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. Surviving Christmas
    A dismally formulaic hodgepodge of crude humor and wan attempts to tug at the heart.
  2. Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain... Begins to Die
    Like Moore's film, Celsius hits too many topics with too broad a brush, resulting in yet another contribution to this campaign season's spin cycle of rhetoric.
  3. Sex Is Comedy
    Breillat's first foray into comedy is playful, whip-smart and far breezier in both tone and look than the stylized gender polemics she's known for.
  4. The Dust Factory
    A tedious, precious fantasy.
  5. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
    Cassavetes' riveting film not only re-creates the glory days of the Z Channel through a generous offering of film clips and interviews, but also presents a clear-eyed portrait of its creative driving force, Jerry Harvey, and the tragic circumstances of his death.
  6. P.S.
    Once you get beyond the absurdity of the premise, it works.
  7. Riding the Bullet
    The movie is so glum and flat-footed there's no reason to care.
  8. The Final Cut
    The thriller with a promising premise fails to deliver.
  9. Moolaadé
    There's such a rich sense of the fullness of life in Moolaadé that it sustains those passages that are truly and necessarily harrowing.
  10. Eulogy
    The movie is like a promising date that goes nowhere.
  11. Being Julia
    The filmmakers have brought such breadth and depth to the material. Everyone counts in this film, not just Julia Lambert.
  12. Hair Show
    Good-natured comedy.
  13. Saints and Soldiers
    Inspired by actual events, Saints and Soldiers benefits by being a small-scale war movie.
  14. Shall We Dance
    A sleek Hollywood crowd-pleaser, more movie than art film, but its makers have wisely stuck not only to the spirit but often even to the letter of the original.
  15. Team America: World Police
    Yes, it's inventive, yes, it's out-there and audacious, but no, it's not always as funny as those good things would lead you to hope.
  16. The Scandal
    Genteelly erotic, surprisingly emotional, exquisitely made from start to finish.
  17. Vera Drake
    As lovely and heartbreaking as Staunton is to watch, there's something about Leigh's attachment to his politics that leaches some complexity from the experience
  18. Around the Bend
    Gentlemen, it's a male chick flick - "The Dirty Secrets of the Ya-Ya Brotherhood."
  19. Vodka Lemon
    An appealingly wry little film that is as appetizing as its title.
  20. Yes Nurse! No Nurse!
    At once corny and precious, its humor seems too heavily ethnic to travel well.
  21. Go Further
    Amusing and informative.
  22. The Hillside Strangler
    A garishly slick piece of exploitation with surprisingly high production values but nary a moment of suspense.
  23. Stage Beauty
    Sly and witty.
  24. Friday Night Lights
    Real enough around the edges to hold our attention even if it sacrifices accuracy for storytelling ease.
  25. Primer
    Frustrating as I ultimately found it, Primer is undeniably geek heaven. For everyone else, it's a nice antidote to big-budget bogusness.
  26. Raise Your Voice
    Hilary Duff can't rise above an overbearing script with underdeveloped roles.
  27. Tarnation
    A remarkable and remarkably compelling document.
  28. Taxi
    Full of car chases, weak jokes and scenes so meandering they make "Saturday Night Live" look like a paragon of brevity and wit.
  29. Tying the Knot
    Lively, incisive and comprehensive documentary.
  30. Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
    This is the biggest surprise of all -- it's hard to watch Going Upriver without wondering, frankly, what became of the young John Kerry, who comes off so exceptionally well in this film.
  31. Thérèse: The Story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
    Although decently acted and well-crafted, Thérèse is essentially an illustrated Sunday school lecture for true believers. It comes across as more an exercise in determined piety.
  32. Woman Thou Art Loosed
    There's a bedrock honesty in Woman, Thou Art Loosed in its grasp of human nature and behavior. This is one faith-based film that pulls no punches.
  33. Dig!
    Should be required viewing for youngsters thinking about a music career. It's a great reminder to be careful what you wish for.
  34. Shark Tale
    It does not have as much invigorating freshness as audiences have come to expect in computer animation.
  35. I Heart Huckabees
    The movie is undeniably weird, though it's hardly what you'd call "experimental." My hunch is that whether you love it or reject it as obtuse, incoherent or self-involved will be a generational thing.
  36. Ladder 49
    As a loving tribute to the courage and sacrifice of firefighters, it's first-class. As a movie, it's a TV show.
  37. Unconstitutional
    Focuses on what the filmmaker contends is widespread abuse of civil liberties carried out in the wake of the USA Patriot Act and other administration policies.
  38. Soldiers Pay
    Fascinating.
  39. Incantato
    A poignant love story, laced with tenderness and gentle humor and told with the warmth of Italian movies in their seductively good-natured mode.
  40. The Yes Men
    Smart and amusing.
  41. Moog
    Fjellestad exhibits a playful adoration for the man and the otherworldly sounds of his machine in an intriguing rendering of one of music technology's seminal figures.
  42. First Daughter
    While First Daughter is nowhere near as airheaded or disingenuous as "Chasing Liberty," it's far more confused.
  43. A Dirty Shame
    This raucously gritty and high-spirited film could scarcely be bluer in terms of the language, but from Waters it comes as a gust of fresh air.
  44. Rick
    Feels like it was written by an oddball artist-temp type with an ax to grind - which, as it happens, it was.
  45. Mind the Gap
    An earnest but overly contrived and overly long tale.
  46. The Last Shot
    It's deftly done with an off-the-wall sense of humor joined to a real insider's sense of how the business operates.
  47. The Forgotten
    Such unabashed ludicrousness can be fun, in a brainless sort of way, especially when it's coupled with lots of sudden defibrillator jolts underscored by crashing cymbals. If there's one thing The Forgotten has, it's plenty of cardiac moments.
  48. Shaun of the Dead
    It's a grisly but sweet ode to friendship, love and the George Romero zombie trilogy.
  49. Anatomy of Hell
    What follows is graphic, but it's too cerebral and too challenging to be dismissed as pornography.
  50. The Motorcycle Diaries
    Soulful and reflective film, as gentle as it is potent.
  51. September Tapes
    The visceral thrills do not make up for the ultimate banality of the movie.
  52. Hollywood Buddha
    Isn't remotely funny or pointed enough to qualify as satire. Intentionally or not, it comes across instead as a portrait of a man whose self-regard knows no limits.
  53. The Take
    Plays out like a Frank Capra movie with the "little people" taking on corrupt and indifferent officials. In the process the film strikes a strong blow for the dignity of labor and introduces an array of brave individuals.
  54. Cowboys & Angels
    For all its moments of pathos, Cowboys & Angels is lighthearted. It is an assured piece of work and wholly engaging.
  55. Merci Docteur Rey
    An elegant Merchant Ivory production, it is too slight and perhaps too precious. But it will be a witty pleasure for admirers of its grande dames: Dianne Wiest, Jane Birkin and Bulle Ogier.
  56. Head in the Clouds
    Lacks freshness and vitality.
  57. Zelary
    It's a convincing romantic drama, written, directed and acted with so much skill it's able to break loose from its conventional moorings and become more effective, more moving than we anticipated.
  58. Mr 3000
    Good-looking and smooth, with a great soundtrack.
  59. Incident at Loch Ness
    An amusing mock documentary that spends considerable energy artfully trying to make you believe it's real as real can be. The movie is transparently a fake, but its counterfeit nature is the heart of its charm.
  60. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers
    A one-gag movie and that one gag isn't funny. Taylor and Lasser are reduced to playing sex-starved Norma Desmonds, and while Friedle and Owen are certainly game, their plan is a waste of everyone's time, especially the audience's.
  61. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
    A lovingly rendered visual treat struggles with indifferent direction and torpid plot.
  62. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
    The dark sequel offers gorgeous images, with an updated and stylish design, but its characters' angst gets in the way of storytelling.
  63. Wimbledon
    The Bjorn Borg of romantic comedies: precise, good-looking, dependable and serviceable, if predictable. It never really heats up, which is too bad.
  64. Silver City
    A series of miscalculations caused this project to lose its way, until what we're left with is a film that should involve us more than it does.
  65. Reconstruction
    Everything blends in a haze of longing, so that watching it feels like being in love.
  66. Criminal
    Captures Los Angeles in a straightforward, naturalistic way, neighborhood-hopping like a native.
  67. Testosterone
    Surprise after surprise follows in this increasingly dark comedy, which is loaded with sharp observations and exceptionally complex characterizations.
  68. Cellular
    Illustrates what happens when a viable premise is spoiled by sheer preposterousness.
  69. Vlad
    In short, Vlad could have used a substantial transfusion of wit and energy, with a dash of dark humor.
  70. When Will I Be Loved
    With its improvisatory tone and loose, rambling structure, which often approaches a total breakdown of coherence, the story takes about half an hour to emerge.
  71. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
    Witt injects the film with plenty of razzle-dazzle on the visual side, but the pace deadens whenever the zombies are offscreen or the characters open their mouths long enough to do anything more than grunt.
  72. Evergreen
    Enid Zentelis' affecting and intimate Evergreen deals with family life and coming of age and is the kind of small, deeply personal American film that rarely surfaces even in art theaters these days.
  73. Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire
    Contends that doctrines, including promoting unilateralism, increasing military spending and protecting "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil," can be traced from right-wing think tanks into U.S. foreign policy.
  74. A Letter to True
    An undeniably odd film, this ode to pooches is more than just a dog calendar come to life.
  75. Remember Me, My Love
    A decorative Italian soap opera with an asterisk for earnest aspirations. Its beautiful people say painful things to each other in gorgeous clothes, and though the film expects us to take their problems seriously, it's awfully hard to do so.
  76. The Cookout
    Good-natured but it's a dud.
  77. Big Girls Don't Cry
    A refreshing reminder that learning how to navigate danger is a big part of being a teenager, and that no kind of upbringing - or nifty home furnishings - can or should shield a young adult from life outside her doors.
  78. Warriors of Heaven and Earth
    May be a period piece but there's nothing antiquated about it except an overly populated, initially hard-to-follow plot.
  79. Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War
    With killing as an end in itself, combatants lose sight of what they were supposed to be taking up arms for in the first place. It's a terrible lesson, and one that Tae Guk Gi teaches with unexpected confidence.
  80. Wicker Park
    An elegant tale of romantic obsession weighed down by a needlessly convoluted plot that yields far more confusion than psychological suspense.
  81. Paparazzi
    It was shrewdly written by Forrest Smith and directed crisply by Paul Abascal (Gibson's onetime hairdresser) for maximum visceral impact upon the susceptible.
  82. Vanity Fair
    It almost makes you wonder whether Vanity Fair is not the perfect text for a lesson in Buddhist detachment. Certainly, Vanity Fair is a never-ending Western story that benefits from Nair's philosophically Eastern point of view.
  83. Suspect Zero
    Merhige understands how exciting going to the edge of credibility can be without falling off, and he has the bravura talent and imagination needed to pull off the sheer, hurtling audacity of Suspect Zero.
  84. The Brown Bunny
    How much you enjoy the experience will depend on your take on Gallo. If you think he's a brilliant, satirical cut-up, then The Brown Bunny is an elaborate and successful art prank. If you think he's a pretentious, self-obsessed, tedious weirdo, then The Brown Bunny will back you up 100%
  85. Bush's Brain
    Only partially convincing.
  86. Hero
    Led by director Zhang Yimou and dazzling cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the unseen Hero production team has made what just might be the most artistically sophisticated, most formally beautiful martial arts film the genre has seen.
  87. Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
    A highly entertaining movie assured of its genre-jumping potential.
  88. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
    May quite easily put an end to any discussion of what is the worst theatrical release of 2004.
  89. L.A. Twister
    In trying to qualify as mordant satire, charming rom-com, uplifting buddy movie about underdogs trying to stick it to the man and the most meta story ever told, L.A. Twister sprains itself badly.
  90. Bright Leaves
    Inevitably poignant but also often amusing and always deeply touching.
  91. End of the Century
    An engaging and emotional documentary.
  92. Almost Peaceful
    Succeeds as a delicately moving memory piece about a subject not often put on film: the process of moving on into ordinary life after surviving the Holocaust.
  93. Nicotina
    Nicotina's every loser, criminal, dreamer, crank and cynic is flawed, but their flaws are primal and as human as thumbs. In the end, it's this grim but tender view of humanity that gives the movie its appealing combination of mordant humor and cheerful pessimism.
  94. Rosenstrasse
    Most important is the film's consistent unexpectedness. Rosenstrasse captures well not only the varying states of mind and levels of awareness in Germany during World War II but also the era's lingering effect upon its survivors.
  95. Mean Creek
    Mean Creek's greatest asset is its sense of truth. It doesn't pander to or indulge its characters like the teen films we're used to. It looks at them straight ahead and with respect. It's something you wish Hollywood, and even parents, did more often.
  96. Bright Young Things
    As faithful to the spirit of the novel, and the era that inspired it, as a movie could be yet still feel as fresh as Paris Hilton dish on Page Six.
  97. Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
    There are hopeful notes here. If you are looking for examples for America's finest hour, it's not our rush to start an optional war but rather that an anti-administration film like this can still be made and still be seen.
  98. Red Lights
    Taut, atmospheric, impeccably made psychological thriller.
  99. Exorcist: The Beginning
    A perfectly mediocre horror film. There is some hoot-inducing dialogue and cheesy effects, but the film's workmanlike narrative marches gamely forward, managing a handful of respectable scares along the way.
  100. Benji: Off the Leash!
    Unfortunately, the new film does not live up to the low-key charm of the original. It's essentially a long-form public service announcement extolling the virtues of animal adoption and decrying the scourge of unfettered dog breeding.
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