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. McConkey
    Witnessing him defy long odds, gravity and death is a thrill; even the uninitiated should find his unresolved father complex of interest.
  2. Blood Brother
    Hoover's stubbornly ground-level perspective renders the documentary's lack of context about HIV in India...rather frustrating. But Blood Brother feels important anyway, not so much as a snapshot of one volunteer but for its passionate portrayal of the curative powers of love.
  3. Enzo Avitabile Music Life
    In Enzo Avitabile Music Life, Demme has not given us an expansive film, and there are spots you wish he'd dug deeper. But there is such a well of emotion that the music alone is almost enough.
  4. In the Name Of
    Despite some diffused messaging and oddly elliptical storytelling, "In the Name Of" proves an absorbing, at times hypnotic drama about religion, repression and sexuality.
  5. Wilde Salomé
    Pacino bites off an awful lot here, yet, as our puckish, ebullient and, later, prickly guide on this kaleidoscopic journey, he manages to present an intriguing and passionate view of artistic risk and reward.
  6. The New Black
    Director Yoruba Richen has refreshingly avoided making this polemic into propaganda, a temptation many lesser documentarians could not resist.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Am Divine
    On the evidence of the documentary I Am Divine, to know the drag star Divine was to love him.
  8. One Chance
    Director David Frankel has crafted a sweet, funny, heartfelt film, and while we may know all along how it all turns out, Paul's signature performance still gives us chills.
  9. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
    The Marked Ones is refreshingly uncynical and straightforward in its desire to simply be a movie that makes the audience jump and be scared. It's a fun fright film and wants to be nothing more.
  10. Not Yet Begun to Fight
    Not Yet Begun to Fight is barely an hour long, but it justifies a theatrical release with a lyrical meditation on nature and war.
  11. Nosotros los Nobles
    The performances are genuine and the narrative beats land solidly for a perfectly enjoyable feel-good dramedy.
  12. Blood and Ties
    Director Dong-Suk Kuk ratchets up the tension, effectively toggling back and forth in time to reveal the picture's various puzzle pieces.
  13. Finding Mr. Right
    Its depiction of esoteric facets of immigrant life lends an air of credibility seldom seen in rom-coms.
  14. Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey
    Director Wendy J.N. Lee, who made the grueling trek with a solar-powered camera operated by a monk, provides plenty of breathtaking footage and a strong sense of both the journey's illuminative highs and treacherous (as in altitude and terrain) lows.
  15. The Truth About Emanuel
    Writer-director Francesca Gregorini builds unbearable tension into scenes that otherwise risk tilting toward melodrama and brings the eye of a fashion photographer to the film's hallucinatory dream sequences.
  16. Jersey Boys
    Eastwood, as always, has simply done things his own way, and the result is a leisurely old-school entertainment with a bit more edge than you may be expecting.
  17. CinemAbility
    The film's overall narrative is one of rocky but steady progress.
  18. Kingsman: The Secret Service
    Directed by "Kick-Ass" action specialist Matthew Vaughn with slightly more vigor than necessary and a shade less restraint than needed, it's a bit too too to be "brilliant," as the Brits say. But it's not half bad either.
  19. Lenny Cooke
    A compellingly unconventional, elliptical sports documentary that explores the mysterious realm of might-have-been.
  20. White Reindeer
    Writer-director Clark's commitment to a deadpan vibe of crisp comic kink amid eccentric, left-turn sorrow can sometimes feel condescending. But within this not-so-jolly trip into the detailed recesses of simmering suburban emptiness, Hollyman takes this woman's barely controlled dignity on a quietly brave, revealing ride.
  21. The New Rijksmuseum
    If nothing else, patience has rewarded Hoogendijk and moviegoers with an inside look at an art administration without common sense.
  22. In Fear
    Lovering keeps In Fear visually absorbing through unsettling close-ups and a well-paced series of scares.
  23. Insidious: Chapter 3
    It stands well on its own as a jumpy spookfest.
  24. Jane Got a Gun
    Jane Got A Gun may not have reinvented the wagon wheel, but it rolls out as a sturdy, well-crafted genre piece despite its rocky road to the screen.
  25. This Is Where I Leave You
    When the grown-up going gets tough, the one thing you know is that the Altmans won't abandon one another. Which makes "This Is Where I Leave You" not earthshaking by any stretch, but somehow reassuring.
  26. St. Vincent
    In a roundabout way, St. Vincent delivers, though less as a film than a platform for an object lesson by St. Bill in effortless acting.
  27. Cold Comes the Night
    The noirishly titled Cold Comes the Night is a tense little thriller that provides juicy roles for its deft lead actors, Alice Eve and Bryan Cranston, as well as some well-played action and several neat twists.
  28. Blackhat
    Technology may have changed, cyber-crime may be all the rage, but the narrative song remains the same in films like this, and it's a tune this director knows by heart.
  29. Veronica Mars
    It is clear in every frame that the filmmakers and actors really appreciate that loyalty. It doesn't make for a particularly ambitious film, but it is a satisfying one as it moves easy, breezy over familiar terrain.
  30. 11 A.M.
    Director Kim Hyun-seok, who until now has worked chiefly in romantic comedy, deploys visual effects and low-key performances in an efficiently told, character-driven exploration of immortality, hubris and human folly.
  31. UnHung Hero
    The film is often laugh-out-loud funny while remaining relatively discreet.
  32. Beyond the Lights
    Mbatha-Raw looks, sounds and moves like an A-lister. If "Belle" put the actress on Hollywood's radar, Beyond the Lights heralds her superstardom.
  33. Liv & Ingmar
    Although enjoyable, the movie is perhaps best suited to cinéastes already intimate with Bergman's venerated body of work as well as with Ullmann's many acclaimed screen roles.
  34. O Apóstolo (The Apostle)
    The movie isn't exactly scary, and it has a tendency to meander. But the crumbling, ornate sets are an atmospheric marvel.
  35. The Divergent Series: Insurgent
    A more effective, adult-friendly film than its predecessor.
  36. Grand Piano
    Not all the right notes are hit in Grand Piano, but for an elegantly schizoid B movie, it's more B-sharp than B-flat.
  37. Blue Ruin
    Blue Ruin is an uneven film, and there are slip-ups along the way, but the tension that settles in slowly like a low-grade fever keeps you with it.
  38. Step Up: All In
    The film has a muscled buoyancy and thrilling, joyful spectacles that make the fifth installment of the popular franchise an energetic crowd-pleaser.
  39. The Lazarus Effect
    Director David Gelb, switching gears from his fine 2011 documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," keeps the mayhem moving briskly as an effective host of obstacles pile up in the script by Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater.
  40. The Raid 2
    As inventive as the action sequences are, there are too many of them and they tend to go on far too long — the movie is just shy of two-and-a-half hours. Still, Evans' filmmaking has undergone some impressive fine-tuning for The Raid 2. It is something to see — if you have the stomach for it.
  41. The Best Offer
    The film has several smart twists and surprises up its well-tailored sleeve.
  42. Interior. Leather Bar.
    Unfocused lapses aside, though, the film is intriguing and discomforting in equal measure, using its brief running time to frame thoughtful, boundary-pushing questions.
  43. The Rocket
    Australian writer-director Kim Mordaunt doesn't always succeed at balancing the sentimental, the political and the ethnographic, but at its strongest the story is a seamless melding of history's dark undertow and a child's indefatigable optimism.
  44. Lost River
    Turns out Lost River is indeed a mess, but it's the best mess possible, an evocative grab-bag of images and moods with a heartfelt sincerity and conflicting impulses of romantic melancholy and hardscrabble hopefulness.
  45. Kill the Messenger
    This pulpy, energetic film is a fast-moving and entertaining tale.
  46. Magic in the Moonlight
    The séances are great fun, and the cast is charmingly eclectic. But as to whether "Moonlight" is magical — it is, but ever, ever so slightly.
  47. Date and Switch
    The film's more heartfelt moments are what ultimately work best.
  48. Far from the Madding Crowd
    Between the sheer on-screen beauty and the finely wrought performances of Mulligan and Schoenaerts, Far from the Madding Crowd has its appeal. Yet like unrequited love, one can't help but lament what might have been.
  49. Explorers
    Explorers itself is bubble-thin, but it glides by gracefully on the charm of its three young heroes and their vividly envisioned adventure in space. It's also a truly gentle film, one of the precious few that actually is suitable for children.
  50. If You Build It
    The film proves not only a stirring look at education's potential to rally and invigorate but also a vital snapshot of contemporary rural America.
  51. The Cut
    Atom Egoyan's 2002 "Ararat" had been perhaps the most notable film to tackle the Armenian genocide, but it did so only anecdotally. The historical epic approach seems long overdue, and Akin does it justice.
  52. The Suspect
    The two stunning set pieces, both involving car chases, are so inspired and teeth-grittingly determined that they make the case for the possibility of individual heroism in a harrowingly venal world.
  53. The Homesman
    The film's difficulties are in the roiling emotions that run through it. Intimacy and the interdependence required to survive a harsh environment are more easily achieved. Swank and Jones, in particular, are a very good odd couple, playing saint and sinner, sometimes reversing the roles.
  54. 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.
  55. Manglehorn
    Though occasionally distracting, the quirky visual poetry eventually proceeds to work its magic.
  56. Maps to the Stars
    In its own disturbing, slithery way, the train-wreck watchable melodrama Maps to the Stars is as much a horror show as any that the film's director, David Cronenberg, has helmed over his long and provocative career.
  57. Aloha
    Even with its off-balance, overstuffed storytelling, the film maintains a charm and energy that never flags, with brisk pacing and generally engaging performances from its deep-bench cast.
  58. Generation War
    With performers this engaging, we never want to stop watching, even as events go from grim to grimmer over four long and bitter years.
  59. Freezer
    Freezer is a snappy action flick that makes good use of its close confines.
  60. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    The director, a strong technician whose slam-bang emphatic, occasionally operatic style seems made for comic book adaptations, has been well-served by an adept script co-written by Chris Terrio (an Oscar winner for Ben Affleck's "Argo") and David S. Goyer, which raises a number of interesting issues.
  61. Somewhere Slow
    Frequently affecting and mordantly funny, Somewhere Slow acquits Gilsig as a gifted actress and a producer with great taste.
  62. After the Dark
    While the story's conceit brims with metaphor and symbolism, it rarely comes off as didactic or heavy-handed. Instead, it's smart and provocative. The movie's late-breaking twist also feels about right.
  63. On My Way
    It's the loosely connected encounters of the early sequences that are remarkable in their poignancy and humor.
  64. Special ID
    The lens work by "Crouching Tiger" cinematographer Peter Pau looks super slick; and the film's conformity to trends in regional commercial cinema yields respectable results. But Special ID truly comes alive when it busts out the good ol' fashioned Hong Kong daredevil stunt work.
  65. Le Chef
    An amusing soufflé of a comedy that pokes fun at foodies while honoring the art of those who cook for them.
  66. A Birder's Guide to Everything
    The brusque teen humor, underpinning turmoil and sentiment all seem to be pulled and massaged from the same organic whole, and that's refreshing in a genre so often built on gimmicks and stereotypes.
  67. Cheap Thrills
    Healy and Embry commit to their enervating roles with a heady mix of desperation and gusto, while Koechner is cleverly modulated as the evening's madman emcee. But Paxton, as the complicit yet impassive Violet, remains mostly a shiny accessory.
  68. Rob the Mob
    Throughout Rob the Mob, De Felitta maintains an unfailingly sympathetic stance toward the lovers and the mafiosi alike, while keeping enough distance from all to disapprove of their dirty deeds and deter any viewer identification with them.
  69. A Coffee In Berlin
    In spite of its insufferably whimsical tendencies — exemplified by its original title, "Oh Boy" — the film may have turned out to be a deeply profound modern postscript about fascism. This isn't that far-fetched a reading at all.
  70. Redwood Highway
    The script (by director Gary Lundgren with James Twyman) is modestly feel-good to a fault and the scenery expectedly beautiful, but it's the unforced acting providing the most nourishment.
  71. Charlie Victor Romeo
    A unique, unsettling experience.
  72. The Fault in Our Stars
    What sustains the film through the rockier times are its challenging themes, offering real issues for the young protagonists to wrestle with, rather than whether anyone will be carded trying to buy beer.
  73. The Dance of Reality
    At times exquisitely attuned to the commingling of the bitterly funny and tragic, and at other times an eye-roll-worthy collection of ready-made fetish videos (Flores is one brave avatar of outré sexuality), The Dance of Reality is nonetheless proof that the legendary provocateur is still a font of out-there invention.
  74. Planes: Fire & Rescue
    If you ignore the slicker aspects of the dialogue (and with a little effort you mostly can), it's satisfying to find a film that is as innocent and as much visual fun as this one is.
  75. Lucky Bastard
    Lucky Bastard is a bold little thriller — and deft cautionary tale.
  76. Focus
    The film is breezy from start to finish.
  77. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
    The puns and one-liners are jauntily amusing, the gags clever and well-timed. The tone is a familiar, infectious blend of sincerity and snark — or, if you will, earnestness and cynicism, which might as well be Emmet’s and Wyldstyle’s respective nicknames.
  78. The Only Real Game
    A stirring ode to cultural bridge-building.
  79. The Signal
    Eubank's fizzy mix of self-conscious, set-piece image-making and small-scale human detail is admirable.
  80. Tiger & Bunny: The Rising
    The mash-up of the superhero and buddy-cop genres turns out fresh and vital, offering glimpses of a future where reality television and drones proliferate and where conglomerates with bottom lines underwrite crime fighters.
  81. The Great Invisible
    The Great Invisible gives voice to many of the previously nameless and faceless victims of the disaster. Some worked on the oil rig that fateful day; others have suffered its environmental and economic consequences.
  82. Harmontown
    There's the unfettered access to Harmon's brilliant comic mind, of course, yet also a warts-and-all portraiture of a difficult personality, by turns boyish, self-involved, abusive and exhilaratingly self-analytical.
  83. The Machine
    Even with a cut-and-dried approach to characterization and the issue of man-made consciousness, The Machine percolates with an elegantly palpable sense of wonder and danger.
  84. Stay
    So many phrases out of characters' mouths are as overused and flavorless as a thrice-steeped tea bag, and yet a sturdy narrative structure, increasing thematic complexity and finely detailed performances from Aidan Quinn and Taylor Schilling make writer-director Wiebke von Carolsfeld's sophomore effort an agreeably pensive experience.
  85. Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger
    Joe Berlinger's densely detailed new documentary about the legendary Boston mobster is disturbing on so many levels it's hard not to wonder why Bulger was the only one on trial.
  86. Lucky Them
    Director Megan Griffiths and writers Huck Botko and Emily Wachtel flesh out a female perspective that's refreshing and engrossing without demonizing or objectifying men.
  87. Policeman
    Lapid's filmmaking skill helps keep us involved, as does Policeman's philosophical underpinnings.
  88. Pioneer
    As far as conspiracy thrillers go, Pioneer is as paranoid as they come.
  89. Hank and Asha
    Like the film itself, Kakkar and Pastides are lively, adorable and thoroughly winning.
  90. Captain America: Civil War
    If you live and breathe Marvel, this is one of the MCU's stronger offerings. If you are a spy coming in from the cold, the answer is not so clear.
  91. Jesus People
    Writers Dan Steadman and Rajeev Sigamoney wisely keep a lid on excessive silliness as they jab at such topics as religious fervor, opportunism and artistic talent — or the lack thereof.
  92. Small Time
    Don't let the title of this indie gem fool you, Small Time has humor and heart big time.
  93. Kid Cannabis
    How Norman and his gang learn the ropes, work the game and earn their fleeting, if nerve-wracking moment in the sun proves an enjoyable, well-crafted ride in the hands of writer-director John Stockwell.
  94. The Pleasures of Being Out of Step
    Director David Lewis' movie functions as mostly a highlights reel rather than an exhaustive look at Hentoff's life.
  95. Antboy
    It's the film's well-wrought themes of friendship, self-esteem and responsibility that give this little adventure its ultimate power.
  96. Vanishing Pearls: The Oystermen of Pointe a la Hache
    Though dizzyingly informative and diffuse at times, it's a well-shot portrait that's at its best when it eschews the facts for the folks.
  97. Coherence
    The performances... are solid, and the conceit is alluringly mind-bending without ever seeming off-puttingly brainy.
  98. Fray
    It's a stirring and involving character study that may not cover much new ground but still packs a quiet punch.
  99. Short Peace
    Although it ends on a weak note, Short Peace remains an imaginative, visually striking collection that will delight animation fans seeking something new and different.
  100. Gabrielle
    Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.
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