Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,550 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: 8,714 out of 16550
  2. Mixed: 5,819 out of 16550
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16550
16550 movie reviews
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  1. The Case for Christ
    Give credit to the filmmakers for making a faith-affirming picture that aims to be more thoughtful than maudlin. But what they’ve ended up with is a fairly rote Christian redemption narrative — albeit with more charts and graphs.
  2. Their Finest
    Their Finest is a treat that has something on its mind, a charming concoction that adds a bit of texture and bite to the mix. Genial and engaging with a fine sense of humor, it makes blending the comic with the serious look simpler than it actually is.
  3. Blue Gold: American Jeans
    Blue Gold: American Jeans is intermittently engaging, but its attempt to weave together the journey of vintage clothing dealer Eric Schrader with the history of the apparel ultimately falls apart.
  4. The Eyes
    The Eyes is a talky, set-bound drama masquerading as a suspense picture, and nearly the entire movie consists of overwritten, overacted, visually inert confrontations and monologues.
  5. Live Cargo
    Logan Sandler’s Live Cargo is stuffed with arty close-ups and stunning backdrops, but the emotions to connect them are missing.
  6. Cézanne et Moi
    Ever-present is the mild dissonance of fiery pioneers of expression inspiring charmingly pretty if standard art house fare.
  7. 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.
  8. Alive and Kicking
    There may be no fancy filmmaking steps in “Alive and Kicking,” but the jaw-dropping improvisations and physical intimacy of the dancers make it an action film par excellence — joy-fueled and gravity-defying.
  9. God Knows Where I Am
    This documentary is a lyrical exploration of both a person and the place she died in, as well as a devastating commentary on American society’s approach to mental health.
  10. SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock
    The maximalist approach isn’t necessary to enhance the wild tales, but the film does reflect its subject in its messy yet invigorating approach.
  11. Mine
    The film is often a marvel of visual and narrative resourcefulness. But with its single primary location, blistering atmosphere, small cast and narrow focus, “Mine” may prove too grueling for some.
  12. 1 Mile to You
    The film feels cluttered by all the other nonsense of girls, rivalries and friendships that could have been pared down for a more efficient narrative.
  13. The Void
    Few horror fans will complain about a movie that’s so generous with well-constructed, energetically staged set pieces featuring elaborate makeup effects and plenty of nondigital goo. The Void is derivative, but delightful.
  14. Bethany
    James Cullen Bressack’s Bethany is polished, well-acted and filled with memorably disgusting images, but its portrait of a frazzled adult survivor of child abuse is ultimately formulaic and a little sleazy.
  15. The Ticket
    Directed by Ido Fluk from a screenplay he wrote with Sharon Mashihi, the film is sensitively observed, its performances convincingly understated. But it rapidly devolves into a standard, and increasingly unfocused, story of materialism and greed.
  16. Colossal
    Neither Hathaway nor the script makes any overt bids for the audience’s sympathy in Colossal, which may explain why they earn it so handily.
  17. Queen of the Desert
    The main flaws in “Queen,” however, are a lurching narrative coupled with dialogue awkwardness, and a blasé approach to Bell’s motivations.
  18. Salt and Fire
    Like something you peer at rather than absorb, Salt and Fire is both awful and a tad fascinating.
  19. Speech & Debate
    Although the story, which feels a tad past its expiration date, never digs too deeply into its central issues (hypocrisy, loneliness, censorship, finding one’s voice), Dan Harris’ peppy direction and nimble turns by the film’s young leads prevail.
  20. Going in Style
    If anything, it uses its gifted veterans to disguise how tired, implausible and overly sentimental the proceedings turn out to be.
  21. Smurfs: The Lost Village
    Though it's nice to see Smurfette get her due, the whole endeavor feels tired and tiring.
  22. Aftermath
    Aftermath can’t quite sustain its controlled tone, relying on operatic melodrama and limp plot twists as it concludes in an uneasy resolution.
  23. The Assignment
    There’s howlingly awful and then there’s The Assignment, a thoroughly ridiculous, numbingly slow neo-noir thriller.
  24. Your Name.
    The movie’s spirit is by turns energetic and serene, impetuous and wise, its wild shifts from comedy to tragedy to romance revealing themselves not as tonal swings so much as variations in a larger cosmic pattern.
  25. Gifted
    No one is likely to disagree with the basic correctness of the movie’s conclusions, though you may well object to the process by which it arrives at them.
  26. bwoy
    Bwoy (Jamaican patois for boy), which largely plays like a stage-appropriate two-hander, is ultimately a surprising and cathartic, if often unsettling, film anchored by Rapp’s superb portrayal of a tortured soul desperate to connect. Brooks’ deftly enticing turn is also a standout.
  27. Fare
    Forced character arc aside though, this is a tightly constructed and well acted indie with a few standout sequences. It’s further proof that sometimes all a filmmaker needs is a cab and a camera.
  28. Pitching Tents
    From the homophobic slurs to the lowest common denominator body humor to the stale gender politics, Pitching Tents is all cutesy retro raunchiness without any innovation or comedic payoff. It might have been excusable back in the day, but now it’s just boring.
  29. Here Alone
    This is the first act of a better movie, stretched to fill a feature.
  30. Despite the Falling Snow
    Despite the Falling Snow is ostensibly a love story set against a Cold War thriller backdrop, but it features no heat and little tension.
  31. In Search of Israeli Cuisine
    If the pacing flags a bit en route, enough vivid imagery remains to hold interest, with Solomonov proving a smart, appealing and personally invested guide.
  32. The Levelling
    Set on a dairy farm in southwestern England, The Levelling is a modestly scaled, superbly crafted drama with a powerful sense of place.
  33. The Prison
    Two tedious hours later, the sensation of doing time is all too tangible.
  34. I Called Him Morgan
    Artistic, obsessive and intoxicating, I Called Him Morgan is a documentary with a creative soul, and that makes all the difference.
  35. For Here or to Go?
    In attempting to address its many concerns, the film’s agreeable, lightly satirical tone gives way to increasingly didactic dialogue and a stalling pace.
  36. Ghost in the Shell
    Your head might not be spinning as you exit the theater, but your senses will be deeply and thoroughly ravished.
  37. 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.
  38. Carrie Pilby
    Carrie Pilby is a studiously quirky affair, but only the natural charm of Powley salvages that tone. The film swings wildly from melancholy to wacky, never truly melding the two; it somehow also lacks verve and energy.
  39. The Zookeeper's Wife
    An emotional experience that is straight-ahead but satisfying.
  40. The Discovery
    Director Charlie McDowell, who co-wrote the film with Justin Lader, sidesteps the material’s more intriguing ideas, ultimately settling for a conventional story about love, loss and second chances. The disappointment comes not in the lack of answers but in the relative absence of audacity in tackling such a trippy concept.
  41. The Boss Baby
    Mistaking cliché for comic insight, and lacking the kind of conceptual rigor that a Pixar intern could probably muster, the script falls back repeatedly on the kinds of assumptions about human behavior that are meant to be cute and relatable to grown-ups and kids alike, but which instead offer an unflattering glimpse into the movie’s lazy, cynical soul.
  42. Life
    Life is efficiently constructed to unsettle audiences. It demonstrates both the pleasures and the limitations of doing a skillful job with familiar genre material.
  43. Diamond Cartel
    The largely Russian- and Kazakh-speaking cast is so incongruously dubbed into English it evokes an old Japanese monster movie.
  44. Walk of Fame
    Aggressive and aggressively unfunny, Hollywood-set comedy Walk of Fame hates its characters and its audience — and the feeling is mutual.
  45. Frantz
    It is a cunningly crafted fiction, full of visual artifice and narrative sleight-of-hand, that by the end could hardly feel more sincere.
  46. American Anarchist
    Although it occasionally feels as if the thoughtful Powell (who unexpectedly died last summer) is being forced into a repentant corner, the film remains a penetrating case study in taking ownership of one’s actions.
  47. Dig Two Graves
    There’s a lived-in quality to Dig Two Graves that’s all-too-rare for low-budget movies in this genre.
  48. Bokeh
    The drama’s power may dwindle, yet its end-of-the-world scenario remains oddly recognizable.
  49. Prevenge
    While the plot is skimpy, the performances are rich, which turns Prevenge into a series of satirical sketches, dissecting the social dynamics between a mother-to-be and the various men and women who think they have an advantage over her.
  50. CHIPS
    Its principal ambition — basically, to make movies like “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Starsky & Hutch” look like rigorous masterworks of screen-to-screen adaptation by comparison — may be as shallow as the gutter. But from time to time, the movie does throw off its own crazy, moronic verve.
  51. Wilson
    Wilson asks, can a male middle-aged crank get a sentimental education? If you even care whether that’s possible, Craig Johnson’s film adaptation of Daniel Clowes’ 2010 graphic novel offers a reasonably amusing case study in how that might transpire.
  52. Saban's Power Rangers
    I feel more qualified than usual to announce that Saban’s Power Rangers (Saban clearly never learned to share) is a witless and cobbled-together pile of junk, and I mean that not as an insult so much as an assurance of brand integrity.
  53. All Nighter
    It’s all feather-light, low-stakes stuff where it’s about the journey not the destination, and not judging a book by its cover. It skates by on the charisma of its stars but evaporates on contact.
  54. Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness
    The commentators speak about the enjoyment of watching these athletes suffer, but “Fittest on Earth” deftly tracks the emotional trajectory as well. Plus, the slow-motion shots of gloriously muscled bodies in peak physical form will definitely inspire a trip to the gym.
  55. The Settlers
    Smart, thorough and thoughtful, this disturbing film unfolds like a slow-motion nightmare that has taken half a century to fully reveal itself, a trenchant examination that deserves to stand next to compelling Israeli documentaries on similar themes, including “The Law in These Parts” and “The Gatekeepers.”
  56. The Last Laugh
    At times haphazard but always involving, The Last Laugh confronts a question that sounds anachronistic in today's anything-goes world:
  57. They Call Me Jeeg
    Though not the most sure-footed of superhero entries, as an offbeat perspective on the genre, They Call Me Jeeg merits an enthusiast’s look.
  58. Suntan
    The story might have had some thematic heft if we knew or cared anything about the characters. But all we can glean about the disastrous Kostis is that he’s had hard times, while Anna is a total cipher.
  59. The Devil's Candy
    What makes The Devil’s Candy a standout is how well-developed these characters are.... More importantly, Byrne is as skilled as ever at constructing sequences at once bizarre, suspenseful and oddly beautiful.
  60. Atomica
    Dagen Merrill’s thriller, made under the Syfy channel’s banner, is strictly cheap-TV genre fare that might have passed muster as an average episode of “The Outer Limits,” but over feature length simply feels slipshod and dull.
  61. Betting on Zero
    It all adds up to a timely, provocative and absorbing tale of money, power and a search for the truth.
  62. Mean Dreams
    Featuring one of Bill Paxton’s final performances, Mean Dreams is a painful reminder of the actor’s great talents.
  63. Song to Song
    Stick with Song to Song, and Malick’s elusiveness becomes surprisingly direct. Long, tense conversations are reduced to a few piercing exchanges. Difficult questions and answers are distilled to their philosophical essence. People clash, break apart, fall down, get back up and slowly, tentatively reunite.
  64. After the Storm
    Kore-eda is too scrupulous a filmmaker to prescribe Ryota an easy redemptive arc or happy ending. Nonetheless, the lingering optimism that suffuses After the Storm’s closing scenes is honestly achieved; nothing on the surface has changed, but on a deeper level something has.
  65. 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.
  66. The Belko Experiment
    By the end of the film, you're left with the unshakable feeling that everyone involved, from actors to filmmakers to the audience, is, and should have been, better than material like this.
  67. The Son of Joseph
    The Son of Joseph transforms from a lark into a revelation in its final scenes, which are piercing, absurd and pretty close to miraculous.
  68. 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.
  69. Beauty and the Beast
    This isn’t just a remake; it’s an act of cinematic upholstery, with all the padding that implies.
  70. The Freedom to Marry
    Though the documentary could do without encomiums from Wolfson's parents about what a brilliant child he was, it is clear that as an adult he was smart, dynamic and far-seeing about this matter in a way that few others were.
  71. The Ottoman Lieutenant
    This well-intentioned, sumptuously shot tale of love and war, directed by Joseph Ruben, lacks the emotional depth and romantic grandeur to fulfill its epic ambitions.
  72. This Beautiful Fantastic
    The friendship lessons are sweet enough, but such a low-stakes story strains one’s patience for such affected cinematic style.
  73. 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.
  74. Brimstone
    However heroic a figure Fanning’s Liz may be, however much this fine actress makes us feel her terror and determination, any sense of triumph is steadily, grindingly undone.
  75. My Scientology Movie
    As he uses Rathbun’s old tactics against his observers, Theroux raises troubling questions about psychological warfare and how devoutness shades into fanaticism.
  76. Love & Taxes
    Love & Taxes is an amusing, endearing trifle.
  77. Burning Sands
    In the absence of a more dramatically dynamic approach to that awfully familiar subject matter, “Burning Sands” proves neither as incendiary nor as challenging as intended.
  78. The Sense of an Ending
    The Sense of an Ending, despite its polished construction and immaculate pedigree, doesn’t ultimately mean as much as it thinks it does.
  79. Actor Martinez
    Like the man at its center, the film is aggressive and awkward, but there’s a sense of playfulness in how it pokes and prods at the world of independent cinema.
  80. Raw
    Julia Ducournau, making a stellar feature writing-directing debut, fosters the kind of disquieting intimacy with her characters that leaves us continually uncertain of whether we should fear them or fear for them.
  81. Kong: Skull Island
    Story and soul are never going to be kings on Skull Island, but they could have fared better than this.
  82. Personal Shopper
    Personal Shopper is a gripping portrait of solitude, which is to say it’s a hell of a one-woman show for Stewart, the rare actress who can blur into the background and magnetize the camera in the same scene.
  83. Headshot
    Where “The Raid” films used a thin story to efficiently showcase the rapid-fire lethality of silat, Headshot attempts to wrangle an emotional back story into the proceedings, which is a hard combination to stomach when the characters are brutally beating one another senseless.
  84. Cries from Syria
    Anyone with even a shred social conscience should find the comprehensive Syrian civil war documentary “Cries From Syria” a truly devastating experience.
  85. Fair Haven
    It’s a testament to Jack Bryant’s lovely script and Kerstin Karlhuber’s thoughtful direction that this controversial concept is handled with such even-handedness and grace.
  86. Don't Kill It
    Even when Don’t Kill It veers toward the ordinary, Lundgren is there with his lived-in face and playful eyes, waiting as ever to spring into action. It’s great to see him in a fun movie again.
  87. Catfight
    Catfight is the type of blackly comic film that works to alienate some viewers with its over-the-top approach and its unlikable characters. But those who enjoy its dark humor will cackle with mean-spirited delight.
  88. Lavender
    Gass-Donnelly has a great eye and brings some genuine beauty to his movie’s rural setting. The preoccupation with aesthetics though means that “Lavender” is sometimes quieter, slower and artier than the material warrants.
  89. The Lure
    The Lure may not be everybody’s siren song, but as debut features go, it counts as a splash.
  90. Wolves
    There’s plenty of predatory behavior on display in the impressively acted Wolves, a curious if unsuccessful cross-breeding of gritty domestic drama with conventional coming-of-age sports crowd-rouser.
  91. Lovesong
    Lovesong is a character study of this relationship, casually yet carefully sketched out by Kim in subtle but meaningful gestures and glances. Much is communicated through the eyes, searching for answers in the void of what’s not said, but felt.
  92. Junction 48
    Through its keenly observed small moments and the presence of the charismatic Nafar and his infectious, socially charged raps, Junction 48 sensitively yet powerfully conveys the considerable challenges inherent in attempting to reconcile those rocky crossroads of coexistence and cultural identity.
  93. As You Are
    This lyrical and ethereal film mixes the stark style of a crime story into a love story, capturing the highs, lows and the deepest, darkest recesses of grungy, stoned teenage life; a life always yearning for more.
  94. Keep Quiet
    Because the footage of Szegedi was filmed over a number of years, the documentary reveals different stages of its subject's thinking.
  95. Donald Cried
    Touches of empathy and self-awareness invariably crystallize the unsettling emotions of revisiting one’s past life.
  96. The Institute
    The main achievement of The Institute is that its cast kept straight faces long enough to shoot this risible gothic chiller. A
  97. Table 19
    The movie is choking on fumes before it’s even had the chance to begin.
  98. Burlesque: Heart of the Glitter Tribe
    It’s surprisingly intimate at times, but we leave without greater insight into its subjects’ world.
  99. Water & Power: A California Heist
    While the approach taken by filmmaker Marina Zenovich, who directed 2008’s “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” relies heavily on talking heads — Gov. Jerry Brown among them — she admittedly paints a compelling picture of timeless greed.
  100. The Last Word
    What initially augured a spiky portrait of late-age restlessness recedes into a woefully generic case of shopworn cross-generational uplift, sprinkled with tired wisecracks.
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