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. You Were Never Really Here
    As beautiful and compelling as Ramsay’s filmmaking and Phoenix’s central performance are, the degree to which viewers will buy You Were Never Really Here depends on the degree to which they accept yet another display of febrile vigilante brutality motivated by sexual violence perpetrated against young girls. One person’s trope, after all, is another’s shopworn cliche.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Where Is Kyra?
    At just over 1 ½ hours, the film feels painfully long, paralyzed by a numbing bleakness. That’s not only the result of the protagonist’s downward trajectory, but also of cinematographer Bradford Young’s long, plodding shots, which only call attention to the visually hollow landscape.
  3. The Workshop
    It is not exactly a thriller, yet its plausibility will inspire very real anxiety.
  4. Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero
    Given its pedigree, Sgt. Stubby takes fewer liberties than some fact-based war movies. Bolstered by an irresistible protagonist, the tear-jerking script by Lanni and Mike Stokey makes up for shortcomings in animation.
  5. Lean on Pete
    At the center of this oddly riveting little picaresque is a performance of such quiet power by Plummer — as an antihero both rash and precociously resourceful — that it’s easy to overlook the film’s flaws.
  6. Beirut
    Beirut is an engaging, well-crafted thriller, offering a showcase not just for Hamm but for Rosamund Pike (playing his levelheaded handler) and an ensemble of terrific character actors, including Dean Norris, Shea Whigham and Larry Pine.
  7. Aardvark
    It becomes clear that the situation is exactly as we imagine it to be, and that the sense of mystery that Shoaf has spent so much energy weaving is a red herring.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Krystal
    Secrets, lies and vast array of medical emergencies beset the game cast (which includes Kathy Bates and Felicity Huffman, Macy’s real-life wife) before the story goes fully off the rails.
  9. Gemini
    The real problem isn’t an overabundance of potential killers. Rather, it’s the fact that the film, from writer-director Aaron Katz (“Land Ho!”), does so little to make you care about the crime, or its victim, that the whole thing feels like an academic exercise.
  10. The Miracle Season
    The rest of the film has a cozy TV-commercial vibe, pumped by tunes from Katy Perry and the inevitable Neil Diamond. It’s no champion, but it’s still a reasonably good cry.
  11. A Quiet Place
    As a celebration of the physical expressiveness and visual storytelling of silent cinema, A Quiet Place speaks volumes without a word being uttered.
  12. Blockers
    Blockers suffers from ungainly, choppy pacing. It feels like a slapdash collection of scenes rather than a balloon sent smoothly aloft, with jokes often falling as flat as Cena’s buzz cut (a running gag centers on his tough-guy character’s propensity for crying, a go-to bit that ages fast).
  13. Final Portrait
    Rather than probe Giacometti and Lord’s curiously arms-length relationship, Final Portrait is at its best simply watching the artist work — the “artist,” in this case, meaning both Giacometti and Rush.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Beauty and the Dogs
    By the end, the outcome is still unclear, leaving viewers hanging. Such ambiguity might work for pure fiction, but given that there’s a real-life incident behind the story, the lack of closure is unsatisfying.
  15. Finding Your Feet
    Director Richard Loncraine (“5 Flights Up”) wisely gets out of the way, for the most part, letting his cast breathe life into the limp cliches that have been woven by screenwriters Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft.
  16. 1945
    There’s an air of “High Noon” to Török’s drama, which features an intrusive sound design, including Tibor Szemzö’s jarringly contemporary score and sound effects that include the ringing of a clock tower, buzzing flies, rumbling thunder and noisy birds — which transition from pleasant tweets to ominous caws of crows by the climax.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Ismael's Ghosts
    Unfortunately, Desplechin stuffs too many subplots into the film, diminishing the power of his central conceit — that our most persistent ghosts are the living whom we’ve failed.
  18. Lives Well Lived
    As a form of life-coaching, this documentary is, in fact, kind of a dud.
  19. Itzhak
    Director Alison Chernick profiles the violin virtuoso, through his performance, of course, but she also reveals a personality as expressive as his musicianship.
  20. Chappaquiddick
    The Kennedy dynasty has its share of admirers and critics alike, and — to the film’s credit — director John Curran and his screenwriters do not appease either camp. The result is a challenging character study, punctuated by moments of uneasy suspense and dark humor.
  21. Journey's End
    This taut, emotionally wrenching snapshot of both the mythologies and grim realities of war possesses useful reminders about self-deception and abuse of power, especially at a time when bellicose rhetoric and war cabinets seem to be the order of the day.
  22. The China Hustle
    It’s a mildly engrossing if wonky exercise in what could be called a kind of selfish activism.
  23. Back to Burgundy
    The film’s central metaphor — life is like wine — is an overripe one.
  24. Ready Player One
    If Ready Player One is tedious at times, it’s also oodles of fun at others.
  25. Paul, Apostle of Christ
    Clearly well timed with Lenten reflections on sacrifice, service, suffering and responsibility. But it offers an equally relevant — and inspiring — portrayal of principled steadfastness and spiritual integrity in the face of a petty, corrupt and tyrannical leader.
  26. Pacific Rim: Uprising
    Uprising is loud, packed with impressive effects and propulsive — or as propulsive as a car with no brakes going downhill — but it lacks the heart of del Toro’s original.
  27. Keep the Change
    Autism aside, writer-director Rachel Israel’s debut film is a fairly typical, low-budget New York romance, complete with an excursion to Coney Island. What distinguishes it are Israel’s empathetic characterizations — she’s known Polansky for 15 years — and the winning performances, not only by the leads but also by the supporting players.
  28. Isle of Dogs
    In its own messy, slightly ungovernable way, this digressive bagatelle feels looser than some of Anderson’s most tightly controlled mis-en-scenes. But the story, for all its busyness, is negligible. The script feels less like an organic whole than an effort to keep building up a scrawny central premise until it felt like a movie.
  29. Unsane
    A straightforward, B-movie horror flick — “The Snake Pit” without the prestige — complete with intentional overdosing, electroshock torture and patients threatening each other with a sharpened spoons, when they’re not either screaming or catatonic. It also is very, very bad.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hannah
    The veteran English actress, 72, a onetime femme fatale who has matured into a peerless performer, gives a first-rate lesson in the art of acting, as a woman crumbling under duress after her husband is incarcerated. And yet the Belgian-set drama, by Italian director Andrea Pallaoro, could also be called self-indulgent, plodding and minimalist, in a big way.
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