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. Concussion
    The key problem is that writer-director Peter Landesman has pushed too hard to make this story fit into a dramatic mold, alternating melodrama and romance with those earnest warnings in a way that is more ungainly than effective.
  2. Daddy's Home
    In its best moments, it's a sly exposé of the frailties of the contemporary male self-image and in its lesser moments a simplistic slapstick. This being a Will Ferrell comedy, sometimes those moments are one and the same.
  3. Joy
    Despite some quite engaging sections, "Joy" is, unlike previous Russell films, dragged down more than it is inspired by its chaotic ambience, a film whose variations in tone can't be overcome.
  4. The Revenant
    The combined exceptional work of star Leonardo DiCaprio and nonpareil cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki create so much verisimilitude and beauty that it compels us to pay more attention to this glimpse of a dark, unsettling kill-or-be-killed world.
  5. Where to Invade Next
    How much filmgoers enjoy it may depend on how much they enjoy the mixture of smugness and naivete in a college sophomore.
  6. 45 Years
    45 Years is a quietly explosive film, a potent drama with a nuanced feel for subtlety and emotional complications.
  7. Stinking Heaven
    While the early going might bring to mind the Dogme 95 school of stripped-down filmmaking...the result, with its collective of uniformly unsympathetic characters, ultimately overdoses on all the unscripted bad vibes.
  8. Mojin: The Lost Legend
    Embracing the worst of Hollywood excess, director Wuershan crams in enough CG effects to fill a dozen Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay features, but the uninspired payoff quickly grows tiresome.
  9. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning
    Employing a restless, constantly moving camera and deliberately isolating soundscapes, the meditative and often mesmerizing film confronts the global issue of swelling immigration in the face of steely bureaucratic indifference with a disarming grace and palpable humanity.
  10. He Never Died
    He Never Died isn't as fleshed out as it could be, but what the film lacks in vivid supporting characters and rich plotting it gets back from Rollins, whose innate charisma carries the film.
  11. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
    Joke-wise, there are several solid laughs (gotta love the "Pink Flamingos" line), but much of the humor underwhelms. A few sensible life lessons are tossed in for good measure.
  12. Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story
    Collectively, the mixed approaches illuminate a complicated man, at once spiritual and temperamental.
  13. Extraction
    Director Steven C. Miller, working off a script by Max Adams and Umair Aleem, keeps things moving at a breakneck pace in an attempt, it seems, to help mask the film's convoluted plotting, one-note performances and bad dialogue.
  14. Anguish
    Rather than stooping to horror-genre antics, Mallhi weaves a tale that is spooky but sensitive and focused on interpersonal relationships between mothers and daughters.
  15. The Emperor's New Clothes
    Advocacy documentaries simply don't get better or more compelling than this.
  16. Son of Saul
    Son of Saul is an immersive experience of the most disturbing kind, an unwavering vision of a particular kind of hell. No matter how many Holocaust films you've seen, you've not seen one like this.
  17. Sisters
    There is so much about its package – the stars, the premise, the talented supporting cast – that would make for a film of warmth, humor and insight on the struggles of leaving the past behind and getting out of your own way on the path to fulfilment. Instead, the movie settles for being a party comedy and little else.
  18. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
    Though a definite improvement on the last three abortive Star Wars prequels directed by series creator George Lucas, The Force Awakens is only at its best in fits and starts, its success dependent on who of its mix of franchise veterans and first-timers is on the screen.
  19. The Ridiculous 6
    The jokes are often juvenile and gross, unsophisticated and insensitive, but one does not wish to strike juvenility or grossness or even insensitivity outright from the comic tool kit; these just aren't all that good.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Snervous Tyler Oakley
    It's as though everyone involved with this doc is afraid to push too hard, lest they knock everything down.
  21. We Are Many
    Since the rally ultimately proved ineffectual, the film could at the least serve as a sobering postmortem on where it fell short. But filmmaker Amir Amirani instead gives protesters a figurative pat on the back by insinuating that they helped inspire the Egyptian revolution some eight years later.
  22. Carl(a)
    Director Eli Hershko and co-writer Christopher Theokas do a nice job with the relationship between Carla and Grandpa, but the other roles go underdeveloped. The filmmakers are even less successful with plotting, telegraphing every major turn.
  23. Dementia
    Testin and Berg's work here is definitely promising, suggesting something better from both of them down the road.
  24. Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words
    A surprisingly intimate film, a completely involving look inside the life of a gifted and complex woman.
  25. Almost There
    The film is as lacking in polish and structure as its subject's canvases, which makes it an appropriate tribute to a marginal figure whose dreams of art world and/or Hollywood stardom stubbornly remain "almost there."
  26. American Hero
    Love does a fine job evoking the social and cultural vibe of the Big Easy and its environs. He also enjoyably uses documentary-style testimonials from Melvin's devoted friends and supporters, inspired editing and a slew of nifty visual effects.
  27. Boruto: Naruto the Movie
    No "Naruto" fan will want to miss "Boruto," which suggests a new direction the franchise may take, now that the long-running TV series has finally concluded.
  28. Christmas, Again
    A low-key, near-total charmer, writer-director Charles Poekel's Christmas, Again captures something ineffably moving about the holiday grind.
  29. Close Range
    There's no characterization to the cartel members beyond freeze-frame title cards; they are interchangeable and expendable.
  30. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
    Finlay unearths a fascinating biography filled with reversals, comebacks and false starts.
  31. dream/killer
    Tonally, the film is a mess, unable to decide if it's a damning downer or...the inspiring story of conquering injustice.
  32. The House That Jack Built
    The personality flaws of the characters and the dysfunctions of the household are instantly recognizable from this very capable cast, yet they never come off as cliché.
  33. The Messenger
    The slow-motion close-ups alone should convince you these magnificent creatures are well worth the effort.
  34. The Girl in the Book
    The film itself often feels stilted and repetitive.
  35. Don Verdean
    While the corrupt Indiana Jones conceit certainly held promise, the Hesses fail to move it much further beyond that "what if" premise, taking weak, obvious potshots at its fundamentalist target.
  36. Dixieland
    Compelling as Zylka and Keough may be — and we're definitely rooting for their well-etched characters — Bedford too often plies a kind of woeful wooziness here when a more propulsive approach is in order.
  37. Bleeding Heart
    Writer-director Diane Bell suggests that these women are so steeped in low self-esteem and codependency that they would not be able to leave their men if they didn't have each other.
  38. Boy and the World
    Boy & the World is a brightly colored, often charming film that juxtaposes simple, hand-drawn animation with kaleidoscopic computer-generated patterns.
  39. In the Heart of the Sea
    The whale is wondrous but the drama not so much in In the Heart of the Sea.
  40. 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.
  41. Capture the Flag
    Rarely has outer space seemed so unexciting.
  42. Christmas Eve
    Who knew a movie seemingly meant to spread holiday cheer could be so off-putting in an almost sadistic way?
  43. Uncle Nick
    Demski and director Chris Kasick wrap up the story neatly — in both senses of that word — by suggesting that we can all feel better at somebody else's expense.
  44. MI-5
    The cast and crew work like a well-oiled machine, delivering the quality drama we've come to expect from British TV imports.
  45. Krampus
    Dougherty's effects team is top-notch, and the movie takes unexpected chances with the style and the storytelling — including a beautiful stop-motion interlude.
  46. Stink!
    While Whelan repeats his points too much, it remains gripping and maddening throughout to watch him run into stone walls.
  47. A Royal Night Out
    Despite the perfunctory social commentary and retro political optimism, the film remains a lighthearted romp to its core.
  48. The Girl King
    The greatest appeal of The Girl King lies in the fascinating historical character and the formidable actress portraying her.
  49. Moomins on the Riviera
    "Riviera" suffers from a weak story with an obvious ending.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Cold Deck
    Although viewers have been dealt this sort of hand countless times before, director Zack Bernbaum lays it all down with little discernible style or dramatic heft, signaling the plot's obligatory turned tables and double crosses well ahead of their appearance.
  51. Night Owls
    Instead of sinking into crude, one-night-stand joke territory, Night Owls roots around for the spark of real chemistry and, in the winning turns of Pally and Salazar, finds it.
  52. The Summer of Sangaile
    Distractingly lovely to look at, the film can't make Sangaile's struggles or triumphs matter. Its soaring conclusion feels anticlimactic, the story drifting off into air.
  53. The Wannabe
    The mix of callous humor and romantic doom doesn't always hold up, but in its best moments, The Wannabe finds real spikiness in the pitfalls of anti-hero worship.
  54. 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.
  55. The Letters
    A biopic about Mother Teresa could have easily been a self-important slog, yet William Riead's The Letters proves a stirring and absorbing if not quite definitive drama.
  56. Bikes vs Cars
    Although the film qualifies as an advocacy documentary, director Fredrik Gertten has put in the time to capture how these cities' unique scenarios unfold to mount a compelling case against the powerful automotive, oil and construction lobbies.
  57. Imba Means Sing
    Filled with humanitarian good cheer — and enough costume changes to rival a Diana Ross concert — Imba Means Sing delivers a heartwarming song of hope for the future.
  58. Every Thing Will Be Fine
    The visually stirring format proves unable to lift the story and performances out of a prevailing, airless stupor.
  59. Killing Them Safely
    With the intensified focus on use of force in police departments, the unsettling documentary Killing Them Safely couldn't be timelier.
  60. Youth
    Youth is a film that goes its own way. Quixotic, idiosyncratic, effortlessly moving, it's as much a cinematic essay as anything else, a meditation on the wonders and complications of life, an examination of what lasts, of what matters to people no matter their age.
  61. The Lady in the Van
    A delicately written, boisterously performed movie about the difficult people who dare us to care about them.
  62. Janis: Little Girl Blue
    From this pastiche Joplin emerges as we've never seen her before, articulate, ambitious, torn between her wild self and her desperate need for stability.
  63. 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.
  64. Macbeth
    It's the gripping and verbally deft cast, led by a swaggering, formidably brooding Fassbender and a searing and poignant Cotillard, that may emerge most memorable here.
  65. Rock in the Red Zone
    Through a first-person narration, Bialis makes much of the film about herself. Her account certainly turns the daily travails of living in Sderot into something tangible for viewers. But at the same time, her life-experience narrative proves a distraction and a disservice to the promise of the film's title.
  66. Like You Mean It
    The last gasps of a romantic relationship between two very different men are intimately and delicately charted in the beautifully immersive, if decidedly somber, Like You Mean It.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bolshoi Babylon
    These twin tracts of darkness and light, the sordid and the sublime, quite effectively submerge the viewer into a closed world.
  68. Censored Voices
    Censored Voices is a soul debriefing of sorts. The soldiers' tales of killing the captured and uprooting entire villages lead them to question whether the war was more about expansion than survival.
  69. Iraqi Odyssey
    With the mixing of the sprawling family tree with geopolitical imbroglios already proving daunting for viewers, the filmmaker exacerbates the confusion by eschewing a linear chronology.
  70. Sembene!
    A richly crafted documentary that serves as an enlightening tribute to the filmmaker who masterfully tapped into the medium's wide-reaching socio-political potential.
  71. Submerged
    Even the movie's brighter spots are undermined by ineptly staged action sequences, flatly functional dialogue and stock characters. Ultimately, Submerged is all wet.
  72. Theeb
    it's Nowar's ability to tell his tale so firmly from the viewpoint of his quickly growing-up protagonist, and to elicit so unforced a performance from Eid, that may be the most impressive achievement of this intimate, well-paced film.
  73. The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young
    At a certain point, though, the movie runs out of eccentricity capital and becomes just another contest documentary about determined participants — in this case, mostly obsessive young white men — and the well-worn narrative of defeat or accomplishment.
  74. The Wonders
    Letting questions remain unanswered and silences go unfilled, Rohrwacher offers lovingly crafted glimpses of an enterprise we all engage in, regardless of whether we've ever been near a beehive: extracting sweetness from the materials at hand.
  75. 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.
  76. The Good Dinosaur
    The Good Dinosaur is antic and unexpected as well as homiletic, rife with subversive elements, wacky critters and some of the most beautiful landscapes ever seen in a computer animated film.
  77. 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.
  78. Victor Frankenstein
    For much of the movie's running time, I wished I were watching Mel Brooks' classic take on Shelley's yarn, "Young Frankenstein." At least that one was intentionally funny.
  79. TransFatty Lives
    A raucous, weird, occasionally fascinating entry in the genre of disease-documenting, a portrait of raw nerve in the face of deteriorating nerves.
  80. Altered Minds
    A good mystery and earnest performances keep the movie lively, though the confined location and limited plot ultimately make the end product feel paltry.
  81. 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.
  82. The Pearl Button
    By turns lyrical, impressionistic and profound, the documentary The Pearl Button requires patience but offers stirring rewards.
  83. #Horror
    The film works better as social satire than straight horror, as the murder plot that drives it along always feels unconvincing.
  84. Flowers
    Flowers is too exquisitely formalist — symmetric framings followed by willfully asymmetric shots — to ever feel flushed with real feeling.
  85. Entertainment
    There's a chic emptiness to Entertainment, undoubtedly, and anti-comedy constructs that may rub the wrong way, but there's also a spiky intelligence at work too, one that engages through the artifice of disengagement and the illusion of "performance."
  86. 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.
  87. Kingdom of Shadows
    Director Bernardo Ruiz never manages to weave the multiple narratives into a complex but cohesive big picture.
  88. Drone
    Drone is a solid, thought-provoking documentary that raises some pertinent questions even if they may not originate from the most objective of places.
  89. Criminal Activities
    Working from a glib, chatty script by Robert Lowell that's not as cleverly hatched as it likes to think it is, Haley whips it into something reasonably entertaining.
  90. Legend
    As told by Helgeland this Legend simply isn't memorable, because a tremendous effort by Hardy is let down by unfocused storytelling.
  91. Mediterranea
    Writer-director Jonas Carpignano glosses over much of the sociopolitical context in his depictions of the chain of events.
  92. Mustang
    It's a moving portrait of sisterhood, a celebration of a fierce femininity and a damning indictment of patriarchal systems that seek to destroy and control this spirit.
  93. Secret in Their Eyes
    As screenwriter, Billy Ray's adapting the original's Argentina-centric trappings to a tense post-9/11 milieu is smart, but as director his style is hardly atmospheric.
  94. The Night Before
    A raucous and refreshing new take on the Christmas movie.
  95. Carol
    Haynes understands that swooningly beautiful traditional technique bolstered by thrilling performances creates the greatest impact. He has made a serious melodrama about the geometry of desire, a dreamy example of heightened reality that fully engages emotions despite the exact calculations with which it's been made.
  96. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
    The aesthetically misguided idea of breaking the final book into two films, commercially remunerative though it might have been, has ended up making the dragged-out proceedings feel anti-climactic and emotionally static.
  97. Coming Home
    Succeeds despite an intrusive soundtrack that underscores each genuinely heartfelt moment.
  98. My All American
    Strict adherence to the playbook may work in sports, but My All American shows the pitfalls of that approach with movies.
  99. Of Men and War
    The access that Bécue-Renard got, reportedly after five months of being there without a camera, is remarkable.
  100. Condemned
    Aggressively ugly and gross, the movie boasts a certain low-rent authenticity, but the auteur never figures out how to fill his grubby little rooms.
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