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. Mojave
    Prickly, suspenseful, even coolly humorous, Mojave finds noirish fun in the existential woes of a successful artist and old-fashioned movie pleasure in the parry and thrust of sharp dialogue.
  2. Martyrs
    The movie feels like a thin excuse to show image after image of women being abused. This Martyrs has the bones of its predecessor, but it's been bled dry.
  3. Aferim!
    Aferim! conjures a world in flux. From the ironic "Bravo!" of its title to its Chekhovian final moment after an episode of terrible brutality, Jude's film connects that world, unforgettably, to our own.
  4. Ip Man 3
    Ip Man 3, set in Hong Kong circa 1959, combines the customary, inventively choreographed action with an unexpected emotional depth, proving as hard to resist as its entertaining predecessors.
  5. The 5th Wave
    Director J Blakeson can't quite maintain the film's momentum while squaring its disparate parts, malleable story rules (weren't all power sources destroyed?), hokey dialogue and a crisscross of often one-note emotions.
  6. All Mistakes Buried
    The twists and turns of this stylish and well-acted if minor thriller bring Sonny to unexpected yet apt conclusions.
  7. Anesthesia
    The all-star cast is uniformly good, but the script lacks any sort of nuance to temper the pandering lecture.
  8. Unlucky Plaza
    Writer-director Ken Kwek means for the proceedings to be farcical, but seldom are they actually funny. A former journalist, he's quite observant of the clashes among the classes and cultures in this diverse society.
  9. A Perfect Day
    It suffers from a marked lack of narrative energy and a regrettable surfeit of clichéd characterization.
  10. Moonwalkers
    A famously crackpot conspiracy theory, psychedelic humor and arty ultraviolence make for dreary bedfellows in the scattershot British comedy Moonwalkers.
  11. Band of Robbers
    The film works best when focusing on the conflict between world-weary Huck and dreamer Tom, but the characters are underdeveloped and the plot overly convoluted, lacking the foundational support to prop up their antics and capers.
  12. 400 Days
    The sci-fi drama 400 Days ultimately disintegrates upon impact because of a lazy payoff.
  13. Intruders
    The actors alone can't sustain Intruders for its full 90 minutes, but for the most part they follow Starr's lead, carrying a film that's both menacing and magnetic.
  14. The Benefactor
    What begins as an intriguing psychological thriller devolves into an addiction drama, growing less interesting as it proceeds and giving costars Dakota Fanning and Theo James little to do.
  15. Norm of the North
    While the film, with its preponderance of potty jokes, might placate the very young already primed by boisterous singing chipmunks, older viewers will likely find it all harder to, uh, bear.
  16. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
    This action facility, however, is not enough to make "13 Hours" more than sporadically successful, in part because, at 2 hours and 24 minutes, the film is too long for its own good and risks feelings of repetition and exhaustion.
  17. Anger of the Dead
    Coming off like a hodgepodge of rejected spec scripts for "The Walking Dead," Anger of the Dead reveals particularly misogynistic and misanthropic filmmaking.
  18. The Forest
    The supernatural thriller The Forest begins with an intriguing premise and fun, ghost story-type potential but quickly devolves into convoluted hokum that produces more laughs than scares.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Diablo
    Veteran actors such as Danny Glover and Walton Goggins bring much-needed flavor to Diablo.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Seahorses
    The movie's never anything other than an artificial construction, where every detail strains for larger meaning — from the pictures on the wall to the fish in the aquarium.
  21. Sweaty Betty
    Though it's not entirely satisfying, the loose-limbed feature exerts a genial pull in its offhand exuberance.
  22. Lamb
    The compulsively watchable oddness of Lamb and its commingling of innocence and peril keep it from easy categorization.
  23. The Treasure
    Deadpan, determinedly low key and deeply absurd, the films of Corneliu Porumboiu are very much a particular taste, and The Treasure is no different.
  24. Point Break
    The newly released Point Break remake is tedious and overblown — as though the filmmakers were so preoccupied with "updating" the material that they forgot what made it so popular in the first place.
  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. 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.
  29. 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.
  30. 45 Years
    45 Years is a quietly explosive film, a potent drama with a nuanced feel for subtlety and emotional complications.
  31. 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.
  32. 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.
  33. 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.
  34. 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.
  35. 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.
  36. Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story
    Collectively, the mixed approaches illuminate a complicated man, at once spiritual and temperamental.
  37. 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.
  38. 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.
  39. The Emperor's New Clothes
    Advocacy documentaries simply don't get better or more compelling than this.
  40. 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.
  41. 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.
  42. 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.
  43. 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.
  45. 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.
  46. 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.
  47. Dementia
    Testin and Berg's work here is definitely promising, suggesting something better from both of them down the road.
  48. Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words
    A surprisingly intimate film, a completely involving look inside the life of a gifted and complex woman.
  49. 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."
  50. 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.
  51. 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.
  52. Christmas, Again
    A low-key, near-total charmer, writer-director Charles Poekel's Christmas, Again captures something ineffably moving about the holiday grind.
  53. Close Range
    There's no characterization to the cartel members beyond freeze-frame title cards; they are interchangeable and expendable.
  54. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
    Finlay unearths a fascinating biography filled with reversals, comebacks and false starts.
  55. dream/killer
    Tonally, the film is a mess, unable to decide if it's a damning downer or...the inspiring story of conquering injustice.
  56. 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.
  57. The Messenger
    The slow-motion close-ups alone should convince you these magnificent creatures are well worth the effort.
  58. The Girl in the Book
    The film itself often feels stilted and repetitive.
  59. 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.
  60. 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.
  61. 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.
  62. 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.
  63. In the Heart of the Sea
    The whale is wondrous but the drama not so much in In the Heart of the Sea.
  64. 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.
  65. Capture the Flag
    Rarely has outer space seemed so unexciting.
  66. Christmas Eve
    Who knew a movie seemingly meant to spread holiday cheer could be so off-putting in an almost sadistic way?
  67. 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.
  68. 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.
  69. 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.
  70. Stink!
    While Whelan repeats his points too much, it remains gripping and maddening throughout to watch him run into stone walls.
  71. A Royal Night Out
    Despite the perfunctory social commentary and retro political optimism, the film remains a lighthearted romp to its core.
  72. The Girl King
    The greatest appeal of The Girl King lies in the fascinating historical character and the formidable actress portraying her.
  73. 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.
  75. 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.
  76. 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.
  77. 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.
  78. 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.
  79. 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.
  80. 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.
  81. 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.
  82. Every Thing Will Be Fine
    The visually stirring format proves unable to lift the story and performances out of a prevailing, airless stupor.
  83. Killing Them Safely
    With the intensified focus on use of force in police departments, the unsettling documentary Killing Them Safely couldn't be timelier.
  84. 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.
  85. The Lady in the Van
    A delicately written, boisterously performed movie about the difficult people who dare us to care about them.
  86. 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.
  87. 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.
  88. 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.
  89. 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.
  90. 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.
  92. 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.
  93. 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.
  94. 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.
  95. 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.
  96. 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.
  97. 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.
  98. 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.
  99. 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.
  100. 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.
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