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. The Immortalists
    The age-old search for the fountain of youth is engagingly appraised in The Immortalists, a lively documentary focusing on a pair of very different biomedical scientists who are equally obsessed with eradicating the ravages of time.
  2. Isn't It Delicious
    An actors' piece, director Michael Patrick Kelly's first narrative feature registers low on the cinematic-oomph scale, the production's low budget sometimes all too evident. Its aim is true, though, and Kathleen Chalfant infuses the lead role with an elegant ferocity.
  3. Tales of the Grim Sleeper
    The film is as much a provocative exposé of Franklin, who awaits trial on murder charges and has proclaimed his innocence, as it is a vivid portrait of a community long plagued by drugs, crime, poverty and desperation.
  4. Monk With a Camera
    Ultimately the documentary falls short of explaining why Vreeland not only made his choice but maintained it.
  5. Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks
    Though it's no surprise that Rowlands shines on both the comedic and dramatic fronts, the versatile Jackson is often equally impressive.
  6. We Are the Giant
    Barker just hammers home the human-interest angle with a stirring score that serves to instruct the appropriate emotional response to each scene. The tacked-on uplift in the end is beyond comprehension, given that some of its subjects remain in peril.
  7. The Salt of the Earth
    The Salt of the Earth deals with two kinds of journeys the photographer made. The outward one may have literally taken him to the furthest corners of the Earth and resulted in the stunning images the film features, but it is the inward journey that paralleled it that completely holds our attention.
  8. Exodus: Gods and Kings
    As with the DeMille ventures, enjoyment here involves managing expectations and not taking things too seriously.
  9. Top Five
    Top Five is fully loaded. The laughs are earned, the intelligence never disappears, all the performers shine. But Rock is the diamond — raw, rough and rare.
  10. Inherent Vice
    Joaquin Phoenix and the terrific acting ensemble that joins him in this pot-infused '70s-era beach noir create such a good buzz you can almost get a contact high from watching.
  11. Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
    Magician may not be its own rich experience, but like Workman's many breathlessly compiled odes to the history of movies, it'll certainly spur a meaty living room film festival.
  12. Es El Chapo?
    [Minn] runs around with a microphone in hand like an if-it-bleeds-it-leads ambulance chaser, playing out that local news reporter stereotype often spoofed in mockumentaries.
  13. The Pyramid
    The obnoxious sound design and score divest the film of much of its suspense, and perhaps more important characters have no survival instincts. The audience never has a chance to build some false hope that someone might make it out alive.
  14. Comet
    There is just enough in Comet to keep it from fizzling out entirely – largely in the performances of Long and Rossum – but its conceits also get in the way of its characters, making it feel fussy and convoluted when it aims for something more simple and elegant.
  15. A Small Section of the World
    The documentary A Small Section of the World is straight-up corporate propaganda. But its uplifting, powerful, well-meaning message might be enough to win over even some skeptics.
  16. The Humbling
    If you can adjust to the film's uneven rhythms and often illusory vibe, there's a treasure trove of off-kilter humor, affecting pathos and first-class acting to be savored.
  17. Remote Area Medical
    Although the documentary can feel like a volunteer instructional video at times, the faces on those who have fallen through the cracks in the system speak volumes.
  18. Murder of a Cat
    A plodding comic caper that fails to deliver.
  19. By the Gun
    Emilio Mauro's screenplay is all rancid machismo, tedious yelling and turgid plotting, while director James Mottern exhibits a pathological love for repetitive close-ups and terrible acting that instantly brings each endlessly talky scene to a dead stop within seconds.
  20. Life Partners
    Meester and Jacobs have an easy, authentic chemistry, but there isn't enough structure or storytelling thrust to sustain interest in the plot: Triumphs, calamities and reunions keep happening, but none contains real dramatic heft.
  21. Dying of the Light
    Cage's loop-di-loop performance, the movie's surviving asset, at least hints at the themes of institutional illness and mortal decline that must have fascinated Schrader.
  22. Pioneer
    As far as conspiracy thrillers go, Pioneer is as paranoid as they come.
  23. Miss Julie
    The heat that should saturate the film as betrayals mount and boundaries are broken flickers and dies many times over Miss Julie's languid two-plus hours.
  24. Still Alice
    Elements of its plot have the standard quality of a Hallmark production, and the work of some of the film's costars is a bit too on the nose. But, with Moore and Stewart on the case, we feel the presence of something real here, something that can't be shrugged off or ignored.
  25. Uzumasa Limelight
    Drenched in nostalgia, this loving tribute to the unsung heroes of cinema has immense appeal.
  26. Panic 5 Bravo
    Inept on every level, Panic 5 Bravo is a virtually unwatchable, blood-soaked crime drama serving as the writing-directing debut of actor Kuno Becker.
  27. Before I Disappear
    Because it's all shot to look like a South Korean noir, with umpteen slo-mo shots and stylistic noodlings to affect a kind of grimy urban anti-hero chic, Christensen effectively leeches the emotion from the central story.
  28. Two-Bit Waltz
    Two-Bit Waltz is watchably imitative, arch nonsense. It has committed performances — including a deadpan turn on the edges by William H. Macy as the dad who's only seen reading books — and the occasional, provocatively funny line of dialogue.
  29. Aftermath
    That the movie works as well as it does is a testament to writer-director Thomas Farone's persistence and clear connection to his cagey material.
  30. Archaeology of a Woman
    Kirkland manages to rise above the soap opera script with its improbable twists, stilted dialogue and internal contradictions to give a believable and often-sympathetic performance.
  31. Wild
    Though there are occasional stumbles along the 1,100-mile hike, the peaks in Wild make the journey more than worth it.
  32. Black or White
    The filmmaker and his on-screen proxies boldly go places our national discourse desperately needs to go, yet rarely does.
  33. The Key
    The arty visual effects, backed by a soundtrack of ambient noise, may recall the experimental work of early practitioners such Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger, but the ponderous, headache-inducing results do the story and the actors no favors.
  34. Me
    The comedy isn’t so much sharply observed as it is obvious and obnoxious.
  35. Jal
    First-time director Girish Malik, who co-wrote with Rakesh Mishra, has crafted a starkly beautiful, at times dazzling, vision that reinforces water as our most valuable — and perhaps most vulnerable — commodity.
  36. 25 to Life
    Brown spent nearly four years so that we would witness Brawner's transformation firsthand. Rather than the after-school special that this film easily could have been, we get so much more out of it.
  37. Viva la Libertà
    Though the actor ably creates two distinct people, neither part is entirely convincing in this stuck-in-neutral feature, which combines a vague commentary on Italian politics with a vague portrayal of middle-aged awakening.
  38. Little White Lie
    Schwartz's first-person narrative proves moving. But given that the film is barely an hour long, one can't help but feel that parts could have been developed more — perhaps a deeper exploration of her gravitation toward one identity over another.
  39. Flamenco, Flamenco
    Masterfully keying the compact performances into a striking lighting scheme that often bathes the musicians and dancers in warm golden or somber indigo hues representing the cycle of life, Saura's spare, elegant staging and the fluid, intimate cinematography by the great Vittorio Storaro ("Apocalypse Now") create an intoxicating effect.
  40. Antarctica: A Year on Ice
    "Antarctica" is successful because it operates on two complementary levels, the epic visuals whose grandeur can stagger you and the small-scale personal stories of the people who live and work down there.
  41. Once Upon a Time Verônica
    Thoughtful as well as sensual, particular yet universal, it is the kind of expertly made examination of the human condition we can never have too many of.
  42. Little Hope Was Arson
    The film's exploration of the tenuous bonds within a community will surely prompt serious soul-searching.
  43. The Babadook
    The film is quite serious about pushing its players and its audiences through the mental, as well as emotional, meat grinder. Many times along the way, you fear you know where things are going. But Kent is clever in choosing unexpected spots to pull the rug out from under you.
  44. The Imitation Game
    The disturbing, involving, always-complex story of British mathematician Alan Turing is a tale crafted to resonate for our time, and the smartly entertaining The Imitation Game gives it the kind of crackerjack cinematic presentation that's pure pleasure to experience.
  45. Women Who Flirt
    Hong Kong director and co-writer Pang Ho-Cheung sends up gender stereotypes and reinforces them in his contemporary yet not quite fresh confection, zeroing in on certain women's girlie wiles.
  46. Penguins of Madagascar
    The pun is a gun for Penguins' writers. Not a sharpshooter rifle, but a machine gun that unloads a nonstop quip barrage, mowing down the real promise of this 3-D animation action comedy.
  47. Horrible Bosses 2
    Make no mistake, despite some well-earned laughs, "Horrible Bosses 2" is not what qualifies as a good movie or even a particularly good R-rated comedy. But there is more to laugh at in "2" than the first, so let's go with less horrible, shall we?
  48. Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains
    You're left wanting to have seen much more of the story from the Queen of the Mountains' singular vantage point.
  49. Shadows from My Past
    What Kaufman's blunt inquiry lacks in technical refinement, it makes up for in details — in interviewees' recollections and, most harrowing, in the box full of letters that sparked the project.
  50. Work Weather Wife
    With a 21/2 -hour running time, Work Weather Wife does not lack ambition. But for a film deliberately channeling Bollywood, its scope seems rather Lilliputian.
  51. The Invisible Front
    We look to documentaries like The Invisible Front — dense with detail, straightforward in laying out the issues — to put history in perspective. And in this case to illuminate a little-known page from it.
  52. Brahmin Bulls
    In Ashok's reunion with the love of his life (Mary Steenburgen) — the chance to see her after many years is the true reason for his trip — the film taps into a tender wistfulness, Steenburgen making her character's every glance and hesitation resonate with emotion.
  53. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
    It is the way in which the writer-director uses the specter of vampires and vices to take an off-center cut at Iranian gender politics and U.S.-Eurocentric pop culture that sets the film apart.
  54. Reach Me
    A kitchen-sink mess with no discernible narrative drive or thematic resonance beyond uninspired batches of bad behavior, gunplay, eccentricity and weak uplift.
  55. Extraterrestrial
    Joyless and repetitive, Extraterrestrial is like getting cornered by a madman. You keep wondering, why is this movie shouting at me?
  56. All Relative
    Although the resulting tonal shifts between funny and serious aren't always executed as seamlessly as they might be, Khoury deserves props for defying rom-com conventions more often than he succumbs to them.
  57. Happy Valley
    Happy Valley is especially good at revealing a mass desire to shift blame, showing how everyone the scandal touched wanted to focus on the aspect that made them the least responsible.
  58. Food Chains
    Director Sanjay Rawal also allows the likes of Eva Longoria (an executive producer of the film, as is "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser) and members of the Kennedy dynasty to hijack the farmworkers' story. It's a reductive strategy that ultimately insults viewers' intelligence.
  59. National Gallery
    In a time when so many documentary filmmakers take on advocacy roles, National Gallery represents the heart of what Wiseman does best — step back and let the place and its people lead the story.
  60. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
    Though everyone tries her or his hardest to make it otherwise, this is by definition a place-holder film that exists not so much for itself but to smooth the transition from its hugely successful predecessors to a presumably glorious finale one year hence.
  61. Night Will Fall
    Night Will Fall proves a riveting, devastating, heartbreaking and deeply important film, one that you will likely never forget.
  62. Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me
    The film puts a brave, much-adored face on a disease that has touched so many families.
  63. Occupy the Farm
    Darling's documentary is garden-variety filmmaking, but it does an effective job in illustrating how years of fiscal crises have forced academia and industry to forge alliances that once would have been considered unlikely.
  64. Merchants of Doubt
    This enthralling film, based on the book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, is as fascinating as it is horrifying.
  65. Getting to the Nutcracker
    It's an affectionate and admiring collection of moments, but the director's wobbly choreography never locates a dramatic core for this corps' story.
  66. Point and Shoot
    A curious documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry that makes interesting observations about contemporary thrill seekers.
  67. Wolves
    Writer-director David Hayter revisits much-trod territory with wan results in Wolves, a werewolf tale that quickly loses its initial bite.
  68. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People
    Some of the black photographers' works here are breathtaking — and may prompt you to hunt down Willis' book for the coffee table. But there's so much more to take away from Harris' documentary.
  69. Calloused Hands
    Filmmaker Jesse Quinones challenges certain racial and ethnic stereotypes while reinforcing others. When the script falls short, though, Royo and Haggard act up a storm.
  70. Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain
    Through "Bhopal," the filmmaker argues that the promise of jobs and prosperity all too often trumps environmental and safety concerns, and it leads government to ignore corporate wrongdoing.
  71. Miss Meadows
    Besides never knowing where to stick a camera, or how long a given scene should last, Hopkins quickly ditches any potentially subversive joy in her cartoon vigilante by saddling her with a redemptive love story opposite James Badge Dale's kind-eyed sheriff.
  72. Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas
    An unholy mess co-produced by Cameron's faith-based Camfam Studios.
  73. The Toy Soldiers
    Between lots of uneven acting, some embarrassingly bad dialogue ("How do you move forward when your soul is torn apart?!") and too many unconvincing, warmed-over moments, the movie, like its charisma-free characters, is a tough one to embrace.
  74. The Playback Singer
    Droll, unforced humor and low-magnitude emotional tremors register persuasively thanks to the natural performances of the three leads.
  75. 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.
  76. Foxcatcher
    A despairing, intentionally disturbing film that draws us into a maelstrom of desperate emotions, it holds up a dark mirror to the American dream and does not like what it sees.
  77. Bad Turn Worse
    The Hawkins brothers have an envelopingly moody visual style that strives for offbeat touches, at times easily conjuring the existential threat in desolate areas. But that can't make up for the story deficiencies and character superficiality in the script.
  78. Beside Still Waters
    Lowell, a sitcom actor ("Enlisted") and photographer, lards his "The Big Chill" ripoff with plenty of arty touches... He assumes this will lend the needed heft to paper-thin characters, witless exchanges and emotional recriminations you can see coming a mile away.
  79. As Night Comes
    There's power and authenticity here. And by the movie's incendiary climax, some tension. If only it were presented in a more magnetic package.
  80. Always Woodstock
    Unfortunately, Merson clutters her sometimes soulful, sensitive story with too many formulaic contrivances to impede Catherine's personal and professional progress.
  81. 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.
  82. Rosewater
    Stewart acquits himself solidly, though not thrillingly, as a beginning director, doing especially well in the film's involving central section dealing with Bahari's time in prison, where the filmmaking is as compelling as the feature's intentions are admirable.
  83. Dumb and Dumber To
    The sequel sometimes feels like a series of gags ginned up by a gaggle of writers who are not always on the same page.
  84. Sex Ed
    Sex Ed is a likable little comedy that features such a well-conceived and portrayed main character it makes up for the film's slender concept and leaps in logic.
  85. 9 Full Moons
    Though the film's second half could be tighter, the details and atmosphere ring true throughout, especially in the walking-wounded chemistry between Seimetz and Roberts' tentative dreamers.
  86. Big Hero 6
    Amid all the nerd-inspired firepower that gives the movie much of its flash, the big boy's droning tone proves to be the film's stealth weapon, perfect for pulling off highly targeted comic strikes.
  87. Pelican Dreams
    It's when the film detours into Irving's personal attachment to the birds, including photos of her as a child on the beach, that Pelican Dreams gets seriously off track. Fortunately, pelicans are interesting creatures and the time spent with the lens focused on them is payoff enough.
  88. The Better Angels
    In the absence of a more conventional storytelling approach, this series of brief, fragmented glimpses of the harsh challenges that shaped Lincoln's early life never allows you to get sufficiently close to its celebrated subject.
  89. Magical Universe
    Magical Universe is a tender portrait of the artist as a weirdly gifted, wildly prolific and strange man.
  90. True Son
    As inspirational pieces go, the journey taken by the affable Tubbs proves hard to resist, even as the film, in its hustle to get to the finish line, occasionally prevents viewers from feeling this underdog story's emotional victories.
  91. On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter
    "Next Chapter" may not exhibit the scrappy charm that characterized the first film's glimpse into a marginalized but colorful world, but for devotees, Dana Brown has assembled a love letter to a now-global culture.
  92. Virunga
    Urgent investigative report and unforgettable drama, Virunga is a work of heart-wrenching tenderness and heart-stopping suspense.
  93. Diplomacy
    The reason it never ceases to compel is not only the skill of the actors but also the kind of provocative and thoughtful dialogue that characterizes intellectual combat of a high order.
  94. The Theory of Everything
    Marsh makes the most of McCarten's effective script. There's a real energy to his filmmaking, the ability to be intelligently dramatic without overdoing things that is ideally suited to material that would be so easy to get wrong.
  95. Elsa & Fred
    Though the issues are heavy, the execution is light, enjoyable, but it keeps Elsa & Fred closer to "Sleepless in Seattle" than Fellini's deliciously deep Roman affair.
  96. Botso
    Walters engagingly captures Botso teaching music, sculpting, conducting, spending time with his wife and young daughters and even traveling back to his Georgian hometown of Tbilisi. The energy, dedication, kindness and optimism he displays are truly infectious.
  97. Plot for Peace
    It's just as thrilling as it is edifying.
  98. Interstellar
    Interstellar turns out to be the rarest beast in the Hollywood jungle. It's a mass audience picture that's intelligent as well as epic, with a sophisticated script that's as interested in emotional moments as immersive visuals. Which is saying a lot.
  99. Wild Tales
    Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but Argentine writer-director Damián Szifron allows it to sit until it congeals in the dreary six-part anthology Wild Tales.
  100. Low Down
    Low Down is one from the heart. It's a melancholy, evocative, beautifully made memory piece, unblinking and unromanticized, a lovely film that brings great emotion and a dead-on feeling for time, place and recaptured mood to a story that is as universal as it is personal.
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