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. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods
    "Battle of Gods" delivers not only the familiar look but also the slapstick comedy, character interaction and over-the-top martial arts fights that "Dragon Ball" fans want and expect.
  2. War Story
    Keener's performance riveting.
  3. The Kill Team
    A harrowing picture of the casualties of war — and the unchecked madness that may drive those entrusted to defend us.
  4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    Not out-and-out terrible enough to be completely dismissed, while also not particularly memorable either, perhaps the truest summation of the film is to say simply that the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a movie that exists.
  5. 37: A Final Promise
    37: A Final Promise comes off as a paranormal and schizophrenic take on a Lifetime movie with themes of terminal illness and assisted suicide.
  6. As It Is in Heaven
    This journey into "Martha Marcy May Marlene" territory is never as tense and gripping as it should be, the incidents and most of the performances too tamped-down to spark a much-needed sense of animating friction.
  7. The Maid's Room
    There's just enough compelling reversals and anything-could-happen suspense to make this increasingly claustrophobic work effective.
  8. Us and the Game Industry
    The film takes such an emotionally based, non-wonky approach to its featured business, it should absorb gamers and non-gamers alike.
  9. The Dog
    The film is a real "whew"-factor yarn, a hearty soup of thick accents, bold personalities and complicated motives, with an unmistakable taste of charismatic, ornery American hedonism.
  10. About Alex
    The movie stalls in a limbo of half-realized characters and superficial weightiness.
  11. Guardians of the Galaxy
    Blessed with a loose, anarchic B-picture soul that encourages you to enjoy yourself even when you're not quite sure what's going on, the scruffy "Guardians" is irreverent in a way that can bring the first "Star Wars" to mind.
  12. Alive Inside
    As much a plea to change the system as it is an examination of how music helps individuals, Alive Inside is not the most sophisticated documentary, but its power is indisputable, and it does end on a hopeful note.
  13. Calvary
    The film is then not so much a meditation but a reverie, a swirl of emotions and ideas, managing to be both calmly reflective and skittishly anxious at the same time. Calvary is a serious comedy, a funny drama, a ruminative film about life and a lively film about death.
  14. Get On Up
    Despite the linked advantages of generous helpings of the man's high octane music and a star performance by Chadwick Boseman that's little short of heroic, Get on Up is more frustrating than fulfilling, a disjointed film that suffers from having a more ambitious plan than it's got the ability to execute.
  15. Raw Cut
    Aside from the film's double-entendre title and typical slasher-movie poster, director Quist and screenwriter Ponickly have given us nothing to fear.
  16. A Five Star Life
    Director Maria Sole Tognazzi gently explores what it means to be unmarried, middle-aged and female. She illuminates a seldom-seen line of work, bathes her flawed characters in affection, and makes points both obvious and astute, soft-pedaling her insights with celebratory travelogue touches.
  17. Louder Than Words
    Unfortunately director Anthony Fabian prefers to dole out emotion in short bursts of superficial montage rather than fully dramatic scene work in which characters deepen through extended interaction. That leaves Louder Than Words feeling diffuse, choppy and cold rather than illuminative about how broken families heal after terrible loss.
  18. Beneath
    The well-crafted Beneath proves a taut, atmospheric if not especially deep thriller.
  19. Cabin Fever: Patient Zero
    [A] slack, dumb prequel.
  20. 4 Minute Mile
    It's a terrific little film worthy of discovery.
  21. Around the Block
    Though Page-Lochard manages to make his passive participation in violence compelling, Around the Block remains more lecture than drama about racism and its tragic consequences.
  22. Behaving Badly
    Behaving Badly is a dreadful sex comedy that gets worse and worse as its dopey story snowballs into relative incoherence.
  23. The Fluffy Movie
    Despite the Mexican American comic's engaging presence, amusing observations and deft imitations, "Fluffy" is a standard-issue comedy concert film far better suited to a 90-minute cable TV slot than the big screen.
  24. The Killer Inside Me
    Little more than torture porn tricked out in art-house finery. That is the bigger crime here.
  25. Hercules
    The mythically powerful demigod is back on the big screen in the simply titled Hercules and the results are canny, fast-paced, and, for what the film attempts to accomplish, enjoyable.
  26. Happy Christmas
    All in all, Happy Christmas is a good deal like cartoon Charlie Brown's classic tree — scraggly, plenty of heart and much to enjoy, especially if you prefer your presents homemade.
  27. A Most Wanted Man
    [A] crackerjack thriller, at once brooding, claustrophobic and unbearably tense.
  28. Magic in the Moonlight
    The séances are great fun, and the cast is charmingly eclectic. But as to whether "Moonlight" is magical — it is, but ever, ever so slightly.
  29. Very Good Girls
    Despite a finely wrought lead performance by Dakota Fanning, the drama feels more like the stuff of a mild — and dated — YA novel than an involving exploration of female experience.
  30. Premature
    A rapidly wearying comedy that mistakes crudeness with humor.
  31. And So It Goes
    The somnambulant slickness of the direction when a truly grown-up tale of late-in-life love is nipping at the edges suggests Reiner is more stubbornly set in his stay-cute approach than his leads, who at least find the occasional pocket of human messiness in this tension-free exercise.
  32. Le Chef
    An amusing soufflé of a comedy that pokes fun at foodies while honoring the art of those who cook for them.
  33. Come Back to Me
    Writer-director Paul Leyden does a decent job holding our interest as well as providing a few intriguing twists and reveals. But make no mistake, this is exceedingly far-fetched stuff.
  34. Ironclad: Battle for Blood
    The title's promise of violence is dutifully met in gory, sonically squishy close-quarter melees shot in Confuse-o-vision, as if the camera had been strapped to a whirring blender before the footage was edited with the puree button.
  35. The Empty Hours
    Like everything else about this lovely film, life, love and emotional growth are marked out in lush, languid, luminous terms.
  36. I Origins
    On the face of it, tackling the warring sides of science and the spirit seemed a good fit for the writer-director, who continues to be drawn to existential themes. There are occasional flashes of the exceptional, but the film's dodgy story can't sustain them.
  37. Mood Indigo
    With its indefinable, almost indescribable combination of whimsy, sentiment and strangeness, "Mood Indigo" (co-written by Gondry and Luc Bossi) will not be to all tastes at all times. But frame for frame, the amount of invention going on here can't be believed unless it's seen.
  38. Planes: Fire & Rescue
    If you ignore the slicker aspects of the dialogue (and with a little effort you mostly can), it's satisfying to find a film that is as innocent and as much visual fun as this one is.
  39. The Purge: Anarchy
    The Purge: Anarchy is a good deal bloodier, but also — gulp — a good deal better than its predecessor. Make no mistake, a good "Purge" does not equal a good movie, but the post-apocalyptic thriller is slightly more interesting because it takes itself, and its menace, more seriously.
  40. A Summer's Tale
    It may seem like nothing much is happening on-screen, but by the time A Summer's Tale is all over, it feels like everything important has been said and done. Welcome to the magic of Rohmer, one final time.
  41. Sex Tape
    Since it's a comedy, much could be forgiven if the film was consistent in generating laughs, but the comedy is as erratic as the couple's sex life.
  42. Wish I Was Here
    For a film that purports to be about the process of maturity and growth, it is woefully un-evolved, lacking in understanding and insight.
  43. Video Games: The Movie
    It's a lovefest in which critics' voices and debate are simply absent, and the only talking space is wonder, nostalgia and excitement for the future.
  44. K Missing Kings
    Making sense was never a top priority for "K," and its sequel is just as much of a hot mess.
  45. Closed Curtain
    Closed Curtain is richly allegorical, but the film succeeds even more as an exiled artist's reassurance that the law can't stamp out art.
  46. Among Ravens
    There's simply nobody to care about in Among Ravens, even as a case study in unhappiness and delusion.
  47. Affluenza
    The movie opens with the suggestion that it will address the generational divide, but it has nothing of substance to say.
  48. Aftermath
    Even if this largely contained movie remains more low key than frantic, it features enough well-executed bursts of tension and strong emotional beats to hold interest.
  49. Audrey
    The comedy unfolds mostly in real time, but its grasp of real human behavior is shaky.
  50. The Battered Bastards of Baseball
    The joy on display here is contagious.
  51. Siddharth
    Mehta explores matters more complex and unsettling than movie-tidy, against-the-odds heroism. In Tailang's fine performance, the enormity of Mahendra's mission registers in all its devastating weight.
  52. Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger
    Joe Berlinger's densely detailed new documentary about the legendary Boston mobster is disturbing on so many levels it's hard not to wonder why Bulger was the only one on trial.
  53. Underwater Dreams
    [A] moving and insightful piece.
  54. Road to Paloma
    Momoa creates an involving if relaxed pace, one whose moody rhythms are infused with a kind of soulful spirituality.
  55. Rage
    There's a late-breaking twist that might seem impressive if it didn't make all the previous mayhem feel so intensely pointless.
  56. Land Ho!
    Land Ho! is full of surprises, rich in the way it noses around the rocky terrain of aging in an indifferent world through the engaging performances of its two stars.
  57. Boyhood
    An extraordinarily intimate portrait of a life unfolding and an exceptional, unconventional film.
  58. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
    "Dawn's" vision of masses of intelligent apes swarming the screen as masters of all they survey is even more impressive than it was the last time around and reason enough to see the film all by itself.
  59. Venus in Fur
    It is a caustic, comic, cerebral romp for a long time before it hits you with its best shot — some Polanski-worthy darkness.
  60. The Pleasures of Being Out of Step
    Director David Lewis' movie functions as mostly a highlights reel rather than an exhaustive look at Hentoff's life.
  61. Life Itself
    Life Itself may sound like it's a film that would only be of interest to those who knew Ebert personally or to fellow film critics, but the opposite is true.
  62. Gabrielle
    Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.
  63. Cinemanovels
    Writer-director Terry Miles' revisionist homage is a thoughtful thesis on the melodrama but a letdown in its attempt to serve as an affecting example of that genre.
  64. The Girl on the Train
    Writer-director Larry Brand is all too eager to show off his cleverness. Bad dialogue and Cinemax aesthetics make all the clichés seem even more clichéd.
  65. America: Imagine a World Without Her
    It's far more invested in elaborate historical reenactments, hypothetical dramatizations and special effects than interviews, research and data.
  66. Begin Again
    Even if Dan and Gretta charm each other more than they charm us, the music they make is harder to resist than they are.
  67. Tammy
    There are some laughs and, at least on screen, more than a few tears. But it doesn't come together with the kind of satisfying punch a comedy should deliver.
  68. Deliver Us From Evil
    Buckle up for the ride that is Deliver Us From Evil, a highly intense and effective mash-up of police procedural and horror show.
  69. Earth to Echo
    It's no "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." (What is?) But on its own modest terms, the alien adventure Earth to Echo is a lively and likable knockoff that should divert, if not exactly enthrall, tweens and young teens.
  70. Code Black
    McGarry has created something that feels personal, vital and revelatory, allowing the rest of us behind the curtain.
  71. Violette
    Director Martin Provost's epic portrait of novelist Violette Leduc is so compelling, even thrilling, in its frank depictions of female sexual voracity, professional egotism and twisted variants on the Electra complex that it's easy to overlook his film's shaggy, uneven plotting.
  72. Manakamana
    Observational with a vengeance, more an art piece than a conventional motion picture, Manakamana is simple in conception, but the reactions it evokes in viewers will be complex and multifaceted.
  73. Nothing Bad Can Happen
    The method to Von Trier's madness is that he provokes thought alongside outrage in his parables. Here, Gebbe musters only outrage, as her antagonists are without nuance, mercy or any redeeming quality.
  74. Under the Electric Sky
    The movie presents the best possible version of the event without the massive lines, drugs, drunkenness and hellish traffic.
  75. Radio Free Albemuth
    First-time writer-director John Alan Simon simply doesn't have a strong enough grip on the movie's narrative, pacing or performances to surmount the pitfalls of this ambitious, budget-conscious effort.
  76. The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
    Whether Aaron Swartz is a personal hero or someone you've never heard of until now, his story cannot help but touch you.
  77. Snowpiercer
    [Bong Joon-ho] combines a great cast, a gripping idea and a gorgeously grimy retro aesthetic to keep this eerie examination of the train wreck of humanity racing along.
  78. Transformers: Age Of Extinction
    Let's say "Bayed," as in "being Bayed," is the core principle at work in the films. In general, being Bayed means being beaten, blasted, bashed, crushed, melted, morphed, reconstituted and remade over and over and over again.
  79. Postman Pat: The Movie
    Sure, there are lapses in logic. But nice messaging, some zippy dance moves and a great use of the classic tune "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" end this charming, adult-friendly tale on a high note.
  80. They Came Together
    A feature-length lampoon needs more than rubbery performances, so-so silliness and the constant thrum of meta humor to make it a consistently amusing variation on a theme.
  81. Redemption Trail
    Sjogren's promising set-up, designed to unfold with understatement, ends up feeling remote and repressed when Sjogren miscalculates by burying her characters' emotions too far down.
  82. A Coffee In Berlin
    In spite of its insufferably whimsical tendencies — exemplified by its original title, "Oh Boy" — the film may have turned out to be a deeply profound modern postscript about fascism. This isn't that far-fetched a reading at all.
  83. La Bare
    If La Bare had snarky voice-over narration, it could be a segment on "The Colbert Report."
  84. Citizen Koch
    Citizen Koch is pure advocacy doc: brisk and clear-eyed, to be sure, but not likely to surprise headline-savvy moviegoers or angered progressives.
  85. Bound by Flesh
    [An] absorbing, well-crafted documentary.
  86. Chaplin of the Mountains
    At its best, the film seems as dreary a travelogue as that Nia Vardalos vehicle "My Life in Ruins." At its worst, Chaplin of the Mountains feels like an overambitious film-school thesis with superfluous political and philosophical posturing.
  87. One Candle, Two Candles...
    One Candle, Two Candles proves worthwhile at least as a cultural curio.
  88. Yves Saint Laurent
    A stylish, serviceable recounting of Saint Laurent's life from the late 1950s through the '70s. But watchable as it may be, this drama lacks intimacy and urgency.
  89. The Last Sentence
    Measured and beautifully modulated, the 82-year-old director has the kind of sureness and fluidity that is easy to underestimate. But it's difficult not to be impressed by the results.
  90. Think Like a Man Too
    Mostly, the movie swings wildly between mania when Hart is on-screen and relative serenity when he's not. It gives the film a multiple-personality feel that does not work in its favor.
  91. Third Person
    In blurring the lines between truth and fiction as well as right and wrong, Third Person maddens far more than it intrigues. Indeed, more curious than anything about the movie itself is how such an artistic stumble happened.
  92. Jersey Boys
    Eastwood, as always, has simply done things his own way, and the result is a leisurely old-school entertainment with a bit more edge than you may be expecting.
  93. The Moment
    The Moment is a psychological thriller more muddled than the mind and the maze it is caught up in.
  94. American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
    A documentary that's admirably frank about the difficulties of insightfully portraying such a widely lauded — and subtly cagey and habitually self-effacing — figure.
  95. No Tears for the Dead
    The film's many violent action scenes are quite well, er, executed. But there's a far more emotional and profound story here to be told, one that becomes largely eclipsed by the mayhem.
  96. Hellion
    One just wishes the scaffolding of indie tropes around Paul and the better parts of Hellion weren't so shaky.
  97. The Amazing Catfish
    Grainily shot but radiating life, The Amazing Catfish is an enormously affecting portrait of a family in crisis that dares to hope.
  98. Borgman
    For all its emotional roller-coastering and wild intrigue, the film's purpose — as well as its title character — feels more symbolic than specific. Still, this well-shot and -designed picture is a mostly compelling, intrepid ride.
  99. Coherence
    The performances... are solid, and the conceit is alluringly mind-bending without ever seeming off-puttingly brainy.
  100. Miss Lovely
    Miss Lovely does exude an air of authenticity... But much of the film remains underdeveloped.
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