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. Buena Vista Social Club
    Being able to hear this kind of playing is a special moment in time, one we don't want to end and one that we're privileged to experience.
  2. Instinct
    A greatest-hits collection of plot devices and emotional cues from such films as "Gorillas in the Mist" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," making it something of a trained chimp, one that apes a lot of good movies while making itself look ridiculous.
  3. Limbo
    Determined to use melodrama as a vehicle to get to other places and explore other possibilities, Sayles simply assumes the audience will go along with him. His skill is such that we invariably do, but the journey, like that of his characters, is not always an easy one. [04 Jun 1999, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  4. The Thirteenth Floor
    For all the soaring visual splendor of its past, present and future, it's hobbled by a murky plot that proves to be not all that original once it starts unraveling.
  5. Notting Hill
    A smartly cast and consistently amusing romantic comedy.
  6. The Loss of Sexual Innocence
    [Figgis's] most venturesome, most personal - and least accessible film to date. If you open your mind and trust him completely, it's possible to experience the wrenching impact of this ravishingly beautiful and highly distinctive film.
  7. Eternity and a Day
    Working with cinematographers Giorgos Arvanitis and Andreas Sinanos and composer Eleni Karaindrou, whose beautiful and stirring score greatly reinforces the film's impact, Angelopoulos has created another masterpiece, one that recalls such classics as Bergman's Wild Strawberries and Kurosawa's Ikiru (To Live). [28 May 1999, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  8. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
    While the new film is certainly serviceable, it's noticeably lacking in warmth and humor, and though its visual strengths are real and considerable, from a dramatic point of view it's ponderous and plodding.
  9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
    This is a chance to see Shakespeare with mud wrestling, something the Bard surely would have put in if only he'd thought of it himself… Though the actors have no major problems handling the language, the whole venture is listless when it should be sparkling. Shakespeare, even with mud wrestling, needn't be quite so much of a slog. [14 May 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  10. Tea with Mussolini
    Zeffirelli has created an amusing yet touching high adventure and an unusual coming-of-age tale.
  11. After Life
    In its examination of what is fleeting and what remains, "After Life" is not only perceptive, it leavens everything it touches with a surprisingly sly sense of humor. Few films about death, or about life for that matter, leave you feeling so affirmative about existence.
  12. The Mummy
    Drags its uninspiring action out too long for anyone's good.
  13. Pusher
    The film practically vibrates with youthful aggression, sly humor and gathering tension, hurling itself forward like a junkie toward the next fix.
  14. Idle Hands
    What Idle Hands lacks in originality, it makes up for in energy and insolence. It takes guts for a movie to indulge as much as this one does in proto-hippie humor and you find yourself tickled, in spite of yourself, by the movie's nerve, if not its jokes.
  15. The Winslow Boy
    Genteel moviemaking with modern overtones, The Winslow Boy is especially good at the visual re-creation of its time.
  16. Entrapment
    While the film glistens a bit now and again, a closer look reveals you've been diverted not by a diamond but by a genuine synthetic zircon.
  17. Pushing Tin
    It's an intriguing film, one of the year's most interesting, but involving as much of it is, it leaves an unsatisfied taste when it's over.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Lost & Found
    All of this points to the two major differences between "Mary" and "Lost": Ben Stiller's character in "Mary" was likable (if pathetic), and "Mary" was sporadically funny.
  19. eXistenZ
    The Cronenberg trademarks are here in full force, including an outrageous sexual suggestiveness in his bizarre special effects.
  20. Election
    This is a nearly flawless little film, a cheerful nightmare that knows just where it wants to go and uses precisely calibrated comic effects to get there.
  21. Life
    Gracefully bittersweet and balanced. [16 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  22. Shuang long hui
    Mindless escape. [12 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  23. Go
    Offers breathtaking comic-action fantasy….Exhilarating and sharp, it never stops for a second. [9 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  24. Never Been Kissed
    An easygoing and amusing romantic confection.
  25. Metroland
    A satisfying story of love and marriage told with humor and insight.
  26. Cookie's Fortune
    Cookie's Fortune, which knows how to treat serious matters with humor, is to be treasured as an utterly distinctive work by one of America's finest filmmakers. [2 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  27. The Out-of-Towners
    You may want to take a chance on this new Out-of-Towners because of its stars, but keep in mind that while its characters take chances, the picture itself plays it awfully safe. [2 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-12]
    • Los Angeles Times
  28. Following
    As a psychological mystery it plays persuasively if not profoundly. Nolan relishes the sheer nastiness he keeps stirred up, unabated for 70 minutes. You can, too, provided you don't ask more of it.
  29. 10 Things I Hate About You
    Lutz's dialogue is consistently sharp and snappy, and the large cast forms a sparkling ensemble under Junger's adept direction.
  30. The Matrix
    A wildly cinematic futuristic thriller that is determined to overpower the imagination, The Matrix combines traditional science-fiction premises with spanking new visual technology in a way that almost defies description.
  31. Edtv
    Like the television medium it genially satirizes, EDtv is a grab bag that's both amusing and frustrating.
  32. The Mod Squad
    A great-looking picture that zips along with grace, light on its feet but possessed of just enough gravity to allow us to take its people rather than its old TV series premise seriously.
  33. A Walk on the Moon
    A film of exceptional emotional honesty.
  34. Forces of Nature
    Turns out to be an extremely likable vehicle with a genuine sense of fun.
  35. Ravenous
    Has all the ingredients for a cult film success but most definitely is not for everyone. It's stylish, sophisticated, venturesome--to say the least.
  36. The King and I
    A dismal pastiche of threadbare plot devices and not-so-comic interludes.
  37. True Crime
    It's a gritty story made in the director's more elegiacal mode, a confusion of style and content that is not in the film's best interests.
  38. Wing Commander: Space Will Never Be the Same
    You won't feel anything. Period. Oh, maybe bored or disoriented by the inside jargon and alien references that will be comprehensible only if you happen to have played the computer game on which Wing Commander is based. [12 March 1999, Calendar, p.F-10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  39. The Deep End of the Ocean
    Ends up insisting on pat and overly tidy resolutions that are at variance with the emotional chaos it's nominally attempting to convey. [12 March 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  40. Trekkies
    A laid-back excursion through the "Star Trek" phenomenon that boldly goes where millions and millions of fans have gone--in and out of costume.
  41. The Rage: Carrie 2
    Dares to take a different tack, taking its young people seriously in a more realistic context. If ever there was a director ready to graduate from genre films, it surely is Shea. [12 March, 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  42. The Corruptor
    The Corruptor manages to make a meat-and-potatoes action flick into a cunning little meditation on personal loyalty and situational morality. [12 Mar 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  43. Analyze This
    Both too unfocused and overly familiar. It has enough comic energy to generate some chuckles, but even when we laugh we're always wondering why the jokes aren't funnier. [5 Mar 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  44. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
    Dark, dangerous and a great deal of wicked, amoral fun. A film that manages to be as clever, playful and mock violent as its title, Lock, Stock was a major hit in its native Britain and its cheeky tone, simultaneously calculated and off the cuff, is as hip as anyone could want. [5 Mar 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  45. A Fish in the Bathtub
    A strained and overly obvious battle-of-the-sexes tale.
  46. The School of Flesh
    A handsome work of authoritative yet understated style, responsive to mood, subtleties and nuance in exploring its especially well-drawn and intelligent lovers.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    20 Dates
    A laugh-out-loud chronicle of the struggling filmmaker's hunt for a girlfriend.
  48. 200 Cigarettes
    A light comedy, pure and simple (and hardly unfamiliar), but its makers sustain its energy through the unraveling of an intricate plot and bring to it a certain edge through a witty, sharp sense of observation.
  49. The Other Sister
    By coddling viewers and micromanaging our responses, The Other Sister shows almost as little respect for the audience as Elizabeth does for her feisty, underappreciated daughter.
  50. 8MM
    Those foolhardy enough to place themselves at the mercy of 8MM can expect the following emotions: disgust and revulsion, then anger, followed by a profound and disheartening sadness. There are some films whose existence makes the world a worse place to live, and this is one of them.
  51. Office Space
    Bristling with shrewd observation, inspired humor and all-around smarts, Office Space is a winner about a guy who's beginning to feel like a loser.
  52. October Sky
    One of the most unfashionable movies of the new year, and one of the more appealing. [19 February 1999, Calendar, p.F-10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  53. Jawbreaker
    Wickedly hilarious. [19 Feb 1999]
    • Los Angeles Times
  54. Blast from the Past
    Intermittently appealing movie romance.
  55. Message in a Bottle
    The result is exposition overkill and a dragged-out finale that turns what should have been a Tear Duct Special into a deflating experience, making what worked in the book unacceptable on the screen.
  56. My Favorite Martian
    The film is loud and labored--its sense of adventure kicking in so late that it scarcely matters. [12 Feb 1999, p.F15]
    • Los Angeles Times
  57. Simply Irresistible
    The two leads are unappealing, the story is dragged on for days and the rather random magical element renders any human factor irrelevant..
  58. Payback
    Has the makings of that rarest of ventures, an adaptation that is true to the spirit of the original as well as its own time and place. But as Payback wends its way toward its conclusion, its promise dissipates and its pleasures wane.
  59. She's All That
    A teen comedy that actually puts a priority on intelligence and values and spans generations in its appeal, emerging as a special delight for anyone for whom high school was something less than nirvana. [29 Jan 1999, p.6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  60. Gloria
    Not so much a remake of a film as it is a remake of an overcooked performance--a case of ham imitating ham.
  61. Virus
    An unpretentious, amusing thrill-a-minute sci-fi horror thriller / monster movie that plugs right into fears of a Y2K crisis.
  62. Varsity Blues
    A trashy little movie about drinking, football and drinking, is also one of those films that pretends to moralize about the very behavior it milks for every giggle it can get.
  63. At First Sight
    An exceptionally touching and provocative love story. [15 January 1999, Calendar, p. F-4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  64. The Thin Red Line
    An art film to the core. If it's an epic, it's an intimate, dream-time epic, an elliptical, episodic film, dependent on images and reveries, that treats war as the ultimate nightmare, the one you just cannot awaken from no matter how hard you try.
  65. Affliction
    Rarely have a novelist and filmmaker been better matched.
  66. Hilary and Jackie
    It takes two to be sisters, two to have a rivalry, and two exceptional actresses to turn Hilary and Jackie into a compelling look at the most intimate and troubling of family dynamics.
  67. The Faculty
    A smart, lively and unpretentious exploitation picture...Consistently funny and clever.
  68. Stepmom
    It may be unfair to ask a film like this not to be shamelessly manipulative, but wouldn't it be nice if audiences could be trusted to feel things more or less on their own without layers of unnecessary hokum entering the picture?
  69. A Civil Action
    Comes close, achingly close, to greatness.
  70. Patch Adams
    Williams knows when material is working, and he knows the sound of an honestly aroused crowd. This ain't it!
  71. Mighty Joe Young
    Mighty Joe Young may be the season's most appealing family bet. Certainly, it has an appealing cast.
  72. Down in the Delta
    In adding feature-film directing to her formidable list of accomplishments, poet and author Maya Angelou tells first-time screenwriter Myron Goble's absorbing and far-ranging story with simplicity and directness while guiding a splendid ensemble cast to an array of impressive portrayals.
  73. The Prince of Egypt
    Even in an animated feature, visuals alone, no matter how successful, are not enough. And despite having this sturdy biblical tale to work with, despite being faithful enough to the spirit of the story to please a wide swath of scholars and theologians, the creators of Prince of Egypt have been unable to relate it in a completely compelling way.
  74. The General
    Boorman signals that he may not like what the real Cahill did, but as a storyteller with a proven affection for larger-than-life subjects, he can't resist him, either.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Simple Plan
    The role of Jacob is greatly expanded from the book, and the unsatisfying way that Smith and Raimi resolve the brothers' relationship in the movie is the only major change--major compromise--made in transporting the novel to the screen.
  76. Star Trek: Insurrection
    Star Trek: Insurrection lacks the adrenalized oomph of its predecessor, but no adventure of the Starship Enterprise is without its gee-whiz affability.
  77. Shakespeare in Love
    One of those entertaining confections that's so pleasing to the eye and ear you'd have to be a genuine Scrooge to struggle against it.
  78. Rushmore
    You can't have Rushmore without Max, and though Anderson obviously planned it this way, the kid is finally too off-putting to tolerate.
  79. Jack Frost
    The writers, and director Miller, an MTV veteran making his feature debut, are never able to mesh the film's contradictory tones. [11 Dec 1998, p.F14]
    • Los Angeles Times
  80. Little Voice
    British actress Jane Horrocks plays Little Voice, and it is a transfixing, tour de force performance.
  81. Very Bad Things
    Hollow, simple-minded and about as profound an experience as stepping in a pile of road kill.
  82. A Bug's Life
    What A Bug's Life demonstrates is that when it comes to bugs, the most fun ones to hang out with hang exclusively with the gang at Pixar.
  83. Babe: Pig in the City
    Undeniably clever and inventive, Babe: Pig in the City has nevertheless sacrificed part of the freshness and buoyancy that made the original "Babe" so luminous. This sequel is more elaborate, more calculated and more self-consciously dark than its deservedly beloved predecessor.
  84. Waking Ned Devine
    A roguish and delightful comedy of duplicity that's as entertaining as it is sly.
  85. Celebrity
    Scattered, phlegmatic and an all-around weak effort, Celebrity turns out instead to be one of Allen's periodic misfires.
  86. Central Station
    For Fernanda Montenegro, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Italy's late Giulietta Masina (Federico Fellini's wife and frequent star) in appearance and talent, "Central Station" is a personal triumph and a rich cinematic experience.
  87. The Rugrats Movie
    The Rugrats Movie is warm yet minus the gooey sentimentality of so many animated movies for kids. With its lilting score and pleasant occasional songs, this Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo production has success written all over it.
  88. Enemy of the State
    A solid and satisfying commercial venture with more than enough pizazz to overcome occasional lapses in moment-to-moment plausibility.
  89. Meet Joe Black
    Clocking in at a self-important two hours and 59 minutes, this elongated romantic fable is impossible to sustain at a running time better suited to the fall of the Roman empire.
  90. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
    A fairly silly and ultra-gory schlocker/shocker.
  91. Velvet Goldmine
    Dazzling and dizzying, confusing and even annoying, Velvet Goldmine is a feverish dream of a film, a riot of color and attitude that is all pop decadence, all night long.
  92. The Siege
    A political thriller with more plausibility -- and yes, more thrills -- than most.
  93. The Waterboy
    Follows a leadenly predictable path that will be more than familiar to anyone who's seen a recent sports movie, or any Sandler movie.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elizabeth
    Period movies inevitably reflect more about the period in which they're made than the period of their subject, and rarely has that been more evident -- or more distracting -- than it is with Elizabeth.
  95. Gods and Monsters
    There are so many colors to McKellen's performance, so many diverse emotions fleetingly play on his face, that resisting his art is out of the question. Better work by an actor will not be seen this year.
  96. Belly
    Unfortunately, Belly is highly uneven. Williams comes from music videos and knows all about flashy techniques. His sure sense of the visual reveals potential, but he needs to learn to tell a story far more coherently. [04 Nov 1998, p.F2]
    • Los Angeles Times
  97. American History X
    For all its surface verisimilitude and for all its focus on a problem that couldn't be more current, this film can't manage to feel more than sporadically real.
  98. Life Is Beautiful
    While it's futile to pretend that Life Is Beautiful completely triumphs--it's simply too tough a concept to sustain--what is surprising about this unlikely film is that it succeeds as well as it does.
  99. Pleasantville
    Ross' missive is earnest and well-intentioned, but it's difficult not to feel that his film both runs on too long and overreaches its dramatic resources in its attempt to deliver it.
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