Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,520 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 16520
  2. Mixed: 5,806 out of 16520
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16520
16520 movie reviews
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  1. Monsieur N.
    An elegant, sophisticated mystery.
  2. Watermarks
    Wonderful, heartwarming.
  3. Assault on Precinct 13
    Smart, satisfying action entertainment that is also a perceptive work of considerable artistry.
  4. Machuca
    One of those special films that broadens and deepens as it goes on.
  5. Coach Carter
    So, while the movie at times warmed my own middle-class, private school-educated cockles to a toasty complacency, there's an undercurrent of friendly fascism running through it like a nasty draft.
  6. Elektra
    No fun at all.
  7. Racing Stripes
    No "Babe" but should delight youngsters, although parents likely will find it is sentimental in the extreme, with a plot that telegraphs every development.
  8. The Chorus
    A runaway hit in France last year and the country's official Oscar entry, is a well-nigh irresistible film celebrating the redemptive power of music.
  9. Appleseed
    Dazzling visually but is flattened by corny dialogue better suited to the 1936 "Flash Gordon" serial, a needlessly hard to follow plot and heavy-handed exposition clotted with pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
  10. Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
    If the film offers any lesson, it is that nirvana is not easily attainable, so there really are no shortcuts.
  11. White Noise
    The movie straitjackets Keaton into a humorless, table-pounding role.
  12. Sky Blue
    Like a lot of other Asian sci-fi anime: a stunningly imagined world of the future populated with one-dimensional characters caught up in a trite plot.
  13. A Love Song for Bobby Long
    Among other things, the characters in A Love Song for Bobby Long really know how to turn a phrase, in itself a pleasure so rare it all but demands any flaws be forgiven.
  14. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
    It's a deeply affecting performance, and it drives this quietly powerful, unrelenting film.
  15. The Merchant of Venice
    What Radford above all accomplishes in his filming of The Merchant of Venice is to suggest that, in essence, it is that most modern of entertainments: a dark - indeed, very dark - comedy.
  16. In Good Company
    Genial, generous-spirited and unmistakably entertaining.
  17. Fat Albert
    Despite the tired premise, Kenan Thompson -- is actually very persuasive as Fat Albert.
  18. Darkness
    Some movies should never come to light, either, and Darkness, bearing a 2002 copyright, might well have been better left on the shelf.
  19. The Woodsman
    The film's core, anchored by a fine ensemble cast and a controlled, focused performance by Bacon, is completely solid.
  20. The Keys to the House
    Though it is a work of fiction, we have the sense every minute that we are watching something real, something with the unmistakable taste of life.
  21. In the Realms of the Unreal
    Filmmaker Jessica Yu, in In the Realms of the Unreal, outlines Darger's lonely life and interviews Lerner's elegant, sympathetic widow Kiyoko and other Darger neighbors -- highlighted by enchanting animation of some of Darger's exquisite scrolls.
  22. The Phantom of the Opera
    The real problem with "Phantom" is the problem with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals in general. It's a slow-moving orgy of lowbrow grandiosity that's as tedious as it is overblown and pretentious.
  23. Meet the Fockers
    One of those relatively rare comedies that's at once puerile, charming and very funny throughout.
  24. Hotel Rwanda
    The story it tells is such a wrenching one it cannot help but move us, especially when the performance of a lifetime by Don Cheadle is added to the mix.
  25. Imaginary Heroes
    It would have been nice if Harris, who casts a sardonic yet compassionate eye on the Travis family, had set his sights a little higher than the typical chronicle of a dysfunctional suburban family.
  26. Beyond the Sea
    Hindered by its own theatricality, Beyond the Sea feels at once hermetic, defensive and corny.
  27. Flight of the Phoenix
    An excellent job of retaining key elements of the original plot but have created a whole new set of characters that gives the film an entirely contemporary feel.
  28. The Sea Inside
    Bardem's performance is a marvel of restraint and control, both physical and emotional.
  29. Spanglish
    Frustrating though it can be, Spanglish still proves to be as resilient as its characters.
  30. The Aviator
    Tainted or not, Hughes' life was a remarkable one, and, flawed or not, Scorsese's film version deserves the same accolade.
  31. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    What the movie lacks, alarmingly, is a shriveled black heart, or a big, red tell-tale one pulsing beneath the floorboards -- anything, really, that might infuse it with the sense of true dread that keeps kids coming back for second, third and 11th helpings of the willies.
  32. Million Dollar Baby
    Perhaps the director's most touching, most elegiac work yet, Million Dollar Baby is a film that does both the expected and the unexpected, that has the nerve and the will to be as pitiless as it is sentimental.
  33. A Talking Picture
    An honest title for a film that is almost entirely conversation. Yet its rich contemplative tone proves deceptive, for its director, Portugal's preeminent filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira, at 96, still knows how to pack a wallop.
  34. Dolls
    The movie's pace is appropriate to its mood, which is crisp, melancholy and gently cruel.
  35. Ocean's Twelve
    Isn't good and isn't bad, it just isn't. A lethargic would-be entertainment as well as a dispiriting vanity project, it is such a misfire that it makes it hard to remember what was special about its predecessor.
  36. A Tale of Two Sisters
    A triumph of stylish, darkly absurdist horror that even manages to strike a chord of Shakespearean tragedy - and evokes a sense of wonder anew at all the terrible things people do to themselves and each other.
  37. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    An exquisitely evocative movie that elevates rueful melancholia to a superpower.
  38. Freeze Frame
    While the clammy character is difficult to warm up to, Evans' riveting performance gradually and uncomfortably allows us to empathize.
  39. Bandido
    A bust. As murky as its release print, it is a stale, incoherent spy caper.
  40. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
    Seven years in the making, it demands to be experienced not just because of the good it does but because of how unexpectedly good, even buoyant, it makes you feel.
  41. Blade: Trinity
    Has the great sleek, dark look of its predecessors and, most important, it has Snipes.
  42. House of Flying Daggers
    House of Flying Daggers finds the great Chinese director at his most romantic in this thrilling martial arts epic that involves a conflict between love and duty carried out to its fullest expression.
  43. After Midnight
    It has a droll sensibility but is marred by dirge-like pacing and is seriously under-lighted -- so much so that it's all but impossible to get a good look at its principal setting.
  44. Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
    The highly partisan Game Over ably illustrates the often-silly psychological gamesmanship that accompanies world-class chess and nearly catalogs enough circumstantial evidence against IBM to convict.
  45. The Green Butchers
    Mikkelsen and Kaas are up to the demands of their roles, revealing impressive range and skill.
  46. The Aryan Couple
    This handsome film is a splendid, stirring feat of the imagination.
  47. Closer
    Despite involved acting and Nichols' impeccable professionalism as a director, the end result is, to quote one of the characters, "a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully."
  48. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
    Plays out smaller and less climactic than the way anyone old enough to recall will remember.
  49. Purple Butterfly
    As atmospheric and moody as a film noir, the stylish, sometimes perplexing Purple Butterfly is a remarkable period piece, evoking the bustling, dense and increasingly dangerous Shanghai of the '30s
  50. Easy
    Moreau is this film's irreplaceable epicenter. With her radiant smile and unquenchable spirit, she carries this film on her shoulders, and makes it all look, well, easy.
  51. A Very Long Engagement
    A resolutely odd, occasionally absurd movie, but it's as charming and stylish as one could expect from this pair - if you like that sort of thing.
  52. Ae Fond Kiss...
    All of Loach's formidable strengths, which include a sense of humor, come together in the wrenching A Fond Kiss.
  53. Straight-Jacket
    Whatever pleasures it holds, Straight-Jacket is highly uneven.
  54. Paper Clips
    Paper Clips arrives with an authentically persuasive message of hope.
  55. Notre musique
    A film of flowing, redemptive beauty and poetry, at once immediate yet classic in its simplicity of form.
  56. Christmas with the Kranks
    A flat parable about the virtues of homespun conformity and the perils of defying family tradition.
  57. Alexander
    If, as the Virgil quote that starts the film claims, fortune favors the bold, Alexander has not been nearly bold enough.
  58. Fear and Trembling
    A dark comedy that reveals the stultifying rigidity of Japanese office life - which the film persuasively suggests endures to this day.
  59. Days of Being Wild (re-release)
    Director Wong is at his best in this rerelease of the 1991 film.
  60. National Treasure
    National Treasure is as doggedly hokey and ham-handed as a Disneyland ride.
  61. Bad Education
    With Bad Education, Almodóvar is at his most breathtakingly complex and mature, and at his most pessimistic.
  62. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
    Its instinctive, unstoppable cheerfulness can be, as all those millions of viewers have found, something of a tonic if you're in the mood.
  63. Ya lyublyu tebya
    Comedy is ever an effective weapon against hypocrisy and oppression, but to be effective it has to cut a lot sharper and deeper than it does in You I Love.
  64. Muhammad: The Last Prophet
    For the most part successful, focusing on the struggles of Muhammad's followers in 7th century Arabia. The reliance on point-of-view shots, however, is at times disorienting and creates the unintentionally comedic effect of a prophet-cam panning back and forth or up and down as Muhammad moves his head.
  65. Little Lili
    La Petite Lili itself is pretty good, but it is also assured to the point of glibness.
  66. Noel
    A thick and gooey slice of holiday hokum.
  67. Seed of Chucky
    Chintzy-looking gore-bore.
  68. After the Sunset
    An unalloyed delight, bright and breezy escapist fare that's pure entertainment, filled with romance, adventure, humor, action, suspense, beautiful scenery and beautiful people.
  69. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
    At its best at its most absurd.
  70. Kinsey
    Intelligently written and directed with a pleasing frankness by Bill Condon and well played by Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and a strong supporting cast, the film skillfully uses the forms of old Hollywood to tell a story that would have given heart failure to Harry Cohn and his fellow tycoons.
  71. Finding Neverland
    Gently seductive, genuinely tender and often moving without being maudlin.
  72. Way Off Broadway
    Well paced and affectionately observant, Way Off Broadway is a good example of a low-low-budget first film in which the filmmaker got everything just right.
  73. Overnight
    Though Overnight seems to be cautioning us about the excesses of filmmaker ego, it isn't always consistent.
  74. The Polar Express
    It's hard not to wish this film were more of a piece and less like loud music at the wrong party.
  75. Callas Forever
    The result is not only one of Zeffirelli's sumptuous productions but also a film that celebrates the sacredness of artistic integrity that to Zeffirelli Callas embodied fully.
  76. Fade to Black
    It's clear early on, however, that this is standard concert-film fare geared to the faithful.
  77. Brother to Brother
    The film is studded with nifty supporting portrayals, with Burns and Ford (in his film debut) especially notable. But it's the rich presence and easy authority of Robinson that brings both a gravitas and a blithe spirit to Brother to Brother.
  78. Intoxicating
    A tiresome addiction drama.
  79. Cachorro
    Moves deftly from a wry and affectionate father-son bonding comedy to wrenching drama.
  80. Alfie
    In the original, extended, unrepentant bad behavior results in bad consequences for the protagonist. In the remake, it gets the character some life lessons and a personal growth spurt.
  81. The Incredibles
    Bird has created the unprecedented film that is not just a grand feature-length cartoon but a grand feature, period, a piece of animation that's involving across a spectrum of comedy, action, even drama.
  82. Scumrock
    As fast and energetic as it is funny.
  83. Violet Perfume: No One Is Listening
    Very strong stuff, and Sistach has inspired such young actors as Ayala and Gutiérrez to give sustained and harrowing portrayals.
  84. A Silent Love
    Its charms sneak up on you because of the nuanced performances of Burton, Bauche and particularly Salazar.
  85. Voices of Iraq
    By turns heartbreaking, amusing and disturbing, the film features people from different regions, economic classes and religions, recounting stories that are sometimes bleak, sometimes encouraging, but always compelling.
  86. Enduring Love
    Enduring Love is an intellectual investigation of love from three equally frustrating perspectives - the physical, the spiritual and that mixture of emotion, psychology and interpretation we call art - couched loosely in a cool stalker thriller.
  87. Birth
    What the intelligently spooky Birth does best is disturb us.
  88. Saw
    Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch.
  89. Ray
    Ray may be too by the numbers, but with Jamie Foxx out front, this is one film that knows how to make it all add up.
  90. 800 Bullets
    It thinks it's cute, but it's as charming as an old drunk going on about how he knew Eastwood back in the day.
  91. 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.
  92. Stella Street
    Once the filmmakers have got the celebrities settled into Stella Street, they have a hard time figuring out what to do with them. Stella Street is the road best not taken.
  93. Fish Without a Bicycle
    Feels like an acting exercise stretched to feature length.
  94. Happy Hour
    LaPaglia, Feeney and Stoltz soldier bravely through an uninspired, airless script.
  95. Undertow
    The result is a movie that doesn't add up to the sum of its parts, yet some of those parts connect deeply anyway.
  96. The Manson Family
    The less-than-persuasive result is like mediocre leftover psychedelic '60s underground cinema.
  97. Lightning in a Bottle
    One terrific concert film.
  98. Postmen in the Mountains
    Undeniably a heart-tugger, but it is also a stirring affirmation of the rewards of a job well done.
  99. The Machinist
    Not quite stunning enough to live up to a boldly bleak and unrelenting buildup.
  100. The Grudge
    More than anything, The Grudge suggests that it's time for Shimizu to move on.
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