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. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
    Because Into the Arms of Strangers is as much a story about childhood as it is about the Holocaust, it's an especially moving and effective piece of work.
  2. Duets
    By the time Duets faces the music, hardly anyone is going to care.
    • Los Angeles Times
  3. Urbania
    Such a powerful experience that it is equally effective whether you have figured out from the start where it is headed or whether its denouement comes as a complete surprise.
    • Los Angeles Times
  4. Human Resources
    Concerned with fathers and sons, expectations and dreams, ideals and reality, this completely engrossing film gets more involving as it goes on.
    • Los Angeles Times
  5. Crime and Punishment in Suburbia
    The "crime" was that it was made in the first place and the "punishment" is having to watch it.
    • Los Angeles Times
  6. Goya in Bordeaux
    Superb, contemplative.
    • Los Angeles Times
  7. Bait
    But what little humor there is in the movie becomes subservient to the grisly violence, gratuitous cruelty and ugly car chases.
    • Los Angeles Times
  8. The Price of Air
    Smartly shot in digital and transferred to 35 mm, suggests that Evans needs more seasoning to make genre conventions and characters work for him rather than against him.
  9. Paragraph 175
    Illuminating, poignant and heartening.
  10. Almost Famous
    See it and it'll stay with you as your own memories do: funny, poignant, bittersweet and irreplaceable.
  11. Pola X
    Plays out the notion of the forces of light being inexorably drawn to those of darkness, of the older generation betraying the younger and maybe even an indictment of European indifference to the Balkans' agony.
  12. The Watcher
    Neither acutely suspenseful nor particularly thrilling but instead mainly numbing.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Backstage
    It delivers the stars in unguarded moments that should give fans--if not everyone--some kicks.
  14. Solas
    Alternately heart-wrenching, dismaying, raw and even funny, Solas is ultimately a wonderfully warm and embracing experience.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    My 5 Wives
    It's hard to tell if My 5 Wives is so completely dumb that it's impossible to be offended by it, or so completely offensive that it's just dumb.
  16. Nurse Betty
    Its warped, disconnected sensibility makes for an oddly distant piece of work.
    • Los Angeles Times
  17. Ça commence aujourd'hui
    Although there is real pain and suffering in It All Starts Today, it is too impassioned, too brisk and too embracing of life and human foibles to be depressing.
  18. The Way of the Gun
    An implement of destruction loaded with more borrowed film riffs than could be compiled by 47 clones of Robert Rodriguez..
  19. Turn It Up
    Hits hard and pulls no punches in telling its brutal story.
  20. Highlander: Endgame
    Looks sensational, moves like lightning. But its script (by Joel Soisson) makes no pretense about being logical or even comprehensible.
  21. Whipped
    Way too bleak to be funny, even as a contemporary satire of the battle of the sexes.
  22. Titanic Town
    An admirable, thoughtful venture, but it may leave you with the feeling that you've seen it all before.
    • Los Angeles Times
  23. Dark Days
    It's remarkable for where it takes us, how it takes us there.
  24. The Art of War
    This is a film that almost is not there.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    God's Army
    A sensitive and thoughtful probe into questions of faith and the difficulties faced by those who are called to teach others.
  26. Orfeu
    Totally captivating, as seductive as a samba.
  27. Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five
    You find Went to Coney Island sticking with you long after it's over.
    • Los Angeles Times
  28. Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire
    A film of much gentleness, tenderness and keen observation into the way laughter and pain have a way of colliding into each other.
    • Los Angeles Times
  29. The Crew
    So mild, so benign, its humiliation-to-vindication are so predictable and its old-folks jokes so feeble.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bittersweet Motel
    A film without a framework, without a skeleton--a Phish philet, if you will.
  31. Solomon & Gaenor
    By the time the heavy-handed Solomon & Gaenor is over, it has become such a punishing exercise in the self-evident that one is left numb and eager for escape.
  32. Love & Sex
    Not quite original enough to make much of a dent in the marketplace, but it shows its stars to advantage.
  33. Bring It On
    Smart and sassy high school movie that's fun for all ages.
  34. The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack
    A warm and feisty documentary that is as much inquiry as it is tribute.
  35. Place Vendôme
    This complex, sophisticated and increasingly suspenseful tale of love and betrayal, intrigue and redemption, is as elegant as its star and its settings.
  36. The Cell
    Some movies make you sorry you've seen them, and The Cell is one of those. Creepy and horrific, it's a torture chamber film.
  37. Godzilla 2000
    Another traditional Japanese production, weakly plotted, woodenly acted and indifferently dubbed.
  38. Steal This Movie
    There might have been a better, more involving method of telling Hoffman's story, but it is expressed with a firm sense of commitment to accuracy and authenticity.
  39. The Original Kings of Comedy
    A dynamite concert film.
  40. Sunset Strip
    Moves smoothly amid a near-perfect period evocation, captured in an array of shifting moods.
  41. The Opportunists
    A small gem.
  42. Aimee & Jaguar
    With key scenes so vivid they barely feel scripted, this is more than a same-sex success, it's a most affecting, most sensual on-screen love affair, period.
  43. An Affair of Love
    A film as romantic as its title.
  44. Bless the Child
    Lapses into an exercise in foolishness.
  45. Cecil B. DeMented
    A fast, furious and funny fusillade of a movie.
  46. The Replacements
    A haphazard film about half as sophisticated as the average beer commercial.
  47. The Tao of Steve
    A constant, idiosyncratic pleasure that leaves us eager to see what the Goodmans and Logue will do next.
  48. The Tic Code
    Starts out self-consciously but gets better as it goes along, winding up as affecting as it is illuminating.
  49. Saving Grace
    It makes you giggle. That's the dark, dirty secret. You giggle. You giggle again.
  50. Psycho Beach Party
    Psycho Beach Party is, from the start, in dire need of the electroshock therapy that Florence ultimately undergoes.
  51. Coyote Ugly
    A bad movie for connoisseurs of the genre.
  52. Hollow Man
    Despite a wealth of special effects...this movie is surprisingly inert, more dull than anything else, with little to recommend it on any level.
  53. Space Cowboys
    This is a mostly genial film that gets as much mileage as it can out of the undeniable charisma of its stars.
  54. Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
    The thrill is definitely gone, leaving a disappointing and unpleasant mess in its place.
  55. Girl on the Bridge
    Locale is crucial here, and Monte Carlo, Athens and Istanbul are a wonderful trio of cities for glamorous romance, intrigue and danger--and they could not seem more richly atmospheric with Dreujou's lush camerawork.
  56. Wonderland
    In short, Wonderland is an extraordinary film, as entertaining as it is observant, about ordinary people.
    • Los Angeles Times
  57. The Wind Will Carry Us
    The impact of its finish has been dissipated by too much meandering along the way.
    • Los Angeles Times
  58. Thomas and the Magic Railroad
    Lays thick, goopy layers of uplift on what should be lighter on the heart and stomach.
  59. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    (To be) thoroughly enjoyed as a privileged look at one of the loopiest of late 20th century lives.
  60. Benjamin Smoke
    There's such a rawness, purity and even mystical force to everything Benjamin says or sings, that anything else would seem extraneous and detracting from the impact of a man who has lived his life with absolutely no holds barred.
  61. $pent
    Well-paced and solidly crafted.
  62. Rififi (re-release)
    One of the great crime thrillers, the benchmark all succeeding heist films have been measured against, it's no musty museum piece but a driving, compelling piece of work, redolent of the air of human frailty and fatalistic doom.
  63. Alice et Martin
    Boldly structured, intensely focused and briskly paced, Alice and Martin has a tremendous emotional density that places the utmost demands upon its actors--and asks a lot of audiences, too.
  64. Loser
    Formulaic new teen opus
  65. What Lies Beneath
    Feels more planned than passionate, scary at points but unconvincing overall.
  66. The In Crowd
    Trite and uninvolving.
  67. The Five Senses
    An elegant, deliberate film about loneliness and hope, connection and loss.
  68. Chuck & Buck
    Succeeds because it turns out not to be the movie it might so easily have been.
  69. X-Men
    While X-Men doesn't take your breath away wire-to-wire the way "The Matrix" did, it's an accomplished piece of work with considerable pulp watchability to it.
  70. The Big Blue
    Besson's restored Big Blue proves mystical, intriguing.
  71. All the Rage
    Misfires badly as both an entertainment and a message movie.
  72. I'm the One That I Want
    Identifying herself with other minorities (whose members she mimics outrageously), Cho shatters racial and sexual stereotypes with merciless wit.
  73. But I'm a Cheerleader
    Works against its goals.
  74. The Kid
    A movie we might like to buy into if left to our own devices, but that idea is anathema to Turteltaub, intent on pushing us so hard that we end up pushing back.
  75. Scary Movie
    While undeniably silly and violent in a cartoon-like manner, is by and large a hilarious skewering of the clichés of teen pix.
  76. Shower
    Beguiling and poignant.
  77. The Decline of Western Civilization Part III
    With her unblinking but nonjudgmental eye, Spheeris doesn't shy away from the horrifying, at times violent messes these kids make of their lives, but she is always sensitive to the pain behind everything, to the unhappy futility of squandered potential.
  78. The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
    Does go on too long, leading to inevitable dead spots.
  79. The Perfect Storm
    Has noticeable problems with characterization and dialogue. But once that awesome storm, one of the most terrifying ever put on film, gets cranked up, it's hard to remember what those difficulties were, let alone care too much about them.
  80. Trixie
    So much of the film is so funny, inspired and sophisticated, the performances so richly nuanced, that many viewers, Rudolph admirers in particular, will be inclined to forgive a little self-indulgence on the part of this authentic auteur.
  81. The Patriot
    Does benefit from Gibson's charisma...Whether it is quite good enough is another question.
  82. Me, Myself & Irene
    As the Farrellys have proved, tastelessness can be made palatable, but they've misfired with Me, Myself & Irene.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Praise
    A lovely piece of movie making: precisely controlled but with a lived-in scruffiness.
  84. Chicken Run
    Never loses its priceless stamp of individuality. Reduced to its essence, this is a joke told by a person, not a corporation--and that makes all the difference.
  85. Marcel Proust's Time Regained
    A mesmerizing, shimmering and amazingly successful adaptation of Time Regained.
  86. Titan A.E.
    It's not the story that's the story here, it' the film' bravura visual look.
  87. Shaft
    The main thing the new Shaft gets right is casting for the title role. It's too bad the rest of the film doesn't hold your attention the way he does.
  88. Boys and Girls
    A likably thoughtful romantic comedy.
  89. Butterfly Tongues
    A beautiful, harrowing film of understated power and perception that affords Fernando Fernán Gómez, the Spanish cinema's great, weathered veteran, yet another of his unforgettable performances.
  90. Humanité
    A film of stunning impact.
  91. Jesus' Son
    In a sea of one-note symphonies, this touching feature is bleak and comic, heartbreaking and affirmative, romantic and tragic, gimlet-eyed and sympathetic, all at the same time.
  92. The Woman Chaser
    Very much a first film, but a venturesome start for Devor as well as a splendid launch for Warburton.
  93. Pop & Me
    A documentary made with rigor, humor and no small amount of honest emotion.
  94. Love's Labour's Lost
    It ought to be delightful, but it isn't.
  95. Groove
    There's not enough sustained musical momentum to simulate the energy of an actual rave; the characters are likable but unremarkable.
    • Los Angeles Times
  96. Sunshine
    It is a superb period re-creation and boasts a formidable international cast.... It is nevertheless absorbing and illuminating in regard to the eras its spans but is also pretty wearying by the time it starts winding down.
  97. Gone in Sixty Seconds
    It has a tendency to run ragged and spends an unhealthy amount of time idling pointlessly at intersections.
  98. American Pimp
    The dehumanizing aspect of pimping is what's scariest about the Hughes brothers' investigation--so powerful the filmmakers realize they need only to record it.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Big Momma's House
    If you think that Martin Lawrence dressed up as a hefty grandmother is funny, be gone with you .For the rest of you, you'd be better off just taking a ride on the bus. The script.. .is off and stumbling over unfunny one-liners.
    • Los Angeles Times
  100. Running Free
    A stunner marred by its central figure, a colt named Lucky, having been voiced (by Lukas Haas). Piovani's score is lyrical and emotionally charged, and it goes a long way toward negating the effects of the voice-over narration we're asked to accept.
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