A.O. Scott

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The New York Times
For 2,141 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

A.O. Scott's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Crime + Punishment
Lowest review score: 0 Blended
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,187 out of 2141
  2. Mixed: 735 out of 2141
  3. Negative: 219 out of 2141
2141 movie reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 A.O. Scott
    The Woman Who Ran
    The Woman Who Ran is a cinematic sketch, and also the work of a master.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 A.O. Scott
    Jauja
    The rounded-off corners of the almost-square frames evoke early movies and antique photographs, and there is wit and mischief in the way Mr. Alonso plays with the relationship between what we see, what we don’t see and what we expect to see.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 A.O. Scott
    Nebraska
    This is a comedy, with plenty of acutely funny lines, a handful of sharp sight gags and a few minutes of pure, perfect madcap. But a grim, unmistakable shadow falls across its wintry landscape.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 A.O. Scott
    In the Loop
    A sharply written, fast-talking, almost dementedly articulate satire on modern statecraft.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 A.O. Scott
    Hamilton
    The close-ups and camera movements in this version enhance the charisma of the performers, adding a dimension of intimacy that compensates for the lost electricity of the live theatrical experience.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    CQ
    May not make the splash it should; films about moviemaking rarely do. And that would be a shame, because the contrasts the director sets in motion and keeps playing against each other make an entertaining wrestling match.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Disappearance of My Mother
    At the very least, it’s impossible to watch The Disappearance of My Mother without a measure of ambivalence. Gratitude for the chance to make Barzini’s acquaintance, and for Barrese’s sensitivity in making the introduction, is accompanied by ethical queasiness.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Hostiles
    Hostiles itself wants to be both a throwback and an advance, not so much a new kind of western as every possible kind — vintage, revisionist, elegiac, feminist. What makes the movie interesting is the sincerity and intelligence with which it pursues that ambition, heroically unaware that the mission is doomed from the start.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Dinner for Schmucks
    The film collects a cast of performers who know how to be funny. The success of this movie, following a formula upheld by just about any recent hit comedy you can name, lies as much with supporting players and plot-derailing set pieces as with the central story and characters.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Cheatin'
    Mr. Plympton rewrites the laws of physics at will, but within a rigorous and coherent logic. He conjures a world of absolute improbability that, somehow, makes perfect sense.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Green Zone
    When Mr. Greengrass made "United 93," his 2006 reconstruction of one of the Sept. 11 hijackings, some people fretted that it was too soon. My own response to Green Zone is almost exactly the opposite: it's about time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Obvious Child
    It’s both funny and serious without trying too hard to be either, and by trying above all to be honest.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Dancer Upstairs
    Echoes its director's own deportment as a performer, alternating silky smoothness with burlap coarseness. Though Mr. Malkovich stays entirely behind the scenes, he creates a languorous but gripping story of people fighting to stay a step ahead of hopelessness.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Bolt
    What keeps Bolt fresh is an unaffected exuberance, a genuine sense of fun, that is expressed above all through obsessive attention to craft.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Katyn
    The result is a film with a stately, deliberate quality that insulates it against sentimentality and makes it all the more devastating.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Stop the Pounding Heart
    Its scenes, quiet and undramatic, are nonetheless suffused with an almost lyrical intensity, and its sympathy is as limitless as its curiosity.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Get Low
    Though the story sometimes wanders into hazy, corny sentiment, its protagonist (called Felix Bush, which was apparently a nickname or alias of Breazeale's) is vivid, enigmatic and unpredictable.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Good Thief
    The ultimate caper, a work of brazen ebullience.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Chop Shop
    There is nonetheless a lyricism at its heart, an unsentimental, soulful appreciation of the grace that resides in even the meanest struggle for survival.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Hard Word
    Amusingly gamy, an anecdotal crime film that's an antidote to the pile of overly slick robbery pictures of the past few years.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Gatekeepers
    If you need reassurance or grounds for optimism about the Middle East, you will not find it here. What you will find is rare, welcome and almost unbearable clarity.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Magic Mike XXL
    Magic Mike XXL boldly flouts pop-cultural conventional wisdom. It’s often said that an explanation of a joke can’t be funny, and that the analysis of pornography is never sexy. But here is a coherent and rigorous theory of pleasure that is also an absolute blast.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    John Dies at the End
    It lays waste to linear narration, thematic coherence, psychological plausibility and just about everything else you might expect to encounter. It zigs, zags and trips over its own feet and on its own home-brewed hallucinogens. It's a ridiculous, preposterous, sometimes maddening experience, but also kind of a blast.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Intermission
    Altogether compelling.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    From Up on Poppy Hill
    This movie...is a lovely example of the strong realist tendency in Japanese animation. Its visual magic lies in painterly compositions of foliage, clouds, architecture and water, and its emotional impact comes from the way everyday life is washed in the colors of memory.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Two Trains Runnin'
    This captivating movie, like the blues itself, is at once a recognition of those somber truths and a gesture of protest against them.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Men in Black III
    It manages, in the end, to be touching as well as hectic and whimsical, and to send a few interesting thematic bubbles into the air, having to do with lost fathers, obscure regrets and racial reconciliation.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The 15:17 to Paris
    Mr. Eastwood, who has long favored a lean, functional directing style, practices an economy here that makes some of his earlier movies look positively baroque. He almost seems to be testing the limits of minimalism, seeing how much artifice he can strip away and still achieve some kind of dramatic impact.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    11 Minutes
    You could call Mr. Skolimowski, who is 77, an old dog, and while the multistranded, chronologically intricate narrative conceit of 11 Minutes isn’t exactly a new trick, it’s one he pulls off with devilish panache and startling impact.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Audition
    The picture is about victims -- but it's also a great, sick rush with a kicker on the level of "The Vanishing."
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    My Mother's Smile
    Though the narrative is spotty, and occasionally confounding, there is an epic warmth in the way it's rendered.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Ginger & Rosa
    Ms. Fanning, who is younger than her character, shows a nearly Streepian mixture of poise, intensity and technical precision. It is frightening how good she is and hard to imagine anything she could not do.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Chappaquiddick
    Whether or not events actually unfolded this way, the story the film tells is an interesting and complicated character study, with something to say about the corrosive effects of power and privilege on both the innocent and the guilty.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Master of the Flying Guillotine (re-release)
    Just know that you'll owe Master of the Flying Guillotine for the pleasure you'll get from viewing a venerable example of the kung fu genre.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Phoenix
    Never less than intriguing, coolly intelligent and flawlessly paced, Phoenix often feels trapped in the logic of its conceit.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Prestige
    Stuffed with hard-working actors, sleek effects and stagy period details, The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan from a script he wrote with his brother Jonathan, is an intricate and elaborate machine designed for the simple purpose of diversion.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Nasty Baby
    Mr. Silva’s accomplishment is not just in pulling off a jarring plot twist, but in handling a change of tone that turns the movie — and the audience’s assumptions about it — upside down.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Weather Underground
    This terrifically smart and solid piece of filmmaking lets the former Weathermen, now in their 50's and older, speak into the camera and reveal a bit of their personal histories as well as what the peace movement meant to them.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
    Curiously exhilarating. Some of this comes from the simple thrill of witnessing something, or rather everything, done well.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Quills
    Occasionally becomes pretentious and shrill -- sometimes Mr. Wright isn't aware that his material is so good that he doesn't need to comment on his characters.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Higher Ground
    There is something remarkable - you might even say miraculous - about the way Higher Ground makes its gentle, thoughtful way across the burned-over terrain of the American culture wars.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Dead for A Dollar
    It’s solidly and proudly a B picture, as the Boetticher dedication makes clear. But in an age of blockbuster bloat and streaming cynicism, a solid B movie — efficiently shot (by Lloyd Ahern II) and effectively acted (by everyone) is something of a miracle. Hill had a job to do. He did it. That’s worth something.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Land of Steady Habits
    Even though Anders and the people around him can be sorted into recognizable types (a fault, mostly of Mr. Thompson’s book), they are also amusing and awful in ways that can feel disconcertingly real.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Suffragette
    Suffragette is an admirably modest movie. It does not quite have the grandeur and force of “Selma,” and the script has a few too many glowingly emotive speeches. The final turns of the tale are suspenseful, but also a bit frantic. But it is also stirring and cleareyed — the best kind of history lesson.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Merci Pour Le Chocolat
    Mr. Chabrol's droll assault on petit-bourgeois security feels like a satire of "Ordinary People" directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Wonder Woman
    Its earnest insouciance recalls the “Superman” movies of the ’70s and ’80s more than the mock-Wagnerian spectacles of our own day, and like those predigital Man of Steel adventures, it gestures knowingly but reverently back to the jaunty, truth-and-justice spirit of an even older Hollywood tradition.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Days of Glory
    It is a chronicle of courage and sacrifice, of danger and solidarity, of heroism and futility, told with power, grace and feeling and brought alive by first-rate acting. A damn good war movie.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Police, Adjective
    So much in this meticulous and moving film is between the lines, and almost nothing is by the book.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Mille soleils (A Thousand Suns)
    Heartbreaking and thought-provoking, Mille Soleils traces connections between Senegal’s past and present, and reflects on a cinematic legacy that remains insufficiently appreciated, in the West and perhaps also in Africa.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Time That Remains
    The Time That Remains has the scope of a historical epic with none of the expected heaviness.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    The Nightingale
    This is a difficult movie because the questions it raises are not easy. There are sentimental and reassuring movies about vengeance, and comforting stories about the resistance to historical oppression. This isn’t one of those. You might say it’s too angry. Or too honest.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Samsara
    A spool of arresting, beautifully composed shots without narration or dialogue, Samsara is an invitation to watch closely and to suspend interpretation (another notion Sontag might have approved).
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Marie Antoinette
    A thoroughly modern confection, blending insouciance and sophistication, heartfelt longing and self-conscious posing with the guileless self-assurance of a great pop song. What to do for pleasure? Go see this movie, for starters.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Julieta
    Julieta is scrupulous, compassionate and surprising, even if it does not always quite communicate the full gravity and sweep of the feelings it engages.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Lambert & Stamp
    A loving, freewheeling new documentary by James D. Cooper, tells this origin story with panache and nostalgia.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Ford v Ferrari
    Ford v Ferrari is no masterpiece, but it is — to invoke a currently simmering debate — real cinema, the kind of solid, satisfying, nonpandering movie that can seem endangered nowadays.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Late Night
    Every time you think Late Night is settling into familiar tropes — about workplace politics, mean bosses, long marriages, fish out of water, bootstraps and how to pull them — it shifts a few degrees and finds a fresh perspective.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Strike
    Schlöndorff calls the film "a ballad inspired by true events," and its occasional bouts of clumsiness and sentimentality are inseparable from its power.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Howl
    Not quite a biopic, not really a documentary and only loosely an adaptation, Howl does something that sounds simple until you consider how rarely it occurs in films of any kind. It takes a familiar, celebrated piece of writing and makes it come alive.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Séraphine
    The mystery of Séraphine de Senlis -- who died in a mental hospital in 1942 and whose work survives in some of the world’s leading museums -- is left intact at the end of Séraphine. Rather than trying to explain Séraphine, the film accepts her.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Terror's Advocate
    It is one of the most engaging, morally unsettling political thrillers in quite some time, with the extra advantage of being true.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Black and Blue
    Its pulpy pop-cultural credibility is inseparable from its honest, brutal assessment of the state of the world. Its ideas about the nature and limits of heroism — about just how hard and terrifying the resistance to evil can be — are spelled out in vivid black and white.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    A Ciambra
    Mr. Carpignano has a shrewd sense not only of the character’s psychology, but also of the audience’s expectations, and our tendency to confuse realism with magical thinking.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Down with the King
    The trait Down With the King exhibits most powerfully is patience, something in short supply in modern cinema or, for that matter, the modern world.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    In Between
    In Between, Ms. Hamoud’s debut feature, is an unusually welcoming and engaging film, inviting you to become a part of the circle of friends it depicts with such energy and warmth. For that reason, it can also be frustrating.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    In Between Days
    Sensitive, modest, thrillingly self-assured first feature by So Yong Kim, was one of the standouts of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival -- exactly the kind of thoughtful, independent work one hopes to find there and too rarely does.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Suddenly
    When Suddenly finds its soul in the last half-hour, the title begins to make a lovely sort of sense.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Iraq in Fragments
    From 300 hours of material, Mr. Longley has created a collage of images, sounds and characters, an intimate, partial portrait of an unraveling nation -- a portrait that gains power partly by virtue of its incompleteness.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 A.O. Scott
    Maggie's Plan
    Ms. Miller’s choices are hard to argue with. She steers gracefully through a zigzagging plot, slowing down for quiet, contemplative stretches and pausing for jokes that are irrelevant but irresistible. She finds a tricky balance of farce, satire and emotional sincerity, a way of treating people as ridiculous without denying them empathy.
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