Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,550 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 2.2 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: 8,714 out of 16550
  2. Mixed: 5,819 out of 16550
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16550
16550 movie reviews
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  1. Raajneeti
    Aims for something trenchant about thwarted destiny and ugly ambition in modern Indian democracy but mostly winds up with a convoluted and tonally awkward "Godfather" rehash, with nary a character worth rooting for.
  2. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
    Starts off feeling clever and original but turns silly and diffused as its convoluted story spins out.
  3. Whiz Kids
    It's the candid moments of joy and accomplishment -- Welcker finding out she's an Intel contest finalist, Khan learning he's been accepted to Yale, high school valedictorian Cisneros thanking her devoted parents in her graduation speech -- that really make this one soar.
  4. Burzynski
    Merola unleashes a barrage of information, including much testimony from grateful patients, but he could have made an even more effective film had he paused to summarize each phase in Burzynski's long ordeal.
  5. Mademoiselle Chambon
    People fall in love in every country, but nowhere is the experience put on film with the flawless style, empathy and emotion the French provide. Mademoiselle Chambon is the latest in that line of deeply moving romances, an exquisite chamber piece made with the kind of sensitivity and nuance that's become almost a lost art.
  6. Micmacs
    Micmacs is ultimately shaped by Jeunet's unique creative vision -- a fun house of mirrors that is lovely to get lost in.
  7. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
    In Prince Dastan, he (Gyllenhaal) is supposed to be that heady mix of street smarts, roguish charm and barroom moxie with the noble heart of a lion underneath. It's a lot to ask and turns out to be something more than he can deliver.
  8. Survival of the Dead
    The metaphor of senseless rancor is clear, but it's not compelling when the slow-moving monsters pose more of a nuisance than a threat.
  9. Father of My Children
    What French writer-director Mia Hansen-Love has created is an extraordinarily empathetic humanistic drama, a film of love, joy, sadness and hope that understands how complex our emotions are and does beautiful justice to them.
  10. Agora
    The subject is absorbing, but the lack of differentiation in dramatic levels makes the film feel longer than its 126 minutes.
  11. Sex and the City 2
    The satire is sagging, the irony's atrophied and the funny is flabby.
  12. Shrek Forever After
    Whatever else gets tossed into the mix, Shrek must be the heart and soul. In this, Myers is a master; he makes it seem easy being green.
  13. MacGruber
    While this jury-rigged exercise may not be an explosion of laughs, it's no dud, either.
  14. After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United
    Cinematically, though, After the Cup lacks the intimacy and narrative focus needed for a more wholly involving experience.
  15. Holy Rollers
    Never quite catches fire, calling for more edge and narrative tension than director Kevin Asch and screenwriter Antonio Macia manage to deliver. Still, it's an often evocative dip into unique territory fleshed out by a highly convincing cast.
  16. John Rabe
    Drawn from Rabe's diaries, the film is rich in telling and ironic details.
  17. Kites
    In its telling, the love story draws from westerns, musicals, film noir, chase thrillers with stunts so preposterous they verge on parody -- and it gets away with everything because of Basu's visual bravura and unstinting passion and energy.
  18. Perrier's Bounty
    Proves a fast-paced and enjoyable if violent diversion that revels in its quirky characters, committed performances and involving twists.
  19. Racing Dreams
    The film doesn't always follow up on its more interesting issues: safety, technique, financial hardship, even the sport's history. But the emotional dynamics of its trio of formative hopefuls, and their touching relationships with the parents or guardians who work hard at enabling their passion, set a solid pace.
  20. Robin Hood
    Still, there are some things to savor. Blanchett is an actress who's always involving, and Crowe is very much in his element as an intrepid, laconic archer who lets his arrows do the talking.
  21. Letters to Juliet
    An ode to romance of the most starry-eyed sort, a sugary paean to quixotic clichés and a film destined to be a guilty pleasure for some (me included, sigh) and the painful price of a relationship for others (so steel yourselves).
  22. The Living Wake
    The number of clearly talented individuals who committed themselves to the folly of The Living Wake were fearless too.
  23. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
    A meditative piece that is by turns hypnotically beautiful and painfully slow. It's the kind of film perhaps best appreciated in smaller doses, in the same way bench rest can help sustain a tiring museum visit.
  24. Here and There
    A wisp of a wry comedy but Lungulov's touch is delicate, even piercingly so, and his direction of actors, especially Thornton and Karanovic, is beautifully nuanced.
  25. Princess Kaiulani
    The film is too reverently drawn and self-consciously played to muster any real momentum.
  26. Looking for Eric
    The archival game footage -- Cantona on the field, the roaring crowds -- infuses the film with that high-spirited sense of hope and heart that only a brilliant play when a game is on the line can deliver. Loach, a brilliant player at his own game, delivers the rest.
  27. Iron Man 2
    As sequels go, this one is acceptable, nothing more, nothing less.
  28. Casino Jack and the United States of Money
    A film that's always on the move, a smart, lively, thoroughly involving doc about a complex, critical subject.
  29. Happiness Runs
    An astoundingly bad memory piece that blows its potential dramatic heft at every turn.
  30. The Lightkeepers
    You can't really hate The Lightkeepers. You can only wish that writer-director Daniel Adams had invested the movie with equal measures of originality and quaintness … and maybe told Dreyfuss to tone down the whole sea captain thing.
  31. Multiple Sarcasms
    Rather than some deeper understanding of the human condition, what we get from Multiple Sarcasms is a lot of heavy breathing.
  32. The Oath
    Jandal emerges as someone who was truly in Bin Laden's inner circle, Hamdan seems the menial driver he claimed to be. What remains unanswered is where their allegiances now lie. Frightening or not, terrorists or not, both seem human, which at the end of the day is what Poitras set out to do.
  33. OSS 117 - Lost in Rio
    I don't know that we actually need Agent OSS 117, but the world is a slightly better place with him around. And the film itself is a harmless trifle -- make that truffle, chocolate of course.
  34. Babies
    The result is irresistible and possibly infectious.
  35. Trash Humpers
    While the results were probably never designed to win over his detractors, Trash Humpers is almost a perverted love letter to fans of his brand of unstable, fringe-y terror.
  36. The Infidel
    An admirably cagey effort to mine humor from the thorny cultural and racial divide that is Muslim-Jewish relations.
  37. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
    A new biopic of eccentric British rock legend Ian Dury, Andy Serkis uncoils a performance of spit, grit and wit so ferocious it only serves to starkly clarify how unremarkable and formulaic the rest of the movie is.
  38. A Nightmare on Elm Street
    This "Nightmare" is mostly stale goods. You'd think Bayer's music video background would jibe well with the playful surreality of Craven's premise. But when not paying homage -- the claw in the bathtub, the morphing wall -- Bayer surprisingly traffics in factory-level horror atmospherics and loud, saw-it-coming shocks.
  39. Furry Vengeance
    A film so exhausting in its mean-spirited unfunny business that it would prompt Al Gore to empty his recycling bin and light a match to the contents -- and the plastic bin itself -- in full view of news camera crews.
  40. The Good Heart
    Here, the 36-year-old filmmaker is playing around with drama and comedy. And if you're in the mood for a splash of dark drama, a bit of humor, very dry, on the rocks, with a twist, this will come close to satisfying.
  41. Harry Brown
    It's a strong directing debut for Barber, who uses the poignant power of Harry's experience to take a universal cut at decaying communities and the poverty of soul as well as pocket.
  42. Mercy
    A romantic drama with some good qualities -- among them earnestness and strong performances -- but not enough to completely overcome the strain of its clichés.
  43. Please Give
    With her new film, the poignant and funny Please Give, Holofcener is at the top of her game.
  44. The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
    There are terrible movies and there are loathsome movies. And then there's that rare breed so idiotic, exploitative and sickening one wishes they could be scrubbed from memory. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is such a specimen. Would that I had 100 legs to kick it.
  45. Anton Chekhov's The Duel
    If it weren't for the masterful work of director Dover Kosashvili, this rich, evocative film wouldn't have nearly the impact it does.
  46. The Back-up Plan
    Good slapstick is actually an art -- unfortunately not one practiced here -- and bad slapstick is just tedious.
  47. The Losers
    There are enough clever bits, in that exploding-bodies kind of way, to inject some fun into the party. White and director of photography Scott Kevan, who collaborated on "Stomp the Yard," have some seriously inventive visuals, which at times are smash-cut fabulous.
  48. Best Worst Movie
    In its more amusing and accepting moments, Best Worst Movie captures the geek-joy fizz when fame morphs into notoriety, and artlessness becomes its own art.
  49. The Good, the Bad, the Weird
    Knives, explosions and knockabout humor have been added to taste. As vigorously staged as it all is -- sometimes confusingly, occasionally with camera-torqueing flair and impressive stuntwork -- the urge to thrill grows wearisome. Were audience members to be included as a collective character as well, they'd be "The Tired."
  50. Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger
    Always the drama is tempered with an equal measure of off-center humor that keeps things crackling.
  51. Paper Man
    Every time Kudrow exits the picture, imagining her fed-up character's life away from the twee therapeutic noodlings of Paper Man makes for its own time-killing retreat from dull indie-film reality.
  52. Oceans
    Once Oceans' exhilarating visuals get going, it's easy to ignore the words. This really is a film that manages to show us things we've never seen and make what we have already seen look different and new.
  53. Death at a Funeral
    The movie version of karaoke. It sings the same tune as the 2007 British underground hit, but it's a little, and at times a lot, off-key.
  54. Kick-Ass
    This shrewd mixture of slick comic-book mayhem, unmistakable sweetness and ear-splitting profanity is poised to be a popular culture phenomenon because of its exact sense of the fantasies of the young male fanboy population.
  55. The Joneses
    The ending feels a bit rushed and incongruous, but the film never leaves behind the humanity of its characters.
  56. The Cartel
    A brisk, incisive and mind-boggling -- no other phrase will work -- exposé of his native New Jersey's public education system.
  57. The City of Your Final Destination
    Filled with unrealized possibilities and fraught with flaws, Final Destination seems destined to be little more than a footnote in the anthology of extraordinary films to come out of the long creative collaboration between producer Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
  58. Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Subversive, provocative and unexpected, Exit Through the Gift Shop delights in taking you by surprise, starting quietly but ending up in a hall of mirrors as unsettling as anything Lewis Carroll's Alice ever experienced.
  59. Handsome Harry
    Gordon's way with actors and with screen storytelling is as impeccable as ever.
  60. No One Knows About Persian Cats
    The narrative arc swings between light and darkness, from the sheer joy of the Persian rappers who practice on top of an unfinished skyscraper, to Nadar's arrest and interrogation for his black-market DVDs. In Ghobadi's hands, though, it always feels real.
  61. The Perfect Game
    An imperfect film, but an unusual case in which the heart of both the story and its telling do help in smoothing over other deficiencies, sweet and disarming in its belief that something like a baseball game can make a bigger difference.
  62. The Secret in Their Eyes
    A beautifully calibrated movie in the most traditional sense of the word -- the ideal marriage of topic, talent and tone.
  63. Date Night
    All this is good as far as it goes, but the problem is the good parts don't last long enough.
  64. After.Life
    The afterlife is not, however, nearly as deadly or as ghastly as the movie itself, an undertaking so tortured that it digs a deeper grave with every passing scene.
  65. The Black Waters of Echo's Pond
    Director/co-screenwriter Gabriel Bologna, working vigorously at hokey predictability, wastes little time getting us to wish his obnoxious characters (why do people who seemingly hate each other always vacation together?) would find their inner maniacs already.
  66. Everyone Else
    The result is a film that unsettles as often as it seduces, though it does very well with both.
  67. La mission
    The film oozes with authenticity -- sometimes a bit too much so -- and a genuine passion for the gritty, colorful, proud neighborhood that's still a few steps behind the progressive city it calls home (the Bratts grew up in and around the Mission).
  68. The Square
    As one might expect from stuntman-turned-director Nash Edgerton, the action is well staged.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    When You're Strange
    Distressingly short on creative spark or historical illumination.
  70. Who Do You Love
    Nostalgia and blues buffs who missed that lively film ("Cadillac Records") could do worse than this entertaining, if sometimes slight, revisit directed by Broadway veteran Jerry Zaks.
  71. Women Without Men
    Though the narrative could use more depth and detail, the film generally absorbs with its strong performances, stirring emotions and vivid imagery.
  72. See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary
    Though this inspirational movie often cuts away too quickly from its characters' stage performances, it's a significant look at a vital, underreported segment of the entertainment world.
  73. Don McKay
    McKay never quite catches fire as a thriller and, truth be told, it's not much of a character study either.
  74. The Greatest
    Unfortunately, though its heart is smack in the right place, The Greatest tends to play more like a collection of appropriate, well-acted scenes than as a fully satisfying narrative.
  75. The Thorn in the Heart
    Gondry captures the leafy radiance of the countryside, and he makes judicious use of special-effects whimsies. But this memory piece will have far more resonance for the Gondry family than for anyone else.
  76. Why Did I Get Married Too?
    Not only is Perry in tune with his audience as always, he's unquestionably growing as a cinematic artist.
  77. Warlords
    Like the best war movies do, director Peter Ho-Sun Chan has woven together an intimate story of men against a backdrop of history writ large.
  78. Breaking Upwards
    A breakup worth going through.
  79. Clash of the Titans
    It's doubtful that records are kept about this sort of thing, but consider the possibility that Clash of the Titans is the first film to actually be made worse by being in 3-D.
  80. The Last Song
    One of those maudlin romantic melodramas you just can't warn folks off.
  81. The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom
    A fresh examination of the plight of the Tibetans still craving independence after a half century of either homeland misery or increasingly long exile.
  82. Hot Tub Time Machine
    About a billion laughs (though "Hot Tub" is not for the faint of heart or anyone even slightly concerned with what's happened to common decency these days).
  83. Chloe
    Envisioned as a psychosexual thriller about a woman scorned, director Atom Egoyan's latest puzzle is just puzzling, little more than a messy affair with mood lighting, sexy lingerie, heavy breathing and swelling, um, music.
  84. The Eclipse
    With a well-knit array of picturesque long shots, shadow-strewn medium takes and the occasional silhouetted close-up, The Eclipse finds plenty of heartfelt gravity in its tale of love lost and found on a gothic coast.
  85. How to Train Your Dragon
    There are times the action lags, and when the dialogue falls back on pop cultural references it feels contrived and forced but, mostly, like the mythical creatures at the heart of this tale, the movie soars.
  86. Waking Sleeping Beauty
    It's got a terrific inside Hollywood sensibility plus an unblinking candor that lets the chips fall where they should. Which, given who made it, is something of a pleasant surprise.
  87. Godspeed
    What keeps Godspeed from lasting power are its melodramatic swerves and less-than-revelatory acting. But despite its fissures in tone and technique, Godspeed occasionally plays like a sturdy indie outpost of revenge cinema.
  88. Repo Men
    There's a key organ missing from the movie itself: a brain. In its place is a memory bank of other, better movies.
  89. The Bounty Hunter
    Try as they might, Nicole and Milo, as they are called in the movie, don't steam. Wispy vapors is about as good as it gets.
  90. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    A mind-bending and mesmerizing thriller that takes its time unlocking one mystery only to uncover another, all to chilling and immensely satisfying effect.
  91. Greenberg
    Any comic relief it affords comes with such an undertow of repressed emotions and displaced anger that it all starts to feel more depressing than dramatic.
  92. IMAX: Hubble 3D
    It's a movie that not only puts you in space but lets you travel through it with a speed and wonder that would make James T. Kirk go a little weak in the knees.
  93. The Runaways
    The problem with The Runaways is that they went with the wrong girl.
  94. City Island
    De Felitta ("Two Family House") gives all his actors plenty of room to roam. Garcia, afforded the chance to stretch his comic muscles and play a working stiff, comes off best, nailing Vince's good-natured vulnerability.
  95. The Killing Jar
    Benson is so terrible her close-up line readings feel as inconsequential as the insert shots, and Madsen, it must be said, finally looks exasperated with playing grumbly psychos. At times he looks as helpless as his hostages.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Neil Young Trunk Show
    It's not always pretty, but Neil Young Trunk Show is very much rock 'n' roll.
  97. Vincere
    Though Ida's life would become a torturous hell spent locked away in an insane asylum, the legacy left by her letters has made for an intense and intriguing, if at times uneven, film with Italian director Marco Bellocchio wringing every drop of emotion out of his actors and his audience before it is over.
  98. Mid-August Lunch
    The whole thing is as satisfying as a meal at a slow food restaurant, and when Gianni's mother gratefully tells her son, "you mellow these hours," we wholeheartedly agree.
  99. The Exploding Girl
    Small scale though it is, this is a film that knows what it wants to do and has thought out exactly how to go about doing it. The same must be said about the luminous nature of Kazan's performance, which won best actress last year at the Tribeca Film Festival.
  100. She's Out of My League
    What he (Jay Baruchel) brings to She's Out of My League, in addition to the geek and the gawk, is a dash of the debonair, which might seem impossible and yet he does.
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