Los Angeles Times' Scores

Select another publication »
For 16,552 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: 8,716 out of 16552
  2. Mixed: 5,819 out of 16552
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16552
16552 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. 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.
  2. Shower
    Beguiling and poignant.
  3. 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.
  4. The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
    Does go on too long, leading to inevitable dead spots.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. The Patriot
    Does benefit from Gibson's charisma...Whether it is quite good enough is another question.
  8. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Marcel Proust's Time Regained
    A mesmerizing, shimmering and amazingly successful adaptation of Time Regained.
  12. Titan A.E.
    It's not the story that's the story here, it' the film' bravura visual look.
  13. 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.
  14. Boys and Girls
    A likably thoughtful romantic comedy.
  15. 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.
  16. Humanité
    A film of stunning impact.
  17. 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.
  18. The Woman Chaser
    Very much a first film, but a venturesome start for Devor as well as a splendid launch for Warburton.
  19. Pop & Me
    A documentary made with rigor, humor and no small amount of honest emotion.
  20. Love's Labour's Lost
    It ought to be delightful, but it isn't.
  21. 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
  22. 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.
  23. Gone in Sixty Seconds
    It has a tendency to run ragged and spends an unhealthy amount of time idling pointlessly at intersections.
  24. 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
  26. 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.
  27. Grass
    This turns out to be an informative, involving, even sobering advocacy film.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Better Living Through Circuitry
    Circuitry plugs into the underground world of raves. The scene, complete with drugs and its own culture, is blissfully examined in a documentary that speaks the language of its youthful generation.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Passion of Mind
    Like a hall of mirrors, casting back at us distorted images from other movies. It even calls to mind "The Sixth Sense." It isn't engaging in the least.
  30. 8 ½ Women
    A nod to Fellini--and that "half" turns out to be a typically dark Greenaway twist. Yet this film, one of Greenaway's most amusing and accessible, actually arrives at moments of tenderness, even love, fleeting though they may be.
  31. Shanghai Noon
    Jackie Chan's best American picture to date, breathes fresh life into the virtually dormant comedy-western.
  32. Kikujirô no natsu
    A heart-tugger made totally irresistible because of the combination of Kitano's wry, sly sense of humor and his rigorous detachment.
  33. Mission: Impossible II
    The power of film to irrationally transform and exalt is almost a religion to Woo, and another reason why he was the natural go-to guy for this lucrative movie franchise.
  34. Luminous Motion
    What counts here is the acute psychological validity with which Gordon evokes a coming of age that's seen with a darkly outrageous sense of humor--and no small amount of compassionate detachment.
  35. Small Time Crooks
    Handsome as all Allen films are, and it proceeds with the brisk, sophisticated air of throwaway confidence and lack of pretense that we expect from the contemporary master of grown-up comedy.
    • Los Angeles Times
  36. Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man
    Unnecessary and silly.
    • Los Angeles Times
  37. Dinosaur
    A technical amazement that points computer-generated animation toward the brightest of futures, it's also cartoonish in the worst way, the prisoner of pedestrian plot points and childish, too-cute dialogue.
    • Los Angeles Times
  38. Held Up
    A pleasant diversion, and its makers have been smart enough to keep it unpretentious.
  39. Coming Soon
    It's amazing how boring endless talk about more and better orgasms can become.
  40. Kadosh
    Gitai has created a film that is as beautiful as it is all but unbearable to watch.
  41. Center Stage
    Only really kicks in when it is dancing, which is about half the time.
  42. Hamlet
    Almereyda imagines Hamlet taking place in present-day Manhattan with such vigor, insight and originality that the power and immediacy of his film makes Shakespeare accessible in an exciting and provocative manner beyond all expectations.
    • 9 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000
    Compounded by a dated visual style, patched-together special effects and ludicrous dialogue, Battlefield Earth is a wholly miserable experience.
  44. Gladiator
    Like an aging athlete who knows how to husband strength and camouflage weaknesses, it makes the most of what it does well and hopes you won't notice its limitations.
  45. Luminarias
    Consistently entertaining and offers some sharp observations of the Latino experience.
  46. La Nouvelle Ève
    A beautiful film that flows with a luminous ease and assurance.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Basket
    It may be a hard sell to the Gameboy generation, but The Basket has charms that may be more evident to adults.
  48. I Dreamed of Africa
    This is a Laura Ashley on Safari meditation on bored rich people searching for fulfillment and a new life among the photogenic wildlife of Kenya. Just wake me when it's over.
  49. Up at the Villa
    The melodrama of the Maugham original is too simplistic to involve, and the places the film's plot goes are so obvious that even the presence of quality actors can't create sufficient interest.
  50. Adorenarin doraibu
    A rip-roaring romantic comedy that's as funny as it is light on its feet.
  51. Human Traffic
    There's an underlying emptiness to Human Traffic and it's difficult to say for sure whether Kerrigan fully acknowledges it.
  52. Michael Jordan to the Max
    Made with such verve and clarity that you don't have to be a basketball fan to enjoy it.
    • Los Angeles Times
  53. The Idiots
    The group's intent is not to insult those physically or mentally challenged in any manner of degree but, rather, to disturb middle-class types as much as they possibly can.
  54. Frequency
    After keeping its balance over much treacherous terrain, greedily overreaches and stumbles badly at the close.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
    It feels more like a cartoon, and when you're dealing with modern Stone Age families, that can only be a plus.
  56. Bossa Nova
    Tilts toward the slight and merely pleasant when it could have had much more emotional impact.
  57. Where the Heart Is
    In comparison to Where the Heart Is, the Wal-Mart commercials seem like cinema verite.
  58. Timecode
    A clever way of providing crucial layering and heightening a hip, satirical take on bad old Hollywood ways.
  59. Committed
    With its capacity to surprise, the film comes to life when you don't expect it to, in tiny but wonderfully off-center moments.
  60. The Big Kahuna
    A drama of extraordinary power and insight with dazzling performances from not only Spacey but also Danny DeVito (who may well be at his best ever) and from newcomer Peter Facinelli.
  61. From the Edge of the City
    Brutal yet lyrical film.
  62. The Last September
    A luminous, piercing film from the Elizabeth Bowen novel, richly evokes a world of privilege on the verge of disintegration.
  63. Gossip
    A total waste of time.
    • Los Angeles Times
  64. U-571
    Gets high marks for tension and excitement.
    • Los Angeles Times
  65. Croupier
    Intense, hypnotic, assured, Croupier mesmerizes from its opening image of a roulette ball on the move.
    • Los Angeles Times
  66. The Virgin Suicides
    Successfully venturesome, but you need to know that it's also a real downer.
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Love & Basketball
    In her first feature, writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood tells a familiar tale with first-rate acting and an underlying sense of authenticity.
    • Los Angeles Times
  68. Where the Money Is
    The only way the film could have had a prayer of working--and thereby tapping its stars' considerable strengths--is by taking a much harder edge and going for dark, even bleak humor.
  69. The Girl Next Door
    Insightful and thoughtful.
    • Los Angeles Times
  70. Keeping the Faith
    All the more rewarding because of the challenge the material presented.
  71. East Is East
    Above all a man's confrontation with self in middle-age and his need to accept the fact that his children, beyond their mixed ancestry, are after all native-born English citizens.
  72. Third World Cop
    Main lure is what feels like a very authentic visual sense of the nontourist side of Kingston, where the ambience of zinc-walled shacks wallpapered with old newspapers is captured by cinematographer Richard Lannaman.
  73. American Psycho
    Stillborn, pointless piece of work.
  74. 28 Days
    Too glib too often to make much of an impression any way you look at it.
  75. Return to Me
    Duchovny and Driver have distinctive good looks and they both combine attractiveness with talent and intelligence. Best of all, they possess that essential quality all screen lovers must have: terrific chemistry.
  76. Southpaw
    Warm and appealing, but there clearly was a far more informative and comprehensive film to be made of the life and world of Francis Barrett.
  77. Me Myself I
    Griffiths' Pam holds your attention without any gratuitous mannerisms or broad asides. It's a sleek, rangy performance that all but redeems the hackneyed familiarity of the premise.
  78. Rules of Engagement
    Passable, moderately diverting dramatic entertainment.
  79. Est - Ouest
    Takes the most somber of predicaments, and makes it involving, romantic and ultimately intensely suspenseful.
  80. The Filth and the Fury
    A film as arresting and at times as frustrating as the Pistols themselves.
  81. Joe Gould's Secret
    A series of subtly interlocking character studies.
  82. Ready to Rumble
    A movie made for wrestling fans that makes fun of wrestling fans? That cuts a little too close to the vicarious masochism at the heart of pro wrestling's core constituency. Also, it's not funny.
  83. Black and White
    The voyeuristic indulgences of a middle-aged filmmaker playing out his most deep-seated and unresolved sexual fantasies and anxieties.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Price of Glory
    The specificity of Glory's setting and the ethnicity of its characters enrich the story without moving it one iota away from a mainstream frame of reference.
  85. The Road to El Dorado
    Reasonably diverting, but don't count on it lingering in your memory.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Skulls
    It contains, perhaps, one pinkie-toe bone of surprise in its skeleton of cliche.
  87. High Fidelity
    A sharp and satisfying romantic comedy.
  88. Beau Travail
    A ruggedly beautiful landscape of desert and sea provides a dramatic setting for a psychological drama told with the utmost rigor--and unabashed eroticism.
  89. The Color of Paradise
    As worthy and moving as The Color of Paradise is, it is not entirely free of the manipulative, the arbitrary and the downright punitive.
  90. Here on Earth
    Just the ticket for girls in their early teens.
  91. Buddy Boy
    Production notes for Mark Hanlon's Buddy Boy describe it as "a dark and twisted exploration of faith, alienation and madness"--and is it ever!
  92. Whatever It Takes
    It's guys like Floyd who make a movie like Whatever It Takes feel like high school. And the rest of the losers make it feel like a movie.
  93. Such a Long Journey
    A thoughtful but uneven film.
  94. Waking the Dead
    It is a film of uncommon intelligence and rigor that illuminates a complex era, and the romance at its center is also one of exceptional passion and honesty.
  95. Winter Sleepers
    Offers a riveting depiction of the classic collision of fate and character, with geography in this instance playing a crucial role.
  96. Romeo Must Die
    Has a great look and an edgy feel, along with some broad swaths of humor.
    • Los Angeles Times
  97. Erin Brockovich
    Irresistible, hugely satisfying feminist fairy tale.
  98. Final Destination
    A terrific theatrical feature debut for television veterans Glen Morgan and James Wong.
  99. Beyond the Mat
    Connects the antics of professional wrestlers with their lives out of the ring with such compassion, humor and perception that the result is utterly captivating.
  100. Soft Fruit
    Asks us to spend 101 minutes with people most of us wouldtake pains to avoid in real life.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »