CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games Books TV
Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83 Alexandra
43 Anamorph
35 Babysitters, The
32 Backseat
80 Band's Visit, The
62 Battle for Haditha
47 Bella
63 Blind Mountain
71 Blindsight
47 Boarding Gate
63 Body of War
58 Bra Boys
70 Caramel
54 Cashback
44 Chaos Theory
32 Chapter 27
69 Chicago 10
82 Chop Shop
46 CJ7
78 Counterfeiters, The
30 Cover
48 Dark Matter
35 Deal
61 Dhamma Brothers, The
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58 Fall, The
43 Favor, The
58 First Saturday in May, The
57 Flawless
87 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx From Within
44 Frontier(s)
59 Fugitive Pieces
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61 Girls Rock!
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57 Grand, The
58 Hats Off
68 Honeydripper
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
67 Jellyfish
xx Kiss the Bride
37 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Life of Reilly, The
50 Look
65 Married Life
35 Meet Bill
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
49 Noise
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
55 Pathology
48 Penelope
90 Persepolis
62 Planet B-Boy
xx Plumm Summer, A
67 Praying with Lior
44 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
17 Prom Night
69 Redbelt
72 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
64 Son of Rambow
71 Standard Operating Procedure
76 Stuff and Dough
64 Surfwise
xx Tashan
82 Taxi to the Dark Side
57 Teeth
56 Then She Found Me
55 Tracey Fragments, The
56 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
xx Unsettled
91 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
74 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Score, The
Paramount Pictures

Score, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 71 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.9 out of 10
based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 30 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language

Starring Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, Angela Bassett, Gary Farmer, Paul Soles, and Jamie Harrold

Career thief Nick Wells (De Niro) postpones his plans for retirement and joins forces with a young upstart (Norton) to mastermind a nearly impossible theft.


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Lem Dobbs
Scott Marshall Smith
Kario Salem (also story)
Daniel E. Taylor (story)
 
DIRECTED BY: Frank Oz  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: December 11, 2001 
Video: December 11, 2001 
Theatrical: July 13, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 123 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Washington Post Desson Thomson
The best heist flick since "The Usual Suspects," a perfect 10 of a movie.
Read Full Review
100
Portland Oregonian Barry Johnson
A snappy little heist movie with acting performances both deft and brilliant
Read Full Review
90
Variety Robert Hofler
Meticulously detailed thriller.
Read Full Review
88
Boston Globe Jay Carr
Nobody's going to think of The Score as trail-blazing, but there's nothing small-time about its dramatic and acting payoff.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a summit meeting between three brilliant leading men from three generations with three striking on-screen personas.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Not a great movie, but as a classic heist movie, it's solid professionalism.
Read Full Review
83
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A sturdily diverting old fashioned heist thriller that looks like a masterpiece of sheer competence next to the slovenly action fantasy F/X grab bags that have been passing for summer entertainment.
Read Full Review
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It has a terrific retro style, it's well-directed and it makes an engrossing showcase for its trio of stars.
Read Full Review
80
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
There's more suspense in watching Brando, who has trouble with physical exertion, get on and off a bar stool than the robbery itself. Still, Brando -- his eyes alive with mischief --is the life of the movie.
Read Full Review
80
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
You begin to wonder whether a story is ever going to show up. When it does, it's worth the wait for a long and well-turned set piece coordinating the heist, and two lovely flips in the plot.
Read Full Review
80
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A top-drawer heist movie that ratchets up the tension inch by careful inch, The Score will remind you of classic caper films of the past, and that is a good thing.
Read Full Review
80
Salon.com Charles Taylor
A weaker actor, one more naked than De Niro is now capable of being, might have revealed some inner compulsion in the character. But De Niro's steadiness becomes part of the movie's rugged stolidity.
Read Full Review
78
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
You get the sense that this elegant, tough-guy jazz caper is a movie Clint Eastwood might have been proud to make.
Read Full Review
75
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Except when Norton is playing retarded, he and De Niro basically compete to see who can under-act the other. It's positively mesmerizing.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
If The Score isn't quite in the same league as the classic "Rififi" or even "Thief," its single-mindedness still makes for a refreshing change from the preposterous bloat of most contemporary action movies.
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
This is a solid suspense thriller that's fun. These stars have put it together in a spirit of playfulness -- as in playacting.
Read Full Review
75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A jazzy, immensely absorbing thriller.
Read Full Review
75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
As a film, The Score may not add up to much, but take it apart and it's something to see.
Read Full Review
70
New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
Brando wanders through the movie as if he's tolerating an annoying guest, sweetly charming one minute, detached and obnoxious the next.
Read Full Review
63
USA Today Claudia Puig
There are explosions, double-crosses and chase sequences, but it just doesn't add up to edge-of-your-seat tension.
Read Full Review
60
TV Guide Tanya L. Edwards
With its dream cast, standard story and heaps of class, this is the kind of sophisticated heist flick that could be just as easily at home in 1951 as it is in 2001.
Read Full Review
60
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
I'm not sure I have it in me to rant yet again about what a deprivation it is for our finest actor to deny us his genius in this way.
Read Full Review
60
Village Voice Dennis Lim
Perhaps awed by the congress of Method men, director Frank Oz stands back as his actors phone it in.
Read Full Review
60
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This one's slightly better than average these days, which means slightly diverting.
Read Full Review
60
Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark
It's Norton's movie, really, and he shines both as cocky Jack and as cerebral-palsied Brian.
60
Slate David Edelstein
An appropriately generic title for a droning, high-toned little heist picture with no dash and no raison d'être.
Read Full Review
50
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
What's fatal to the film is that De Niro's character, though compelling, is so temperate and wise he gives no indication of why he was drawn to a life of crime.
Read Full Review
40
Wall Street Journal Ed Epstein
Lacks a crucial element of the heist subgenre: ingenuity.
30
The New York Times Dana Stevens
I don't know how much The Score cost, but it's pretty close to worthless.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Cool film...the way it's edited and filmed is quite easy on the senses, and the world of the thief surrounds you. Almost makes you wish you had what it took to be a master thief.

[Anonymous] gave it a3:
The snail-slow pace of this movie made it excruciating to watch.

[Anonymous] gave it an 8:
Very Good movie, DeNiro is one of the best.

Mustapha M. gave it a 9:
One of the better movies to come along in quite some time. De Niro and Norton give great performances in what I thought was an awesome movie.

David B. gave it a 7:
Well done. I enjoyed this flick.

[Anonymous] gave it a 10:
This great cast is put to even better use. This movie had great action, with no uneened gore. It is edge-of-your-seat suspense that has you begging for more. BRAVO!!

Sam B. gave it a 10:
Edward Norton was AMAZING!!

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | BOOKS | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use