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. The Vatican Tapes
    Writers Christopher Borrelli and Michael C. Martin commit quite a handful of sins of contrivance that are difficult to absolve.
  2. The Young Kieslowski
    The film taps into some genuine, relatable truths lurking beneath all that try-too-hard quirkiness.
  3. The Outrageous Sophie Tucker
    Though placing the cheerleading Eckers front and center as key interview subjects gives their film a self-congratulatory, gee-whiz quality, "Outrageous" compensates by giving you a good sense of who Tucker was and how she got where she did.
  4. Unexpected
    A modestly scaled feature whose plainspoken sincerity is a hindrance as well as a strength.
  5. Capital C
    Touted as a documentary "about the crowd revolution," Capital C devotes its entire running time to just one aspect of crowd-funding: small entrepreneurs raising capital.
  6. Stray Dog
    Expertly playing with our preconceived notions, Granik's multidimensional portrait also serves as a telling state-of-the-union address, as seen through the caring eyes of her philosophical main subject.
  7. Runoff
    The low energy pace and performances strive for naturalism but just don't achieve compelling tension or suspense.
  8. Dark Was the Night
    The script, the special effects and Jack Heller's direction simply don't add up in the profile of the mythical creature. It's quite obvious the filmmakers didn't put a lot of thought into it and went straight for the cheapest thrills.
  9. 10 Cent Pistol
    Rather than sticking with that entirely workable setup, writer-director Martin keeps distractedly flip-flopping back and forth in time leading up to the big heist, preventing the plotting from building any tangible tension.
  10. Frank the Bastard
    Despite the film's made-for-TV aesthetic and performances, Coley has saturated its backstory with vividly drawn details that make this convoluted saga wholly believable.
  11. American Heist
    Despite a few strong emotional beats, the crime drama American Heist proves as undistinguished as its generic title.
  12. Staten Island Summer
    Staten Island Summer is a refreshingly old school coming-of-age comedy with just enough raunchiness, stoner humor and otherwise dubious behavior to divert movie audiences weaned on violated pies and superbad high jinks.
  13. A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile
    Sophie Deraspe's film is a compelling anatomy of an Internet hoax.
  14. Paper Towns
    Like a good prom date, a good high school movie just needs to keep you entertained and out of trouble for a couple hours. A great high school movie — "The Breakfast Club," "Rebel Without a Cause," "Boyz n the Hood" — will linger in your mind well into adulthood. Paper Towns...is only a good high school movie.
  15. Samba
    Nakache and Toledano...pepper the film with enough stirring emotional beats, crowd-pleasing bits...and vivid supporting characters such as Samba's ebullient immigrant pal, Wilson (Tahar Rahim), that there are distinct pleasures to be had.
  16. Pixels
    Some movies are so interminable that it seems they might never end, while others are assembled with such indifference that you are essentially left waiting for them to start. Pixels somehow manages both.
  17. Southpaw
    Southpaw is so logic-defying it takes on a Frankenstein life of its own, especially with as energetic and focused an action maestro as Fuqua ("Training Day," "The Equalizer") in charge.
  18. Northern Limit Line
    The film's apparent faithfulness is admirable, but interviews with actual survivors shown during the end credits provide more impact and resonance than the rest of the film can muster.
  19. An Open Secret
    Clunky elements aside, the film's distillation of firsthand testimony and archival material has haunting implications.
  20. Safelight
    First-time filmmaker Tony Aloupis, formerly frontman of the New Jersey rock band Shadows of Dreams, serves up Americana like a stale slice of apple pie.
  21. Alléluia
    Du Welz, despite a strong assist from cinematographer Manuel Dacosse, rarely musters the requisite tension or propulsion to immerse us fully in the story's wickedly wild ride.
  22. Lila & Eve
    Lila & Eve is a standard-issue female vigilante thriller that's skillfully elevated by the performances of leads Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez.
  23. Felt
    With so much conversation these days about the effects of rape culture, Felt, with its atmospheric DIY aesthetics, enters the discussion as a corrective chiller that can best be described as compassionately perverse about one type of pushback.
  24. SlingShot
    SlingShot has about enough material to fill one interesting "60 Minutes" segment.
  25. Ardor
    Pablo Fendrik's Ardor is a densely atmospheric, Sergio Leone-steeped western that ultimately proves too reverential for its own good.
  26. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    The ensemble shines in demonstrating the complexities of the individuals who either endure or exploit this system of abusive power dynamics.
  27. Boulevard
    Working from a screenplay by Douglas Soesbe that juggles contrivance and insight, Montiel labors to avoid sensationalizing Nolan's story, and in the process he overcompensates.
  28. Irrational Man
    Irrational Man never does make sense of the inscrutable Abe, just as most people, Allen included, remain mysteries to themselves and others. This finally reveals the film to be neither comedy nor drama, but an all too human horror story where the monster is within.
  29. Mr. Holmes
    Maneuvering shrewdly within the boundaries of the traditional canon and aided by the impeccable performance of Ian McKellen, Bill Condon directs an elegant puzzler that presents the sage of Baker Street dealing with the one thing he's never had to contend with before: his own emotions.
  30. Trainwreck
    Apatow, working in his signature tone of sweet raunch, directs another writer's script for the first time, and the comedic marriage is a fruitful one.
  31. Ant-Man
    Playful in unexpected ways and graced with a genuinely off-center sense of humor, Ant-Man (engagingly directed by Peyton Reed) is light on its feet the way the standard-issue Marvel behemoths never are.
  32. Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor
    Director and co-writer Thomas Lilti's mistake, though, is thinking the bland Benjamin's coming of age concerns are worth so much screen time. The sturdier character study in Hippocrates is of soulful, beleaguered Algerian-born Abdel (Reda Kateb).
  33. Meet Me in Montenegro
    Holdridge and Saasen simply lack the acting chops to carry their feature, leaving them with a scenic but indulgent selfie of a big-screen romance.
  34. The Gallows
    Plot holes aside, the filmmakers provide enough well-timed jumps and energetic moments to keep the highly contained picture afloat.
  35. The Suicide Theory
    Although Michael J. Kospiah's script isn't exactly predictable or didactic, it does feel contrived and improbable on occasion.
  36. Do I Sound Gay?
    Writer-director-star David Thorpe attempts to probe the whys and wherefores of what he calls the stereotypical "gay male voice," but he ends up crafting a naval-gazing self-portrait that's unflattering, inconclusive and, at times, a bit specious.
  37. Tangerine
    With a witty and efficient script by director Sean Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch, Tangerine peels back the curtain on a fascinating Los Angeles microculture.
  38. Strangerland
    Though Kidman is solid as a wife and mom tormented by her daughter's secret erotic life, Strangerland never successfully welds its central mystery with its psychosexual drapings, leaving neither especially interesting.
  39. 10,000 km
    Marques-Marcet, co-writer Clara Roquet and the actors are alert to something less obvious: the ways that they become self-conscious performers. Even though the characters aren't always likable, their pained awareness is poignant.
  40. Self/less
    A depressingly slick and empty house of cards that collapses under the weight of its muddled intentions.
  41. Cartel Land
    If the key to price in real estate is "location, location, location," the key to success in vérité-style documentaries is "access, access, access." Which is what Cartel Land has in compelling amounts.
  42. Minions
    Minions' all-silliness all-the-time philosophy will put a smile on faces and keep it there, like a fizzy beverage on a hot afternoon.
  43. A Poem Is a Naked Person
    Its oddball colors and willful wanderings betray a sweet, savory, uncompromising air that showcases Russell's uniquely fused brand of American harmony with rascally ebullience.
  44. Stung
    Unfortunately, the human relationships depicted here are less credible than the solid special effects.
  45. A Borrowed Identity
    At its best, A Borrowed Identity concerns itself with the malleability of self, with who we are and how society and culture can force identity choices on us.
  46. A Murder in the Park
    Whatever your feelings on capital punishment, A Murder in the Park has a gripping story to tell about, oddly enough, the corrosive effects of storytelling on the justice system when it gets the best of reasoned minds.
  47. Closer to God
    With admirable economy, writer-director Billy Senese has crafted an eerie piece that's as much an effective cautionary tale as it is a stirring film of ideas — and ideals.
  48. In Stereo
    The luminous Garrett shines as Brenda, emerging from her shell. Hauptman manages to sand down David's spiky edges. The supporting characters, unfortunately, are two-dimensional and less charismatic.
  49. Jackie & Ryan
    The heartland drama Jackie & Ryan may prove too low-key and deliberately paced for less patient viewers, but distinct pleasures are to be had from this compactly shot film's easy rhythms, affecting tone and nicely modulated performances.
  50. Jimmy's Hall
    A story that might have been alive with messy complexity is instead genial and polite.
  51. Amy
    It is the achievement of Amy, Asif Kapadia's accomplished, quietly devastating documentary, that it makes the story of this troubled and troubling individual surprisingly one of a kind by allowing us to, in a sense, live her life along with her.
  52. Faith of Our Fathers
    This evangelical "Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam" by way of "The Dukes of Hazzard" takes a mighty ridiculous route to righteousness.
  53. Terminator Genisys
    Terminator Genisys could be Exhibit A in why the current line of thinking in Hollywood regarding sequels/reboots/remakes often leads to terrible decisions and worse films.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fresh Dressed
    The movie is as entertaining as it is educational.
  55. The Strongest Man
    Although Beef and Conan are far from stereotypical, the quirkiness and eccentricities ascribed to them by writer-director Kenny Riches harp on their otherness all the same.
  56. Gone Doggy Gone
    The film's oddball assortment of broadly played characters feel like sketch comedy escapees stretched beyond their limits, an attempt to fill the demands of a feature-length canvas.
  57. Saugatuck Cures
    Laughter can break down barriers, but don't count on director Matthew Ladensack to help bridge differences.
  58. Into the Grizzly Maze
    Rarely do you sense that any key performer was ever in the vicinity of a real animal.
  59. 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets
    A documentary that shouldn't have to be made, about a law that needn't exist, explored via a crime that could have been avoided: 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets is a thought-provoking, mournful experience, perhaps more so in the wake of the killings in Charleston, S.C.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    La Sapienza
    The pace can feel plodding, but the observations on human frailty and redemption more than make up for it. Despite forays into the head, it's the movie's heart that makes it special.
  61. Gabriel
    Culkin's performance is never exploitative. His eyes often say everything, appearing simultaneously laser-focused and distant — he can't reconcile his brain with the world.
  62. The Tribe
    Slaboshpytskiy has made one of the most unusual and disturbing films about criminality of the new century.
  63. Batkid Begins
    As to truly exploring the phenomenon of a live-tweeted collective fiction, the documentary makes a couple of intriguing observations but doesn't look far beyond the metrics, content to exult in the wow factor of it all, which admittedly is considerable.
  64. Escobar: Paradise Lost
    When the plot circles back to those opening moments, the movie finds a momentum that ends spectacularly. And again: Benicio Del Toro is playing Pablo Escobar. What more do you need?
  65. Glass Chin
    Punchy dialogue, sharply drawn characters and excellent performances fuel Glass Chin.
  66. 7 Minutes
    Although stylish and intriguingly told, the twisty crime drama "7 Minutes" never quite jumps out of the pack.
  67. What Happened, Miss Simone?
    [An] impressive and deeply felt documentary.
  68. Max
    Max is a big slice of patriotic, down-the-middle genre fare, but it manages to work — and jerk a few tears along the way.
  69. Bound to Vengeance
    Even jaded viewers who have gathered vague ideas from clues planted by screenwriters Rock Shaink and Keith Kjornes about how things will ultimately play out might find a genuine surprise or two in store.
  70. The Little Death
    Alternately silly and provocative, strained and funny.
  71. L.A. Slasher
    Even the most talentless and narcissistic fame seekers on reality television are not nearly as vile, reprehensible or worthless as a film that actively wishes harm on them.
  72. The Midnight Swim
    The film reveals frustratingly little about the sisters themselves.
  73. A Little Chaos
    The story comes to life only fitfully, even with — or perhaps because of — its court intrigue and supporting characters.... But there are striking glimpses of grit, muck and voluptuous beauty (the great Ellen Kuras handled the cinematography) and, above all, there's Winslet.
  74. Big Game
    Gleefully dumb but eager to entertain, this is cheeseball stuff baked with deliciously outsized performances and low comedy and photographed across mighty beautiful landscapes.
  75. Ted 2
    While Ted 2 is absurd and occasionally disgusting, it is also wickedly funny.
  76. Revenge of the Mekons
    Like many music documentaries, this film suffers from the tendency to reiterate its point too often.
  77. The Yes Men Are Revolting
    The faux press conferences and perverse inventions (SurvivaBall, anyone?) that are included here highlight corporate greed and governmental shortsightedness as shrewdly as ever.
  78. The Wanted 18
    Imaginatively interspersing testimonials with reenactments, comic panels and Claymation, the film plays out like an entertaining absurdist satire.
  79. Rubble Kings
    Fascinating as it may be, the film could have used outside perspectives to provide more context.
  80. The New Rijksmuseum
    If nothing else, patience has rewarded Hoogendijk and moviegoers with an inside look at an art administration without common sense.
  81. Charlie, Trevor and a Girl Savannah
    Flashily shot and cut like a long-form music video, the film is merely an empty vessel for a Guy Ritchie-esque stylistic exercise.
  82. I Believe in Unicorns
    In spite of its fanciful tendencies, the film nails the growing pains that result from love and loss.
  83. Dope
    Dope is, in the end, just another unfunny grab bag of stereotypes. Don't believe the hype.
  84. Anarchy Parlor
    Tension is low, pacing uneven and the acting — LaSardo's eerie work aside — proves subpar.
  85. Set Fire to the Stars
    Gorgeous, evocative and well performed.
  86. Burying the Ex
    Burying the Ex is a genre-mashing low for Dante.
  87. The Face of an Angel
    Like the floundering filmmaker at its center, The Face of an Angel never seems sure of what story it wants to tell.
  88. Manglehorn
    Though occasionally distracting, the quirky visual poetry eventually proceeds to work its magic.
  89. Phantom Halo
    Although the performances, including that of Rebecca Romijn channeling Cybill Shepherd as a femme fatale type, are sturdy, their characters have been given absolutely nowhere interesting to go.
  90. Infinitely Polar Bear
    Forbes pushes the positivity a bit insistently, yet one of the most appealing aspects of her film is its depiction of kids thriving in an unorthodox household.
  91. Chagall-Malevich
    Although the results could never be accused of being uneventful, the characters cry out for deeper, more complex dimensions than simply the wide-eyed dreamer and the rhetoric-spewing agitator on display here.
  92. The Wolfpack
    It tells a story irresistible to our age of rampant voyeurism and reality TV, yet it also has a potent emotional core that cannot be denied.
  93. Eden
    No matter what is going on, Hansen-Love's talent for bringing us inside a specific world makes Eden an experience we all can connect to.
  94. The Overnight
    This engaging, funny and frank new film also proves something of a cop-out, especially given the bullet train of a narrative concocted by writer-director Patrick Brice.
  95. Inside Out
    Inside Out manages to be honest and unafraid but never cheaply sentimental where emotion is concerned, evoking a largeness of spirit whose ability to be moving sneaks up and takes us by surprise.
  96. Hungry Hearts
    Dubious ending aside, Constanzo's approach to structuring, shooting and pacing the tricky material proves masterful and memorable.
  97. Love at First Fight
    Cailley never truly builds a narrative head of steam, resulting in periods of logy pacing and diffused focus. Still, the strong leads, several amusing moments and a clutch of intriguing character bits sketch what might have been.
  98. Live From New York!
    The movie contains enough warmth, humor and nostalgia to prove an affable if unremarkable snapshot.
  99. Redeemer
    Unfortunately for English speakers, nothing here is lost in translation. Everything is exactly as lame as it sounds.
  100. One Cut, One Life
    The film is an exploration of art as a way through immense and complex emotions. It is unexpectedly a breathtaking reminder of life's joys — in nature, in friendship and, in a particularly buoyant scene, in the bark of a deceased friend's poodle.
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