Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,523 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: 8,698 out of 16523
  2. Mixed: 5,808 out of 16523
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16523
16523 movie reviews
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  1. New in Town
    The new comedy is flat, the romance is listless, the pacing is sluggish, and the fish-out-of-water flops -- flip-flop, flip-flop, I can hear it still.
  2. Luck by Chance
    Where "Slumdog," with its signature "It is written" take on fate, implies that things happen because they must, Luck by Chance concludes that we each have a hand in determining our own destiny.
  3. Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
    Because Senesh died so young, it's hard to fill out a film of nearly 90 minutes that claims her as the subject, so director Grossman has resorted to using newsreel footage as well as re-creations, which, though discreet, add nothing special to the proceedings.
  4. The Lodger
    The biggest mystery, perhaps, is why accomplished actors such as Molina and Hope Davis agreed to be in this.
  5. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
    Grimly competent.
  6. Donkey Punch
    It's got enough formulaic flair to make it a guilty-pleasure cousin of seaborne nailbiters "Knife in the Water" and "Dead Calm."
  7. Inkheart
    With no unifying sensibility, the magic thuds more often than it soars.
  8. Of Time and the City
    Most of all, Davies proves himself to be a poet of the commonplace whose art is the exalting of the everyday. He may rail against "the British genius for creating the dismal," but his own work is anything but.
  9. Cherry Blossoms
    A stunning reminder of the omnipresence of mortality.
  10. Hotel for Dogs
    What it is packed with is lots of sneaking around, very cool gadgets, excellent stunts and some clever kids.
  11. My Bloody Valentine
    Wooden performances by forgettable, generic actors -- again, just like in the original -- don't aid in making things any less leaden. Perhaps this is the best one can hope for from something like My Bloody Valentine 3-D, that it be just good enough to not be annoying. Or in this specific case, physically painful.
  12. Notorious
    Through it all are the rhymes and the music, hugely enjoyable in their own right, and the long, large shadow of Biggie.
  13. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
    Underneath all the cartoonish mall mayhem and silly slapstick lies a comedy that aspires to be the sort of gentle crowd-pleaser John Hughes used to make.
  14. Bride Wars
    The idea of a revenge comedy isn't necessarily a bad one, Bride Wars simply fails at it despite having the formidable duo of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, who in their own distinctive ways usually command the screen.
  15. Not Easily Broken
    The movie may be preaching to the choir -- and every inch of it feels like a sermon -- but it's a pretty decent homily, heartfelt and strongly delivered by a committed cast.
  16. The Unborn
    Mostly, though, the movie is something of a snooze, a gabby PG-13 horror flick whose most shocking image might be the bored look on Gary Oldman's face as he goes through the motions of playing the rabbi in charge of dispatching the film's damnable demon to somewhere over hell's rainbow.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Yonkers Joe
    A mash-up of indie-film tropes.
  18. Defiance
    Defiance has some genuine strengths but also some weaker elements, and these opposing traits battle it out kind of the way the contentious Bielskis fought not only the Germans but each other.
  19. Good
    Regrettably, the long-delayed adaptation from director Vicente Amorim and screenwriter John Wrathall gets crushed by the weight of trying to be something more; it's really just the story of a rather ordinary but disappointing man. The filmmakers reach for metaphor and allegory, but it comes at the expense of an emotional connection.
  20. Revolutionary Road
    Encouraged by Mendes' artful direction, his gift for eliciting naturalness, the core of this film finally cries out to us today, makes us see that the notion of characters struggling with life, with the despair of betraying their best selves because of what society will or won't allow, is as gripping and relevant now as it ever was. Or ever will be.
  21. Waltz with Bashir
    Provocative, hallucinatory, incendiary, this devastating animated documentary is unlike any Israeli film you've seen. More than that, in its seamless mixing of the real and the surreal, the personal and the political, animation and live action, it's unlike any film you've seen, period.
  22. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    As enervating as it is long -- and at 2 hours and 47 minutes it is quite long -- this version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald fantasy short story is a baffling project, an endurance test of a movie that feels like it was made on a dare.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Spirit
    Miller's flat, humorless yarn is set in Central City, a vacant metropolis whose only residents seem to be cops and crooks.
  24. Last Chance Harvey
    Small and surprisingly hopeful film, with beautifully attenuated performances by Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.
  25. Marley & Me
    An imperfect, messy and sometimes trying film that has moments of genuine sweetness and humor sprinkled in between the saccharine and the sadness.
  26. Valkyrie
    A perfectly acceptable motion picture. The only thing that keeps it from even greater accomplishments may be inherent in the story itself.
  27. The Secret of the Grain
    Rather than observing this family, we feel we are part of it, and that draws us in as nothing else can.
  28. The Tale of Despereaux
    A rare creature, not only for the handmade look and subtlety of its computer-generated imagery but also for its irony-free embrace of once-upon-a-time storytelling.
  29. The Class
    The reality of François' classroom is so intense that it holds our interest even while the film's dramatic focus is building so quietly under the surface that we don't notice it at first.
  30. Seven Pounds
    The rest of Seven Pounds feels like a half-hour "Twilight Zone" script that has been pressed onto a gob of Silly Putty and stretched to the sinking point.
  31. The Wrestler
    The Wrestler doesn't add up. It's constructed with great care around a lead performance that is everything it could possibly be, but the picture itself is off-putting and disappointing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Nothing But the Truth
    Lurie spins off into invention like a "Law & Order" writer on deadline, scrambling the issues so thoroughly it's no longer clear what, if anything, the movie is meant to address.
  33. Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
    Director Stephen Kijak previously made the documentary "Cinemania," about a group of obsessive moviegoers, and it comes across here that Walker (born Noel Scott Engel) and his acolytes might best be described not by that distasteful word "hipster" but rather by the more dignified "connoisseur." These are people of discerning taste.
  34. Gran Torino
    Perhaps the best thing about Schenk's script is that it enticed Eastwood to end his self-imposed acting hiatus and bring his one-of-a-kind aura back to the screen.
  35. Che
    The political realities of his legacy can be endlessly debated, but in this flawed work of austere beauty, the logistics of war and the language of revolution give way to something greater, a struggle that may be defined by politics but can't be contained by it.
  36. Timecrimes
    Only half as clever as it thinks and even less entertaining.
  37. The Day the Earth Stood Still
    This contemporary remake of the science-fiction classic knew what it was doing when it cast Keanu Reeves, the movies' greatest stone face since Buster Keaton.
  38. Doubt
    Shanley seems to have lost a certain amount of faith in what he'd written. As a director he's ended up pushing the drama harder than he needs to. He hasn't done anything fatal, but he has tampered with and hampered it.
  39. Nothing Like the Holidays
    • Los Angeles Times
  40. Adam Resurrected
    In a less competitive year, Jeff Goldblum would have had a shot at an Oscar nod for his performance in Adam Resurrected.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dark Streets
    The movie, drawn from Wallace King's adaptation of Glenn Stewart's play, drips with style, but it's all flourish and no reveal.
  42. Delgo
    It says plenty about how torpid the storytelling in Delgo is that the end credits are probably the best thing in the film.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What Doesn't Kill You
    Ruffalo's feral vulnerability gives the familiar form a jolt.
  44. Where God Left His Shoes
    Stabile keeps his affecting story hurtling forward with such grit and integrity it's easy to forgive its loaded setup and occasional lapses in detail and logic.
  45. While She Was Out
    Writer-director Susan Montford eschews all plot and character development for the hackneyed action scenes and grade-Z dialogue, while struggling to stretch the paper-thin story into a feature length film.
  46. The Reader
    It is only, frankly, the strength of Winslet's performance that rises above conventional surroundings and makes The Reader the experience it should be.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wendy and Lucy
    Williams' performance is remarkable not only for its depth but for its stillness.
  48. Hunger
    The first-time director's unflinching camera, deliberate pacing and maddeningly long takes just amplify the story's innate harshness and test audience endurance levels.
  49. Nobel Son
    Shows strains of stylistic overkill with egregious flash-edit tricks and sped-up camera moves, while the signal-flare plotting indicates that perhaps a bit more time could have been taken on the screenplay.
  50. Frost/Nixon
    The result is involving, engrossing cinema -- more thrilling, in fact, than Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" -- filmmaking of a type rarely seen anymore and sorely missed.
  51. The Black Balloon
    For the most part, this unblinking family drama packs a visceral punch. Thomas' journey toward acceptance is blessedly free of noble lessons and filled with real people.
  52. Let Them Chirp Awhile
    A movie where the only conception of life seems to come from other movies makes for no kind of movie at all.
  53. Milk
    There's nothing terribly wrong with Milk, it's just that its celebration of a culture and a neighborhood, its valentine to the early days of gay rights activism, is mostly more conventional than compelling.
  54. Twilight
    Hardwicke has connected so intensely to the Meyer novel that it's hard to imagine anyone else making a better version.
  55. The Betrayal - Nerakhoon
    Exploring a Lao family's experience during and since the Vietnam War, the film chronicles the treacheries of geopolitics and the upheaval of exile.
  56. Bolt
    At the end of the day, Bolt is a sweet Disney family film.
  57. Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
    Both an irresistible human story and as fine a documentary on football as "Hoop Dreams" was on basketball.
  58. Australia
    If you are willing to take the plunge and view things through Luhrmann's prism, "Australia" does deliver the classic dramatic and romantic satisfactions its ambitious advertising campaign promises.
  59. Quantum of Solace
    All dressed up with no particular place to go, this 22nd Bond film tries hard but ends up an underachiever.
  60. A Christmas Tale
    What results is a captivating portrait of the most gorgeously fractious dysfunctional family.
  61. Eden
    Director Declan Recks underlines every emotion, every brooding pause, working against the spare dialogue with fancy-footwork camera moves and an insistent score.
  62. Bohica
    Unfortunately, it takes director D.J. Paul a while to lend shape to this chatty, free-form material -- it would really make a better stage play -- and to distinguish writer Joseph "Bo" Colen's authentic-sounding but unevenly drawn characters.
  63. Dostana
    Running just shy of 2 1/2 hours, the film has too much of everything, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. By turns exuberant and goofy and mushy and yearning, Dostana plays like a super-sized pilot episode of "Three's Company: Miami" with crack tunes and jampacked with fun.
  64. The Dukes
    Davi's heartfelt performance makes for a winning solo, but the movie too often lacks harmony.
  65. Slumdog Millionaire
    Boyle has been nothing if not bold with this film. He's dared to use so many venerable movie elements it's dizzying, dared us to say we won't be moved or involved, dared us to say we're too hip to fall for tricks that are older than we are.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    JCVD
    The giddy near-brilliance of its central conceit is squandered by flat execution.
  67. The Alphabet Killer
    It's too bad there was no way around the story's inherent deficit since this effectively unsettling film, directed by Rob Schmidt ("Wrong Turn"), chugs along quite well for a while.
  68. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
    The film's two levels -- metaphoric and nitty-gritty -- don't mesh until the devastation of the closing sequence, which both indulges in and transcends melodrama.
  69. Pray the Devil Back to Hell
    One of the truly heartening international political stories of recent years.
  70. Repo! The Genetic Opera
    The film is bad -- not good-bad, tacky-bad or fun-bad, just plain awful and nearly unwatchable.
  71. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
    An undeniably shattering story, if forgivably shaky in its impassioned, therapeutic unfolding.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Haunting of Molly Hartley
    A dead-on-arrival thriller that resolutely fails to come to life.
  73. Splinter
    A fan of flash-edited, orientation-challenged, hand-held camera mayhem, Wilkins unfortunately takes the wrong cue from his title and fragments the movie's attack scenes for maximum energy but minimal logical effect.
  74. The Matador
    The Matador is rightly exciting -- and unsettling.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The First Basket
    Uncovers a fascinating and largely forgotten chapter of the game's history that is well worth revisiting.
  76. Let the Right One In
    In this sinister but gorgeous and compelling film by director Tomas Alfredson, being human and acting human don't always go together.
  77. Synecdoche, New York
    Sprawling, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, frustrating, hard-to-follow and achingly, achingly sad movie.
  78. Changeling
    In other hands, these clashes of good and evil might have seemed ordinary, but Eastwood makes Changeling a hard story to shake off. To see this film is to understand both how fragile and how essential our hopes for decency and truth are in a world that must be made to care about either one.
  79. I've Loved You So Long
    Performances this strong and direction this sensitive make us simply grateful to have an emotional story we can sink our teeth into and enjoy.
  80. Passengers
    With these actors and Rodrigo García's sensitive direction, Passengers might have fared well as a short. But as a full-length feature, it's a long ride to a familiar destination.
    • 20 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Saw V
    A particularly dull and discombobulated affair, shot and acted with all the flair of a basic-cable procedural. Patterson and Mandylor are so wooden that their cat-and-mouse game has all the excitement of watching dust bunnies swirl in an air current.
  82. Pride and Glory
    The movie is as histrionic as it is ham-fisted, a bad combination that leads to scenes such as the one in which officers threaten to torture a baby to get their point across.
  83. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    For those scoring at home, the third entry in the "High School Musical" series is better than the second but doesn't quite sustain the unvarnished, giddy highs of the first.
  84. Johnny Got His Gun
    Trumbo's aim was a kind of proletarian poetry, but McKenzie's broad emoting has the deadly earnestness of a school play.
  85. The Universe of Keith Haring
    The bane of documentaries on creative people is that they're often little more than a fan's note, of interest only to those who already know and love the work in question. The Universe of Keith Haring starts out that way but the force of the late artist's energy and personality is strong enough to win over the skeptics.
  86. Fear(s) of the Dark
    None of the segments are really interested in jump/scare/slasher horror, but rather the slow, creeping terror of feeling something is wrong and something worse is coming, making the film a most frightful Halloween aperitif.
  87. Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
    An exceptional film, at once disturbing and elevating, deliberate yet powerful.
  88. W.
    W. is not a dispassionate biography; it is an interpretation of personality intersecting with history, and as a piece of drama it is persuasive and perfectly creditable.
  89. The Elephant King
    Oliver's instant switch from bespectacled nerd to Thai-stick smoking, love-struck tourist is more embarrassing than convincing, as is the film's reliance on literally elephant-heavy symbolism.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Max Payne
    Turning video games into movies may be one way for studios to coax teenagers away from their laptops, but this time around, the results are miserable, in every sense of the word.
  91. Morning Light
    If the makers were hoping they'd chronicled a metaphor for life's struggle, they probably weren't counting on the struggle being monotony.
  92. The Secret Life of Bees
    What's being sold here is the movie equivalent of the honey-drenched sweet potato biscuits that are forever being passed around on-screen. Their nutritional value may be nil, but they sure look comforting.
  93. Sex Drive
    Occasionally sharp but never quite as smartly formed as it could be, this Sex Drive is only partly worth the trip.
  94. Frontrunners
    Makes for a thoroughly captivating film.
  95. Body of Lies
    Always crisp and watchable. But as the film's episodic story gradually reveals itself, it ends up too unconvincing and conventional to consistently hold our attention.
  96. Breakfast with Scot
    Has a sitcom format, but complex emotions and perceptions keep breaking through the surface in an engaging, thoughtful manner.
  97. City of Ember
    None of this means that the film is necessarily enjoyable to watch, however, which is often the problem when the rigors of inspired storytelling can't live up to an imaginatively designed filmic world.
  98. The Express
    If one will pardon the obvious analogy, The Express ends up feeling like a fumble at the goal line, coming across as simple-minded and melodramatic.
  99. Good Dick
    Good Dick carries its messed-up, highly improbable premise so lightly and gracefully that it ultimately comes off as a sweet, plausible and curiously grounded love story -- and touchingly old-fashioned.
  100. Happy-Go-Lucky
    As is always the case with Leigh's protagonists, Poppy does not fit into a schematic log line, she simply is. She exists with an intensity that few other filmmakers' characters can manage because of the singular way Leigh creates his people.
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