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. MirrorMask
    The teenager's journey through a nightmarish reverie presents hallucinogenic imagery that simultaneously dulls the senses and hot-wires the imagination, but it never fully engages emotionally.
  2. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
    But it's one thing to write a loving ode to your mother; another to direct an ode to an ode.
  3. The War Within
    Not entirely free from an aura of didacticism or contrivance, but the film by and large functions as a taut thriller. A drastic act late in the film on the part of Duri seems somewhat implausible, but that does not deter The War Within from emerging as a mostly well-wrought and timely tragedy.
  4. An Adolescent
    Decidedly uneven yet intriguing.
  5. Sueño
    First-time writer-director Renée Chabria's sincerity and commitment to Sueño are so complete they override its sentimental streak and some overly familiar plotting.
  6. My Big Fat Independent Movie
    A big fast bust.
  7. Screen Door Jesus
    A slyly observed slice of Americana.
  8. Forty Shades of Blue
    Sachs has pulled off a film of inferences and intimations, thanks largely to the casting of accomplished actors.
  9. A History of Violence
    A ticking time bomb of a movie, a gripping, incendiary, casually subversive piece of work that marries pulp watchability with larger concerns without skipping a beat.
  10. Flightplan
    The movie loses some of its initial atmospheric tension as paranoid thrills give way to Rambo high jinks.
  11. Roll Bounce
    Has plenty of affectionate humor to balance some serious heart-tugging. And as for the roller-skating, it for sure provides a lot of razzle-dazzle action with lots of virtuoso terpsichorean touches.
  12. Daltry Calhoun
    In the parlance of "The Player," Katrina Holden Bronson's Daltry Calhoun would be pitched as "Because of Winn-Dixie" meets "Napoleon Dynamite," and that is definitely not a good thing.
  13. Dear Wendy
    By the time this astute and entirely distinctive film is over, the folly of America's love affair with guns, past and present, is laid bare with the same inescapable force with which Gregg Araki exposed the horror of child molestation in "Mysterious Skin," a similarly poetic and deceptively affectless film.
  14. Dirty Love
    It will surely yield nominations for worst picture.
  15. Dorian Blues
    With its moments of comic relief overly exaggerated and at odds with its realistic tone, Dorian Blues is at its best at its most serious.
  16. Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D
    An unapologetic cheerleader for exploring the final frontier, Hanks wrote and produced (along with director Mark Cowen) this enthralling look at what might be the greatest technological feat of the 20th century.
  17. Occupation: Dreamland
    Has an intimate, personal quality. Rather than showboating for the camera, the soldiers get to a deeper level, conveying a surprisingly reflective and aware sensibility.
  18. Oliver Twist
    Polanski's version, though handsomely realized, is a fairly conventional rendering of the novel that probably won't be counted among his best films.
  19. Everything Is Illuminated
    Schreiber takes Foer's sprawling, multilayered, multigenerational beast and hones it into a post-Glasnost buddy picture; a polished nugget of a road movie, focused mainly on Alex and Jonathan's growing sense of identification with each other and with their origins.
  20. Proof
    Against considerable odds and despite a shaky start, Proof proves itself in every area.
  21. HellBent
    A hard-charging horror movie with a clever gay twist.
  22. Cry_Wolf
    A clever teen thriller with intricate plotting, deft characterizations, sharp ensemble performances and a darkly ironic twist at the end.
  23. Just Like Heaven
    There are moments when it is possible, with effort, to forget the plot and its tired premise and enjoy Witherspoon and Ruffalo's chemistry and imagine they are in another movie. But never for long.
  24. Lord of War
    Any time you're watching a film in which the statistics in the voice-over have more intrinsic drama than the protagonists' lives, you know you're in trouble.
  25. Corpse Bride
    Corpse Bride has more warmth and appeal than its title would indicate, but it is finally more grotesque than good-humored. And, even at 75 minutes, it feels longer than its content can comfortably support.
  26. Thumbsucker
    Thumbsucker aims high but swerves too frequently between the engaging and the credibility-defying to be satisfying.
  27. The Thing About My Folks
    Sweet but dramatically inert.
  28. Stupid Boy
    Loic's journey is rich in incident and detail, and Garçon Stupide retains its dynamic momentum throughout.
  29. One Bright Shining Moment
    The film's greatest asset and strongest selling point is the former senator from South Dakota himself, thoughtful and articulate at age 83, who talks candidly, even eloquently, about his political career.
  30. Venom
    Smartly directed by Jim Gillespie from a script by various hands, Venom is from Dimension Films and follows its stylish, energetic and darkly amusing horror movie tradition.
  31. Separate Lies
    To watch the film is to marvel at the cast's virtuosity at fleshing out the shallowest people in England, and the observable intelligence and talent of all those involved doesn't make Separate Lies any more compelling, or its characters more resonant.
  32. The Future of Food
    Detailed and intensely researched documentary.
  33. The Man
    In some ways, The Man plays like a sequel to some terrible movie that was mercifully destroyed before it was ever released.
  34. An Unfinished Life
    It's an acceptable film, but the story of family ties and forgiveness simply cannot manage the emotional connections it is desperate for.
  35. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
    Muddled tale of faith and reason.
  36. Cote d'Azur
    This is a sophisticated adult treat in the French manner with an attractive and gifted cast and is essentially serious, yet often whimsical and always compassionate.
  37. Keane
    A wholly unexpected and ultimately gratifying experience.
  38. Steal Me
    A beautifully realized small film of understated power.
  39. Green Street Hooligans
    Serves up a lot of bone-crushing violence in an offbeat context with considerable style and energy, but the steady diet of brutal street fighting makes it all but impossible to connect with this picture, despite whatever visceral appeal it may offer.
  40. Kamikaze Girls
    A glorious blend of kitsch, grit, humor and uplift.
  41. Music from the Inside Out
    Anker evocatively captures the joys (and sometime frustrations) experienced by high-level artists working within an institution. The ardor they bring to their music is both enviable and inspiring.
  42. Make It Funky!
    There's not a second in the film that isn't a reminder that New Orleans in its architecture, cuisine and multicultural diversity as well as in its music is a unique and major American center of culture. Murphy has made a film more valuable than he surely ever could have imagined.
  43. Walking on the Sky
    Carl T. Evans' tedious drama Walking on the Sky serves primarily as an acting exercise for its cast and a showcase for its primary location, a scenic Manhattan rooftop.
  44. Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie
    A potent and imaginative creative biography of virtuoso percussionist Glennie.
  45. Transporter 2
    Delivers a satisfying late-summer escapist treat.
  46. A Sound of Thunder
    The picture looks as murky as its story line, the sound is tinny, much of the dialogue is flat or confoundingly technical or merely risible, and most everything on the screen looks patently fake.
  47. Underclassman
    Marcos Siega's direction is well-paced, but writers David T. Wagner and Brent Goldberg haven't brought anything sufficiently fresh or original to a formula plot to allow Underclassman to rise above the level of a mildly diverting video rental.
  48. Margaret Cho: Assassin
    She has something to say to everyone, and one can only hope that she is preaching to more than her choir of devoted fans.
  49. 3 Dancing Slaves
    Although graceful and dynamic, Three Dancing Slaves is none too substantial or original, lacking the edge or complexity of Morel's impressive debut film, "Full Speed."
  50. The Constant Gardener
    A film that grips us dramatically, intellectually and emotionally.
  51. William Eggleston in the Real World
    An elegantly discursive examination of one of the great modern photographers, a surprisingly intimate portrait of an elusive, laconic man.
  52. The Brothers Grimm
    Unfortunately, although Gilliam has always had a taste for the outre, he has allowed it to get out of hand here and swallow the picture whole. There's an excessiveness, an unwelcome too-muchness to "Grimm's" creepy moments.
  53. The Cave
    It's increasingly hard to work up a fright on the screen these days, but even if The Cave doesn't exactly terrify, it's fun and looks great.
  54. Undiscovered
    The whole movie could be clipped by about 95 minutes and it would make a swell little video for Simpson's performance of the title cut from the soundtrack.
  55. The Baxter
    A tender love story and a dead-on lampoon of the genre, but its main drawback is that Showalter is egregiously miscast in the title role.
  56. Dirty Deeds
    Recycling is alive but not well in the outmoded teen comedy Dirty Deeds, with a result that is more toxic than intoxicating.
  57. Eternal
    That the acting is stilted and that the filmmakers and especially Pla take themselves so seriously serves to make Eternal deliriously silly camp fare.
  58. The Memory of a Killer
    This is one terrific thriller with several wicked tricks up its sleeve, each more satisfying than the last.
  59. Wall
    A deeply personal and unexpectedly poetic film.
  60. Matando Cabos
    A grimly unfunny and stupefyingly inept comedy.
  61. The 40 Year Old Virgin
    Takes a premise that, in less competent, less empathetic hands, would have had the depth of a pancake, gives it a soul and turns it into a surprisingly sweet and funny ode to male friendship and middle-aged love.
  62. Red Eye
    The plot is not absolutely airtight, but Craven's filmmaking is too fast-moving and too involving for this to matter. As a movie, Red-Eye is in every way as well crafted and sharply designed as the Boeing 767 Lisa fatefully boards.
  63. Valiant
    An unconscionably dreary and amateurish-looking thing, and the rote plot and annoyingly predictable script -- a compendium of bird puns, mostly -- don't work nearly hard enough to make up for the hammy awfulness of the images.
  64. El Crimen Perfecto (The Perfect Crime)
    Perfectly delightful.
  65. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
    When it comes to serving up diabolical horror with bold, sophisticated glee, Park, best known for "Oldboy," is right up there with Dario Argento, Guillermo del Toro and Takashi Miike.
  66. Supercross
    Ultimately, Supercross is an example of how too much of anything will get annoying -- including VVRRRROOOOOOOMMM and flying bikes.
  67. Reel Paradise
    The uproarious laughter that floats from the cinema wonderfully illustrates the universality of the moviegoing experience.
  68. The Skeleton Key
    Tightly plotted and suspenseful enough to keep you guessing until the satisfying, unexpected end, which is worth suspending disbelief for. After all, as they point out in the movie, "It doesn't work if you don't believe it."
  69. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
    Director Mike Bigelow maintains a mercifully swift pace, and while the film's humor is deliberately as crass as humanly possible, it is not truly mean-spirited, even though Amsterdam is depicted as a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
  70. Four Brothers
    A typically energetic urban action melodrama, offering car chases, beatings, murders, a dog mauling, attempted arson, frequent double-crosses and pitched street battles worthy of Fallouja.
  71. The Great Raid
    A plodding, squeaky-straight Time-Life tribute to the greatest generation, the movie plays like a commemorative plaque.
  72. Asylum
    It's too over-the-top, too lurid and at times simply too silly to represent any kind of valid commentary on the repressive '50s or the way in which institutions tend to destroy rather than cure. "Far From Heaven," which nailed '50s angst to perfection, Asylum could not be farther from.
  73. The Goebbles Experiment
    A fascinating, veritable self-portrait, masterfully culled from a trove of archival materials.
  74. Grizzly Man
    Shows and tells an astonishing story, a disturbing and provocative tale of obsession, bravado and self-invention that leaves you open-mouthed for all kinds of reasons.
  75. Pretty Persuasion
    It's too bad that the satire is not more pointed, because Pretty Persuasion is outrageously funny in short blasts, mainly thanks to James Woods at his most gleefully depraved.
  76. Wasabi Tuna
    A shaggy dog tale in more ways than one, the campy comedy Wasabi Tuna is the kind of film that can give dumb blonds a bad name.
  77. Chaos
    Plunges into an abyss of gruesome imagery so repulsive it precludes further watching.
  78. Pulse
    Neither linear nor overly explained, Pulse completely dispenses with smash cuts, cymbal crashes and other editing tricks of the horror trade.
  79. Clean
    Clean is one of those movies that's slightly off the mark in ways that are hard to put a finger on, but it is shot so soulfully and features such beautiful performances that it's easy to forgive the occasional false note.
  80. A State of Mind
    The result is a fresh, straightforward portrayal of what the film calls "the least visible ... least known ... least understood ... country in the world."
  81. The Dukes of Hazzard
    With no plot, character or dialogue worth experiencing, let alone remembering, the film merely occupies space on the screen and hopes for the best.
  82. Broken Flowers
    It's hard to fully empathize with Don's season of remorse. It's the big problem with Broken Flowers, and one I don't think the movie -- for all of its funny and occasionally poignant touches -- ever really transcends.
  83. 2046
    Wong brilliantly blends musical styles and eras to create an intoxicating mood.
  84. My Date with Drew
    It plays less creepy on-screen than it sounds, at least in part because Herzlinger is an extremely likable guy and he goes to great lengths to avoid appearing to be a stalker.
  85. Saint Ralph
    Though Butcher is appealing, Saint Ralph is anchored by Scott's persuasive work as a model of intelligent decency.
  86. Secuestro express
    Jakubowicz has aptly said of his film that "the beauty of Secuestro Express is how localized it is. The more local it becomes, the more universal it becomes." The truth of his remark resonates throughout this fast and furious film.
  87. Duma
    Enormously entertaining.
  88. The Chumscrubber
    Every adult in the movie is a caricature: Close, Janney and Wilson are compendiums of such broad, unattractive traits they make the ladies of "Desperate Housewives" look complex. The men, meanwhile, are weak, clueless and preening, with the exception of Fiennes, who's nuts.
  89. Junebug
    A deceptively simple, deeply resonant story about the inherent loneliness of family, the odds against assimilation and the enormous distances that can divide two people.
  90. Darwin's Nightmare
    Filmmaker Sauper put himself in harm's way numerous times to get so inside the situation, and the intimacy of his technique, his willingness to avoid hectoring voice-overs and simply talk quietly with his subjects, adds compelling believability.
  91. Must Love Dogs
    Forces them (the cast) to reenact the entire unabridged Encyclopedia of Treasured Romantic Comedy Clichés and Chestnuts, Revised Second Edition.
  92. Sky High
    Weighed down with gimmicks and special effects, a number of which are far from special, Sky High is best left to 10- to 14-year-olds because it's not likely to do much for older audiences and is too violent for the very young.
  93. Stealth
    A slick piece of summer entertainment that is counting on elaborate special effects to make its derivative, convoluted story line all but irrelevant.
  94. The Aristocrats
    There's something about professional comedians breaking down what's funny for civilians that gets annoying after a while.
  95. Tony Takitani
    An exquisite film, as elegant and precise as an impeccably cut diamond. It's small in scale but wholly mesmerizing, holding us captive as it demonstrates how much enveloping richness can be conveyed with a minimalist style.
  96. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    For an exquisitely melancholy story steeped in a sense of the past as a succession of great waves of political, ideological and economic change, it's fitting that the movie should end with an underwater sequence. It looks like a dream of a memory of a place about to be wiped out by the next great flood of history.
  97. The Devil's Rejects
    Crass, vacuous exercise in grind-house stylistics.
  98. Hustle & Flow
    Unfolds in the satisfying fashion of classic Hollywood movies that strike a balance between grit and heart.
  99. The Island
    Chases, crashes and explosions are thick on the land in the second half of this movie, but though they are expertly done, their size, frequency and increasing disconnection from what was once a coherent story leave you feeling pummeled rather than exhilarated.
  100. Bad News Bears
    A straightforward, surprisingly faithful and definitely loving adaptation of the original.
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