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 5.2 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. Free Solo
    The pure athletics of Free Solo, which chronicles Honnold’s months-long training regimen as well as his subsequent attempts, would be spectacle enough to create an entertaining film.
  2. The Old Man & the Gun
    The Old Man and the Gun ambles along with such unhurried, folksy ease that it’s easy to overlook the people — mostly women — Tucker leaves in his wake, victims who may not be physically scarred, but often look as if they will bear unseen injuries into the future nonetheless.
  3. The Hate U Give
    Like the infamous “talk” that opens the film — the conversation that many black parents feel forced to have with their children about how to behave when you are stopped by the police — it is a movie that feels both essential and terribly, terribly sad.
  4. The Sisters Brothers
    This is Audiard’s first English-language film, and he evinces sure instincts with both the visual and spoken vernaculars. The Sisters Brothers looks terrific and, propelled by Desplat’s beautiful music, ambles along with pleasing, if routinely episodic, ease until its unexpectedly touching conclusion.
  5. Smallfoot
    This entertaining fantasy has intellectual ballast, but it’s cleverly disguised.
  6. Night School
    The movie gives some depth to its misfits, and ultimately sends the valuable message that nobody should be ashamed of who they are.
  7. Colette
    Colette’s story is a good one — she went on to produce multiple works under her own name, the best known of which is “Gigi” — but here it’s shakily told. As a tale about a woman whose life was defined by fire, Colette lacks much of a spark.
  8. A Star Is Born
    A well-seasoned, handsomely cured slab of showbiz schmaltz that hits all the right pleasure centers. With equal parts glitz and grit, Cooper has successfully navigated the most perilous shoals of making a classic narrative his own, managing to create one of its best iterations to date.
  9. Fahrenheit 11/9
    Hope may be a commodity that’s in short supply by the time that Fahrenheit 11/9 has finished painting its unsettling portrait of an America in crisis.
  10. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
    “House” sometimes loses track of convoluted plot points and skimps on exteriors. But it does a fine job of capturing the childlike wonderment that suffused those earlier films.
  11. Life Itself
    Movies should invite viewers in, taking them on a journey together with the characters on-screen. Unfortunately, Life Itself is less journey than lecture.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bel Canto
    Where the novel’s omniscient narrator provides ample insight into its protagonists’ interior thoughts and backstories, much of that is missing here: Some characters, particularly Gen, come across as flat, their motivations not deeply explored or explained.
  13. Lizzie
    The sexual backstory is a new twist, one the filmmakers handle with less finesse than is healthy for the argument that they ultimately make.
  14. The Children Act
    Accompanied, appropriately enough, by Bach piano pieces, The Children Act is an unmitigated pleasure to watch and listen to, primarily as a showcase for Thompson’s incomparable gifts as an actress.
  15. Blaze
    An absorbing, illuminating film.
  16. I Am Not a Witch
    It is a remarkable, strange and politically potent first film.
  17. White Boy Rick
    White Boy Rick is permeated by an atmosphere of grimy hopelessness that makes it hard to watch.
  18. A Simple Favor
    The most surprising performance is Lively’s. As the cheeky Emily, the star of such recent thrillers as “All I See Is You” and “The Shallows” finally gets the chance to be funny. She proves quite adept at it
  19. The Predator
    In his effort to inject fresh blood into this gory franchise, which has already seen four sequels (including two “Alien” crossovers), the filmmaker can’t seem to summon up that old Black magic.
  20. Kusama - Infinity
    Directed by Heather Lenz, the film offers insight and eye candy, despite the fact that it is far more traditional — in style and format — than its subject.
  21. American Chaos
    “Chaos” might have been better had the filmmaker revisited his interview subjects now that we are deep into Trump’s presidency. But that would have required additional work. If the film is a testament to anything, it’s Stern’s laziness.
  22. The Apparition
    Peculiar yet provocative film, which exerts a slow, mesmeric pull over the course of nearly 2 ½ hours.
  23. God Bless the Broken Road
    It’s unfortunate that the tribute to veterans that is so much a part of the movie’s marketing turns out to be little more than a framing device that’s dispensed with for most of the plot.
  24. Kin
    Cinematographer Larkin Seiple’s fine camera work and Eli’s mystery weapon just don’t keep the thunking, derivative script afloat.
  25. We the Animals
    A film that feels like something conjured out of memory and magic, a poetic, often ecstatic re-creation of childhood that captures its ungovernable pleasures as vividly as its most threatening terrors.
  26. The Little Stranger
    As a director, Abrahamson uses that sense of the detached observer as a scalpel, whittling away at our expectations of horror films until we have no choice but to look at — and really listen to — what is happening. It’s an approach that requires patience, on his part and ours, but the rewards are worth it.
  27. Operation Finale
    Unfortunately, whatever steam has been built up during the more compelling first act slowly dissipates under the overly talky, on-the-nose conclusion, despite some modest suspense ginned up as Argentine authorities get close to discovering the safe house.
  28. Searching
    Like most mysteries, this one relies heavily on coincidental discoveries, even if they arrive via Gmail or FaceTime, rather than more traditional means. But the plot’s contrivances are less problematic than the movie’s insistence on maintaining its artifice even after it becomes a hindrance.
  29. The Bookshop
    Mostly, The Bookshop is a pretext to watch three great actors do their thing: Mortimer, as the film’s mousy but surprisingly formidable heroine; Clarkson, as her smiling adversary, Violet Gamart; and Bill Nighy, as the town’s reclusive loner — and its only voracious reader — Mr. Brundish, who comes to Florence’s aid and advocacy.
  30. The Wife
    A handsome production that delicately skewers literary-world pretensions and Great Man mythmaking. But primarily, The Wife offers viewers a chance to observe one of the finest — and most criminally underpraised — actresses of her generation working at the very top of her shrewd, subtle, superbly self-controlled game.
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