Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,522 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 56% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 38% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Sand Storm
Lowest review score: 0 Saw VI
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8,697 out of 16522
  2. Mixed: 5,808 out of 16522
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16522
16522 movie reviews
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  1. The Dark Knight
    May be the most hopeless, despairing comic-book movie in memory. It creates a world where being a superhero is at best a double-edged sword and no triumph is likely to be anything but short-lived.
  2. American Hustle
    [Russell's] dizzying, outlandishly entertaining American Hustle is a 21-first century screwball farce about 20th-century con men, scam artists and those who dream of living large, a film that is big hearted and off the wall in equal measure.
  3. Absolute Beginners
    One of the most entertaining movies this year, and one of the few that shows real invention and audacity, along with big-studio technical flash. [8 June 1986, p.C27]
    • Los Angeles Times
  4. Elevator to the Gallows
    A consummate entertainment rich with the romantic atmosphere of Paris in the 1950s. Coming at a turning point in French cinematic history, it drew upon several major talents - director Louis Malle, star Jeanne Moreau, cinematographer Henri Decaë, musician Miles Davis - and achieved near-legendary results with all of them.
  5. The Mother and the Whore
    The film is at once of its time--simultaneously the fullest flowering of the French New Wave and the shattering of its male chauvinist tendencies--and utterly timeless in its perception of love, sex and human nature.
  6. Late Marriage
    Late Marriage will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year.
  7. The Post
    The Post is the rare Hollywood movie made not to fulfill marketing imperatives but because the filmmakers felt the subject matter had real and immediate relevance to the crisis both society and print journalism find themselves in right now.
  8. Okja
    With his latest work, Bong has created a heroine for our times, an indelible movie creature, a story that balances heart and head and a movie that engages with the boundaries of technology both on-screen and off.
  9. War of the Worlds
    Working in the spirit of his predecessors but with the kind of uncanny special effects they could barely dream of, Spielberg has come up with an impressive production that is disturbing in the way only provocative science fiction can be.
  10. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
    Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is as fine a film as it is a brutally disturbing one.
  11. On Body and Soul
    Like the best of dreams, familiar yet wondrously different, On Body and Soul adroitly mixes recognizable cinematic tropes with extraordinary ideas that are very much the filmmaker's own.
  12. The Gatekeepers
    A documentary potent enough to alter how you see the world.
  13. Mystic River
    A major American motion picture, an overpowering piece of work that involves some of the most basic human emotions: love, hate, fear, revenge, despair. Directed by Clint Eastwood with absolute confidence and remarkable control.
  14. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
    Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell reminds us that confusion is often a necessary first step toward enlightenment, and that bafflement and beauty often go hand in hand. This is a lesson that Thiên must learn as well. The gift of this movie is that it invites us to learn it alongside him.
  15. Moonlight
    Moonlight is magic. So intimate you feel like you're trespassing on its characters souls, so transcendent it's made visual and emotional poetry out of intensely painful experience, it's a film that manages to be both achingly familiar and unlike anything we've seen before.
  16. Carol
    Haynes understands that swooningly beautiful traditional technique bolstered by thrilling performances creates the greatest impact. He has made a serious melodrama about the geometry of desire, a dreamy example of heightened reality that fully engages emotions despite the exact calculations with which it's been made.
  17. A Serious Man
    Writer-directors Joel and Ethan have seized the opportunity afforded by the Oscar-winning success of "No Country for Old Men," to make their most personal, most intensely Jewish film, a pitch-perfect comedy of despair that, against some odds, turns out to be one of their most universal as well.
  18. Licorice Pizza
    With Licorice Pizza [Anderson] has sifted through a haze of wildly embellished tales and half-forgotten memories — and pieced together something that feels more concrete, more achingly, tangibly real, than just about any American movie this year.
  19. Dead Lover
    Dead Lover, in all its stinky, sexy, queer and grotesque glory, is one of the grossest and loveliest films about love I’ve ever seen. This one’s for the horny, hopeless goth inside all of us.
  20. Children of a Lesser God
    An exceptionally adroit adaptation of a play to the screen. As a film, it flows beautifully under Randa Haines' direction and has considerable humor as well as dramatic intensity. It is a classic love story--romantic, passionate, involving vibrant characters.
  21. Of Gods and Men
    A thrilling adventure of the spirit. Austere yet provocative, this is not only a film about faith, it also has faith that the power generated by complex moral decisions can be as unstoppable as any runaway locomotive.
  22. Sing Sing
    A film like Sing Sing is a rare, precious achievement — a cinematic work of unique empathy and hand-turned humanity, hewed from the heart, with rigorous attention paid to the creative process.
  23. Inherent Vice
    Joaquin Phoenix and the terrific acting ensemble that joins him in this pot-infused '70s-era beach noir create such a good buzz you can almost get a contact high from watching.
  24. WALL-E
    Daring and traditional, groundbreaking and familiar, apocalyptic and sentimental, Wall-E gains strength from embracing contradictions that would destroy other films.
  25. Still Walking
    This small gem of a movie always feels true and real as it gently reveals the quiet moments that define our lives.
  26. L'Innocente
    L’Innocente is the kind of opulent, passionate drama that risks folly to attain the sublime. Giannini and Antonelli are equal to the challenge while O’Neill, who looks ravishing, provides a dispassionate counterpoint.
  27. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
    Some of the subsequent Disney features--notably "Pinocchio"--are technically superior, but the animators never surpassed the emotional depth they achieved in Walt's "folly." "Snow White" carries her 50 years very lightly.
  28. The Inheritance
    A powerhouse. Highly dramatic and intensely emotional, blessed with strong themes and an unstoppable narrative drive, it is adult, intelligent entertainment of a kind we rarely see these days.
  29. Tótem
    It takes a confident storyteller to avoid the trap of overexplanation, to give us only a partial glimpse of her characters’ lives, and these narrative elisions have the effect of deepening rather than undercutting the story’s realism.
  30. Top Five
    Top Five is fully loaded. The laughs are earned, the intelligence never disappears, all the performers shine. But Rock is the diamond — raw, rough and rare.
  31. Ponyo
    You'll be planning to see Ponyo twice before you've finished seeing it once. Five minutes into this magical film you'll be making lists of the individuals of every age you can expose to the very special mixture of fantasy and folklore, adventure and affection.
  32. Merchants of Doubt
    This enthralling film, based on the book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, is as fascinating as it is horrifying.
  33. Mad Max: Fury Road
    Mad Max: Fury Road will leave you speechless, which couldn't be more appropriate. Words are not really the point when it comes to dealing with this barn-burner of a post-apocalyptic extravaganza in which sizzling, unsettling images are the order of the day.
  34. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
    [Anderson’s] movies have always proposed — sometimes ingeniously, sometimes exhaustingly, always sincerely — that we might benefit from looking at the world from a fresh vantage. And so it is with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, in which a revolutionary new way of seeing holds the key to an altogether deeper transformation.
  35. After the Storm
    Kore-eda is too scrupulous a filmmaker to prescribe Ryota an easy redemptive arc or happy ending. Nonetheless, the lingering optimism that suffuses After the Storm’s closing scenes is honestly achieved; nothing on the surface has changed, but on a deeper level something has.
  36. Memoria
    If Memoria is a gorgeous reassertion of form, it is also a bold excursion into new territory.
  37. Trucker
    There are so many wonderfully unconventional things to like about this tiny independent film, Monaghan's earthy and uncompromising performance chief among them, its depth surprising you at every turn.
  38. On the Waterfront
    As unspoiled in its key elements as the day it was made, "On the Waterfront" is indisputably one of the great American films, its power undiminished. Even more today than half a century ago, it demands to be seen.
  39. Tangerine
    With a witty and efficient script by director Sean Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch, Tangerine peels back the curtain on a fascinating Los Angeles microculture.
  40. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
    It’s a dazzling, tune-filled collage of images, words and sounds, recounting the moment during the Cold War when Congolese independence, hot jazz and geopolitical tensions made a sound heard around the world. But also, how that music was muffled by lethal instruments of capitalism and control, still a factor on the global stage.
  41. Drive My Car
    Nearly every scene of this richly novelistic movie — which won the festival’s screenplay prize — teems with ideas about grief and betrayal, the nature of acting, the possibility (and impossibility) of catharsis through art, and the simple bliss of watching lights and landscapes fly past your car window.
  42. Little Children
    The movie is one of the few films I can think of that examines the baffling combination of smugness, self-abnegation, ceremonial deference and status anxiety that characterizes middle-class Gen X parenting, and find sheer, white-knuckled terror at its core.
  43. The Law in These Parts
    Directed by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz and winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, this is the second superb Israeli documentary (after "The Gatekeepers") to come to town in less than a month and deal fearlessly with an aspect of that country's legal and political system.
  44. Eternity and a Day
    Working with cinematographers Giorgos Arvanitis and Andreas Sinanos and composer Eleni Karaindrou, whose beautiful and stirring score greatly reinforces the film's impact, Angelopoulos has created another masterpiece, one that recalls such classics as Bergman's Wild Strawberries and Kurosawa's Ikiru (To Live). [28 May 1999, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  45. Fruitvale Station
    Made with assurance and deep emotion, Fruitvale Station is more than a remarkable directing debut for 26-year-old Ryan Coogler. It's an outstanding film by any standard.
  46. Woman at War
    With a masterful melding of the serious, the comic, the ridiculous and the musical, Woman at War is joyful to experience though difficult to sum up.
  47. Like Father, Like Son
    Powered by Kore-eda's innate restraint and natural empathy, Like Father, Like Son takes these characters to places they never expected to be. It's unnerving for them, of course, but watching so many hearts hanging in the balance is a rare privilege for us.
  48. Collective
    The horrors of Collective are sickeningly specific; the implications, as suggested by its comprehensive indictment of a title, are universal.
  49. Footnote
    Intensely specific in story yet wide-ranging in themes, with a tone that turns on a dime from comic absurdity to close to tragedy, this is brainy, bravura filmmaking of the highest level, a motion picture that is as difficult to pigeonhole as it is a pleasure to enjoy.
  50. Short Cuts
    A rich, unnerving film, as comic as it is astringent, that in its own quiet way works up a considerable emotional charge. [8 Oct 1993]
    • Los Angeles Times
  51. Wetlands
    Director and co-writer David Wnendt is after serious comedy here, a character study of psychic pain, wounds hereditary and self-inflicted, and body-conscious absurdity that treats the human condition with wry intelligence, not empty prurience.
  52. Avatar
    Avatar's shock and awe demand to be seen. You've never experienced anything like it, and neither has anyone else.
  53. The Four Times (Le Quattro Volte)
    In only his second feature, Frammartino has found a fresh and ravishingly poetic and beautiful way to explore the relationship between the spirit, man and nature.
  54. Road to Perdition
    Mendes, in only his second feature (following the Oscar-winning "American Beauty"), has told this surprisingly resonant story with the potent, unrelenting fatalism of a previously unknown Greek myth.
  55. Manchester by the Sea
    Powerful, emotional filmmaking that leaves a scar, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By the Sea is heartbreaking yet somehow heartening, a film that just wallops you with its honesty, its authenticity and its access to despair.
  56. Le Petit Soldat (re-release)
    Beyond the timelessness of the story itself, the film is beautifully shot and though early in Godard’s career already showcased his ability to capture emotional intensity in the very way he frames the shots.
  57. Apocalypse Now Redux
    What was impressive 22 years ago seems even more so now; what was problematic seems less important. Changes in us as an audience, changes in filmmaking fashions, changes in the times we live in, they've all combined in making this "Apocalypse" feel more impressive, more of a revelation than it did before.
  58. When Harry Met Sally...
    The summer's uncorseted, unqualified delight. [14 July 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  59. The Skeleton Twins
    One of the better movies to come along this year.
  60. Bambi
    Despite all the good fun, Bambi remains a potent story that touches deep fears and emotions. Few scenes in animation--or live action film--match the poignancy of the death of Bambi's mother, a sequence that still moves children (and adults) to tears.
  61. Theater Camp
    This madcap mockumentary works beautifully because Gordon, Lieberman, Platt and Galvin take care to imbue this setting with a real sense of culture and place, populated with wonderfully eccentric characters.
  62. Los Angeles Plays Itself
    It is a remarkable work, quite likely the best documentary on the City of Angels ever made.
  63. Parasite
    Parasite begins in exhilaration and ends in devastation, but the triumph of the movie is that it fully lives and breathes at every moment, even when you might find yourself struggling to exhale.
  64. Corpus Christi
    This is a blistering drama, intense, disturbing and inescapably thought-provoking, a film that gets its power from a merging of potent opposites.
  65. Intent to Destroy
    It’s a masterful effort.
  66. Toy Story 2
    Toy Story 2 may not have the most original title, but everything else about it is, well, mint in the box.
  67. Anora
    Baker wrote the part for her, and Madison returned the favor with a star-making performance, leaning into Ani’s audacity while revealing the fragile façade, the vulnerabilities and self-deception lurking underneath.
  68. By the Sea
    As a writer, Jolie Pitt is better at ideas than dialogue, much of which is leaden here. But the characters' behaviors feel true.
  69. Vox Lux
    The movie doesn’t just feel coldly analytical; it’s raw and enveloping, darkly funny and terribly alive.
  70. Back to the Future
    Back to the Future just might be Hollywood’s richest, cleverest blockbuster — and its attention to detail deserves to be re-celebrated.
  71. The Devil's Miner
    15 minutes into it, you are spellbound, heartbroken and unaccountably cheered -- your faith and admiration in humanity restored.
  72. From Here to Eternity
    From Here to Eternity remains, half a century later, a singular cinematic experience, one of the landmarks of American film.
  73. A Room with a View
    A virtually irresistible film. [21 March 1986, p.1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  74. Top Spin
    Top Spin grips, exhilarates and breaks hearts like the 1994 film "Hoop Dreams."
  75. Last Days in Vietnam
    These stranger-than-fiction tales, piled one on top of the other in the most gripping way, not only mesmerize us, they also point up another of Last Days in Vietnam's provocative points, that the chaos surrounding the evacuation was, in effect, the entire war in microcosm.
  76. You Won't Be Alone
    It is startling, and sometimes disturbing, but hits a place that is intensely human — bittersweet and bloody and beautiful at once, and unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
  77. Foxtrot
    An intricate, dazzling cinematic dance, Foxtrot goes both deeper in and further out than standard-issue cinema. It's profound and moving and wild and crazy at the same time, simultaneously telling a specific story and offering an emotional snapshot of a country whose very soul seems to be at risk.
  78. Martin Eden
    Hopefulness and rawness, much like society and the self, are ultimately inextricable in “Martin Eden,” a work of art that abounds in its own beautiful contradictions. It might reject individualism, but it’s also a glorious singularity.
  79. Close Your Eyes
    Using a style of elegant lyricism, which enshrines tiny moments into glisteningly miraculous turning points, Erice lets the exchanges between the people he’s conceived play out without the need to advance the plot.
  80. No Man's Land
    A savage comedy about the war in the former Yugoslavia that artfully mixes comic absurdism with a passion for what's right and a concern for the individuality of all concerned.
  81. Heat
    A sleek, accomplished piece of work, meticulously controlled and completely involving. The dark end of the street doesn't get much more inviting than this.
  82. Sideways
    Exactly written, directed with a surgeon's precision and transcendently acted, Sideways brings emotional reality to a consistently amusing character comedy, making it something to be cherished like the delicate Santa Ynez Valley wines that are the story's vivid backdrop.
  83. After Life
    In its examination of what is fleeting and what remains, "After Life" is not only perceptive, it leavens everything it touches with a surprisingly sly sense of humor. Few films about death, or about life for that matter, leave you feeling so affirmative about existence.
  84. Crumb
    When it comes to unflinching, riveting looks at a compulsive artist who can't be other than who he is, nothing comes close to Crumb.
  85. Long Day's Journey Into Night
    A sense of disorientation is a wholly appropriate response to a movie in which the past is both irretrievable and unshakable. But even at its most openly baffling, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” never loses its seductive pull.
  86. One Cut of the Dead
    A master class in endless narrative inventiveness and an ode to the resourceful and collaborative spirit of hands-on filmmaking, One Cut of the Dead amounts to an explosively hilarious rarity.
  87. Farewell Amor
    Its beauty lies in its empathy — something currently in short supply and therefore very welcome in the stories we consume.
  88. Saint Maud
    In only an hour and 24 minutes, Glass has crafted a film rich in history, reference, psychology, spirituality, style and even some gore, but it never overstays its welcome, recognizing that less is more.
  89. Burning
    Burning is a character study that morphs, with masterly patience, subtlety and nary a single wasted minute, into a teasing mystery and eventually a full-blown thriller.
  90. Served Like a Girl
    A truly inspirational, emotional and profoundly moving film.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is Martin Bonner
    This Is Martin Bonner, wonderfully acted and something of a minimalist masterpiece, is a striking, moving ode to lives lived day to day, even hour to hour, in which the smallest gesture has the power to make one hopeful for the next, like a small fire gently stoked.
  92. The Postman Always Rings Twice
    This 1946 version became a key film in postwar Hollywood film noir. Directed by Tay Garnett, it remains one of Lana Turner's (right) very best films. [02 Feb 1997, p.78]
    • Los Angeles Times
  93. Heart of a Dog
    Heart of a Dog is that rarest of pieces, an unabashedly experimental work that's as inviting as a visit with an old friend, one who may not always make sense, who's sometimes goofy, but has been through a lot lately and treasures the opportunity to artfully unload.
  94. Hoop Dreams
    By focusing on the personal side of the city game, Hoop Dreams tells us more about what works and what doesn't in our society than the proverbial shelf of sociological studies. And it is thoroughly entertaining in the bargain.
  95. Vertigo
    An audacious, brilliantly twisted movie, infused with touches of genius and of madness. A disturbing meditation on the interconnected nature of love and obsession disguised as a penny dreadful shocker. [13 Oct 1996, p.C5]
    • Los Angeles Times
  96. Welcome to Leith
    This cautionary tale couldn't be more timely or essential.
  97. Foxcatcher
    A despairing, intentionally disturbing film that draws us into a maelstrom of desperate emotions, it holds up a dark mirror to the American dream and does not like what it sees.
  98. Maria Full of Grace
    In its vitality and finesse, Maria Full of Grace is all of a piece -- and both artistically and spiritually itself full of grace.
  99. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    It's a privilege and a pleasure to be present in a sacred space where the human and the mystical effortlessly intertwine, and we are in Werner Herzog's debt for that great gift.
  100. i'm thinking of ending things
    You are advised to pay close visual attention, especially to Robert Frazen’s pinpoint editing and Melissa Toth’s subtly shifting costumes, even as you lean in to catch every word of Kaufman’s torrential dialogue and each detail of the mercurial, tinnitus-evoking sound design.
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