Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,523 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: 8,698 out of 16523
  2. Mixed: 5,808 out of 16523
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16523
16523 movie reviews
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  1. Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes
    Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes is a darkly compelling, skillfully crafted cold case thriller.
  2. The Blackcoat's Daughter
    Eventually, The Blackcoat’s Daughter connects the pieces and ends strongly, though Perkins smartly spends more creative energy on crafting creepy situations than on pointing toward the payoff.
  3. Parched
    Leena Yadav’s Parched is a bright jewel of a film, surprisingly funny, fresh and upbeat in the way it takes on the complicated and often dark topic of sexual politics in rural India. T
  4. Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary
    They both saw themselves, "Dying to Know" posits, as adventurers exploring alternate realities, and hearing where they ended up is a trip all by itself.
  5. Three
    Even during the gunfight, this always remains a character piece: a thoughtful, imaginative movie about stubbornly authoritarian professionals, protecting their territories.
  6. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
    Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is a raucously funny, often endearing, subversively feminist, bloody good time.
  7. Ants on a Shrimp
    Director Maurice Dekkers stops far short of shooting “food porn” here, instead deftly capturing the often spare beauty of Redzepi and company’s rarefied concoctions including, yes, ants on a shrimp.
  8. The Love Witch
    Although the beguiling spell begins to wear off before reaching its full two-hour length, the film’s got style for days thanks to Biller’s affection for classic — as well as not-so-classic — cinema.
  9. Imperium
    A chilling, surprisingly effective crime thriller.
  10. In Order of Disappearance
    An absorbing and atmospheric entry in what we might as well term the “red snow” genre.
  11. Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny
    Considering its subject often enjoys the simple wonder inherent in characters who look into the distance, Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny does an extra-fine job of looking back with similarly rich and appreciative curiosity.
  12. Hooligan Sparrow
    Against considerable odds, Wang managed to smuggle the various media out of China and back to her New York base where she adroitly edited it into a quietly powerful first feature about the untapped potential for bearing witness in our social media-driven society.
  13. Transpecos
    Unlike the highly charged “Sicario” and other recent drug trade-themed movies, the film, shot in New Mexico, eschews explosive confrontations and political judgments in favor of complex, thoughtfully portrayed characters and tense, compelling situations.
  14. Command and Control
    Lots of documentaries these days will tell you to be afraid, to be very afraid, but few will scare you as coolly and as convincingly as Command and Control.
  15. For the Love of Spock
    [A] richly rewarding tribute.
  16. Don't Worry Baby
    Despite the tale’s potential for an overly broad and crass approach to its loaded setup, Branciforte’s sly, incisive writing and even-handed take on his authentic characters instead errs on the side of wit, candor and a kind of hip sophistication.
  17. Harry Benson: Shoot First
    As the intriguing documentary Harry Benson: Shoot First demonstrates, the fact that an art-for-art's sake modus operandi is alien to Benson makes his work and the personality and philosophy behind it more compelling than they would otherwise be.
  18. Split
    Split doesn’t just revive Shyamalan’s career; it resurrects his brand.
  19. Women He's Undressed
    The clips Armstrong and her team have rounded up make us appreciate how, in a whole range of situations, costumes express character.
  20. T2 Trainspotting
    An equal-opportunity energizer, director Boyle adds zip to everything he touches, and his familiarity with the material and the characters makes it easier for him to bring even the unlikeliest moments to full life. In the world of sequels, that counts for a lot.
  21. The Tenth Man
    The Tenth Man is a low-key charmer, an unlooked-for combination of Jane Austen and Isaac Bashevis Singer. With a twist of Buenos Aires thrown into the mix.
  22. Neither Heaven Nor Earth
    Neither Heaven Nor Earth is a case of the inexplicable rendered without forced mysticism or explanation, but rather explored with a clinical dramatic focus that somehow boosts the eeriness.
  23. Olympic Pride, American Prejudice
    History is not neat and tidy, however much we wish it could be, and Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is more than adept at getting to the truth about perhaps the most mythologized event of the modern Olympic movement.
  24. Land of Mine
    Crisply and efficiently put together by writer-director Zandvliet, Land of Mine has the inherent edge-of-your-seat concern about what kind of damage the bombs will inflict on which of these boys, but it is the psychological qualities of the situation that hold the greatest interest.
  25. Antibirth
    Had the movie been just a little more thought through, it could have been a new classic. Antibirth is still quite good, though, with memorably surreal imagery and an abrasive texture that enhances Perez’s overall vision. As a portrait of a middle America full of forgotten people and ruined civilizations, this is one of the year’s scariest movies.
  26. Abortion: Stories Women Tell
    If there is a through line that unites all the women in Abortion: Stories Women Tell, it’s that they take the potential responsibilities of parenthood very seriously. And no matter how tough and self-reliant they are, this decision is always an impossible one, and one that the outside world's unbending attitudes do not make any easier.
  27. Dancer
    Dancer becomes a gentle inquiry into how a gifted performer disrupts his life in order to test his passion.
  28. Hidden Figures
    The film may not be restrained but stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe are powerfully effective and its little-known true story is so flabbergasting that resistance is all but futile.
  29. Kiki
    Kiki often casts a rueful gaze, but it’s also exuberant and alive, and never despairing. It leaves you with the bracing sense that however tough and resilient its subjects might be forced to become, their hope of a better, more tolerant future will never go out of style.
  30. Equal Means Equal
    Equal Means Equal is a lot to process, but offers an unflinching look at the fight for equal civil rights for all.
  31. My Blind Brother
    Humor here, whether situational or emotionally-based, proves a smart balance of grounded and loopy.
  32. Miss Hokusai
    Miss Hokusai surprises us with its different emotional tones, ranging from the sinister and supernatural to the unapologetically sexual and the sweetly sentimental.
  33. Black Women in Medicine
    It runs less than an hour, but the inspiring documentary Black Women in Medicine packs in enough smarts, context and emotional clarity for a far longer film.
  34. Miss Sloane
    See this smart, showboating movie now, before its simmering sense of justice begins to feel like a thing of the past.
  35. Fences
    Every moment on screen may not be enthralling, but the moments that are are such knockouts they make the enterprise essential viewing.
  36. Silicon Cowboys
    Director Cohen, whose “Facing Fear” was among the 2014 Oscar nominees for documentary short, lends this classic David versus Goliath story a playfully retro feel.
  37. Maudie
    Unlike the thick directness in Maud’s work, the movie about her is almost pointillist in detailing the tiny steps that make up an enduring marriage.
  38. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
    Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer takes some getting used to because it's the kind of film we're not used to seeing.
  39. Into the Inferno
    Even as Into the Inferno invites us to marvel at our insignificance in the face of Mother Nature’s seething primordial firepit, Herzog, being Herzog, refuses to lose sight of the human element.
  40. Peter and the Farm
    Peter and the Farm is ultimately a portrait of whatever the opposite of “getting back to nature” is: the cycle of the land as a circle of hell.
  41. Darkest Hour
    From its grab-for-all-the-gusto Gary Oldman performance to its direction by Joe Wright, Darkest Hour is nothing if not an energetic, showy piece of work, but some types of showy have more staying power than others.
  42. The Monster
    Not least of the surprises here is that even when The Monster is trying to scare you witless, its every scene insistently reaffirms its characters’ humanity.
  43. Free Fire
    Free Fire is a savagely funny and viciously precise distillation of one of the pair’s favorite themes: Men are idiots.
  44. Amanda Knox
    Without doubt this strong documentary sheds a powerful light on this particular case while emphasizing the ultimate unknowability of absolute truth.
  45. Barry
    In some ways, Barry the film takes its personality from Barry himself. Always pleasant and companionable but a little pro forma in its early going, it gains in texture and interest as Obama's life and his reaction to it get more complex.
  46. Lady Macbeth
    Exact and exacting, made with formidable skill and unwavering focus, Lady Macbeth is a film that demands to be admired and cares little if you actually like it.
  47. The Untamed
    Escalante draws remarkable performances out of his cast of mostly newcomers in this film about the consequences of pleasure and the many meanings of flesh; where animal intelligence fills the void left by emotional disconnect.
  48. Tanna
    Most surprising are the involving performances of all concerned, but especially the pair playing the young lovers, actors with finely expressive eyes and faces.
  49. A Family Affair
    Tom gradually chips away at the preening facade to seemingly unmask a complex woman whose self-image was largely shaped by her appearance-obsessed father. However, the deeper he digs, the more elusive his subject becomes.
  50. Baden Baden
    Rachel Lang’s first feature isn’t about placing Ana on the road to her life’s purpose; it’s a serpentine trip through impetuous leaps forward and messy retreats.
  51. Oasis: Supersonic
    The frenetic, ad-hoc aesthetic of the visuals complements the shaggy dog brilliance of Oasis.
  52. The Eyes of My Mother
    [Pesce’s] sense of horror craftsmanship is at once meticulous and oblique.
  53. 100 Years
    It’s a maddening but ultimately uplifting tale about a fearless woman who fought tirelessly for her people.
  54. Seed: The Untold Story
    This is a gorgeously made film, put together with as much care as its subjects devote to saving the remaining varieties of seeds.
  55. It Had to Be You
    A memorable romantic comedy that stands to bring back the genre’s good name, “It Had to Be You” is as funny, endearing and enjoyably off-kilter as its adorable star, Cristin Milioti.
  56. Slash
    The film is a respectful analysis of burgeoning sexuality, the sometimes embarrassing missteps that come along with figuring it out, and exploring that all through fiction.
  57. Harry & Snowman
    Equine fans: Gallop, don’t trot to Ron Davis’ winning documentary Harry & Snowman, which recounts the inspiring story of an underdog show horse, his tenacious trainer and their rise to fame in the late 1950s.
  58. Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened
    How the then-newbie performers’ jackpot roles in the heady, heartbreaking show informed their lives and careers forms much of the movie’s stirring narrative spine.
  59. Get Out
    This is surely the nerviest, most confrontational treatment of race in America to emerge from a major studio in years, and it brilliantly fulfills the duty of both its chosen genres — the horror-thriller and the social satire — to meaningfully reflect a culture’s latent fears and anxieties.
  60. Theo Who Lived
    It’s the journo’s open gaze and natural inquisitiveness, his refusal to merely demonize his abusers, that give the film its discomforting power.
  61. Green Is Gold
    Often exhibiting the best of DIY cinema sensibilities — a mixture of focus, mood, and lived-in characterizations — Green is Gold augurs good things for the multi-hyphenate Baxter.
  62. Thank You for Your Service
    With the same clarity and fluency he brought to far sunnier material in “Casting By,” Donahue pinpoints the devastating intersection of personal trauma and institutional neglect in an age of perpetual war.
  63. Yourself and Yours
    Though it is only now receiving a U.S. release, it says something about the ever-prolific filmmaker’s consistency and extremely high level of proficiency that the film still seems fresh and enchanting, by turns delicate, romantic, mysterious, witty and crushing.
  64. My Cousin Rachel
    Anchored in an exceptionally persuasive performance by Rachel Weisz, "My Cousin Rachel" is not only a triumphant exercise in dark and delicious romantic ambiguity, the pitfalls of being taken in are what this melodramatic thriller is all about.
  65. In Pursuit of Silence
    Half visual essay, half verbal investigation, “Silence” is thoughtful and informative as well as contemplative and restorative.
  66. Creepy
    Creepy uses silence as a tool of terror, following its characters through long, tense scenes where everything’s a little too quiet, and where each creak sounds like a scream. The director has always excelled at making the ordinary seem unsettling.
  67. The Uncondemned
    Its conclusion, and its well-earned message, are more positive and hopeful than even its participants likely ever imagined they would be.
  68. National Bird
    National Bird is powerful cinematic journalism.
  69. Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro
    [An] engrossing, unexpectedly moving documentary.
  70. XX
    It’s fascinating to observe how the feminine perspectives of XX create four powerfully compelling and original horror tales that operate within the genre while testing the boundaries of traditional storytelling and style.
  71. Mifune: The Last Samurai
    As directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Steven Okazaki, "Mifune" is thorough and insightful enough to enlighten the man's numerous fans and serve as an introduction to those unfamiliar with his gifts and his influence, which were huge.
  72. Blood on the Mountain
    The movie is practically a textbook about how ravenous corporations and feckless government can strip-mine the souls of workers, and replace them with a political narrative about their problems that keeps reality forever hidden behind a fine, dusty fog.
  73. Don't Call Me Son
    Don’t Call Me Son, although built on conflicts that have fractured many a family, thankfully never veers into melodrama.
  74. Like Crazy
    Director Paolo Virzì, who co-wrote with Francesca Archibugi, keeps the jam-packed film moving apace with a whirlwind of high-wire emotionality, memorable set pieces and vivid location work.
  75. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
    This is a film that wants you to live in the moment, to enjoy what is on screen when it is there in front of you and not worry how it fits into a plot that can be confusing but clears up in time for the inevitably rousing conclusion.
  76. Asperger's Are Us
    If you have an affection for puns or off-kilter humor, it’s hard not to be charmed by Asperger’s Are Us.
  77. Iron Moon
    The brutally serene documentary Iron Moon from Qin Xiaoyu and Wu Feiyue spotlights a handful of bottom-rung workers who write achingly clear-eyed poetry that spotlights the contours of their lives.
  78. Goldbricks in Bloom
    Writer-director-editor Danny Sangra takes on the complicated relationship between art and commerce in the sharp, surprising Goldbricks in Bloom.
  79. Old Stone
    [A] stunningly assured, darkly gripping first feature.
  80. The C Word
    While the information presented might not come as news to many, the way that O’Hara synthesizes the massive volume of it into a personal story of herself and Servan-Schreiber, is immensely captivating and persuasive.
  81. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
    The film is at its best following the former vice president as he spans the Earth both gathering evidence and promoting his message.
  82. Spider-Man: Far from Home
    In its strangest, most arresting moments, Spider-Man: Far From Home doesn’t just pull the rug out from under you; it tumbles down its own rabbit hole, winding up somewhere in the vicinity of Pixar’s “The Incredibles” (whose composer, Michael Giacchino, also wrote this movie’s bustling score) and Chuck Jones’ classic animated short “Duck Amuck.”
  83. Contemporary Color
    The Ross brothers augment the teams’ richly choreographed, competition-tested routines with slow motion, superimpositions, and separately shot material with individual color guard members. But these artful divergences feel naturally expressive, the filmmakers’ way of honoring the expressiveness, and wanting in on the inspiration.
  84. The Party
    With The Party, availing herself of a zinger-heavy script and an unimprovable cast, the director has made not only her most accessible picture to date, but also a shrewd demonstration of the less-is-more principle.
  85. Dying Laughing
    An involving examination of and tribute to the art and agony of stand-up comedy, "Dying Laughing" will leave you convinced that a) comedians spend a lot of time thinking about their work and b) it's too difficult and even painful a vocation to take on unless you absolutely feel it as a calling.
  86. Girls Trip
    The mix of outrageous comedy and gentle sentimentality is familiar but very fresh, especially in the hands of four actresses who effortlessly establish a sense of shared history.
  87. Reset
    This is one documentary, as “La Danse” was before it, that is a thing of beauty in and of itself.
  88. Worlds Apart
    It’s an often tender, affecting film that slowly creeps up on you — then completely takes hold.
  89. Everybody Knows... Elizabeth Murray
    Within the concise running time, Zea brings a remarkable life and body of work into dynamic focus.
  90. The Other Half
    As it plays out, it’s only a hard road for these swept-up, damaged lovers, whom Klein and his actors treat with blessedly non-exploitative honesty.
  91. Paris Can Wait
    The refreshing element is that the story resists normative fantasies of sex or romance — in Paris Can Wait, Coppola focuses on the relationship to the self.
  92. Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo
    Filmmaking duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau have crafted a film that articulates the ability for sex to produce just a little bit more love in the world, for a moment or an eternity.
  93. All These Sleepless Nights
    Tapping into that transitional juncture where limitless possibility crosses paths with nagging uncertainty, filmmaker Michal Marczak adroitly captures the youthful, restless spirit cradled within the pulsating beat of its immersive, ambient soundtrack.
  94. I don't feel at home in this world anymore.
    In the end, it is the wit, warmth and coherence of Lynskey’s performance that lends this violent comic scherzo both its cruelly demented narrative logic and its curiously cheery aftertaste.
  95. Churchill
    Cox masterfully captures Churchill’s contradictory nature, obsessive dutifulness to queen and country, and a volatility born out of fear, desperation and impending loss.
  96. The King's Choice
    Its intent is to show us how difficult it is to see clearly during times of crisis, how what seems as simple as black and white today was the source of uncertainty and soul-searching when it happened.
  97. The Incredible Jessica James
    Strouse demonstrates a contagious affection for his characters, and he invests in them in a way that makes us do the same.
  98. The Big Sick
    The Big Sick is both a delightful comedy and an imperfect milestone. With any luck, we’ll look back on it someday and it won’t feel like a milestone at all.
  99. Ingrid Goes West
    Ingrid might be a lying, manipulative stalker, but Plaza also lets us see her humanity, engendering a crucial empathy for the desperation that drives her.
  100. City of Ghosts
    City of Ghosts demonstrates, in Hamoud’s phrase, that “the camera is more powerful than a weapon,” but it also shows the horrible price it extracts from those who wield it.
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