Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,524 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: 8,698 out of 16524
  2. Mixed: 5,809 out of 16524
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16524
16524 movie reviews
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  1. Ip Man 4: The Finale
    One of the unexpected pleasures of Ip Man 4 is a warm montage of highlights from the previous three films that plays at the close. Star Yen has said there are no more Ip films in his future, but no one would be upset if another one happened to come along.
  2. The Five-Year Engagement
    In many ways, "Engagement" reflects both the best and worst of Stoller and Segel's creative collaborations.
  3. Free Guy
    Reynolds is a bit too glib and smug to buy as the romantic lead. It’s actually a relief that the movie salvages the romance by relegating it to the game world. But the whole film remains a bit too glib and smug anyway.
  4. About Last Night
    The cast does what it can with — and clearly self-improves upon — the essentially thin, at times choppy material.
  5. Empire of the Sun
    For all its good intentions, for the thrillingly staged moments in the film's first quarter-for all the sweeping movement of thousands of people streaming through the streets of Shanghai-and for all its not-inconsiderable craft, the film's grave problem is a lack of central heating: We don't have a single character to warm up to.
  6. Red Hill
    Commendably entertaining.
  7. Let the Corpses Tan
    Let the Corpses Tan — or, to use its even better French title, “Laissez Bronzer Les Cadavres” — is a feverish, obsessive act of cinematic rehabilitation, a shoot-’em-up conceived in tribute to a peculiar strain of blood-spattered B-movies from the 1960s and ’70s.
  8. The Actor
    It’s confounding that Johnson ignores the book’s brutal existentialism. But it’s equally fascinating that other parts of the story get their hooks in him. A novel — any piece of art, really — functions like a dream. You grab onto the bits that resonate. It’s why people can leave the same movie with totally different interpretations.
  9. I Want You Back
    Despite I Want You Back’s heaping helping of the usual rom-com balderdash, both Slate and Day provide enough underdog charisma to make us root for their characters, if not their wrongheaded quests.
  10. I Sell the Dead
    The movie's not without charm -- the creature effects are fun and the mix of vampires, zombies (et al) is amusing. That's not enough to save it from the Curse of the Predictable Plot Twist and the Blight of the Creeping Shadows.
  11. Micmacs
    Micmacs is ultimately shaped by Jeunet's unique creative vision -- a fun house of mirrors that is lovely to get lost in.
  12. Yomeddine
    As Gamal, himself raised in a leper colony, knowingly navigates the uncomfortable glares he encounters along the way, Yomeddine (Arabic for “judgment day”) takes an affecting path toward belonging and acceptance.
  13. Lost & Found
    All in all, the characters in Lost & Found are no smarter or luckier than they need to be, and their travails and coincidences manage to be just comic and human enough to make us happy for the time we spend together.
  14. Una
    It’s at once talky yet emotionally remote, and while posing a risky set of questions about sexual abuse, power and relationships, the experience is an unsatisfactory and draining slog.
  15. Jonathan
    While Elgort, whose big breakout role was in last year’s “Baby Driver,” does a decent job of delineating the two characters and Patricia Clarkson reliably comes through as their sympathetic doctor, the clinically distancing production never forms a meaningful bond with its audience.
  16. Fear of a Black Hat
    Fear of a Black Hat is designed to be a rap version of the classic mock rock documentary This Is Spinal Tap, and the idea is so funny that for a long time the film coasts on our good will. But it should be funnier than it is. [03 Jun 1994, p.F4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  17. Match
    Though the thin mystery at the center becomes a narrative albatross, and Lillard and Gugino seem hamstrung by the schematic nature of their characters, Stewart's melancholic electricity manages to maintain its appeal.
  18. Xenia
    Koutras admirably resists easy wish fulfillment by making the brothers' journey more important than their destination, but the scenario he presents inexplicably turns out to be fantasy.
  19. Loving Highsmith
    Loving Highsmith is a well-intentioned effort; a respectable start. But perhaps a more definitive and dimensional documentary — or even narrative feature — about this singularly intriguing talent will still be made.
  20. Plane
    If you go into it expecting nothing more than to enjoy watching a sweaty Butler manhandle some bad guys while Colter manhandles him, you’ll be more than satisfied with the ride Plane offers — a well-executed hunk of pulpy entertainment.
  21. Lynch/Oz
    Philippe winds up with a curatorial hodgepodge; the lovingly cited connections about shifting realities, artifice, searching and all those plush Lynchian curtains never coalesce into anything unifying, and sometimes get repeated by different narrators.
  22. Incident at Loch Ness
    An amusing mock documentary that spends considerable energy artfully trying to make you believe it's real as real can be. The movie is transparently a fake, but its counterfeit nature is the heart of its charm.
  23. 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.
  24. Love to Love You, Donna Summer
    Williams and Sudano don’t try to sell their audience on Summer as a musician, because the music itself still does that. This is more a portrait of a passionate artist who kept pushing herself and reinventing herself — sometimes at the expense of those who loved her, at home and on the radio.
  25. Labyrinth of Lies
    Labyrinth of Lies too often feels like machine-stamped issue cinema from a moldy Hollywood playbook.
  26. A Man of No Importance
    Towering over one and all, not surprisingly, is Finney as the increasingly tormented but brave Alfie. [22 Dec 1994]
    • Los Angeles Times
  27. Centurion
    Fast-moving, epic-on-a-shoestring tale of one Roman soldier's fight that is by turns heroic, fearsome, funny, fateful and, oh, so brutal, with swords hacking off heads at every turn.
  28. Deli Man
    Much to its credit, the documentary Deli Man wisely chooses not to bemoan the decline but to celebrate the robust survivors that remain as well as the culture they preserve.
  29. Rise of the Legend
    Those looking to learn more about Wong are in the wrong place. Those looking for a slick slugfest with memorable characters will be well satisfied.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    McLintock!
    There are plenty of brawls -- the stars end up in a mud pit and O'Hara runs through the town in her undergarments with Wayne on the case -- along with romance and fun. McLintock! certainly isn't subtle, but it was and is one of Wayne's most popular vehicles. [09 Oct 2005, p.E13]
    • Los Angeles Times
  31. The Help
    Laughter, which is ladled on thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient - turning what should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming surprise.
  32. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
    Terrific archival footage from a range of seminal civil rights events, as well as affecting narration written by Sarah Kunstler and spoken by Emily Kunstler (who also edited the film), round out this superior documentary.
  33. Girls Rock!
    Though Girls Rock! is nothing if not well meaning, it doesn't always feel like the best possible film on the subject.
  34. Lu Over the Wall
    Yuasa's bold imagery and sometimes convoluted storytelling defy the conventions of traditional animated filmmaking, but he is clearly an artist with an individual vision whose work offers something genuinely new and eye-catching.
  35. Charm City Kings
    Charm City Kings clearly knows what it’s doing; unfortunately, what it’s doing is often just as obvious to us.
  36. Loggerheads
    For a film in a naturalistic mode, Loggerheads gets a shade too elliptical at its finish but still leaves a deep impression as to how irrevocable life's choices can be.
  37. Annabelle: Creation
    The result may not be much more than an exercise in craft, a skillful demonstration of all the games you can play with long takes, moving cameras, blurred focus and cavernous pools of darkness. But craft is hard to overrate these days, and Sandberg’s technique, far from feeling assaultive or bludgeoning, has the effect of heightening your concentration.
  38. Ira & Abby
    This round-robin of marital malaise has a lot more integrity than one might anticipate from its meet-cute beginnings.
  39. Stuck on You
    While much of the unlikely charm of the Farrellys' newest comedy, Stuck on You, comes from its conceptual purity, much of the film's humor comes from its blissful impurity.
  40. Daddio
    Johnson’s well-rehearsed poise and Penn’s coasting boldness make them seem like the stars of a commercial for a scent called Common Ground rather than flesh-and-blood people. At times, they hardly seem to be sharing the same car interior, leaving Daddio feeling like a safe space, when what it needs is danger.
  41. Dark Star: HR Giger's World
    Dark Star might have been more fascinating had Sallin delved deeper into his place as an artist.
  42. Dragnet
    There are individual moments to remember with affection, but the plot has miles to go before we sleep. [26 June 1987, p.1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  43. Ideal Home
    Equal parts sweet and tart, director Andrew Fleming’s “Ideal Home” is the cinematic equivalent of Sour Patch Kids.
  44. Fierce Creatures
    A charming mess with moments of hilarity.
  45. Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
    What makes Lipstick & Dynamite its own animal is that, intentionally or not, the director has allowed something else into the mix, a glimpse of the unvarnished and the unsanitized.
  46. Bug
    Creepy and unsettling, to say nothing of gory, but overall it's a little claustrophobic and uneven.
  47. Oswald's Ghost
    Stone covers territory all too familiar to most Americans old enough to remember the JFK assassination.
  48. Dream Lover
    It’s a tricky, harrowing little film. Kazan keeps things fairly schematic--every plot point is secured, every look is “knowing"--but the overall effect is ambiguously unsettling.
  49. Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain
    The movie engagingly outlines blockchain’s role as the underlying technology behind such digital currencies as bitcoin (which gets its own dissection), plus its growing part in accounting practices, music industry payments and renewable energy markets.
  50. The Cursed
    This period piece is slow-paced yet peppered with enough gory attacks and smartly staged scare sequences to appeal to horror connoisseurs.
  51. Joshy
    Ultimately, it’s a fascinating depiction of the way men do — or don’t — confront life’s tragedies and traumas.
  52. There's Something in the Water
    What results is an emotional appeal that highlights a grave problem but doesn’t give the viewer the scientific, factual foundation to be completely convinced. The film also doesn’t offer solutions.
  53. Lan Yu
    Assured, vital and well wrought, the film is, arguably, the most accomplished work to date from Hong Kong's versatile Stanley Kwan.
  54. The King
    Though it is a tale of real-life 15th-century rulers and lords, The King uses superior filmmaking and fully involving storytelling to make it seem very much a modern situation — in which wholly human individuals deal with up-to-date themes including power and its corruptions and the nature of friendship.
  55. A Glitch in the Matrix
    While the doc may be overlong, it’s consistently fascinating because of its implications.
  56. Sick
    For the most part, Sick is just a slickly formulaic mid-budget horror movie, well-crafted by the screenwriters and directed with style and energy by the skilled John Hyams. But the real-world wrinkles aren’t just a cynical way to make the routine more relevant. They give all the bloody murder a meaning.
  57. Abigail
    Abigail is at times a bit too flippant, over-the-top and even protracted in its ridiculous Grand Guignol of exploding “meat sacks,” but it’s very much in line with the unique Radio Silence sensibility, en vogue with audiences right now.
  58. Destroyer
    The grim relentlessness with which Destroyer seesaws between time frames — as if to make sure that no state of abjection, past or present, goes unexplored — wore me out long before the endlessly protracted finish.
  59. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
    All told, this is going to make passable television. Eventually.
  60. Mumford
    Those who enjoy the old-fashioned Hollywood pleasure of seeing divergent threads neatly pulled together will be more than satisfied.
  61. A Few Good Men
    The film's plot...is more contrived than creditable, motivations are not always clear, and some characters, for instance Kiefer Sutherland as a praise the lord and pass the ammunition Marine, are not very convincingly acted. [11 Dec 1992]
    • Los Angeles Times
  62. Train of Life
    Too much of the film is not inspired enough in its humor to overcome the queasy feeling that comes from watching a comedy-adventure involving Jews during the Holocaust.
  63. The Mudge Boy
    A deadly earnest drama tripped up by clumsy plotting and unintentional bursts of humor.
  64. Unbreakable
    It would be foolish to deny that Unbreakable has scenes that make you jump, but without anything resonant to apply that skill to, the film has no option except squandering its technique.
  65. A Silent Love
    Its charms sneak up on you because of the nuanced performances of Burton, Bauche and particularly Salazar.
  66. Ararat
    Egoyan's oblique, layered attack ultimately pays off, evoking a strong emotional connection between past and present, the historical and the personal, in a flowing, cinematic manner in collaboration with his frequent cameraman, Paul Sarossy. The film makes use of an intoxicating array of Armenian music.
  67. The Last Mountain
    Yet another dispiriting depiction of corporate clout, The Last Mountain offers hope, too, in the form of wind-power success stories and the passion of frontline activists.
  68. Dragon
    Dragon has enough interesting left turns in style, mood and psychodrama to make it stand out.
  69. Kingdom
    Director Shinsuke Sato’s film may lack nuance, but fans of martial spectacles will have an enjoyable if exhausting time.
  70. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    An exquisitely evocative movie that elevates rueful melancholia to a superpower.
  71. I Am a Sex Addict
    What this is remains mysterious after a single viewing, but not so mysterious as to inspire a second.
  72. Scream 2
    Contrivance and a horrendous body count combine to yield a morbid effect for discriminating filmgoers, despite a comic tone. Still, there's enough ingenuity and scariness to please plenty of fans of the first film.
  73. The Ice Harvest
    A droll, dark Christmas treat for adults, a delightful alternative to the usual holiday-themed fare.
  74. On Chesil Beach
    On Chesil Beach is a beautifully made film that is as difficult to write about as it is to watch, and it is inescapably hard to watch. Yet the reasons it is difficult — a completely heartbreaking story brought to exquisite life via immaculate writing, directing and acting — are why it's worth putting up with the pain.
  75. A Year Without Love
    A Year Without Love is only Berneri's third feature yet is an elegant, economical work.
  76. Breakfast with Curtis
    Beyond this general outline, plot and character development are afterthoughts, or maybe never-thoughts.
  77. Bitter Honey
    For Westerners, Lemelson offers an eye-opening look behind Bali's profile as a tourist Shangri-la. The documentary's ultimate value, though, may be in local education.
  78. The Rental
    While the performances ensure that the movie is always watchable, the hesitant storytelling makes it far from compelling, a bad trip about a bummer vacation.
  79. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
    Warriors is a bruising, relentless experience, one more tiring than inspiring.
  80. Still Life in Lodz
    Grünberg effectively incorporates archival photos and footage, drawings, and lyrical, illustrative bits of animation into this brief but rich documentary, which ends on a lovely note that brings Elbaum’s journey full circle.
  81. Random Harvest
    Who doesn't love a good amnesia movie, and this one, starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, pulls out more stops than one would have thought possible. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  82. Big Man Japan
    The film has slow sections that test the viewer's patience. But it also touches on themes of family, heroism and nationalism, and the finale, which has plenty of surprises and rewarding references for fans of the genre, is worth the wait.
  83. The Interpreter
    Yes, this could be a better film, but the good qualities it does have are rare enough to hold our interest on screen and off.
  84. Wish You Were Here
    Wish You Were Here is mystery moviemaking at its most intriguing.
  85. Cuckoo
    One may not entirely understand exactly what is going on in “Cuckoo,” but there’s no denying how it makes you feel: rattled, unsettled, psychically imprinted with unforgettable images and sensations, which is how every good piece of horror should leave its audience.
  86. The Monkey
    Given its overabundance of empty shock humor, the movie seems afraid to be about much of anything except its toy monkey’s prankish body count.
  87. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    It all makes for a movie whose infectious charm outweighs some of the predictability that slips in around the edges.
  88. The Bad Batch
    Amirpour has vision to burn, and inside this not-so-bad batch of splendid atmospherics and half-baked ideas is a leaner, sharper movie trying to chew its way out.
  89. Rams
    Rams isn’t earth-shattering, but real-feeling and engaging, with a strong cast and fine sheep and a good dog.
  90. Breaking Bread
    It may not be so quixotic as to suggest the Middle East conflict could be resolved over a plate of creamy hummus, but the vibrant culinary documentary Breaking Bread nevertheless makes a mouthwatering case for dinner table diplomacy.
  91. Bad Milo!
    Its lo-fi charms — the cutesy-scary monster design, earnest family values and Danny Elfman-esque soundtrack — make the film feel like an '80s throwback in a way that justifies the nostalgia.
  92. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
    Although he works his hardest at the part and doesn't embarrass himself, even with the help of Stan Winston's vampire makeup Tom Cruise is plainly miscast as Lestat. [11Nov1994 Pg. F1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  93. The Great Water
    Intent as it is on being both artistically and politically involving, The Great Water periodically miscalculates its effects, coming on stronger than it intends.
  94. Never Goin' Back
    Anchored by a pair of effervescent and authentically lived-in performances from Mitchell and Morrone, Never Goin’ Back is a sweaty, silly summer adventure, and a sincere shout-out to the power of best friendship.
  95. The Abyss
    But the climax of "Close Encounters" was breathtaking and the climax of The Abyss is downright embarrassing; in the light of day, its payoff effect looks like a glazed ceramic what's-it your 11-year-old made in crafts class. It's criminal. [9 Aug 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  96. The Negotiator
    It's a measure of how pulsating and energetic a visual style director F. Gary Gray has, and how vividly actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey come across on screen, that this film is intensely watchable from minute to minute, even though a lot of what's happening doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny.
  97. Rubble Kings
    Fascinating as it may be, the film could have used outside perspectives to provide more context.
  98. As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM
    Too much of the film prioritizes the DJ’s problematic personal life over what made him famous. AM’s fans should get a lot out of the doc, but casual music-lovers may wish Kerslake would just get back to the party.
  99. A Radiant Girl
    There are no false moves in Marder’s truly radiant lead performance.
  100. On the Map
    Israeli director Dani Menkin has been especially thorough in telling this classic against-all-odds sports story.
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