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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    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Of Gods and Men
    Of Gods and Men is supple and suspenseful, appropriately austere without being overly harsh, and without forgoing the customary pleasures of cinema. The performances are strong, the narrative gathers momentum as it progresses, and the camera is alive to the beauty of the Algerian countryside.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Bird People
    There are plot twists, and then there is what Ms. Ferran does here, which is to transform — impetuously, improbably and altogether marvelously — this somber, realistic tale into something else entirely.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    The Tree of Life
    With disarming sincerity and daunting formal sophistication The Tree of Life ponders some of the hardest and most persistent questions, the kind that leave adults speechless when children ask them.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Okja
    The picture, which never stops moving, is dense with information and feeling. Barbs of satire pop up and are washed away on streams of strong emotion. It’s all marvelously preposterous and yet, at the same time, something important is at stake.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Summer Palace
    In Summer Palace Lou nonetheless succeeds in finding a cinematic language that does more than summarize the important events of a confusing decade. He distills the inner confusion -- the swirl of moods, whims and needs -- that is the lived and living essence of history.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Aferim!
    Shot in richly toned, wide-screen black and white, Aferim! looks like an elegant exercise in period playacting. But it casts a fierce, revisionist eye on the past, finding the cruelty and prejudice that lie beneath the pageantry.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    A Serious Man
    The story is at once hilarious and horrific, its significance both self-evident and opaque. The same could be said of most of the Coen brothers’ movies, in which human existence and the attempt to find meaning in it are equally futile, if also sometimes a lot of fun. (For us, at least.)
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Drinking Buddies
    Drinking Buddies, Joe Swanberg’s nimble, knowing and altogether excellent new film, refuses to dance to the usual tune.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Goodbye Solo
    Grace is also what defines Mr. Bahrani's filmmaking. I can't think of anything else to call the quality of exquisite attention, wry humor and wide-awake intelligence that informs every frame of this almost perfect film.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Side by Side
    For a film geek this movie is absolute heaven, a dream symposium in which directors, cinematographers, editors and a few actors gather to opine on the details of their craft. It is worth a year of film school and at least 1,000 hours of DVD bonus commentary.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Can You Ever Forgive Me?
    Partly because the movie is so splendidly and completely absorbed in its characters and their milieu, it communicates much more than a quirky appreciation for old books and odd readers.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Toy Story 3
    As sweet, as touching, as humane a movie as you are likely to see this summer.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Lady Bird
    You might think you’ve seen this all before. You probably have, but never quite like this. What Ms. Gerwig has done — and it’s by no means a small accomplishment — is to infuse one of the most convention-bound, rose-colored genres in American cinema with freshness and surprise.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    The Big Short
    A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, The Big Short will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    BlacKkKlansman
    BlacKkKlansman is a furious, funny, blunt and brilliant confrontation with the truth. It’s an alarm clock ringing in the midst of a historical nightmare, and also a symphony, the rare piece of political popular art that works in all three dimensions.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Beasts of the Southern Wild
    This movie is a blast of sheer, improbable joy, a boisterous, thrilling action movie with a protagonist who can hold her own alongside Katniss Everdeen, Princess Merida and the other brave young heroines of 2012.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    A Ghost Story
    A Ghost Story is suspenseful, dourly funny and at times piercingly emotional.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    The Babadook
    The brilliance of The Babadook, beyond Ms. Kent’s skillful deployment of the tried-and-true visual and aural techniques of movie horror, lies in its interlocking ambiguities.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Meek's Cutoff
    Meek's Cutoff is as unsentimental and determined as Ms. Williams's character, its absolutely believable heroine. It is also a bracingly original foray into territory that remains, in every sense, unsettled.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Capernaum
    Capernaum, a sprawling tale wrenched from real life, goes beyond the conventions of documentary or realism into a mode of representation that doesn’t quite have a name. It’s a fairy tale and an opera, a potboiler and a news bulletin, a howl of protest and an anthem of resistance.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
    Its speedy, funny, happy-sad spirit is so infectious that the movie makes you feel at home in its world even if the landscape is, at first glance, unfamiliar.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Invictus
    It’s an exciting sports movie, an inspiring tale of prejudice overcome and, above all, a fascinating study of political leadership.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    The Lives of Others
    The easy, complacent distance that informs much historical filmmaking is almost entirely absent from this supremely intelligent, unfailingly honest movie.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Consuming Spirits
    It is a work of obsessive artisanal discipline and unfettered artistic vision. You have never seen anything like it.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Moonlight
    Moonlight is both a disarmingly, at times almost unbearably personal film and an urgent social document, a hard look at American reality and a poem written in light, music and vivid human faces.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    X
    X is a clever and exuberant throwback to a less innocent time, when movies could be naughty, disreputable and idiosyncratic.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Varda by Agnès
    It’s a perfect introduction and a lovely valediction.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Nope
    There are some fascinating internal tensions within the movie, along with impeccably managed suspense, sharp jokes and a beguiling, unnerving atmosphere of all-around weirdness.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    The Look of Silence
    A painful, profoundly empathetic work of moral reckoning.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 A.O. Scott
    Sausage Party
    You will come for the kind of humor promised in the title and the well-earned R rating, but stay for the nuanced meditations on theology and faith.
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