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. Jackie
    Larraín told his producers he wouldn't do Jackie unless Natalie Portman agreed to take on the role, and her superb performance, utterly convincing without being anything like an impersonation, vindicates his determination.
  2. This Is Life (Sheng Men)
    What emerges is a portrait of doctors and staff who work hard to do the right thing for their patients and the babies, who have no voice. It is life, fought for and forged in the most difficult of circumstances.
  3. Trezoros: The Lost Jews of Kastoria
    As impactful as its rarely told story might be, “Trezoros” would have been better served by a shorter running time or a more focused approach to its central story.
  4. Adrift
    Lopez’s first feature comes across as fragmented and overwrought, with characters and performances that seem to have been egged on by the score’s achingly purposeful piano.
  5. On the Map
    Israeli director Dani Menkin has been especially thorough in telling this classic against-all-odds sports story.
  6. A Boy Called Po
    The film over-relies on blunt messaging, one-note villains (bullies, bosses, administrators, worst mall cop ever) and several stacked-deck situations to align us with David and Po, even if we’re inherently on their side from the start.
  7. Notes on Blindness
    The film’s quiet impact comes as it leads us along John’s journey to understanding this disability as an unexpected, but ultimately accepted, gift.
  8. Magnus
    The loneliness of the long-distance chess grandmaster is affectingly conveyed in Magnus.
  9. 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.
  10. Tank 432
    A few memorable shots don’t offer enough justification to watch a film that’s not scary, rarely exciting and never as engrossing a puzzle as it means to be.
  11. Seasons
    As a mood killer and conscience-raiser it’s woefully obvious, but also unlikely to erase the sense memory of all the scintillatingly captured fauna that came before it.
  12. Miss Sloane
    See this smart, showboating movie now, before its simmering sense of justice begins to feel like a thing of the past.
  13. 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.
  14. Evolution
    A striking and maddening delivery system for art house creepinesss.
  15. Lion
    Once Lion's can't-miss conclusion hovers into view, the film's periodic over-dramatization matters less. A story like this is finally impossible to mess up, and pretending otherwise is beside the point.
  16. Bad Santa 2
    Bad Santa 2 relies entirely too much on the salty stuff, offering an opportunity for audiences to titter at the firehose of vile gutter humor that leaves no one unsullied, and delves into some truly dark places.
  17. Rules Don't Apply
    Rules Don't Apply, as its name implies, is a movie intent on going its own way. It's not without its charms, but there aren't enough of them and they don't readily cohere.
  18. Allied
    Even when Allied loses its footing, there is something unmistakably touching about Zemeckis’ commitment to evoking a world so quietly, heroically out of step with the times.
  19. Moana
    The moral of Moana is that playing it safe can have its limits. It’s hard not to agree, even when this lovely, reassuring hug of a movie doesn’t entirely heed its own advice.
  20. Nobody Walks in L.A.
    Nobody Walks in L.A. rides on the easy, sunny charm of the lead duo, as well as the beauty and personality of the city.
  21. Goldbricks in Bloom
    Writer-director-editor Danny Sangra takes on the complicated relationship between art and commerce in the sharp, surprising Goldbricks in Bloom.
  22. A Street Cat Named Bob
    Veteran director Roger Spottiswoode, whose output has been spotty in recent years, returns to form with a perfectly weighted redemptive story that engages the heart without shying away from the darker aspects of Bowen’s recovery.
  23. I Am Not Madame Bovary
    The hyper-dramatic touches help disguise that this is essentially a film about paperwork. The rest of the weight is carried by Fan, who’s funny and heartbreaking. She’s a hero for our times: a stubborn woman, willing to inconvenience the powerful to get a fair hearing.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
  26. Esteros
    Director Papu Curotto brings Andi Nachon’s tender script to life with stirring economy and warmth as well as a wistfulness so palpable it’s practically its own character.
  27. Disturbing the Peace
    [A] vital, absorbing documentary.
  28. The Anthropologist
    The utterly winning documentary The Anthropologist takes a unique perspective on the field of anthropology through the lens of a pair of female anthropologists and their daughters.
  29. The Red Turtle
    The Red Turtle is a visually stunning poetic fable, but there’s more on its mind than simply beauty.
  30. The Take
    Imitating the Bourne capers rather than establishing an identity of its own, “The Take” is a strictly by-the-numbers political thriller that fails to capitalize on Idris Elba’s formidable screen presence.
  31. 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.
  32. National Bird
    National Bird is powerful cinematic journalism.
  33. Life on the Line
    Life on the Line traffics in piled-on, predictable melodrama, with only intermittent sparks.
  34. Ali and Nino
    There’s zero chemistry or feeling to this sweeping, predictable endeavor, only the scent of what might have been.
  35. The Edge of Seventeen
    Written and directed by the gifted first-timer Kelly Fremon Craig, and graced by a superb star turn from Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen is the rare coming-of-age picture that feels less like a retread than a renewal. It’s a disarmingly smart, funny and thoughtful piece of work, from end to beginning to end.
  36. Nocturnal Animals
    The writer-director invests a tricky narrative juggling act with an intensity of human feeling that is the opposite of skin-deep. He tears through the veil of slick, self-admiring style that has both unlocked and at times obscured his very real merits as an artist.
  37. Manchester by the Sea
    Powerful, emotional filmmaking that leaves a scar, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By the Sea is heartbreaking yet somehow heartening, a film that just wallops you with its honesty, its authenticity and its access to despair.
  38. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    It both benefits and suffers from the relentless commercial logic that has, for the moment, placed a bit of a stranglehold on its own considerable magic.
  39. Love Is All You Need?
    This capably-acted and shot film...tries too hard to hammer home its points. So much so that its messaging becomes diffused, if not lost, amid the overlong picture’s mounting frenzy.
  40. Elle
    Elle is a gripping whodunit, a tour de force of psychological suspense and a wickedly droll comedy of manners.
  41. Hunter Gatherer
    Hunter Gatherer is a warmly eccentric little indie that’s amusing, authentic and works against expectation. B
  42. Shut In
    Despite a strong effort from Naomi Watts, Shut In is more effective as a 90-minute commercial for the L.L. Bean aesthetic than as a pseudo-psychological thriller.
  43. Ice Guardians
    Harvey delivers an in-depth cultural and sociological view of the sport, while making a compelling case for the necessity of fighting.
  44. The Trans List
    Like others in this series (“The Black List,” “The Out List”), it’s a mix of to-the-camera testimonials and archival photos, elegantly packaged, less a movie than a companionable hour spent with a diverse collection of people wonderfully articulate about the road they’ve traveled.
  45. Beauty Bites Beast
    Beauty Bites Beast does lessen its usage of narration and animation as the film gets going, but the damage is already done. It blunts its own effectiveness by over-embellishing stories and facts that could have stood on their own.
  46. Anne Frank: Then and Now
    Anne Frank: Then and Now may be an oddly structured little docudrama but it makes the most of its eerily cogent message.
  47. The Drama Club
    Like “The Big Chill” and “Peter’s Friends” but without a single character you’d want to spend five minutes with, let alone a weekend, The Drama Club makes for a crassly unpleasant ensemble piece.
  48. Hara Kiri
    This isn’t meant to be a polished, restrained indie drama, but its flaws don’t solely reside in writer-director Alberto’s avant-garde approach. Instead, its biggest misstep is the two central characters who are so unlikable as to be unwatchable.
  49. 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.
  50. 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.
  51. Come and Find Me
    Even with several contrivances in the movie’s final third, this remains a taut, haunting ride thanks to solid writing and directing by Zack Whedon (Joss and Jed’s younger brother) and a strong, sympathetic performance by Paul. Find this one.
  52. No Pay, Nudity
    Summarizing the plight of the average working actor’s lot in three all-too-familiar words, No Pay, Nudity, is a tenderly observed, bittersweet comedy featuring a beautifully rooted Gabriel Byrne.
  53. Rainbow Time
    It’s not exactly side-splittingly funny, and it doesn’t amount to much. The ideas are strong, but the storytelling’s practically nonexistent.
  54. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
    Director Mario Van Peebles brings real tension and excitement to the scenes where these men are surrounded by predators, but the tone of the film is awkwardly split between the grit of modern cinema and the boisterous adventure of old Hollywood.
  55. Don't Look Down
    Greater technical and financial detail, additional period context, a deeper look at what makes daredevils such as Branson and Lindstrand tick, and snappier overall chronicling would’ve made this fun ride truly soar.
  56. 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.
  57. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
    The sharp satirical edge that earned Fountain’s novel comparisons to “Catch-22” feels duller and more sluggish on the screen as Lee strains to weave his story’s dissonant tones and subplots...into a movie that works as both a compelling psychological portrait and an astute political argument.
  58. Ivory. A Crime Story
    The situation seems dire in many ways, though Yastrzhembskiy offers some hope at the end of the film, along with solutions to controlling demand in the ivory market. It’s a powerful call to action and a reminder of the bloody global implications contained in a single trinket.
  59. Dreamland
    A terrific cast...helps create a vivid world, on the fringes of showbiz. But Schwartzman’s observations about music and money mostly stay locked in his head. Dreamland isn’t hard to understand by any means, but it does seem fairly negligible from moment to moment. Neither the situation nor the stakes are exactly life or death.
  60. Lazy Eye
    A couple of flashbacks color in their history but feel unnecessary, as the script and actors ably express the complicated history between the two men. The weekend in the desert is all that is needed to bring to life this romantic drama about revisiting the roads not taken.
  61. 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.
  62. Arrival
    Arrival is really Adams' film, a showcase for her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence, empathy and reserve.
  63. Dog Eat Dog
    Although it’s an often repellant, uneven film that, in the end, doesn’t amount to a whole lot, there’s something thrilling and a bit liberating about the anarchic vibe that permeates this stylized walk on the wild side.
  64. The Shelter
    Overall, The Shelter is a bit too clever for its own good. The hero’s personal hell is too literal, and the movie as a whole is too slight.
  65. Off the Rails
    [An] excellent documentary.
  66. Apparition Hill
    Apparition Hill is actually a compelling but unnecessarily long-winded sociological study about a group of adults recruited to watch for signs and wonders in a small village in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  67. Keep in Touch
    The gently affecting Keep in Touch extends its stay a bit too long, stretching the story where it could have been more efficient. But it’s a fine showcase for McPhee’s lovely songs, Bachand’s lead performance, and the assured direction of Kretchmar.
  68. The Charnel House
    While the cast is talented and the tone is classy, The Charnel House never develops any momentum. The movie puts fright on the back burner to tease out a mystery that proves to be too profoundly idiotic to be worth all the bother.
  69. CRD
    Though there’s never a smooth path toward narrative or emotional enlightenment as you watch CRD, Kanadé’s willingness to explore the creative impulse through impish experimentation is amusing and infectious.
  70. The David Dance
    The story of The David Dance might have seemed more timely and vital when first presented as a play in 2003. Today, however, the delayed film version (it was shot in 2009) feels remarkably dated. It’s also logy, stagey and overlong.
  71. Fell, Jumped or Pushed
    For anyone who’s been on an indie film set, Fell, Jumped or Pushed is deeply relatable, and very funny.
  72. Army of One
    The movie’s noisy, busy and not that funny. But there is a sweetness and a cockeyed optimism here. At heart, it’s a salute to American gumption — however misguided.
  73. My Dead Boyfriend
    The script from Billy Morrissette — featuring disappearing narration, awful characters and no humor — is largely to blame, but director Anthony Edwards makes uninspired choices throughout, such as inserting random animated characters and allowing Gina Gershon to do a cartoonish French accent in a supporting role.
  74. All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone
    Featuring footage from the last six decades, All Governments Lie is a timely, convincing documentary that will cause audiences to question what they see and read.
  75. The Ivory Game
    The grim economic realities behind such trafficking are glancingly acknowledged. There’s real impact, though, in the anger and grief of law enforcement officials and conservationists when their tracking leads them to elephant carcasses.
  76. By Sidney Lumet
    One of the achievements of Buirski’s absorbing documentary is that it allows Lumet to remind us, in his own voice, of the passion in his ostensible dispassion — the way he deftly subsumed self-expression within the brisk rhythms of his material and the superb performances of his actors.
  77. Gimme Danger
    The Stooges were postwar kids who took to the stage with fearless, demented exuberance, Iggy writhing half-naked. With Gimme Danger, Jarmusch doesn’t ask him to strip down further. He simply thanks him.
  78. Trash Fire
    Flaming out from the get-go, Trash Fire represents another soggy batch of Southern Gothic horror-comedy from writer-director Richard Bates Jr. that spews out pitch black smoke with little combustible substance.
  79. The Pickle Recipe
    Rose’s pickles might have a pleasant snap, but there’s none to be found in the tired, limp shtick in Sheldon Cohn and Gary Wolfson’s screenplay, which has been choreographed at a lumbering, drawn-out pace by director Michael Manasseri.
  80. Loving
    Loving is an unpretentious film about unassuming real people, but don't let that mislead you. Just as Richard and Mildred Loving ended up overturning the status quo and making American legal history, so this feature on their lives by writer-director Jeff Nichols turns out to be a film of quiet but quite significant strengths.
  81. Trolls
    As infernally sugary as this movie may sound on paper, and however mercenary its commercial intentions, it’s hard to resist its silly, utopian vision of a world where happiness reigns, love wins and the mere sound of Timberlake’s voice carries the promise of salvation.
  82. Doctor Strange
    One of the pleasures of Doctor Strange is the way it both wholly embraces and gently mocks the unapologetic geekiness of the enterprise.
  83. The Eagle Huntress
    As unlikely as it is enchanting, The Eagle Huntress tells its documentary story with such sureness that falling under its sway is all but inevitable.
  84. Hacksaw Ridge
    Gibson has made a movie that is somehow both deeply dishonest and crushingly sincere — and still at war with itself, long after the final shot has been fired.
  85. The Windmill
    Mostly The Windmill is about watching some morally shaky people die horribly. But they do it with such dramatic gravitas that their inevitable eviscerations seem almost profound.
  86. Shangri-La Suite
    Though the movie’s well cast, its central story rarely shakes off the derivative cloak to become involving. But Ron Livingston’s turn as a sorrowful Elvis Presley is a quiet revelation.
  87. An Eye for an Eye
    The rehabilitative power of forgiveness is thought-provokingly explored in Ilan Ziv’s An Eye for an Eye.
  88. New Life
    Although it aspires to be a kind of latter-day “Love Story,” the rote, overly earnest drama New Life exists largely on the surface.
  89. Chief Zabu
    Chief Zabu may have been buried for the past three decades, but this tiresomely talky would-be satire is no treasure.
  90. The Uncondemned
    Its conclusion, and its well-earned message, are more positive and hopeful than even its participants likely ever imagined they would be.
  91. King Cobra
    Slater has some effective moments and Franco excels at a certain kind of scary/funny psycho, but it doesn’t ultimately add up to much as either pulpy trash or exposé.
  92. I Was a Teenage Wereskunk
    "Wereskunk” only wavers when it slips from the style of the era, with the usage of digital special effects or the odd modern reference. When it stays in the unique lane it’s established for itself, it’s plenty of silly retro fun.
  93. Jack's Apocalypse
    Jack’s Apocalypse is unable to convey any realistic stakes or authenticity in its story line.
  94. USS Indianapolis: The Legacy
    Despite the use of strong archival clips and photos, the film, with its ongoing stream of talking heads, can make for static, at times sluggish viewing. Still, this key episode in American military history deserves to be commemorated.
  95. The Unspoken
    This movie’s about as scary as a jackhammer.
  96. The Ruins of Lifta
    Daum acts as a thoughtful onscreen guide to what the picturesque hillsides and its stone remains represent.
  97. A Billion Lives
    A Billion Lives employs a variety of experts in relaying its message, but it sometimes feels like a statistic-filled, 95-minute commercial for the vaping industry rather than a feature-length documentary.
  98. Mr. Donkey
    Mr. Donkey is deeply flawed but also fascinating. There’s a good story here, woven between the thudding jokes.
  99. Little Sister
    The punk and metal music-infused soundtrack belies the film’s largely gentle approach to a series of small, evocative and well-played moments that combine to slowly heal the Lunsfords and prove that you can go home again.
  100. 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.
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