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. Big Eyes
    As provocative as the questions it raises are — questions about connoisseurship vs. populism, personal expression vs. the market, and the dark arts of press, publicity and shrewd self-invention — the film’s achievements stay on the surface of those themes rather than plunging deeper.
  2. Mr. Turner
    Through it all, Spall is equally enigmatic and transfixing: With his guttural croaks and barks, his Turner is often difficult to understand, but, thanks to Spall’s amazing physical performance and Leigh’s sensitive, information-laden direction, he’s never incomprehensible.
  3. Selma
    There are several reasons to see Selma — for its virtuosity and scale, scope and sheer beauty. But then there are its lessons, which have to do with history, but also today: Selma invites viewers to heed its story, meditate on its implications and allow those images once again to change our hearts and minds.
  4. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
    The aptly subtitled Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is a blast of dead air and mummified humor.
  5. Annie
    There are some very funny moments in the movie, even for grown-ups, including a video of Will that goes viral. The absurd machinations of Will’s smarmy political adviser are also good for a laugh. But ultimately, Annie is so fixated on being current that it will never be more than a passing fancy.
  6. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    Jackson’s storytelling at this point is so driven by green-screen trickery and digital legerdemain that he seems to have forgotten about human emotion.
  7. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People
    The power of images — to distort, define, denigrate and celebrate — emerges with clarity and force in Through a Lens Darkly, a fascinating, visually stunning, emotionally devastating documentary by Thomas Allen Harris.
  8. The Babadook
    The feature debut of writer-director Jennifer Kent is not just genuinely, deeply scary, but also a beautifully told tale of a mother and son, enriched with layers of contradiction and ambiguity.
  9. Exodus: Gods and Kings
    This biblical action drama that feels excessive in every way imaginable, from running time (nearly 2 1/2  hours) to melodramatic acting to the conspicuous amount of computer generation.
  10. The Imitation Game
    Viewers may get the sense that The Imitation Game leaves Turing’s essential mysteries intact, but they will nonetheless find even the most public contours of his story ripe with drama, excitement and deeply affecting resonance.
  11. Top Five
    Admittedly, Top Five suffers from its share of too-convenient contrivances and clunky passages... But Top Five is also buoyantly self- sustaining, thanks in part to Rock and Dawson’s easy, convincingly seductive chemistry and some genuinely hilarious surprises.
  12. The Pyramid
    The air inside the pyramid isn’t the only thing that’s stale in this ludicrous yet mildly likable horror film.
  13. Antarctica: A Year on Ice
    Yes, it features some of the most rapturous footage of calving glaciers and ice floes — alternately freezing and thawing — that you’re likely to have seen (much of it captured on equipment designed and built by the filmmaker). But it is the simple glimpses of ordinary life in an extraordinary place that are the most stirring moments in the film.
  14. Miss Julie
    Miss Julie is a strangely clinical movie experience. It’s a story that makes an impression without leaving a mark.
  15. Remote Area Medical
    Remote Area Medical is an in­cred­ibly tragic movie. It’s also an important one, reminding viewers that America is more than its coasts and cities. There are corners of the country we all too easily forget.
  16. Wild
    Wild is an accomplished movie, and often a beautiful and moving one, but the woman at its center remains warily at arm’s length.
  17. Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain
    Some of the portrayals are over-the-top in their villainy, and the dialogue, acting and music all tend to be melodramatic. But all of the overt heartstring-pulling doesn’t add much. Given the awful calamity, the truth would have been enough to amp up the emotions.
  18. Point and Shoot
    VanDyke might have set out to give himself a crash course in manhood, but Point and Shoot gives us a crash course in the myriad and contradictory things the word has come to mean.
  19. Women Who Flirt
    It’s just a question of what route Angie and Marco will take to happiness. Yet their unsurprising journey is lively and entertaining, thanks in equal measure to the movie’s star and its director.
  20. Penguins of Madagascar
    The screenplay by John Aboud, Michael Colton and Brandon Sawyer has a fizzy, pop-culture pizazz, tempered by a distinctly vaudeville sensibility. It’s smart, but not brainy; dumb, but never inane.
  21. Horrible Bosses 2
    Even at its lamest and most entitled, this sequel will most likely please fans of the first installment, chiefly because Bateman, Sudeikis and Day are, admittedly, often very funny together.
  22. Foxcatcher
    Foxcatcher exerts a mesmerizing pull, not only because it affords the chance to witness three fine actors working at the height of their powers, but also because it so steadfastly resists the urge to clutter up empty space with the filigree of gratuitous imagery and chatter.
  23. The Homesman
    It’s an oddity, and all that strangeness is what makes the movie hard to shake.
  24. Diplomacy
    The movie is an intellectual puzzle, the outcome of which is never in doubt. Its minor thrills come not from not knowing what will happen, but from watching the cagey choreography of two acrobatic minds.
  25. Pelican Dreams
    The fate of these birds, which, the film tells us, could live into their 40s, becomes as engrossing as many a human drama.
  26. Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas
    A glorified infomercial in defense of the holiday that contains about 15 minutes of actual content padded out with almost an hour of filler.
  27. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
    It’s a joyless, surpassingly dour enterprise, but one that fulfills its mission with Katniss’s own eagle-eyed efficiency and unsentimental somberness.
  28. Dumb and Dumber To
    So maybe some of this is hilarious. Heck, maybe all of it is. It will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and it was not mine.
  29. The Better Angels
    A movie that’s visually stunning and often poetic, but also leaves too much unsaid.
  30. National Gallery
    National Gallery could have used a few more edits; its long run time may limit its appeal. But the film is remarkably engaging and, with close looks at so many important pieces of art, bursting with beauty.
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