steadily guiding the satire to a genuinely stunning, back-to-reality conclusion.
  18. Curious George
    It's pretty elementary.
  19. Final Destination 3
    With a premise as cavalier as this, perhaps director and co-writer James Wong could have found a tone more original than post-Wes Craven cynicism. Instead, he panders to viewers, allowing them to take gleeful comfort in the destruction of the stupid and doomed.
  20. Firewall
    Flagging energy isn't the only issue here; Ford has become enslaved in his own cliches.
  21. The Pink Panther
    Most of the humor in The Pink Panther derives from Martin's silly French accent, especially when he tries to pronounce the word "hamburger." But zat joke, she ees not funny. And The Pink Panther ees, how you say, ze real dog.
  22. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
    Director Demme is smart and sensitive enough to sit back and listen to the music without attention-getting intrusions. The tunes are subtly compelling.
  23. The Fallen Idol (re-release)
    This is an example of a writer and director working in perfect harness, with Reed smoothly ratcheting up the story's suspense and Greene speculating on his cardinal theme of moral ambiguity. They don't make movies like The Fallen Idol anymore, all the more reason to see it now while you can.
  24. A Good Woman
    All in all, A Good Woman retains ye olde Wilde's zing, his sense of pace and place, but most of all his snappy one-liners, and it finds a new way to showcase them brilliantly.
  25. When a Stranger Calls
    When a Stranger Calls never manages to convey the primal, almost atavistic terror that has earned John Carpenter's movies and the "Scream" franchise their places in the teen horror canon. The most lasting psychological effect of this pulp non-classic will most likely be limited to a deep pathological fear of Architectural Digest.
  26. Something New
    Lathan, who was such a live wire as the aspiring basketballer in 2000's "Love & Basketball," gives this movie an alert, glamorous presence.
  27. La scorta (re-release)
    Ultimately, La Scorta is a tight, competent but rather inconsequential thriller. It's diverting, but thin. (Review of Original Release)
  28. Bubble
    Soderbergh and screenwriter Coleman Hough aren't interested in creating a coy whodunit so much as evoking the deeper, less romantic mysteries of people -- and it's riveting.
  29. Annapolis
    The only impressive thing about it is the monotony and thoroughness with which it replicates cliches from older, better movies and hammers them into pop alloy to an up-with-me beat beat beat of its musical score.
  30. Nanny McPhee
    Even Thompson, the one you look forward to watching, is disappointing.
  31. Imagine Me & You
    Imagine settles disappointingly for rom-com cliches. It doesn't even bother to explore its own premise.
  32. Manderlay
    Even the basic look of the film -- it was filmed on a stage with every shot set against a bleak, dark backdrop -- underscores the filmmaker's position as master manipulator, in a laboratory, looking down at his mice running through his maze.
  33. Roving Mars
    A briskly moving, deeply engaging 40-minute documentary.
  34. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    It's pretty funny. You don't actually watch it so much as indulge it and admire its cleverness.
  35. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    The movie doesn't so much end as reach a stopping point and limp hurriedly off-screen, like a bad stand-up chased out by boo birds. But God, is it funny.
  36. Why We Fight
    Memo to left-wing anti-Bushies: Stories like this work. Don't lecture. Tell stories! Much better!
  37. End of the Spear
    The movie is tentative, dramatically speaking...The most powerful moments come at the end -- documentary excerpts of Steve Saint, the son of one of the missionaries, and his friendship with Mincayani, the man who killed his father.
  38. Glory Road
    From its sepia-toned palette to the Motown hits that drive its terrific soundtrack, Glory Road is utterly authentic. But most astonishing is an unrecognizable Jon Voight as Adolph Rupp.
  39. Last Holiday
    The movie is content to be a kind of middling expression of human decency: It's never either terribly funny or terribly dramatic, but Latifah's quiet solidity and common sense root it in ways that larger, louder pictures never achieve.
  40. Tristan and Isolde
    If I had to sum up Tristan & Isolde for a term paper, I'd say it's like "Braveheart" without the face paint, "Shrek," except the Lord Farquaad character is a sweetheart, and "Freaks and Geeks" because James Franco is so hot, even in Orlando Bloom-y ringlets.
  41. Following Sean
    You won't be disappointed, and you will be deeply, quietly moved.
  42. Fateless
    Koltai is an accomplished, Oscar-nominated cinematographer (for 2000's "Malena"), and Fateless is meticulously composed and shot.
  43. Hostel
    There's a reason why one goes to see cinematic gorefests like Hostel: to partake vicariously of the bloodfest, to get hopped up on the sickness of it all, the utter degradation, the fall of Western Civilization, yadda yadda yadda, and oh yeah, to hoot at the flying fingers, the guts, the blood, the bare breasts.
  44. The Promise
    The movie is full of invasions, assassination attempts, chases and escapes in seemingly random order, the result being completely chaotic.
  45. Match Point
    A sort of romance noir -- spruced up in pressed white linens -- this British-made film is elegant, uncompromising and oh-so- veddy nasty.
  46. Wolf Creek
    A nasty bit of counter-programming, Wolf Creek is for people sickened by the sentimental excesses of the day and the holiday season and want to hide from them in mayhem, slaughter, torture and degradation.
  47. Casanova
    The movie Casanova, starring Heath Ledger, not only fetters the randy Venetian in political correctness, it condemns him to dwell inside the modern equivalent of a bad Shakespeare play.
  48. Rumor Has It...
    A jarring amalgam of sitcom goofiness and uncomfortable ooginess.
  49. The New World
    The New World is stately almost to the point of being static and thus has trouble finding a central story around which to arrange itself; it's not quite the thin dead line, but it's close.
  50. The Matador
    At first blush, there's something vicariously liberating about Brosnan strutting through a lobby dressed only in Speedos and cowboy boots. But it also feels false. The actor seems to be theatrically slumming before his return to suave form.
  51. Munich
    It seems almost disrespectful to weave in a provocative re-creation of the killings -- somehow a massacre of unarmed innocents that shocked the world should be more than just fodder for ginning up the tension at the end of a commercial movie.
  52. Caché (Hidden)
    Laurent's crime is really the crime of being European and conquering people of color. That understood, Cache is brilliant.
  53. The Ringer
    More than predictable. It plods along with the inevitability of a doomed soldier going off to war.
  54. Cheaper by the Dozen 2
    This is definitely a family trip to stay home and skip.
  55. Fun with Dick and Jane
    Fun With Dick and Jane has lived up to its title: It's fun, and that's fine.
  56. The White Countess
    Despite its brilliant evocation of this great city at this most provocative time in history, the movie just gets sillier and sillier.
  57. The Family Stone
    There are many ways to define the shrieking awfulness of The Family Stone, from the general lack of wit to the cheap exploitation of cancer to its casual cruelty, but it's writer-director Thomas Bezucha's casting that really goes awry.
  58. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
    There are complications, extremely cleverly worked out. Jones is in just about every scene in this taut, provocative film.
  59. The Producers
    It's too long to be great and it's too square to be great and it's too loud to be great and it finds homosexual effeminacy too funny to ever be called great, but I can't imagine anyone coming out sadder than they went in.
  60. Hoodwinked!
    Hoodwinked makes a little sense. Too bad, then, it's so crummy.
  61. King Kong
    Jackson's big monkey picture show is certainly the best popular entertainment of the year. The film is a wondrous blend of then and now: It honors its mythic predecessor of 1933 while using sophisticated movie technology to seamlessly manipulate the fantastic.
  62. Brokeback Mountain
    Brokeback Mountain possesses handsome and sympathetic lead players, magnificent scenery, heartbreaking melodrama, righteousness and cultural import. But as a testament to the importance of following one's passion, it's devoid of one crucial thing: passion.
  63. Memoirs of a Geisha
    Memoirs of a Geisha is everything you'd expect it to be: beautiful, mesmerizing, tasteful, Japanese. It's just not very hot.
  64. Mrs Henderson Presents
    Humor and warmth abound in Mrs. Henderson Presents.
  65. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    Well told, handsome, stirring and loads of fun.
  66. The World's Fastest Indian
    As the movie's tag line has it, it's based on a hell of a story. Too bad they didn't just tell it.
  67. Æon Flux
    With the exception of a few enjoyable action scenes, such as when Aeon and fellow operative Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo) flip and backflip their way across a lethal garden of bullet-spewing trees and spikes disguised as blades of grass, Aeon Flux is surprisingly draggy.
  68. Transamerica
    If Tucker's road map often feels a little too confining and the screwball comedy too contrived, he can take credit for introducing viewers to a character they have almost certainly never met before.
  69. First Descent
    The stars of First Descent aren't particularly memorable, or even likable. At their worst, they come off as cocky, self-absorbed Peter Pans; at their best, they're sweet but shallow.
  70. The Boys of Baraka
    Rich, sweet, densely layered and deeply satisfying. A film that might have been a dry exercise in earnest nonfiction filmmaking becomes a soaring, artistically complex testament to survival, character and hope.
  71. Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
    It's all expectable, it's all enjoyable: British theatrical professionalism at the highest pitch.
  72. The Ice Harvest
    This often macabre comedy allows us to doff such civilized traits as taste and decency. We're free to laugh at anything, and we do. Oh, the shame -- and the good time.
  73. Just Friends
    In all, it's not too bad and it's not too long.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rent
    Onstage, Rent is a series of power surges, but in the movie the songs leave you flat.
  75. Yours, Mine and Ours
    The storyline is so familiar ("Cheaper by the Dozen," et al), the audience can practically call out scenes ahead of time.
  76. The Libertine
    It doesn't help matters that The Libertine seems to unload every olde English cliche on file.
  77. Syriana
    What's so powerful about the film is the rich stories it tells and how it leads them like so many human tributaries to one black, bubbling source.
  78. 39 Pounds of Love
    Truly touching moments such as a surprise meeting between Ami and his estranged brother, Oscar, show us this movie didn't need any sentimental help.
  79. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    Probably the most engaging Potter film of the series thus far.
  80. Walk the Line
    Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line slides -- very, very slowly -- downhill.
  81. Breakfast on Pluto
    Although "Pluto" has a rollicky, endearing air, it's cooler than Jordan's other films.
  82. The Syrian Bride
    On one hand, the movie is guilty of schematic arrangement...But at the same time, Israeli producer-director-writer Eran Riklis and Palestinian co-writer Suha Arraf use the device to reveal touching human complexity.
  83. Pride & Prejudice
    Lord God, can she take control of a scene, dominate a movie, project to the last seat, radiate power and personality unto the rafters. It's a great performance. I love the way Knightley's eyes light with furious intelligence when she cuts the pompous Darcy a new something or other.
  84. Derailed
    It's fast, slick, stupid, violent fun and, despite the cynically high body count, without serious intention in this world.
  85. Zathura: A Space Adventure
    This handmade feel gives Zathura an appealing, childlike sense of wonder, an element too often forgotten in movies with many times the budget and technological resources.
  86. Bee Season
    Co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose visual schemes lent a hypnotic aura to their previous collaborations -- "The Deep End" and "Suture" -- don't find the right balance of story and image this time.
  87. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    She is so funny she should come with a seven-day waiting period.
  88. Get Rich or Die Tryin'
    Shockingly inert.
  89. Chicken Little
    Takes the story one more crank toward the literal. When the thing hits the bird, it turns out, guess what, it is a piece of the sky, the sky is falling. It's like saying: McCarthy was right! Sheesh, revisionist history: It's everywhere!
  90. Jarhead
    What's so good about the movie is Gyllenhaal's refusal to show off; he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others and is content, for long stretches, to serve simply as a prism though which other young men can be observed.
  91. The Dying Gaul
    A small, self-contained gem of incisive writing, superb acting and rich, expressive visuals.
  92. Gay Sex in the 70s
    An engrossing piece of social history, a lively, astonishingly well-documented excavation of that period.
  93. The Legend of Zorro
    What a waste of talent, time and money. And guess what else? Not only is The Legend of Zorro stupid and boring but -- ta-da! -- it's also really long!
  94. Prime
    Sure, this romance, starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg, follows a familiar boy-meets-girl scenario, but Younger turns the routine into combustible fun.
  95. Saw II
    It's clear this sequel (directed by Darren Lynn Bousman) doesn't have the same smartness (I speak relatively) of the original. Nonetheless, "Saw" fans can still look forward to involuntary incineration, wrist and throat slashing, bullets through brains and the bashing of someone's head with a nail-festooned club.
  96. The Weather Man
    Shines the light on a special kind of heroism -- the guts to face up to yourself and make changes. What makes this so emotionally compelling is the way Dave scrambles from this deep vale of cluelessness to something approaching moral maturity.
  97. Paradise Now
    Paradise may not change anyone's ideology, but it should convince some that, but for some deeply divisive views of religious morality, people are pretty much the same on either side of the holy fence.
  98. Three... Extremes
    Like a bouquet of poisoned flowers -- beautiful, delicate and lethal. A trio of horror films from three "extreme" Asian directors, it shows how much evil fun talented bad boys can have on a very small scale.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ballets Russes
    An electrifying documentary.
  100. Doom
    A loud, standard-issue sci-fi action film that has a confusing mission.
  101. Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
    It canters along, content to follow the Rules of Cute and Fuzzy Horse Movies.
  102. Shopgirl
    You keep expecting Shopgirl to get funny or sad or poignant; it never does. It just starts, then it's over.
  103. Stay
    That mind-bending, mystical business was better handled in such films as 1990's "Jacob's Ladder."
  104. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Macabre, yes, but the movie's also inventive and funny. You get a lot of smart bang-bang for your buck.
  105. After Innocence
    The moral purity of After Innocence is so overwhelming that it simply leaves you with nothing to say or do. It's kind of beyond criticism.
  106. Protocols of Zion
    The movie goes off the rails only when the filmmaker inadvertently legitimizes the Protocols' loony philosophical heirs by interviewing a New York medical examiner and a widow about the remains of one of 9/11's Jewish victims.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Kids in America
    Short on real teenage angst and emotion, the film is long on caricatures.
  108. Naked in Ashes
    By turns fascinating, puzzling and troubling -- a deeply felt account of the varieties of religious experience but also a thoroughly uncritical apologia for fanaticism.
  109. Ushpizin
    Most revelatory here is Malli, who defies the stereotype of submission and subservience and emerges as a woman of self-possession and substance. (The earthily beautiful Bat-Sheva Rand infuses the character with a generous dollop of her own zaftig sensuality.)
  110. Domino
    It's like a ferret on crystal meth that belatedly discovers ecstasy, and it's a tiresome trip either way.
  111. Elizabethtown
    It's hard to believe the creative mind that gave us "Almost Famous," "Jerry Maguire," "Say Anything" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" looked up with satisfaction after typing 117 pages of this.
  112. Where the Truth Lies
    Canadian director Atom Egoyan delivers a rare misfire with Where the Truth Lies, a shockingly fatuous murder mystery with pseudo-intellectual pretensions.
  113. North Country
    An engrossing, well-crafted story of a grave injustice avenged, hitting all the right notes of sympathy, outrage and, finally, relief.
  114. Innocent Voices
    What's so powerful about Mandoki's film, which he co-scripted with Torres, is the complex, ever-surprising course that Chava takes toward manhood.
  115. Loggerheads
    If Loggerheads sometimes feels too forced, it features some unforgettable performances, especially by Hunt, an accomplished comedienne who makes an impressive debut as a dramatic lead here.
  116. Nine Lives
    The beauty of Nine Lives is that its occasionally overlapping stories feel entirely unforced; Garcia's is a filmmaking style of rare lyricism, compassion and discretion.
  117. Good Night, and Good Luck.
    The film, therefore, is like a child's view of these events, untroubled by complexity, hungry for myth and simplicity.
  118. In Her Shoes
    There'd be nothing wrong with this if the film 'fessed up to its kitschy soul. Instead, it pretends to be the high-minded drama it's not.
  119. Two for the Money
    The fight between good and evil feels fixed in favor of Hollywood redemption.
  120. Waiting...
    It's lewd, crude and socially irredeemable.
  121. The Squid and the Whale
    This story doesn't just belong to them anymore. This richly observed, sometimes heartbreaking movie has become ours, too.
  122. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
    Gromit's every facial move -- every grimace, scowl, eye-roll and glance askance -- is sublime.
    • Washington Post
  123. Capote
    The genius of the film, besides Hoffman's stunning performance, is that it knows exactly how much is enough. It never overplays, lingers or punches up.
  124. The Greatest Game Ever Played
    It's such a great story, you have to ask two questions: Why didn't they make this movie before? And why did they make it this way?
  125. Into the Blue
    May look good cavorting prettily on deck, but ultimately it deserves to walk the plank.
  126. Serenity
    No matter what's coming their way, post-apocalyptic doom or gloom, this James Gang of the galaxy is just plain fun to watch.
  127. MirrorMask
    So single-minded in its reach for fantasy, it becomes the genre's evil opposite: banality.
  128. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
    It has its own subversive power, as it elevates one family's struggle for working-class survival and valorizes a woman of simple faith and inner strength.
  129. The War Within
    A portrait of a mild-mannered zealot, one that seeps under the skin and unsettles the nerves.
  130. A History of Violence
    A sobering reflection on our culture's attitude toward violence.
  131. Flightplan
    Until those final moments, Flightplan succeeds admirably, both as a sophisticated psychological thriller and as an example of, if not great art, then superb craftsmanship.
  132. Roll Bounce
    The film can't get its rhythms right, fluctuating wildly between comedy and pathos.
  133. Dear Wendy
    It's a diatribe from beginning to end.
  134. Dorian Blues
    It doesn't open up much new territory, except to eschew much of the dark, frank sexuality that has characterized such recent sexual coming-of-age movies as "Mysterious Skin." Instead, Bardwell offers a cheerful, if sometimes strenuously earnest, take on a subject that seems overdue for a lighthearted touch.
  135. Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D
    A gee-wonderful virtual visit to the arid orb, which uses ingenious technical sleight of hand to -- let's face it -- fake it beautifully.
  136. Occupation: Dreamland
    It's a movie with the exciting parts cut out.
  137. Oliver Twist
    The fact that there's nothing wrong with it -- that there's nary a scenic detail or scrap of dialogue or performance that isn't utterly on the nose -- is precisely what's wrong with it.
  138. Everything Is Illuminated
    A clinically adequate, occasionally above-average art house film. In certain moments, it has all the subtlety and illumination one should ever need.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Proof
    Paltrow is pretty commanding, even if Madden pushes things toward airlessness by keeping the camera so tight.
  140. Just Like Heaven
    Outlandish, uneven, preposterous and often maddeningly morbid.
  141. Lord of War
    Tells Yuri's story with the same bravado and stylishness as Scorsese at his finest, with bigger-than-life characters and situations splashing across the screen in breathtaking scale.
    • Washington Post
  142. Corpse Bride
    For all its charm, we can't quite figure out for whom the film is intended: Talking maggots and decaying bodies do not a kiddie movie make.
  143. Thumbsucker
    A gently stirring symphony about emotional transition filled with lovely musical passages and softly nuanced performances.
  144. Stupid Boy
    Should we really be so moved and uplifted that a horny, ignorant young man begins to join the human race? Not when our voice of conscience is an off-screen filmmaker issuing pseudo-profound, and ultimately banal, pronouncements about the true nature of love and seduction.
  145. G
    For anyone to enjoy this starchy, contrived exercise in vanity and product placement, it's best not to have read the book. In fact, it's best not to have read ANY book.
  146. Venom
    Reprises all the tedium of slasher flicks.
  147. Separate Lies
    Fellowes has brought intelligence and control to the eternally vexing question of whether the right thing is always the good thing.
  148. The Man
    Unfortunately, The Man makes the mistake of assuming casting is all it takes to make a good comedy.
  149. An Unfinished Life
    This unusual convergence of stars doesn't amount to much.
  150. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
    With a cast like this, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a superior performance vehicle and on that count alone is never less than riveting.
  151. Cote d'Azur
    A romper that doesn't shy away from sexual frankness or Mediterranean laissez faire.
  152. Keane
    May be too much suspense for some, but it's vividly powerful.
  153. Green Street Hooligans
    Soccer needs this movie like Georgia needed "Deliverance."
  154. Music from the Inside Out
    Is it a great film? Not quite. It flits from idea to idea too promiscuously and relies too much on the visually deadening use of people talking on camera. But among the dull passages there are moving stories, and a very loving sympathy for the people it profiles.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie
    Unfortunately, a good deal of Touch the Music"is devoted to vacuous interviews with Glennie, who seems positively incapable of saying anything substantial. Nor is most of the music very good.
  156. Transporter 2
    Statham isn't the best thing in Transporter 2; he's essentially the only thing.
  157. Underclassman
    If you saw "21 Jump Street" back in the '80s, or any of a number of shows featuring cute and cuddly cops, you pretty much know where this flick is heading.
  158. The Constant Gardener
    Isn't quite a great espionage movie or a great Africa movie, but in a summer of heat and wind, it's the next best thing.
  159. The Brothers Grimm
    Gilliam does two things well: mud and trees.
  160. The Cave
    The Cave isn't just a bad movie, it's a very, very, very bad movie, so bad that it can't even redeem itself by turning into high camp.
  161. Undiscovered
    Indeed, I'd say Undiscovered belongs on the WB, but that would be gravely unfair to the channel, which looks like the BBC in comparison.
  162. The Baxter
    With The Baxter, Showalter's begging his way into the ranks of the safe and the mediocre.
  163. The Memory of a Killer
    Belgian actor [Jan] Decleir's tough-guy vulnerability ... gives an otherwise standard police procedural extraordinary grace and power.
  164. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    In a textbook example of the have-it-both-ways ethos of self-loathing narcissism, Carell has succeeded in creating a character of old-fashioned decency in a movie that otherwise flouts it at every turn.
  165. Red Eye
    That's not to say it's great; it's not. Maybe it's not to say it's good, because it's only sort of good. It is to say, however, that it's nifty.
  166. Valiant
    A mite too hard to follow for most of the kiddie crowd who'll want to see it.
  167. El Crimen Perfecto (The Perfect Crime)
    The first 60 minutes of this black comedy are brilliantly sustained, but then director and co-writer de la Iglesia loses his way.
  168. Supercross
    A poor man's "Lords of Dogtown," substituting hard-core motorcycle racing for extreme skateboarding and featuring a young cast of television-bred actors.
  169. Reel Paradise
    A documentary that uses Pierson's self-congratulatory mission to explore a deeper story about cultural clashes and the complex dynamics of the modern American family.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
    You leave the theater feeling moved by a mother's courage, sickened by the crime and a little frustrated, wondering if this unquiet moment in our history will ever rest easy.
  171. The Skeleton Key
    It's all ultimately made watchable by the exceptional cast ... and a story that, despite some unsavory racial undertones, holds the audience's interest even when it veers toward the downright silly.
  172. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
    It's not Deuce's satisfied clientele, but the audience, that gets the shaft.
  173. Four Brothers
    Loud, stupid, unrealistic, overdone, without a thought in its ugly little head and kind of enjoyable.
  174. The Great Raid
    This is a movie for people more interested in the subject matter than its dramatic presentation.
  175. Asylum
    Shouldn't fool viewers into thinking it's anything but a pseudo-artsy piece of tripe.
  176. Grizzly Man
    A small masterpiece of a documentary that takes us into the heart of a complex darkness.
  177. Pretty Persuasion
    A devastatingly dishonest, tough look at teenage life.
  178. Pulse
    Like the best horror movies, it doesn't beat you over the head, splatter you, or fold, spindle and mutilate you. Rather, slowly and subtly, it creeps you out. You may go home and throw out your computer and lock the doors.
  179. Clean
    It's the moral journey of Nolte's character that is the real story in Clean, but Assayas instead focuses on the manipulative habits of an addict, resulting in a mannered study of narcissism and self-pity.
  180. The Dukes of Hazzard
    So loud, so long, so dumb.
  181. Broken Flowers
    Jarmusch manages to imbue banality with surprising beauty and humor.
  182. 2046
    It takes what could be called the Chinese equivalent of chutzpah to make a movie with three of the world's most beautiful and talented women -- Gong Li, Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi -- and to be more interested in the male character.
  183. Duma
    Documentary makers struggle for this effect -- a feeling for the land that is both grand and unsentimental. The makers of Duma, a fable fit for children, have found it.
  184. Junebug
    With its wise understanding of the magnetic pull (and invisible polarities) of family, Junebug is an auspicious debut for Morrison.
  185. Darwin's Nightmare
    What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.
  186. Must Love Dogs
    This is nothing but a dare-to-be-terrible movie.
  187. Sky High
    A slight but sure-footed, live-action comic fantasy.
  188. Stealth
    It's not new. It's not interesting. I wish it would go away.
  189. The Aristocrats
    As long as it stayed mainstream dirty it was okay, but when it got into perversions the American Psychiatric Society hasn't even named yet, it left me behind.
  190. Tony Takitani
    A marvelously moody meditation, beautiful to look at and beautiful to ponder as the camera slowly pans from one scene to the next, framing life as still life.
  191. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    Sure, Balzac meanders at too leisurely a pace. But the actors are charming; the story sweet
  192. The Devil's Rejects
    The movie's signal flaw -- that is, other than its degeneracy, its sloppiness, its love of dark things and pretty stains and arterial spray patterns -- is Moseley as the demonic Otis.
  193. Hustle & Flow
    It's more of an urban fairy tale, a surprisingly charming story that -- in certain sections -- almost crystallizes into the sweetness of a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical.
  194. The Island
    If you find yourself at "The Island" I have only three words of advice: Vote yourself off.
  195. Bad News Bears
    You don't watch Bad News Bears for the action out on the diamond. You hang out with that hangdog coach so you can catch every slurry, sour-mouthed retort coming out of his mouth.
  196. 9 Songs
    9 Songs inadvertently proves just how limited experimentation for its own sake can be.
  197. The Edukators
    What makes the film so affecting, however, is its matter-of-fact evocation of character. Each person in the four-character cast is vivid and specific and believable.
  198. Last Days
    It's definitely NOT a conventional biopic about Kurt Cobain. (Nor, as its title oddly suggests, is it about the demise of writer-director Van Sant.) It's a tone poem, an elliptical, fictionalized meditation about the ill-fated rock 'n' roll superstar.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    November
    The best thing about this psychological exploration is its star, Courteney Cox.
  200. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    The satirical edge has been dulled in a film that is dominated, and ultimately swamped, by its star's mannered, pixilated performance.
  201. Wedding Crashers
    Vaughn can motormouth like a machine gun, spraying men, women and children with manic, rat-a-tat outbursts of toxic insincerity. It's often dirty, yes. But it's also manic and inspired.
  202. Happy Endings
    The acting in this ensemble is of such a high order that the movie simply takes you in and makes you feel these lives as real.
  203. On the Outs
    On the Outs has its rewards, especially in the mesmerizing performance of Marte.
  204. Murderball
    It's the best sports documentary since "Hoop Dreams," a great piece of work."
  205. Dark Water
    Dark, dank, damp, grim, dingy and dour, Dark Water is a tasteful but unremitting bummer.
  206. Fantastic Four
    This "Four" ain't so "Fantastic."
  207. The Beautiful Country
    Feels like a manufactured Asian "Chocolat," which drives the label 'art house movie' even further into mainstream banality.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Saraband
    It would be difficult to identify a single frame in Saraband that is not a distinguished composition in itself; Bergman has the eye of a latter-day Vermeer.
  209. Chronicles
    Although it's often difficult to discern amid a schematic plot and overheated, sanctimonious denouement, an undeniable reality underlies Cronicas.
  210. A Sidewalk Astronomer
    A documentary that knows to sit back and listen as [Dobson] expounds on a variety of subjects.
  211. Rebound
    Why -- when there are so many funnier, smarter, more gifted performers who can't get arrested in Hollywood -- why, for the love of all that's good and holy, does Martin Lawrence get to keep making movies?
  212. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
    Plays like a piece of mediocre music, gorgeously rendered.
  213. Undead
    The story is more undead than all of these revenant shufflers. And the orgy of gore and home-engineered special effects doesn't make up for the shortfall.
  214. The World
    A movie with the visual expanse of a John Ford western and the ensemble grandeur and long takes of a Robert Altman picture. The movie is definitely Chinese in content, but it exudes American style and spirit.
  215. War of the Worlds
    As is his wont, Spielberg can't resist stuffing the ending of the movie with a bit too much cheese and baloney. Despite those quibbles, War of the Worlds is taut, gripping and surprisingly dark filmmaking.
  216. Bewitched
    Regardless of the cute little hats and clam-diggers she wears, it's impossible to believe Kidman as a breathless ingenue; that relentless drive and steely Kidmanesque determination keep jutting through the cotton in flinty, sharp-edged shards.
  217. Land of the Dead
    Too bad the plot held no surprises and the acting no revelations. No actor could be said to stand out and the movie never acquires much tension or momentum.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rize
    Worth seeing both for its visual beauty and its insight into a little-known form
  219. Yes
    It's a bold exercise, an interesting experiment, but a movie it ain't.
  220. Lila Says
    Startlingly erotic and surprisingly moving.
  221. Memories of Murder
    As exciting for its narrative twists and turns as for its Korean textures and rhythms.
  222. 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.
  223. Herbie Fully Loaded
    Here, by its cooperation with the Disney factory, NASCAR says it's also warm 'n' cuddly, and that if you love your magic bug, it'll repay you with victory. Why does it allow itself to be co-opted by a story that diminishes the skills, experience and talent it takes to win?
  224. The Deal
    If Slater were a bigger star, this self-serving vehicle would have been a hoot, a surefire DVD attraction for any Camp Night in the living room, not to mention a shoo-in for one of the 10 worst movies of 2005.
  225. The Perfect Man
    Baby, when you walk out of a movie thinking, "Say, that Heather Locklear was pretty darn good," the movie's got some problems!
  226. Heights
    Heights is nothing more than a second-rate version of several much better movies, all of which are available on DVD and video.
  227. Me and You and Everyone We Know
    A wise, funny film about the little leaps of faith it takes to just get through the day.
  228. My Summer of Love
    Remains highly watchable throughout, for its atmosphere and the actors.
  229. King of the Corner
    A warm, unexpectedly moving portrait of a man on the verge of what could either be a dreadful or delightful second chapter.
  230. Batman Begins
    A good as the performances are, and as dutiful as Nolan has been in preserving the Kane legacy in Batman Begins, there's something joyless about the enterprise.
  231. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
    To watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which continually sacrifices its potential for sophisticated fun on the altar of style and physical stunts, is to realize how far we've come from the great movies of, say, George Cukor or Howard Hawks.
  232. The Honeymooners
    Suffice it to say, there is no comedy, no chemistry, no nothing in this movie.
  233. High Tension
    Such a bizarre movie that it has completely occupied my thinking for days. Not because it's a good movie, mind you. It's more like the equivalent of a botched tooth extraction with a coat hanger. Some bloody shard remains stuck in an inflamed, fleshy part of my psyche, and it's going to take some serious tugging and tearing to root it out.
  234. The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D
    The result is astoundingly boring and, frankly, tedious to sit through.
  235. Howl's Moving Castle
    Miyazaki, like an evil sorcerer, has plucked the heart out of Jones's story and left it there to die.
  236. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
    After watching this movie, which stars Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Kathy Bates and Gabriel Byrne, I was moved only to find my own bridge to leap from.
  237. 5x2
    You can make a good movie about a bad marriage, as countless directors, the latest being Ozon, have discovered.
  238. The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
    The script's a plodder, and the acting's unbearably stilted. The movie's intentions are like the starry constellations that inspire the eponymous hero: out of reach.
  239. Cinderella Man
    With all that going for it, one must ask, why didn't they just tell it completely straight? In other words, why did they feel so compelled to create an utterly bogus Max Baer for the virtuous Jim to fight in the movie's admittedly compelling climactic, championship bout?
  240. Lords of Dogtown
    Has all the energy and spontaneity of a bowl of waxed fruit. If watching "Dogtown and Z-Boys" was tantamount to witnessing history itself, watching "Lords of Dogtown," which Peralta wrote, feels more like watching a stiff, meticulously choreographed reenactment.
  241. Rock School
    Until the last 20 minutes or so of Rock School, the actual playing, while often startlingly good, is kind of boring.
  242. Apres Vous (After You)
    There isn't much to the movie, and you can see where it's going from kilometers away. But [Daniel] Auteuil gives the silliness a surprising heft.
  243. Deep Blue
    This is as good a visual treat as you and your kids can expect.
  244. Caterina va in città
    Checks in somewhere between a delight and a diversion.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »