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. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
    Though it is undeniably bleak and pessimistic and marked by a texture of observation worthy of British director Mike Leigh, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is not as forbidding as it sounds.
  2. Akeelah and the Bee
    A genuinely sweet and determinedly inspirational family film that features a charming young actress in the title role. It's a successful feel-good movie, but it would make you feel even better if it didn't push quite so hard for its desired effects.
  3. Mission: Impossible III
    Hoffman is so proficient in this role that he just about overmatches Cruise and makes the wait until he speaks again in the second half of the film hard to endure with any patience.
  4. Guys and Balls
    A wry, robust comedy of broad, sometimes crass humor set in the ultra-macho world of a small-town German soccer team.
  5. Art School Confidential
    If a more elegant and succinct explanation of what compels some people to go to art school has ever been filmed, I haven't seen it.
  6. X-Men: The Last Stand
    Ratner seems to have found a theme that he can relate to: A terrifying trio of angry, undomesticated women who all but run away with the movie.
  7. Russian Dolls
    Charming and antic, Russian Dolls doesn't quite cohere in the way of "L'Auberge Espagnole" into a clever snapshot of contemporary Europe.
  8. Giuliani Time
    With the former mayor currently enjoying one of the rare second acts in American political life, Giuliani Time does a strong job of reminding us what the first one was like.
  9. The King
    A dark and deeply unsettling movie with its roots in classical tragedy.
  10. Lemming
    The acting is serviceable and primarily of the stare-until-you're-uncomfortable variety, although Rampling is much more than that: She's a classic screen temptress with the aura of a melancholy spider.
  11. Twelve and Holding
    Smart, compassionate filmmaking that captures both the intricacies and the tragedy of contemporary adolescence.
  12. An Inconvenient Truth
    Although the message of the film sounds bleak, it is actually quite rousing.
  13. Cavite
    A dark, riveting thriller.
  14. Typhoon
    Ambitious and impressive, both in its provocative themes and superb production design using striking sets and locations in Korea, Russia and Thailand, this handsome epic amply rewards audiences willing to go the distance.
  15. Loverboy
    Loverboy is a grim little story, but it's leavened unexpectedly with humor and energy. A stylish and thoughtful director, Bacon marries music to image beautifully.
  16. Lower City
    The themes are all familiar and the plot unfolds slowly and in predictable ways, but there's plenty of heat generated by the three leads.
  17. Only Human
    Mines the comic possibilities of the classic setup of introducing the fiancé to the family, with results that are playful, charming and surprisingly thoughtful.
  18. Wordplay
    Delightful.
  19. Say Uncle
    The ending is a little too neat and smacks of wishful thinking, but Paige has created an engaging and insightful entertainment with considerably more substance than most small-budget, independent gay films.
  20. The Devil Wears Prada
    The Devil Wears Prada spins Weisberger's rant into a sharp, surprisingly funny excursion into the catty realm of women's magazines. The movie skips the condescension usually aimed at this world in favor of rapt observation.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Motel
    A well-worn coming-of-age tale enlivened by pungent detail and a sharp visual sense.
  22. Who Killed the Electric Car?
    Fascinating documentary.
  23. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
    An exuberant look at a heady moment in America's soccer past that is well worth remembering.
  24. Changing Times
    Despite its weaknesses, Changing Times ("Les Temps Qui Changent" in French) is always watchable and even poignant from time to time. What it is never going to be is the grand passion of anyone's moviegoing life.
  25. Time to Leave
    As with any Ozon film, Time to Leave comes across with unexpected moments of illuminated stillness.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Been Rich All My Life
    MacDonald seems less interested in the Silver Belles' past than their inspirational present. Eventually, the inevitable broken hips and dizzy spells take their toll, but those who remain seem determined to shuffle-step their way into the sunset.
  27. My Super Ex-Girlfriend
    The movie doesn't purport to have her stand for all women, just the crazy ones, and as such, G-Girl is pure, soul-cleansing id catharsis.
  28. Miami Vice
    Without the ability to move off the mythic, without the emotional texture that "Heat" created, it is a film easier to admire than to get passionately involved with.
  29. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
    A bit of a mess, but it is a genial mess, and one that will make you laugh. Which is the whole idea.
  30. 13 Tzameti
    Although it's likely too stark for everyone, 13 Tzameti offers a mind-blowing experience for anyone willing to go along for the ride.
  31. Brothers of the Head
    Thought-provoking as it is, Brothers of the Head keeps its distance, choosing to tell a story about telling stories. But the story itself remains an unexploited gold mine.
  32. Quinceañera
    As sweet and gentle as it is, Quinceañera is quite clear-eyed about human cruelty and indifference. In structure, however, there is a circularity to the film that allows it to end on a well-earned upbeat note.
  33. Boynton Beach Club
    As a niche entertainment catering to an overlooked audience, Boynton Beach Club is remarkable mostly for its optimism and solid performances.
  34. Conversations with Other Women
    An intimate movie in every sense, Conversations With Other Women sets out to explore well-trammeled yet at the same time uncharted territory without grinding any axes. What it offers is a modest fantasy that will be familiar to contemporaries of Bonham Carter and Eckhart especially. It's sad and funny, satisfying and frustrating, totally familiar.
  35. The Illusionist
    Sewell and Giamatti ham it up as the imperious pretender to the throne and his ambitious but conflicted minion in this uncheesy but entertainingly tricky mystery. There's more heat between the two of them than between the sappy lovers.
  36. Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death
    If Pusher III is the trilogy's least effective, that may be because the soured-deal plot line is by now a given, and its theme is the simplest: Old habits die hard.
  37. Princesas
    Indeed, Aranoa loves these women so completely that his film seems overly drawn out at nearly two hours and likely would have had greater effect had it been half an hour shorter. Even so, Princesas remains largely engaging and rewarding.
  38. Queens
    The movie has no higher ambition than to please a crowd; the fact that it easily does is proof of the world's heartening capacity for change.
  39. Fan-Fan the Tulip
    With Philipe apparently doing a lot of his own stunts, Fanfan is replete with heroic leaps, speedy horse rides, occasional explosions and clashing sabers. If this all sounds like a 1950s version of "Pirates of the Caribbean," that may not be such a bad comparison.
  40. Crank
    Neveldine and Taylor empty their handbasket of cinematic tricks. They display visual wit, have fun with pop songs, and shoot much of the film in slightly choppy fast-motion ("under-cranked," get it?).
  41. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
    Unlikely to be ranked as one of Zhang's greatest accomplishments but is clearly the work of a major filmmaker. It is best seen as a heartfelt tribute to Takakura, as heroic and enduring a star as John Wayne.
  42. Hurricane on the Bayou
    Positioned as somewhere in between the eggheady activism of Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and the anger of Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke," the new Imax film Hurricane on the Bayou examines the effect of Katrina on the famed bayou-country wetlands of Louisiana.
  43. Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers
    Like Greenwald's previous films, Iraq for Sale is made from a progressive political point of view but spends considerable time talking to regular people who likely voted Republican.
  44. Neo Ned
    Neo Ned is exactly the kind of production -- scrappy, flawed and a little odd -- that should exemplify the very notion of "independent film."
  45. Red Doors
    Following Woody Allen, Ang Lee and any number of sitcoms, Georgia Lee constructs her well-shot, well-written film around three daughters.
  46. Al Franken: God Spoke
    Captures comedian and pundit Al Franken evolving from satirist to activist.
  47. Confetti
    Under the insanity and unsexy nudity, Confetti has a sweet center. Comic timing, themes of tolerance and commitment and the marriage of farce and empathy lift the film above the mockumentary pack.
  48. Jesus Camp
    Whether you are a religious, churchgoing person or not, if you are the least bit liberal or tolerant in your world view, this has got to be one of the most unnerving films of the year.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Hardcore
    The documentary is an enlightening journey to a dark corner of contemporary punk's dank little basement. It also will surprise some to hear how articulately some of the former performers explain the dark impulses that propelled them.
  50. Zen Noir
    A provocative, witty -- and admittedly esoteric -- experimental comedy that is serious, amusing and satisfying, in Rosenbush's words: "a Zen riddle designed more to be experienced than understood rationally."
  51. School for Scoundrels
    This is a modest education-of-a-punching-bag entertainment with a kind of breezily rude compatibility -- a hallmark of sorts for both co-writer/director Todd Phillips ("Road Trip," "Starsky & Hutch") and the wonderful actor assigned to play the self-help instructor from hell, Billy Bob Thornton.
  52. Tales of the Rat Fink
    A breezy and lightweight primer, but to really make Roth's work and influence into more than just a nostalgia trip would require a discipline and wit seemingly beyond Mann's easygoing, feel-good survey.
  53. The Ritchie Boys
    This is a film with a story we have not seen before, a story about American troops so unusual it needed a German director to ferret it out.
  54. Sleeping Dogs Lie
    Rather than the escalating gross-out spectacular it could have been, Sleeping Dogs Lie is an unexpectedly thoughtful look at what it takes to make relationships work.
  55. Catch a Fire
    The young American actor (Derek Luke) gives such an intense, passionate performance as South African Patrick Chamusso that he just about dares you not to be involved with the tale he is telling.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wondrous Oblivion
    Aiming for the tough-minded nostalgia of John Boorman's "Hope and Glory," writer-director Paul Morrison catches both the innocence of childhood and its unconscious cruelty.
  57. Stranger Than Fiction
    A refreshingly grown-up comedy, "Stranger" is a charming film that is unafraid to be low-key in ways that studio releases seldom are.
  58. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
    Yet whenever you get too irritated at Fur's pretensions, the remarkable acting of its two stars pulls you back in and keeps you watching.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Come Early Morning
    Falls prey to bits of psychoanalytic shorthand and narrative predictability, but it offers the rare, meaty role for an actress in her late 30s.
  60. The Cave of the Yellow Dog
    Davaa has made a sweetly meditative film.
  61. Fuck
    Often surprising and thought-provoking (the urge to euphemize is characterized as a drift away from reality), "****" is as funny and cathartic as the word it celebrates, and nearly as perversely shock-happy.
  62. Candy
    For a druggie movie, Candy is surprisingly dynamic and involving.
  63. For Your Consideration
    The movie does have its flashes of genius. "Home for Purim," the movie, is set in the Deep South, where Yiddish is spoken with a drawl.
  64. The History Boys
    A lively and entertaining disquisition on the purpose and uses of knowledge in a world that cares less about scholarship than quantifiable results.
  65. Opal Dream
    An exceptional family film, arriving just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Directed with sensitivity by "The Full Monty's" Peter Cattaneo, it is the antithesis of the standard synthetic Hollywood family movie, which is all too often weighed down by ludicrously exaggerated special effects and stunts and glazed over by gross humor.
  66. 3 Needles
    Though not as coherent as it might be, 3 Needles, with its stunning cinematography by Thomas M. Harting, is never less than engaging and suggests powerfully the myriad reasons why AIDS, after a quarter of a century, remains so difficult to control and combat.
  67. 10 Items or Less
    10 Items or Less is not deep, but it's a charming enough diversion to spend a day with two likable people.
  68. The Holiday
    The alluring surfaces of other people's lives can be deceiving, though generally not in a Nancy Meyers comedy, where the thin veneer of fantasy cloaks ... more fantasy.
  69. Breaking and Entering
    Despite very good performances and solid construction, it's a slightly too symmetrical, way too tendentious side-by-side comparison of two families -- Haves, meet the Have-nots -- who come into unlikely contact in the fitfully gentrifying area of Kings Cross.
  70. Off the Black
    Off the Black is a modest, bittersweet character study that hits its mark.
  71. Screamers
    The piece is intelligently made, although the director often doesn't establish place or time, leaving the viewer unmoored.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Secret Life of Words
    There may be no young actress today better at embodying a blend of wounded innocence and stoic pride than Sarah Polley. In The Secret Life of Words, she has a part worthy of her gifts.
  73. Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here)
    Aronson's film is a fond portrait, loaded with bizarre, haunting music and Smith's off-kilter inspirations.
  74. We Are Marshall
    The film is injected with a refreshing energy whenever McConaughey is on-screen, balancing some of the inherent sadness of the story.
  75. Freedom Writers
    Dramatically, the movie never veers from its predictable course, but Swank's performance renders the point moot. There likely was a better, more original movie to be made focusing more on the Freedom Writers themselves, but if this more conventional direction had to be taken, it's hard to imagine a more affecting version.
  76. Unconscious
    Unconscious is a ribald sex farce of considerable imagination and inspired wackiness and a meticulous period piece of the Art Nouveau era.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alone with Her
    A pretty engaging tale, and it's refreshing to see a well-acted, suspenseful drama made without a bloated budget or a lot of bloodletting.
  78. The Italian
    A remarkably compelling presence, Spiridonov commands attention without pandering or appealing to pity. In fact, for a 6-year-old, he is possessed of an uncanny poise.
  79. An Unreasonable Man
    Though the second half contains the fireworks, it's the film's first hour that is ultimately most memorable. Mantel and Skrovan do a commendable job in covering a lot of territory, mixing pertinent and entertaining archival footage with interviews.
  80. Samoan Wedding
    Consistently imaginative, revealing and funny.
  81. Coffee Date
    A wry romantic comedy of sexual confusion that deftly becomes increasingly serious without losing its sense of humor.
  82. Antibodies
    Although Alvart lays on the biblical allegory too heavily at times, the film's pace is brisk enough to maintain our full attention. Antibodies is not so much an art house movie as a well-made, commercial thriller that happens to be in German.
  83. Avenue Montaigne
    Avenue Montaigne may not be a centimeter deeper than it needs to be, but you also won't be feeling that your pocket was picked when it's over.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Close to Home
    Close to Home is a slender slice -- a sliver is more like it -- of a very rich cake.
  85. Shooter
    Carrying Shooter through its difficulties is, finally, not its crisp action sequences and definitely not the torture. It's Wahlberg's performance, which is the film's most old-fashioned element, and its best.
  86. Air Guitar Nation
    It's one of the charms of Air Guitar Nation that much of it plays like a mockumentary in which you're not quite sure who's pulling your leg. But it's real, even if the guitars are not.
  87. Boy Culture
    At times a little callow around the edges, Boy Culture upon reflection, displays considerable insight. It is buoyed by some incisive acting and writing and anchored by a standout portrayal from Bauchau, a versatile veteran of international cinema.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Color Me Kubrick
    Scarcely an insightful biographical portrait, Color Me Kubrick is still interesting, perhaps even intimidating, as a study of the way fandom can so readily be turned against itself.
  89. The Page Turner
    Though this film is as formal and predetermined as a carved palace of ice, it builds interest through the strong performances of its pair of costars, the veteran Catherine Frot and relative newcomer Deborah Francois.
  90. Blades of Glory
    The movie is at its funniest and most original when zinging the sometimes pretentious milieu of competitive figure skating. Whatever combination of choreography, camera trickery and special effects were required to render the over-the-top, hyper-real skate numbers, they're executed with wit and ingenuity.
  91. Race You to the Bottom
    Race You to the Bottom has an ending that is rightly open yet thoroughly satisfying -- as is the entire film.
  92. Ten 'til Noon
    A triumph of ingenuity over budget, a taut, darkly comic thriller with a dart of pathos that holds attention like Super Glue from the first frame to the last.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Firehouse Dog
    Though it never completely catches fire, there's enough earnestness and warmth that makes it a welcome alternative in a family film arena dominated by computer animation and associated toy lines.
  94. The TV Set
    In general, the movie doesn't necessarily reveal anything we don't already know but delivers it in a personable, entertaining manner.
  95. Rock the Bells
    Stressful to watch, but its entertaining stage performances and document of people under pressure should interest even non-rap fans.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lonely Hearts
    While not much of a detective story, Robinson's period film does provide a captivating look at the dynamics that turn Fernandez and Beck into serial killers.
  97. Year of the Dog
    With pathos competing equally against the often pungent laughs for the audience's attention, it's a movie that is both unsettling and amusing, most comparable to "Chuck & Buck" in tone.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vacancy
    A ruthlessly efficient stalk-and-slash machine.
  99. Fracture
    It boils down to experience's arrogance, intellect and wealth versus youth's cockiness, resilience and hard work, and the actors appear to have a good time playing the game.
  100. In the Land of Women
    The 27-year-old Kasdan displays an ability to bring a refreshing, human touch to what could be overly familiar material that echoes what his father did in films like "The Big Chill" and "Body Heat."
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