Los Angeles Times' Scores

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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
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  1. Deterrence
    Lurie undermines his high-wire act with the melodramatic carryings-on of the diner patrons.
  2. Mission to Mars
    It's a wonderful piece of filmmaking, but once any mouth is opened the magic is immediately tarnished.
  3. The Ninth Gate
    Lacking noticeable energy or drive, its almost visceral distaste for dramatic momentum is puzzling, especially in a film about the black arts.
  4. Condo Painting
    Has an edgy feel and a knockout soundtrack.
  5. The Next Best Thing
    A misguided romantic serio-comedy aimed at women and gay men that ends up caricaturing both.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
    It's a nearly pitch-perfect melding of genres, influences and modes of expression--it's the first Mafia movie for the hip-hop age.
  7. Drowning Mona
    With a hilarious script and capable cast, the film puts a clever spin on the everyone-is-a-suspect plot.
  8. What Planet Are You From?
    Sporadically funny, often strange and almost never poignant.
    • 11 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    3 Strikes
    The bad news is that it's also vile, not to mention sophomoric and unfunny.
    • Los Angeles Times
  10. Judy Berlin
    A comedy of the most delicately balanced perfection.
  11. Brown's Requiem
    An uncommonly satisfying private-eye mystery that is at once classic in form and deeply personal in feeling.
  12. Mifune's Last Song
    A pow-in-the-kisser kind of movie.
  13. Theeviravaathi: The Terrorist
    A wonder several times over.
  14. Reindeer Games
    Its twisty film noir world of down-on-their-luck men and unfathomable women is vintage B-picture material, but, in the grand B tradition, the games it plays are more ambitious than successful.
  15. The Closer You Get
    A droll, hearty Irish comedy with a serious undertow all the more effective for its unexpected candor and depth.
  16. Wonder Boys
    A handsomely mounted, graceful production that is well-played across the board.
  17. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
    Aviva Kempner's warm and intelligent mash note to a man who clearly deserved it.
    • Los Angeles Times
  18. Beautiful People
    Lives up to its ambitiousness in all its aspects.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Boiler Room
    Tries to make larger points, but it trips over itself just trying to make the small ones.
  20. Hanging Up
    All the ingredients of a success--a stellar cast, a promising premise, a strong production team--but nothing comes together in satisfying fashion.
  21. The Whole Nine Yards
    A peppy affair that works in fits and starts but is unable to put its successful moments together in any consistently satisfying way.
  22. Not One Less
    Has a warmth and sweetness that is especially hard to resist.
  23. Pitch Black
    A routine sci-fi/horror action-adventure, takes us where we've been countless times before.
  24. Cotton Mary
    Not only is it Merchant's best directorial effort to date but also is among the finest films the Merchant Ivory company has ever made.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Snow Day
    Isn't for teens, it's for the kids who aspire to be teens.
  26. The Tigger Movie
    Parents and older siblings...may grow impatient with the uneven execution that weakens the genuine charm the film sporadically exhibits.
  27. The Beach
    As (DiCaprio's) character heads for The Beach's predictable heart of darkness denouement, only die-hard fans will have the heart to tag along.
  28. Knockout
    This story of an East L.A. Latina determined to follow in her father's footsteps to the boxing ring does pack a punch.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gun Shy
    What use is journeyman acting, quality set design and a kicky, eclectic score in a movie that's so ineptly scripted?
  30. Scream 3
    Genuinely scary and also highly amusing.
  31. The Cup
    Charming, slyly comic and far from conventionally religious.
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 29 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Eye of the Beholder
    It isn't insultingly bad; it's just incompetent.
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Grizzly Falls
    Cinematographer Thom Best never captures the glory of the Canadian Rockies, and the uncredited editing is jarring and unconvincing in key action sequences.
    • Los Angeles Times
  34. Isn't She Great
    Ah, what glorious casting!
    • Los Angeles Times
  35. Santitos
    Has the same kind of humor, charm and sensuality that made "Like Water for Chocolate" the most popular foreign-language film until "Life Is Beautiful" came along.
  36. The Big Tease
    A cheerful and smart mock documentary about hairdressing and Hollywood that knows enough not to take itself too seriously.
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her
    Richly imagined, gracefully written and delicately realized. [10 Mar 2001, p.F15]
    • Los Angeles Times
  38. Down to You
    The best the makers of Down to You can hope for is that girls in their early teens--clearly the film's target audience--will be so carried away by its charismatic stars that they'll overlook the film's various flaws.
    • Los Angeles Times
  39. Wirey Spindell
    May be too heady for some tastes but can stir you deeply, if you're open to it.
  40. Supernova
    Supernova isn't so super.
  41. My Dog Skip
    A standard-issue Hollywood family film about a boy and his dog growing up in a Southern small town during World War II.
  42. Next Friday
    There is plenty of nasty patter and aimless jokes about hard-core sex, soft-core drugs, dog feces and flatulence to keep you occupied while you wait, in vain, for any reason to laugh out loud.
  43. Fantasia 2000
    Grainy as it looks in its massive Imax blowup, Mickey's misadventures with water and a broom still have the kind of magic even modern technology can't always manage.
  44. Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
    An exciting, upbeat film, but not a very impressive example of the animator's art. [01 Feb 1989, p.8]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Close-Up
    Close-Up is perhaps the emblematic work of the so-called Iranian New Wave, summing up its methods and preoccupations and also bringing together two of its key figures, Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
  46. The Hurricane
    With power, intensity, remarkable range and an ability to disturb that is both unnerving and electric, it is more than Washington's most impressive part.
  47. Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
    Mr. Death, which is shot through with one dark absurdity after another, emerges as a cautionary tale if ever there was one.
  48. The Third Miracle
    Has the gritty, intimate feel of an Eastern European film--and packs the power of a genuine revelation.
  49. Play It to the Bone
    A wonderfully entertaining, raunchy, hilarious and savage foray into the lives of a couple of beat-up middle-weight boxers who get a second chance.
  50. Titus
    More travesty than tragedy.
  51. Galaxy Quest
    Fast, light and funny, Galaxy Quest has a wide, generation-spanning appeal--and you don't have to be a die-hard Trekkie to enjoy it.
  52. The Talented Mr. Ripley
    A beautifully mounted and directed film that, despite the presence of Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, is unexpectedly lacking in emotional impact.
  53. Snow Falling on Cedars
    Has to fight to hold our attention and it doesn't always succeed.
  54. Angela's Ashes
    If this beautifully made if flawed film sends people back to his book, it will have done good work for sure.
  55. Any Given Sunday
    This energetic and diverting sports soap opera throws a few head fakes in the direction of an iconoclastic examination of the dark side of professional football.
  56. Man on the Moon
    Unfortunately for Man on the Moon, Kaufman is definitely a person more interesting to hear about than to experience, an acquired taste few will be tempted to acquire.
  57. Girl, Interrupted
    Top performances keep true-life mental ward tale Girl, Interrupted soaring, despite a script that frequently drifts into genre clichés.
  58. Jing Ke ci Qin Wang
    A stirring, thought-provoking feat of filmmaking, accomplished in every facet.
  59. Onegin
    A pleasure in all ways.
  60. Bicentennial Man
    A mainstream holiday movie, complete with stupendous special effects, amazing make-up artistry and sumptuous production design.
  61. Simpatico
    While it's entertaining, it's not as persuasive as it needs to be to succeed fully.
  62. Stuart Little
    The other, unintentional lesson taught here is that it's easier to make a mouse talk than to come up with something interesting for him to say.
  63. Topsy-Turvy
    A bit longer than it might be, a bit more attached to its digressions than we might wish. But the length does encourage the feeling that we've been through the whole creative process with Gilbert and Sullivan .
  64. Anna and the King
    The problem with Anna and the King is that it's caught halfway between then and now--- the film tries to throw in notions of cultural relativism and big power imperialism, but can't do without corny shtick.
  65. Magnolia
    Drunk and disorderly on the pure joy of making movies. A frantic, flawed, fascinating film that is both impressive and a bit out of control, often at the same time.
  66. The Cider House Rules
    That Irving adapted his novel to the screen himself and, even more, that Hallström directed it, makes Cider House a far better film than other film adaptations of Irving's work.
  67. Cradle Will Rock
    Its nervy decision to cut as wide a swath as possible through one of the most exciting and meaningful periods of our history have created something that's impossible not to both applaud and enjoy.
  68. Miss Julie
    Figgis remains a compelling storyteller, holding you with the intensity of his vision and his mastery of nuance.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The War Zone
    Much of its strength resides in the way it eschews narrative contrivance. The movie observes behavior without explaining or judging it.
  70. Diamonds
    A heart-tugging comedy-adventure that's in the spirit of the holiday season.
  71. Stir of Echoes
    What gives the movie its teeth is the very earthy Witzky family, who behave so much like real people you might think they are.
  72. The Green Mile
    Moves with the suffocating deliberateness of a river of molasses.
  73. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
    Only the innate sweetness of both its lead character and its base premise keeps you from wanting to slap Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo upside its mangy, empty head.
  74. Agnes Browne
    Huston is a sucker for sentiment, and Agnes Browne is a sap's holiday.
  75. Holy Smoke
    At once hilarious and serious, cruel and tender, and bristling with vitality, Holy Smoke is the right movie for the millennium, envisioning new possibilities in the way people view and relate to one another.
  76. The End of the Affair
    Has everything a period romance should have, including a score by Michael Nyman and passionate performances by stars Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.
  77. Sweet and Lowdown
    It's a loving and comic tribute to a musical era Allen knows well.
  78. A Map of the World
    An accomplished film that continually takes us beyond our first impressions of people and situations.
  79. Flawless
    Flawless this Joel Schumacher film is not, but it plays so well that scarcely matters.
  80. Tumbleweeds
    One of those wonderful, deeply personal pictures that pop up every now and then to lift your spirits.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    End of Days
    Half-baked.
  82. Ride with the Devil
    A serious film with a lot on its mind, is probably the most intelligent treatment of this period we've had.
  83. Toy Story 2
    Toy Story 2 may not have the most original title, but everything else about it is, well, mint in the box.
  84. The World Is Not Enough
    Not enough to add up to a fully satisfying movie.
  85. All About My Mother
    A surprisingly satisfying combination of bawdy sexual humor, genuine emotion and a plot with mechanics so excessive that Almodóvar himself calls it "a screwball drama."
  86. Sleepy Hollow
    More creepy and flesh-crawling than overwhelmingly gory, it nevertheless takes pride in characters who get splattered with blood as often as take-out fries get doused with catsup.
  87. 42: Forty Two Up
    Time is truly on Apted's side because the passing of time not surprisingly brings a richer, deeper perspective with each new segment.
  88. Mansfield Park
    It's an interesting take, and it always holds our interest, but it's finally too ham-fisted to be a completely winning one.
  89. Liberty Heights
    A mature, accomplished piece of work, both funny and deeply felt, personal cinema of the best kind...Levinson has made the memory film we always hoped he would.
  90. Anywhere But Here
    While adapting accomplished fiction such as this is a lure Hollywood can never resist, some characters breathe better on the page, and that is the case here.
  91. The Hungry Bachelors Club
    An undernourished romantic comedy-drama that's especially short on that most essential ingredient: credibility.
  92. Where's Marlowe?
    The droll cast--especially Ferrer, who's exquisite as a tough-talking dunce--deserved something more fully realized than this.
  93. Felicia's Journey
    One of the year's riskiest yet most effective films.
  94. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
    Blends great cinematic energy with an awkwardly mixed multinational cast and aggressively over-modernized dialogue.
  95. Dogma
    A raucous, profane but surprisingly endearing piece of work.
  96. Light It Up
    A hostage drama, cliches intact, is what we get.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back!
    Pokémon isn't even good animation, unless the standard of measure is the crude LCD graphics of a Game Boy.
  98. A Moment of Innocence
    Finds the impassioned Makhmalbaf in a more contemplative, even whimsical, mood than usual.
  99. Rosetta
    Grabs you by the throat and won't let go.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Bachelor
    A flat-footed film.
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