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. Bravetown
    First-time director Daniel Duran, working from a screenplay by Oscar Torres that abounds in the maudlin and risible, isn't able to lift the ham-handed material to a place where it might ring true.
  2. The D Train
    Where the story falters, though, the performers admirably hold one's attention.
  3. 5 Flights Up
    What a pleasure to see a simple, finely tuned dramedy about real adults with real emotions in a real-life situation.
  4. Saint Laurent
    There's good cause to shake the biopic form out of its exhaustively linear, birth-to-death rut, and Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent — starring Gaspard Ulliel as the storied French designer — valiantly tries.
  5. Playing It Cool
    Playing It Cool is a strained romantic comedy that seems to exist only to show how many talented, successful actors — first and foremost "Captain America" star Chris Evans — can be featured in one unworthy movie.
  6. Miles Away
    Miles Away comes off like some low-budget take on "Trapped in the Closet" or a Tyler Perry movie, except it treats kitsch with all sincerity and seriousness.
  7. About Elly (2009)
    Emotional intensity is Farhadi's métier, and to see About Elly is to revel in his skill.
  8. Hot Pursuit
    This is an equal-opportunity fiasco.
  9. Maggie
    The plot is lean, the dialogue is spare and there are some intriguing stabs at intellectual and emotional terrain. But the pacing is deadly, so slow there might be time for a catnap or two without missing anything important.
  10. Noble
    Uneven but nonetheless emotionally gratifying.
  11. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
    There is a great deal of silliness about Allan's journey from start to finish and no real message other than to never stop taking life as it comes. But there is also a great deal of fun in watching a 100-year-old man climb out a window and disappear.
  12. Chic!
    Like a haute couture garment, Chic! is a finely crafted piece of work, a comedic romantic drama set within a frothy and sublimely funny caricature of the Parisian fashion world.
    • Los Angeles Times
      • Posted Apr 30, 2015
  13. Gardeners of Eden
    A compelling documentary that's short on running time but long on emotion.
  14. Any Day
    By the time the film reaches a faith-based, third-act crescendo, Bean, Walsh and company, despite their best efforts, look like they know they've been beaten, while the score's mournful strings wring out whatever pathos remains untapped.
  15. Eastern Boys
    Bold and unsettling, Eastern Boys is a long, strange trip of a film that touches on myriad social, economic and sexual themes.
  16. Maya the Bee Movie
    Talky, relentlessly affirming and as predictable as a paint-by-number.
  17. Cas & Dylan
    It's a testament to the stars that they manage to sell the third act sentimentality after wading through so much screenplay triteness and unimaginative direction.
  18. 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.
  19. Far From Men
    In the penetrating character study that is Far From Men, existentialism has never felt so intimate.
  20. Hyena
    Writer-director Gerard Johnson resists all impulses to please the crowd. The graphic sex and violence never feel gratuitous, and there's something interesting in the way he deliberately denies his characters and the viewers any reprieve.
  21. Iris
    Maysles' portrait of Iris Apfel, a 93-year-old self-described "geriatric starlet," is surprisingly memorable, graced with an unforced but unmistakable charm.
  22. Welcome to Me
    Though some of the jabs "Me" takes at reality TV are clever, the film, like Alice, tends to fracture at key moments. What makes it worth watching is Wiig.
  23. Ride
    You can't blame Hunt for perhaps taking on too much — at least she wrote herself a complicated role in this sorry age for front-and-center movie women — but it doesn't always make for a smooth Ride.
  24. Avengers: Age of Ultron
    The uncomfortable reality remains that although this movie is effective moment to moment, very little of it lingers in the mind afterward. The ideal vehicle for our age of immediate sensation and instant gratification, it disappears without a trace almost as soon as it's consumed.
  25. Bass Clef Bliss
    The young man is inspiring all on his own, never more so than when he's being social or making music with others. It's only the movie around him that is so artless in its uplift.
  26. Lou!
    For anyone who's not a Francophone tween girl, the film likely will be a tedious, precious exercise in indulgence.
  27. Tangerines
    Tangerines is an example of lean, unadorned old-school filmmaking where familiar style and technique combine to unexpectedly potent effect because of the great skill with which they've been employed.
  28. Félix And Meira
    Co-writer and director Maxime Giroux's Felix and Meira is an unusual love story that, though shrouded in chill and shadow, has moments of true loveliness.
  29. Helicopter Mom
    Get past the wince-inducing premise of Helicopter Mom...and you're still stuck with a forced comedy that mines uneasy humor from stale stereotypes.
  30. Black Souls
    Once the stage is set and the more intense plot elements of Black Souls kick in, the film's emphasis on character and setting pays off, just as the muted nature of the storytelling adds to its considerable power.
  31. The Harvest
    McNaughton shows some signs of directing rust in pacing and tone, but in much the way "Henry" played out, he keeps sensationalism at bay and twisted character drama in his sights, which makes for a more pleasurably icky suspense.
  32. See You in Valhalla
    It all feels forced and fabricated.
  33. Road to Juarez
    With a succession of tangential flashbacks, the film gradually disengages viewers from the plot.
  34. The Forger
    In attempting to spin out its competing storylines, the crime drama The Forger never quite gets a handle on either one. Still, an array of strong performances, including a well-calibrated turn by John Travolta, and compelling emotional moments help counter the patchy narrative.
  35. Just Before I Go
    Anchored by a nicely understated performance by Seann William Scott, Just Before I Go effectively juggles a wealth of genuine, at times profound, emotion with quite a bit of nutty-raunchy humor.
  36. 24 Days
    Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.
  37. The Water Diviner
    It's an unsurprisingly ambitious movie from the notoriously, proudly headstrong Crowe, which makes it such a disappointment that it feels so blandly earnest and unexpectedly hesitant, with none of the unnerving conviction the actor often brings even to lightweight promotional appearances.
  38. Laugh Killer Laugh
    Self-discovery through artistic expression is often trite, but Frank's rehabilitation and transformation readily win us over when we're least expecting it.
  39. Kung Fu Killer
    The plot is predictable, but the inevitable showdown is, appropriately, the movie's highlight, a ferocious hands-on battle — save for the balletic bamboo pole interlude — on a busy, night-lit expressway, with semis and cars roaring past. It's a climax worthy of the tribute thread running through Kung Fu Killer.
  40. Adult Beginners
    The kind of comedy that goes down easy even as it looks at the hard stuff.
  41. The Age of Adaline
    Not "An Affair to Remember," mind you, but a welcome change from the Nicholas Sparks brand of mush that has overtaken the hearts-and-flowers corner of movieland.
  42. Little Boy
    It's all simplistic sermonizing in director and co-writer Alejandro Monteverde's hands, devoid of any thoughtful messiness about wartime mind-sets or family despair, and quick to sand any edges with postcard-pretty coastal town vistas and cutesy music cues.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
    Morgen has crafted an often brilliant, sometimes overheated but always humane documentary, one in which Nirvana’s music and fame is just the scaffolding to Cobain’s inner life.
  44. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
    To his credit, director Andy Fickman (“The Game Plan,” “Parental Guidance”) keeps the inanity moving apace and there are a few chuckles to be had courtesy of the supporting cast. But, as is so often the case with big, star-driven studio laffers, “Cop 2” needed several more spins in the comedy punch-up machine before cameras rolled.
  45. Revolution
    We, unfortunately, learn very little in this Earth Day release (originally completed in 2012) that we haven't seen before in more evolved, better focused documentaries.
  46. John Doe: Vigilante
    The fatal flaw of "John Doe" is its focus on ideas, rather than people.
  47. El Niño
    Director Daniel Monzón delivers a conventional genre exercise — albeit a very effective one, with twists and turns that manage to surprise.
  48. The Living
    What could have been a taut and tense thriller is ankled by the inert characters, clunky screenplay and nonexistent back story.
  49. Futuro Beach
    If director-co-writer Karim Aïnouz has set out to depict soulless gay lives, he has more than succeeded.
  50. 1915
    Amid thespian antics, it contemplates weightier ethical dilemmas such as personal tragedy versus collective grief, artistic license versus historical responsibility, revisionist history versus corrective narrative, forgetting versus moving on. It's one creative way to do justice to such a monumental topic when full-blown reenactments aren't within the budget.
  51. Song from the Forest
    A strikingly poetic documentary that illustrates the push and pull of life's opposing forces.
  52. Welcome to New York
    This frank, unruly look at sex, privilege and power unfolds so much like real life that it proves an intriguing and strangely immersive experience.
  53. Dior and I
    Since Dior and I was made with the house's cooperation, the film is not exactly a slashing piece of investigative journalism, but it does give us glimpses of the reality of this kind of business.
  54. Monsters: Dark Continent
    Whereas the original "Monsters" was a road movie about an odd couple fleeing an alien-infested zone, "Dark Continent" cribs from contemporary war movies like "The Hurt Locker" and "American Sniper," then tosses in extraterrestrials as an afterthought.
  55. The Dead Lands
    The only aspects of the tale that seem uniquely Maori are the action sequences featuring the martial art of mau rakau. Aside from intermittent dream sequences in which Hongi communicates with his late grandmother (Rena Owen), the storytelling is Westernized.
  56. The Road Within
    The Road Within suffers from midfilm wandering and a hasty ending, but the message of self-acceptance rings true and clear.
  57. The Squeeze
    Between plot and character, there are definitely 18 holes in The Squeeze.
  58. Beyond the Reach
    Beyond the Reach is a grueling, unsatisfying thriller that fails the logic test in spectacular ways.
  59. Child 44
    Problematic but involving, Child 44 offers a picture of what individuals did to survive in a world turned upside down. The film's singular premise allows it to survive its various shortcomings, but it is a near-thing.
  60. The Human Experiment
    Co-directors Dana Nachman and Don Hardy haven't attributed all of their facts and figures, hence the proverbial grain of salt.
  61. True Story
    Unfortunately this "Story" never finds its footing as either a creepy morality play or a performance-driven two-hander.
  62. Monkey Kingdom
    The film offers a valuable life lesson in the powers of determination and timing, but most of all it's darned entertaining.
  63. Unfriended
    As a harangue about cyberbullying, it's purely exploitative, but when Unfriended zeros in on the whiplash mixture of freedom and torment we get from multitasking our online lives? It's srsly fun, imo.
  64. WA-SHOKU ~Beyond Sushi~
    Despite its clumsiness, the film conveys the melding of modern and ancient, sensuous and sacred.
  65. The Reconstruction of William Zero
    Byrne does a fine job fragmenting William's innocent, scary and guilt-ridden sides, and Amy Seimetz makes his wife a compelling, grief-stricken figure. But The Reconstruction of William Zero has its own identity problem, essentially, being a solid sci-fi story with a welcome emotional component, yet never fully effective at either.
  66. The Hand That Feeds
    Unfortunately, directors Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick have squandered a worthy subject.
  67. Candlestick
    Despite Presswell's evident enthusiasm, the tediously talky, dramatically stilted results offer conclusive evidence that mastering suspense requires artistic skill beyond sampling the Master of Suspense.
  68. The Sisterhood of Night
    What director Caryn Waechter does best is artfully and lyrically capture moments of teenage abandon where the girls feel free, self-possessed and full of friendship love.
  69. Desert Dancer
    Ghaffarian's story plays out within such a generic framework, and with such self-importance, that it's all too easy to remain untouched by the onscreen events.
  70. Below Dreams
    From bus stations to jazz concerts, Bradley finds epiphanies in public spaces, expressed visually, musically and, in the way the practical entwines with the philosophical, in dialogue spoken by friends and strangers alike.
  71. Dial A Prayer
    Snow is excellent, though, as she attempts to inhabit her murky character. If only we had a better sense of what the movie was trying to say about faith — or the lack thereof.
  72. The Riot Club
    Although the performances are uniformly on point and the dialogue is tartly British, the film ultimately fails to earn its riotous stripes.
  73. Kill Me Three Times
    The neo-noir crime comedy Kill Me Three Times works overtime to seem unique and clever. The result, however, is a derivative, gimmicky, at times dizzying puzzle that fails to engage.
  74. Manos Sucias
    Though the plot turns aren't necessarily surprising and characterizations a bit facile, Wladyka manages tense moments.
  75. Ex Machina
    Shrewdly imagined and persuasively made, Ex Machina is a spooky piece of speculative fiction that's completely plausible, capable of both thinking big thoughts and providing pulp thrills. But even saying that doesn't do this quietly unnerving film full justice.
  76. 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.
  77. Broken Horses
    While Chopra attempts to crack the American market with a slice of cinematic apple pie, he holds up a mirror to how Hollywood's tried-and-true narrative of vigilantism connotes who we are, at home and overseas.
  78. Clouds of Sils Maria
    Stewart does exactly what Valentine describes as Jo-Ann's great gift — she becomes the character, completing disappearing inside Valentine. It makes the interplay between Binoche, a master of that sort of disappearing act as well, and Stewart mesmerizing to watch.
  79. The Longest Ride
    The two-plus hours is mostly marked by an emptiness born of scene after scene designed to blatantly manipulate emotions rather than trigger them.
  80. Superfast!
    While fans can appreciate all the winks and nudges, the film is a wreck for the uninitiated.
  81. My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes
    Get past what sounds like a melodrama about a forbidden love affair, and director Oren Jacoby's carefully crafted film deftly blends archival footage with dramatic re-creations and interviews with surviving family members to illuminating effect.
  82. She's Lost Control
    She's Lost Control is a quiet triumph, a true herald of a distinctive and necessary voice in cinema.
  83. Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police
    The more recent concert and backstage material, assembled by director Andy Grieve, lacks the energy and immediacy key to dynamic performance films.
  84. Boychoir
    With "Whiplash" setting the new bar for depicting the rigorous discipline and competitiveness in a music academy, the stale, one-note narrative seen in Boychoir sounds even more out of tune.
  85. Cupcakes
    Though the comic confection's clunky moments keep it from achieving soufflé delicacy, its bright zingers and seamless fantasy sequences amp the playfulness, and the mostly unforced performances complement the production's cartoonish exuberance.
  86. 5 to 7
    The banter between Brian and Arielle is easy and often amusing. But despite all the tangled sheets and entwined bodies during assignations at the St. Regis hotel, the relationship never moves beyond the look of puppy love.
  87. The Forecaster
    The Forecaster, a documentary study of the rise and fall of commodities advisor Martin Armstrong, would have paid greater dividends by taking a more impartial approach to its subject.
  88. White God
    By turns Dickensian, Marxist and dystopian, it's a movie as deliriously unclassifiable as it is expertly focused in its desire to provoke and entertain.
  89. Ned Rifle
    When the writer-director is on his game, as he is in Ned Rifle, the effect is bizarre black comedy that is designed to set you thinking about what his satire is really saying.
  90. Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation
    La Sagrada is always going to be a spectacular building, but cinematographer Patrick Lindenmaier does an especially fine job of showing us the play of light in the cathedral's enveloping interiors.
  91. Last Knights
    The medieval-tinged adventure Last Knights will test your patience for speeches about honor, grim declarations of loyalty and pre-battle glowering.
  92. Effie Gray
    Effie Gray is fortunate to have enough strong performances by Fanning, Thompson and top-flight costars (including cameos by James Fox, Robbie Coltrane, Derek Jacobi and even Claudia Cardinale) to eventually overcome the doldrums of decorum and create the feeling we've been needing.
  93. Cut Bank
    If only anything felt at stake in this story's dark spiral.
  94. Lambert & Stamp
    Under their all-encompassing tutelage the band originally billed as the High Numbers would go on to international renown as the Who, and the extent to which Lambert & Stamp can take credit for that transformation is thoughtfully weighed in this revealing film.
  95. Furious 7
    Furious 7 is the fuel-injected fusion of all that is and ever has been good in "The Fast and the Furious" saga.
  96. Woman in Gold
    It's regrettable that Woman in Gold is no more than adequate, more old-fashioned Hollywoodization than incisive modern dramatization.
  97. While We're Young
    This delicious satire about aging hipsters and their discontents is everything we've come to expect from the best of Noah Baumbach, as well as several things more.
  98. 3 Holes and a Smoking Gun
    Director Hilarion Banks dutifully captures all of it in a series of nicely shot extended takes, which would have been fine if the cast had been able to interact in some sort of uniform tone.
  99. Little Feet
    It's excusable for a sheltered novice filmmaker to be out of touch like this, but not for a veteran.
  100. The Mafia Only Kills in Summer
    Ambitious, sometimes clever but largely sputtering, The Mafia Kills Only in Summer works better as a childhood memory piece than as an adult tale of love and larceny.
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