Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,522 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 16522
  2. Mixed: 5,808 out of 16522
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16522
16522 movie reviews
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  1. Force Majeure
    This is a director's film, and Ostlund knows precisely the effects he is after. This filmmaker is in control at each and every moment, and does he ever know what he is doing.
  2. Code Black
    McGarry has created something that feels personal, vital and revelatory, allowing the rest of us behind the curtain.
  3. Bagdad Cafe
    Bagdad Cafe, which Adlon wrote with his wife, Eleonore, and Christopher Doherty, is a miracle of timing and control for all its aura of zany, off-the-cuff spontaneity. It is the work of a director who has such a clear idea of what he wants and where he's going that he can take his time to build up every joke for the maximum payoff.
  4. The Amazing Catfish
    Grainily shot but radiating life, The Amazing Catfish is an enormously affecting portrait of a family in crisis that dares to hope.
  5. 4 Minute Mile
    It's a terrific little film worthy of discovery.
  6. A Summer's Tale
    It may seem like nothing much is happening on-screen, but by the time A Summer's Tale is all over, it feels like everything important has been said and done. Welcome to the magic of Rohmer, one final time.
  7. Bridge of Spies
    Bridge of Spies is a consummate professional's tribute to a gifted amateur, a smooth entertainment with a strong but subtle political subtext that's both potent and unexpected.
  8. The Empty Hours
    Like everything else about this lovely film, life, love and emotional growth are marked out in lush, languid, luminous terms.
  9. The Tribe
    Slaboshpytskiy has made one of the most unusual and disturbing films about criminality of the new century.
  10. The Martian
    The Martian is a film that respects the geekiest among us, and that pays off all around.
  11. American Sniper
    American Sniper is at its best when it deals with the assembly-line-of-death relentlessness of combat for Kyle, how it simultaneously consumes him and wears him down, and how, to his wife's distress, it turns the civilian life he returns to between tours of duty into the aberration, not the norm.
  12. Expedition to the End of the World
    Composed of breathtaking images and cheeky bits of humor, Dencik's travelogue reveals a journey with curious traces of the past, eye-popping encounters with a wild present and — in discovering an oil company's ship in the group's midst — a weighted reminder of our future as stewards of the Earth.
  13. Pride
    Pride is an unapologetic crowd-pleaser of a movie, but it has some potent points to make, and the reality of what happened has a power of its own.
  14. Once Upon a Time Verônica
    Thoughtful as well as sensual, particular yet universal, it is the kind of expertly made examination of the human condition we can never have too many of.
  15. John Wick
    It's a B movie made with A-student love for the relentless thrill of bodies in brutal motion.
  16. The Duke of Burgundy
    For all its S&M specificity — down to earth and sometimes comical — the movie holds its beveled mirrors up to the role-play, ritual and compromise in all love relationships.
  17. Far From Men
    In the penetrating character study that is Far From Men, existentialism has never felt so intimate.
  18. Goodnight Mommy
    Beginning with a gentle lullaby and ending with a tightly packed wallop, Goodnight Mommy is one viscerally chilling, seriously unsettling horror film.
  19. Beloved Sisters
    As lengthy and passionate as a drawn-out kiss, Beloved Sisters is a beautifully made romantic drama set in 18th century Germany that's smart, sensual and emotionally resonant.
  20. Filmage: The Story of Descendents/ALL
    Though the breathless tale and full-throttle tunes give "Filmage" plenty of rollicking energy, it's the through-line of genuine soulfulness and tireless artistic commitment that sets it apart.
  21. Diplomacy
    The reason it never ceases to compel is not only the skill of the actors but also the kind of provocative and thoughtful dialogue that characterizes intellectual combat of a high order.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Innocents
    One of the scariest films ever made. Deborah Kerr gives one of her greatest performances as a rather high-strung governess. [15 Aug 2003, p.18]
    • Los Angeles Times
  23. Wonder Woman
    Wonder Woman emerges as not only the strongest movie in the present DC cycle, but also the first one that feels like an enveloping, honest-to-God entertainment rather than a raging cinematic migraine.
  24. Plot for Peace
    It's just as thrilling as it is edifying.
  25. Hail, Caesar!
    The great thing about Hail, Caesar! is that it is fun whether you get all its references or not.
  26. Black Panther
    Energized to a thrilling extent by a myriad of Afrocentric influences, Black Panther showcases a vivid inventiveness that underscores the obvious point that we want all cultures and colors represented on screen because that makes for a richness of cinematic experience that everyone enjoys being exposed to.
  27. Captain Marvel
    Watching Danvers’ story play out, complete with boggling plot twists and a scene-stealing friendly feline, is hugely entertaining, and it can’t be over-emphasized how central Larson, about to become the most recognized woman on the planet, is to the enterprise.
  28. Zootopia
    Bursting with a rich blend of timely themes, superb voice work, wonderful visuals and laugh-out-loud wit, Walt Disney Animation Studios' Zootopia is quite simply a great time at the movies.
  29. Little Hope Was Arson
    The film's exploration of the tenuous bonds within a community will surely prompt serious soul-searching.
  30. Predestination
    The Spierig brothers have deftly fashioned an unpredictable thrill ride, and the joy is to fit together all its puzzle pieces.
  31. About Elly (2009)
    Emotional intensity is Farhadi's métier, and to see About Elly is to revel in his skill.
  32. She's Beautiful When She's Angry
    She's Beautiful When She's Angry, director Mary Dore's incisive portrait of so-called second-wave feminism of the late 1960s, is an exceptional chronicle, its mix of archival material and new interviews bristling with the energy and insight of one of the most important social movements of the 20th century.
  33. Shaun the Sheep Movie
    Playful, absurd and endearingly inventive, this unstoppably amusing feature reminds us why Britain's Aardman Animations is a mainstay of the current cartooning golden age.
  34. The Jungle Book
    By turns sweetly amusing and surprisingly unnerving, crammed with story, song and computer-generated visual splendors, it's such a model of modern crowd-pleasing entertainment that it brings to mind a celebrated quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald about filmmakers who were "able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads."
  35. The Salt of the Earth
    The Salt of the Earth deals with two kinds of journeys the photographer made. The outward one may have literally taken him to the furthest corners of the Earth and resulted in the stunning images the film features, but it is the inward journey that paralleled it that completely holds our attention.
  36. Pete's Dragon
    Experiencing Pete's Dragon is like seeing something thought to be extinct, a creation every bit as magical and mythical as the flying, fire-breathing beast its named after. That would be the straight ahead, unapologetic family film.
  37. James White
    Ultimately, though, it's Abbott's show to steal — and steal it he does — as he rivetingly conjures a character who's chaotically charismatic, hugely affecting and for better or worse thoroughly real.
  38. Results
    The rom-com isn't such a lost cause, after all. It was just waiting for someone like indie filmmaker Andrew Bujalski to resuscitate it.
  39. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    The ensemble shines in demonstrating the complexities of the individuals who either endure or exploit this system of abusive power dynamics.
  40. Best of Enemies
    In giving historical context to the poisonous nature of our oft-bemoaned political discourse, "Best of Enemies" showcases brainy bloodsport with humor, nostalgia and, appropriately, a lacing of melancholy.
  41. Christmas, Again
    A low-key, near-total charmer, writer-director Charles Poekel's Christmas, Again captures something ineffably moving about the holiday grind.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
    Morgen has crafted an often brilliant, sometimes overheated but always humane documentary, one in which Nirvana’s music and fame is just the scaffolding to Cobain’s inner life.
  43. What Happened, Miss Simone?
    [An] impressive and deeply felt documentary.
  44. The Wolfpack
    It tells a story irresistible to our age of rampant voyeurism and reality TV, yet it also has a potent emotional core that cannot be denied.
  45. The Forbidden Room
    This exercise in beauty, derangement and memory can be contemplative or silly. Often it's both, in just the right proportions.
  46. Dreamcatcher
    While Dreamcatcher lays bare some of the horrific violence and victimization that many women face, the film is ultimately hopeful, a testament to the strength and resilience that can be found in sisterhood.
  47. Creed
    Coogler and company do fine work convincing us against our better judgment that nothing we see is preordained, that anything can happen within the four corners of the ring. You can't ask a "Rocky" film to do more than that.
  48. Seymour: An Introduction
    Ethan Hawke's documentary on pianist Seymour Bernstein is very much like the sonatas Bernstein plays so beautifully, teaches so insightfully — quietly moving, infinitely deep.
  49. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
    The tragedy here is not a single story but that a process so inequitable and so inane continues in a place that is considered to be enlightened. Gett, in moving and infuriating ways, exposes a very bleak corner of that world.
  50. Aferim!
    Aferim! conjures a world in flux. From the ironic "Bravo!" of its title to its Chekhovian final moment after an episode of terrible brutality, Jude's film connects that world, unforgettably, to our own.
  51. Sicario
    By turns thrilling, disorienting and draining, Sicario exists in a border zone seemingly of its own devising between the art film and the action movie.
  52. The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest
    [A] fascinating film.
  53. The Danish Girl
    Though much of the acting attention in Danish Girl will understandably go to Redmayne, Vikander's position as the audience surrogate plus her energy and passion as Gerda, a woman facing an exceptional challenge to her love of her husband, is more than essential.
  54. Tangerines
    Tangerines is an example of lean, unadorned old-school filmmaking where familiar style and technique combine to unexpectedly potent effect because of the great skill with which they've been employed.
  55. Experimenter
    Writer-director Michael Almereyda, whose "Hamlet" and "Cymbeline" boldly reimagined Shakespeare, takes a stylized visual approach in Experimenter, with bracing results.
  56. The Gift
    Although the film builds an effective sense of dread and contains its share of unnerving visuals and well-timed scares, it proves far more psychological thrill ride than shockfest.
  57. Black Souls
    Once the stage is set and the more intense plot elements of Black Souls kick in, the film's emphasis on character and setting pays off, just as the muted nature of the storytelling adds to its considerable power.
  58. I'll See You in My Dreams
    Director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the film with Marc Basch, has managed to create a film about those final years that gets to the heart of things like loss and love without patronizing or parody. No small thing to create a movie whose cast is mostly in their 70s yet whose story is so relatable whatever your age.
  59. 24 Days
    Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.
  60. American Made
    American Made is a smart, nervy film, a very modern entertainment made with energy, style and a fine sense of humor that keeps us amused until gradually, almost imperceptibly, the laughter starts to stick in our throats.
  61. Set Fire to the Stars
    Gorgeous, evocative and well performed.
  62. Cemetery of Splendor
    Each scene, beneath its surface calm, throbs with longing, dislocation and intricately woven layers of time.
  63. The Farewell Party
    The Farewell Party succeeds as well as it does because the core dilemma always feels real and the filmmakers take great care to see that the inevitable emotions put into play are never overdone.
  64. Amy
    It is the achievement of Amy, Asif Kapadia's accomplished, quietly devastating documentary, that it makes the story of this troubled and troubling individual surprisingly one of a kind by allowing us to, in a sense, live her life along with her.
  65. Hitchcock/Truffaut
    Smart, thoughtful and elegantly done, Hitchcock/Truffaut is more than an authoritative look at the careers and interpersonal dynamics of directors Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut, a pair of unlikely soul mates; it's also, as director Kent Jones intended, a love letter to film itself, to the value and lure of the cinematic experience.
  66. Something Better to Come
    Beyond her tenacious and intimate reporting, director and cinematographer Polak has made a work of powerful images — heart-rending, elegiac, charged with hope.
  67. Green Room
    While thrashing chords score this gutbucket nightmare, Saulnier's way with overwhelmed characters, pressing evil and dangerous escape mechanics is practically symphonic.
  68. Our Little Sister
    A delicate, unforced meditation on the bonds of family and the joys and wonders hidden in everyday life, this film is able to move audiences without apparent effort, and that must be experienced firsthand to be appreciated and understood.
  69. Embrace of the Serpent
    Beautiful, strange, disturbing, Embrace of the Serpent is a film with a lot on its mind.
  70. Glass Chin
    Punchy dialogue, sharply drawn characters and excellent performances fuel Glass Chin.
  71. Cartel Land
    If the key to price in real estate is "location, location, location," the key to success in vérité-style documentaries is "access, access, access." Which is what Cartel Land has in compelling amounts.
  72. Stray Dog
    Expertly playing with our preconceived notions, Granik's multidimensional portrait also serves as a telling state-of-the-union address, as seen through the caring eyes of her philosophical main subject.
  73. Breathe
    The entire piece is precisely woven together, from script to performance to execution, and the result is a chilling study of emotional annihilation and its aftermath.
  74. Twinsters
    Twinsters is a lively — and quite lovely — take on contemporary notions of family and identity.
  75. Two Step
    Giving flair to the inevitable and imbuing those stakes with emotional heft are key to this type of patiently nasty, slow-boil noir. That Johnson understands this makes his feature debut a particularly confident and enjoyable one.
  76. We Come as Friends
    Because Sauper views himself as a storyteller first, as political as "We Come as Friends" may be, it is always dramatic, never didactic.
  77. A Brilliant Young Mind
    A Brilliant Young Mind doesn't fit into any familiar inspirational box. Many of its characters are complex, contrary individuals who are not even close to being comfortable in their own skins, and this film refuses to shortchange how frustratingly edgy and difficult they are to interact with.
  78. Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery
    The details are mesmerizing as is the rule-breaking psychology behind it.
  79. Baby Driver
    This is movie craftsmanship and showmanship of a very high order.
  80. Butterfly Girl
    Sometimes it's those with the hardest struggles in life who remember to appreciate life more than anyone else. This message comes through loud and clear in Cary Bell's documentary, Butterfly Girl.
  81. Wildlike
    Wildlike is an uncommon and deeply sensitive take on this type of story.
  82. Chevalier
    For all the mysteries it chooses to leave off screen and on dry land, Chevalier speaks for itself: Scene by scene, it builds a vision of group dynamics as calm, violent and finally unyielding as the sea.
  83. Right Now, Wrong Then
    No filmmaker better understands the revelatory properties of small talk and soju, and few could make the art of repetition seem so rife with possibilities.
  84. Lost in Hong Kong
    This rollicking crowd-pleaser might just be smart and substantive enough to be one of the year's best.
  85. The Clan
    Francella and Lanzani are excellent, not only in their charged moments together, but throughout this nervy and provocative picture.
  86. Becoming Bulletproof
    The term "inspirational" gets bandied about a lot, but Becoming Bulletproof is thoroughly deserving of that tag.
  87. The Big Short
    The film packs in so much information and comedy, it would be fun to see it twice: not just to take in what it has to tell us, but also to laugh all over again.
  88. The Boy and the Beast
    Hosoda brings emotional depth to what could easily have become a formulaic martial arts saga. Instead, Boy and Beast is a bracing tale of two flawed individuals who find the love and discipline they need to assume their rightful places in their respective worlds.
  89. Microbe and Gasoline
    There’s an immensity to the small dramas of this awkward in-between stage, where Microbe and Gasoline revel in no longer being boys, but not yet men. Gondry brings a sense of heartfelt nostalgia, pathos and humor to this portrait of a short, unique adolescent moment.
  90. Northern Soul
    The electrifying Northern Soul captures the 1970s British club scene of the same name with ethnographic detail and ebullient style.
  91. Dukhtar
    Nathaniel, a native of Pakistan, has delivered a stunning, emotive work that takes to task oppressive patriarchy. It's a gorgeous, suspenseful cinematic achievement.
  92. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
    Finlay unearths a fascinating biography filled with reversals, comebacks and false starts.
  93. Toy Story 4
    The film surprises with the amount of genuine emotion it generates with its focus on love, loyalty and what matters most in life, to humans as well as toys.
  94. Incredibles 2
    Though it would be unrealistic to expect "Incredibles 2" to have quite the genre-busting surprise of the original, it is as good as it can be without that shock of the new — delivering comedy, adventure and all too human moments with a generous hand.
  95. Ixcanul
    Even as it moves from tender ethnographic portraiture into a realm of hushed, intimate tragedy, Ixcanul quivers with a fierce if understated feminine energy.
  96. India's Daughter
    Don't mistake the brief running time of India's Daughter for a lack of importance or ability to involve. Though it lasts only 63 minutes, this documentary's impact is devastating.
  97. Very Semi-Serious
    It's a very, very funny film but also sweetly sad and poignant, echoing the mix of humor and pathos that marks a New Yorker cartoon exactly what it is.
  98. Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story
    Collectively, the mixed approaches illuminate a complicated man, at once spiritual and temperamental.
  99. Only Yesterday (1991)
    Only Yesterday is a realistic, personal story made universal in a delicate way.
  100. Kubo and the Two Strings
    It recognizes that our most cherished legends are an endless source of consolation in times of suffering and loss, as well as a vital repository of cultural and generational memory. If that message sounds trite or familiar, it has rarely been driven home with this much conviction and intensity of feeling.
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