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. Berlin Syndrome
    Shortland and Grant build to a climactic final act that’s almost unbearably intense.
  2. Patti Cake$
    The movie is a canny mixture of flash and grit, an unabashedly contrived Cinderella story in Dirty Jersey drag. And in Macdonald’s winning performance, it gets the hoop-earringed, heavy-set, frizzy-blond princess-to-be it deserves.
  3. Person to Person
    It’s a slight film, but it’s populated by enjoyable moments and wry observations that will appeal to fans of talky indies.
  4. The Polka King
    The Polka King doesn't have the dazzling ambition or energy of a great grifter classic. Instead she seems intent on nailing the details, on realizing Jan's milieu in all its tacky splendor, and trusting that our attention will follow. As in "Infinitely Polar Bear," Forbes has a gift for letting her production design tell the story.
  5. To the Bone
    Part character study, part PSA, the movie chronicles a brief but meaningful period in its protagonist’s healing journey, and if there are few surprises along the way, there are equally few easy answers or miraculous breakthroughs.
  6. The Yellow Birds
    Making a late appearance in the Iraq War movie cycle, the impressively acted “The Yellow Birds” manages to leave an affecting mark even as it constantly struggles to find a distinctive voice of its own.
  7. Long Strange Trip
    Thoughtful, deeply affectionate and concerned more with essence than chronology, it recounts the band’s 30 years in a way that should enlighten diehards as well as the uninitiated.
  8. Speech & Debate
    Although the story, which feels a tad past its expiration date, never digs too deeply into its central issues (hypocrisy, loneliness, censorship, finding one’s voice), Dan Harris’ peppy direction and nimble turns by the film’s young leads prevail.
  9. Confidential Assignment
    South Korean filmmaker Kim Sung-hoon has clearly done his homework while injecting the action sequences with a terrific kinetic energy.
  10. Sing 2
    It’s a vibrant, amusing comedy whose story, from returning writer-director Garth Jennings, may be a bit overstuffed for its intended audience. Though that’s not likely to hurt this peppy, often visually dazzling followup.
  11. Dina
    From the mundane to the eventful, the movie takes a fairly unflinching, yet respectful view of Dina and Scott’s world.
  12. Marshall
    While the film is constructed from top to bottom for maximum popular entertainment, it is unwilling to let us leave the theater without reminding us that these battles are far from over.
  13. This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous
    With This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, acclaimed filmmaker Barbara Kopple retains her signature intimacy and freedom from judgment of her subject.
  14. On the Rocks
    A shrill but often funny anti-romantic comedy from L.A. filmmakers Alex Kavutskiy and Ariel Gardner.
  15. Punching Henry
    The oddly sympathetic, low-key and funny Phillips gets deft support from his limber costars, including Sarah Silverman, Jim Jeffries, Mike Judge and Mark Cohen. Amusing songs too.
  16. Keep Quiet
    Because the footage of Szegedi was filmed over a number of years, the documentary reveals different stages of its subject's thinking.
  17. Duckweed
    The film can’t quite figure out how to wrap up, overstaying its welcome with multiple resolutions, but its heart is in the right place, using fantasy to reveal poignant truths about empathy and redemption.
  18. Stray Bullets
    Plenty of first-time feature filmmakers have combined grubby genre kicks with more personal concerns; but there’s a confidence and energy to “Stray Bullets” that compensates for the rather rudimentary, over-familiar story.
  19. 13 Minutes
    This Oliver Hirschbiegel-directed German drama tells a fascinating but inevitably grim story, both more interesting and more downbeat than one might anticipate.
  20. I Am Jane Doe
    It’s an overwhelming, and sometimes disorganized firehose of information.... Ultimately, however, I Am Jane Doe is a powerful call to action to protect children over profit.
  21. David Lynch: The Art Life
    Lynch devotees should dig this respectful, offbeat portrait.
  22. Viceroy's House
    This elegant, lushly mounted film, which involves classism, communal fighting, political machinations, and religious and cultural discord, still proves timely given such world events as the Syrian refugee crisis, the Brexit controversy and Pakistan’s ongoing anti-terror campaign.
  23. The Devil's Candy
    What makes The Devil’s Candy a standout is how well-developed these characters are.... More importantly, Byrne is as skilled as ever at constructing sequences at once bizarre, suspenseful and oddly beautiful.
  24. The Void
    Few horror fans will complain about a movie that’s so generous with well-constructed, energetically staged set pieces featuring elaborate makeup effects and plenty of nondigital goo. The Void is derivative, but delightful.
  25. You're Killing Me Susana
    Gael García Bernal is the most charming of actors, and one of the pleasures of his satisfying You're Killing Me Susana is watching him display that quality in a decidedly subversive way.
  26. The Great & The Small
    Though it’s often too quirky for its own good and its bumpy narrative structure can be jarring, the film sneaks in quite a bit of depth and emotional punch.
  27. VooDoo
    Strong lead performances and a startling twist juice up the found-footage exercise VooDoo, which squeezes unexpected novelty from an exhausted subgenre.
  28. The First Purge
    It’s not difficult to decipher where McMurray and DeMonaco’s true allegiances are, but by delivering the story within the framework of genre cinema at its most trashy and garish, the filmmakers convey any message as a bit of rough pleasure amid the kicks and thrills of a movie.
  29. Actor Martinez
    Like the man at its center, the film is aggressive and awkward, but there’s a sense of playfulness in how it pokes and prods at the world of independent cinema.
  30. Dig Two Graves
    There’s a lived-in quality to Dig Two Graves that’s all-too-rare for low-budget movies in this genre.
  31. Water & Power: A California Heist
    While the approach taken by filmmaker Marina Zenovich, who directed 2008’s “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” relies heavily on talking heads — Gov. Jerry Brown among them — she admittedly paints a compelling picture of timeless greed.
  32. The Freedom to Marry
    Though the documentary could do without encomiums from Wolfson's parents about what a brilliant child he was, it is clear that as an adult he was smart, dynamic and far-seeing about this matter in a way that few others were.
  33. They Call Me Jeeg
    Though not the most sure-footed of superhero entries, as an offbeat perspective on the genre, They Call Me Jeeg merits an enthusiast’s look.
  34. Love & Taxes
    Love & Taxes is an amusing, endearing trifle.
  35. Like Me
    Both impish and melancholy, with Timlin and Fessenden handily shifting the molecules in the air each time they share a scene, Like Me has an eccentric bravura to it.
  36. The Last Laugh
    At times haphazard but always involving, The Last Laugh confronts a question that sounds anachronistic in today's anything-goes world:
  37. Betting on Zero
    It all adds up to a timely, provocative and absorbing tale of money, power and a search for the truth.
  38. Past Life
    Uneven but ultimately effective, convincing in mood and emotion despite its melodramatic plotting, Avi Nesher's Past Life is straight-ahead filmmaking heightened by a connection to a pervasive Israeli reality not often found on film.
  39. Mighty Joe Young
    Mighty Joe Young may be the season's most appealing family bet. Certainly, it has an appealing cast.
  40. Outbreak
    It's a B-movie with A-accouterments.
  41. Mean Dreams
    Featuring one of Bill Paxton’s final performances, Mean Dreams is a painful reminder of the actor’s great talents.
  42. Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
    The film delineates the rise and fall of conventional urban planning, but also lets us know that the battle is not completely over.
  43. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
    This is a satisfying indie western, a dark and brooding film made with both a modern touch and real love for the genre.
  44. Hot Summer Nights
    Although every cinematic experiment and story beat doesn’t always work, Hot Summer Nights is downright intoxicating, oozing with panache and sensuality from every pore.
  45. Most Beautiful Island
    Anchored by Asensio's fearless and gripping performance, Most Beautiful Island directs an unflinching point of view toward an often invisible population.
  46. Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary
    When “Chasing Trane” serves up mesmerizing footage of Coltrane lost in the middle of a long solo, the film communicates something beyond words.
  47. Skyscraper
    Johnson doesn’t get to pledge his love for unicorns and Molly Ringwald in this relatively straight-faced outing, but his versatility is more than intact: He’s a human wrecking ball, a human bridge and a human teddy bear rolled into one. He’s a towering Dwayneferno.
  48. Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness
    The commentators speak about the enjoyment of watching these athletes suffer, but “Fittest on Earth” deftly tracks the emotional trajectory as well. Plus, the slow-motion shots of gloriously muscled bodies in peak physical form will definitely inspire a trip to the gym.
  49. Mary Magdalene
    With considerable grace and beguiling modesty, the movie frames its subject as one of Christ’s most discerning followers and a crucial witness to his ministry, death and resurrection.
  50. Burden
    Whether as a constructor of large-scale enchantments or a notorious conceptualist, he emerges in this portrait as sincerely searching.
  51. Tomorrow Ever After
    The themes with which Thier wrestles, and her anthropological exploration of city life is more compelling than some of the more melodramatic plot elements. But the film’s flaws don’t detract from the ideas she presents.
  52. American Anarchist
    Although it occasionally feels as if the thoughtful Powell (who unexpectedly died last summer) is being forced into a repentant corner, the film remains a penetrating case study in taking ownership of one’s actions.
  53. Black Butterfly
    Thanks to tight direction by Brian Goodman and lively performances from Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the film’s engaging even when it’s ridiculous.
  54. God Knows Where I Am
    This documentary is a lyrical exploration of both a person and the place she died in, as well as a devastating commentary on American society’s approach to mental health.
  55. Polina
    Shevtsova, until recently a dancer with the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, doesn’t quite pierce the narrative’s two-dimensionality. Through Preljocaj’s ecstatic choreography, though, she goes deep, and Polina’s story finds its language and its pulse.
  56. bwoy
    Bwoy (Jamaican patois for boy), which largely plays like a stage-appropriate two-hander, is ultimately a surprising and cathartic, if often unsettling, film anchored by Rapp’s superb portrayal of a tortured soul desperate to connect. Brooks’ deftly enticing turn is also a standout.
  57. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
    Inevitably cursory, it’s nonetheless a fascinating introduction to the ways that core components of Americana wouldn’t be eradicated. Or silenced.
  58. Obit
    A fun and informative documentary.
  59. Violet
    Violet never progresses. It’s just one long, slow wallow. That said, Devos and cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis devise so many striking images that the movie is always a pleasure to watch.
  60. Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo
    Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo is a well-crafted, revealing British documentary.
  61. Finding Oscar
    Lucid interviews with human-rights activists, attorneys, anthropologists, authors and others help frame this multi-faceted portrait.
  62. Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back
    [A] playful, intriguing documentary.
  63. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
    As it marches its characters ever so slowly toward a suitably despairing climax, the movie feels increasingly like a self-satisfied but unsustained provocation, a rich display of craft in service of secondhand shocks and ideas.
  64. Tom of Finland
    Tom of Finland entertainingly recounts an intriguing and vital chapter of 20th-century gay history with style and deference.
  65. Tomorrow
    Laurent and Dion’s passionate, off-the-beaten-path primer advocates thinking globally but acting locally with community-driven, grassroots alternatives that aren’t affected by any executive orders.
  66. LA 92
    By sifting through and tying together an enormous variety of footage, directors Lindsay & Martin (who also served as editor) create an experience that gives a full sense of the anarchy and rage of the post-King verdict days, thrusting us fully and disturbingly into events in very much of a You Are There manner.
    • Los Angeles Times
      • Posted Apr 20, 2017
  67. I Love You Both
    Although I Love You Both never quite pays off on its provocative set-up, it proves to be a funny and endearingly quirky comedy about siblings, love and loyalty.
  68. Thelma
    You could read Thelma as a saga of Sapphic liberation, a fiery critique of religious patriarchy or perhaps yet another superhero’s traumatic origin story; it’s graceful and ambiguous enough to support each of these readings. But the more possibilities the movie seems to entertain, the more its cumulative power seems to dissipate.
  69. Avatar: Fire and Ash
    Cameron’s affection for the place is still a convincing reason to hang out in outer space until the popcorn visionary finally returns to our planet. But plot-wise, the story is the same as ever.
  70. Urban Hymn
    Urban Hymn is so carefully and lovingly made by director Michael Caton-Jones and his leads that it’s hard to begrudge the British drama its familiar premise, especially as you squint at the screen through tears.
  71. Bang! The Bert Berns Story
    What matters most is that “Bang!” is filled with lively anecdotes about the days when hucksters and racketeers ran the music business, jostling for control — an art in and of itself.
  72. The Exception
    "Exception" breaks no new ground but it is a solidly done and always engrossing piece of alternate history, mixing real people and events with fictional ones.
  73. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story
    Their personal story is no less fascinating than their experiences working on hundreds of movies, together and separately.
  74. Score: A Film Music Documentary
    Anyone looking for a definitive survey may want more, but this enjoyable film will undoubtedly score with musicians and cinephiles alike.
  75. The Kid Who Would Be King
    The occasional creakiness of the narrative machinery is largely dispelled by Cornish’s flair for brisk, energetic action and his ability to keep the journey flowing from one mini-adventure to the next.
  76. The House of Tomorrow
    As a film about punk rock, living on the edge and coming into your own, The House of Tomorrow is a strong debut from Livolsi.
  77. Leaning Into the Wind
    Even if some things have changed, spending time with an artist who's concerned, as he's said in interviews, with "the permanence of temporary objects and the temporality of permanent objects," is always worth the journey.
  78. Gook
    The low-budget movie, shot in artful black-and-white by Ante Cheng, pulses with yearning and sorrow and love for its characters. Its brightening touches of underplayed humor strengthen and comment on the main action.
  79. Frozen II
    Like the first film, Frozen II is less a triumph of storytelling than of packaging. It bundles together a bunch of familiar, likable characters and a fresh list of bright, catchy songs, expertly written (by the returning duo of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) with an ear toward the Broadway showtunes they will one day inevitably become.
  80. Welcome To Marwen
    It’s a muddled, tortured miasma of a movie and also, inevitably, a fascinating one.
  81. Sweet Virginia
    Dagg (who previously made the very good chase picture “River”) tries too hard to give the material a highbrow frame. The movie is dimly lighted and hushed to a fault. But the China brothers’ script is strong, and Dagg elicits terrific performances from Abbott, Bernthal and Poots.
  82. Whitney: Can I Be Me
    "Whitney's" story makes for strong and compelling viewing even though it has something of a cobbled together feel to it.
  83. The Divine Order
    Within the story's sometimes too-neat outline, Volpe lets most of her characters breathe.
  84. Handsome Devil
    Although the film can feel a bit been-there-seen-that, this earnest, well-drawn tale ultimately proves distinct and winning enough to warrant a look.
  85. Spirit Game: Pride of a Nation
    By detailing the enormous pride in who they are and what they do that lacrosse instills in the Iroquois, it provides the kind of window into another culture’s belief system that sports films rarely attempt.
  86. Angkor Awakens: A Portrait of Cambodia
    Angkor Awakens won’t wow you with artfulness, but as an analytical narrative of tragedy, testimony and a way ahead, it has an undeniable power.
  87. Elián
    Directors Tim Golden and Ross McDonnell, with the help of narrator Raul Esparza, do justice to all sides.
  88. Tully
    It's one of the more viscerally accurate portraits of parenthood, and specifically motherhood, that the movies have recently given us.
  89. The Midwife
    Provost’s movie jolts to life whenever its two great Catherines are sharing the screen, whether driving each other crazy or collapsing in tears.
  90. Brimstone & Glory
    “Brimstone” is less successful as it edges toward an impressionistic immersion into fire and fiesta, but as you-are-there experiences go, it has energy to burn.
  91. The Last Shaman
    The film is a fascinating and sometimes terrifying introduction to ayahuasca. Surreal sequences mimicking the hallucinogenic experiences during the ceremonies are unnecessary and pale in comparison to the real transformation we witness.
  92. Blade of the Immortal
    Miike retains his twisted sense of humor, with mangling and disemboweling deployed for comic effect. And after 99 movies, he certainly knows how to make action memorable. When 300 brightly clad actors with sharp props come storming in for the story's climax, all a martial arts fan can do is sit back and salivate.
  93. My Friend Dahmer
    The world may never tire of being fascinated with serial killers, but My Friend Dahmer avoids exploitation often enough to forge its own perceptive, tense, character-driven path.
  94. Before We Vanish
    If Before We Vanish isn't nearly as focused or accomplished as Kurosawa's horror masterpiece "Cure" (2001), or as shattering as his magnum opus "Tokyo Sonata" (2008), it's nonetheless a reminder that he has few equals when it comes to spinning even the flimsiest B-movie template into a cinema of ideas.
  95. The Beach Bum
    This is a comedy whose laughs seem to arise as much from the silly, sun-drenched atmosphere as from individual gags, and whose pleasures can feel as sweet and impermanent as marijuana smoke.
  96. The Angry Birds Movie 2
    The complications are ludicrous, but the movie navigates them with cheek and verve, and the jokes land with surprising consistency.
  97. Song of Granite
    More than the story of an individual, the film is a stirring tribute to endangered folk traditions.
  98. Opening Night
    It’s about as plausible as your average stage — or movie — musical, but Opening Night proves a funny and sexy, if decidedly slight, backstage comedy.
  99. God of War
    Chan maintains his dexterous footing whether choreographing the colorful large-scale battle sequences or the stripped-down, hand-to-hand matchups that boil the conflict down to its most basic — and personal — essence.
  100. The Skyjacker's Tale
    Stylistic choices could have undermined the film, but the story and revelations are so shocking and powerfully absorbing that The Skyjacker’s Tale rises above.
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