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. The Only Real Game
    A stirring ode to cultural bridge-building.
  2. The Signal
    Eubank's fizzy mix of self-conscious, set-piece image-making and small-scale human detail is admirable.
  3. How to Train Your Dragon 2
    What DeBlois has deepened in No. 2, is the film's emotional core. Though there are moments when the tension goes slack, the cast steps up to keep things afloat.
  4. Policeman
    Lapid's filmmaking skill helps keep us involved, as does Policeman's philosophical underpinnings.
  5. Ivory Tower
    This film throws an enormous amount of information at us both in terms of original interviews and archival footage from more than 100 sources, but it's too sophisticated to suggest that any one-size-fits-all solution is lurking just over the horizon.
  6. Before You Know It
    While often affecting and absorbing, the film proves intellectually and contextually light. This is especially true given a leisurely running time that could have easily accommodated more dimensional probing.
  7. The Sacrament
    The first half is a cautiously dread-inducing tour de force as the suspicious interlopers parse the shiny, happy members for signs of a darker version of paradise... The second half, however, when all hell breaks loose a little too quickly, is the disappointment.
  8. The World Famous Kid Detective
    This flatly shot picture remains cramped by its homespun roots.
  9. The Human Race
    Though the dialogue is pretty basic and the narrative dots don't always quite connect, The Human Race, in its own gutsy, grindhouse-movie way, manages style, vision and tension.
  10. Korengal
    Korengal is a bracing reminder of the inexplicable will to endure hell and come out the other side alive.
  11. The Rover
    There is nothing noble about Eric's mission or about the considerable violence he resorts to to get the job done, but Pearce's willingness to give him an integrity of purpose mixes well with Michôd's intense, controlled direction and his ability to blend unexpected, empathetic character moments with all the killing.
  12. All Cheerleaders Die
    With all the finesse of a bullhorn that sprays noise and blood, All Cheerleaders Die shows just how difficult it is to pump life into the shopworn teen horror-comedy genre.
  13. Lullaby
    Everything unfolds at a glacial place, with so many emotional beats overplayed that the experience is more wearing than moving.
  14. 22 Jump Street
    A great deal of insanity ensues, none of which would work if Tatum and Hill weren't so disarming in their roles. Their level of comfort with the characters and each other helps 22 click.
  15. Obvious Child
    As Obvious Child stumbles its way to the final punch line, it echoes Donna's onstage musings — funny but rough around the edges. A work in progress that somehow hooks you anyway.
  16. Elena
    The result is a type of cinematic performance art, with all the self-consciousness that suggests — a sibling love story that's no less heartfelt for being in the form of a first-person poem.
  17. Test
    The AIDS scare remains as much window dressing as do other period details such as rotary phones and cassette tapes. Test seems to be about dance above all, with choreographed montages filling the bulk of its running time.
  18. I Am I
    First-time writer-director Jocelyn Towne takes an admirably novel stab at familial dysfunction in her father-daughter drama I Am I, but she proves unable to keep the film's originality from rapidly curdling into preposterousness.
  19. Dormant Beauty
    The proportions of the narrative strands sometimes feel off, but the movie pulses with the unpredictability of full-blooded characters.
  20. Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
    Light, frenetic and anecdote-rich, it's the kind of back-patting Hollywood toast to the guy behind the guy that's breezy good fun if you don't examine it too hard.
  21. Heli
    Heli is a stunning piece of filmmaking. It's a hypnotic, starkly beautiful, often disturbing drama that puts a working-class Mexican family in the cross hairs of its country's drug war.
  22. This Is Not a Ball
    The film is certainly interesting, despite the fact that it's a glorified promotional video for Muniz's installations.
  23. The Fault in Our Stars
    What sustains the film through the rockier times are its challenging themes, offering real issues for the young protagonists to wrestle with, rather than whether anyone will be carded trying to buy beer.
  24. The Case Against 8
    Emotional and analytical by turn, The Case Against 8 is a thoroughly engaging documentary.
  25. Ping Pong Summer
    Despite the visual and cultural accuracy, Ping Pong Summer is missing an elemental magic and vibrancy; a kick factor that makes the picture's endless pop throwbacks (break dancing, cassette tapes, giant boom boxes) seem more tackily forgettable than sweetly nostalgic.
  26. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
    Ever mindful of the line he straddled between thinker and flamethrower, this "Gore Vidal" is nevertheless a lovingly packaged greatest hits from a legendary rebel of letters.
  27. Trust Me
    Thee inside-Hollywood dramedy Trust Me contains so much terrific writing, acting and observation that it becomes a bit easier to forgive writer-director-star Clark Gregg when his ambitions best him during the movie's convoluted last third.
  28. Anna
    First-time Spanish director Jorge Dorado aims for Hitchcock and misses by a mile with Anna.
  29. Burning Blue
    [An] earnest but terribly ham-fisted drama.
  30. Lucky Them
    Director Megan Griffiths and writers Huck Botko and Emily Wachtel flesh out a female perspective that's refreshing and engrossing without demonizing or objectifying men.
  31. Burt's Buzz
    In engaging but not always satisfying fashion, Jody Shapiro's film reveals the man behind the logo to be a taciturn, plain-living refugee from city life and an unlikely globe-trotting corporate spokesman.
  32. Edge of Tomorrow
    It's a star-driven mass-market entertainment that's smart, exciting and unexpected while not stinting on genre satisfactions.
  33. Rigor Mortis
    The film supplies a succession of hyper-stylized and potent set pieces without ever establishing any sort of internal logic.
  34. Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
    Fake Case assumes a certain familiarity with Ai and his work — explored more thoroughly in Alison Klayman's "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry." But as a follow-up and a companion piece to that 2012 documentary, Johnsen's new work is remarkably intimate and astute.
  35. For a Woman
    There's storytelling vigor here and fine performances, plus some pointed exchanges about the burdens of cultural identity and emotional preservation in the aftermath of immense upheaval.
  36. Night Moves
    What happens when a seemingly righteous operation goes wrong and anxiety threatens to overtake ideals? It is the question Night Moves asks and answers in chilling ways.
  37. Maleficent
    Though it never plays like a polemic, the film has so much it wants to say the emotional power that might have made it a classic is undercut.
  38. The Hornet's Nest
    The Afghanistan war documentary The Hornet's Nest is a kinetic, immersive experience, particularly in its deeply felt human moments.
  39. The Odd Way Home
    The clichés alone doom the movie.
  40. Emoticon
    Director-star Livia De Paolis sets out to reassure everybody that the Internet won't destroy all relationships in her agreeable but unnecessary family drama Emoticon ;).
  41. Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas
    It's a strong story of lonely, even futile righteousness, which makes the plodding execution by director Arnaud des Pallierès somewhat mystifying.
  42. A Million Ways to Die in the West
    MacFarlane is a very funny dude, and there are times A Million Ways to Die is indeed funny. But too often the movie feels half-baked.
  43. Filth
    The best you can say about the over-the-top Filth is that it's a brisk wallow, with enough elbow room to marvel at McAvoy's sinkhole aria of a performance.
  44. The Big Ask
    Self-conscious, tonally uncertain and thematically vague, The Big Ask is a premise in search of a movie, one that co-directors Thomas Beatty and Rebecca Fishman never quite find.
  45. Next Year Jerusalem
    It's a privilege getting to know these determined, inspiring seniors, to whatever extent Gaynes allows. But a more deeply revealing, fully candid approach would have made for a more satisfying cinematic excursion.
  46. We Are the Best!
    Moodysson captures that moment — charged, goofy and transcendent — when personal style and wide-ranging outrage fuse in an all-encompassing manifesto.
  47. The Discoverers
    Dunne creates a full-blooded character. The film around him, unfortunately, takes low-key to the realm of tepid.
  48. The Grand Seduction
    Despite this notable cast, the remake never manages to drum up much excitement for its sleepy hamlet rousing or for its characters, finally filled with purpose.
  49. The Girl and Death
    Sumptuous visuals, vivid emotional beats and memorable turns by Bichevin and Hoeks effectively compensate for the verbal sparseness.
  50. Half of a Yellow Sun
    Biyi Bandele's adaptation of Adichie's novel of loyalty and betrayal set against the turbulence of the 1960s Biafran war, certainly makes for an honorably propulsive wartime soap. It's just not stirring enough as historical drama.
  51. American Jesus
    Garriga aims for depth in the third act, contextualizing religious conservatism as a reaction against the social revolutions of the 1960s. But the reduction of Christianity into just another political group feels like a dilution, a conversion of wine into water.
  52. The Love Punch
    With their unforced magnetism, Brosnan and Thompson are persuasive as exes who still have chemistry... They have the verve and comic chops to ignite sparks, à la Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, but this Punch never truly connects.
  53. The Fatal Encounter
    Veteran television director Lee Jae-kyoo balances the most engrossing aspects of the South Korean telenovela with grandiloquent Hong Kong-influenced fight scenes.
  54. Words and Pictures
    For the most part, the florid flourishes are so lightly played by Owen and Binoche, screenwriter Gerald Di Pego's melodrama can almost be forgiven.
  55. Cold in July
    Tense and violent, it grabs you from the first moments and rarely loosens its hold until the last body drops.
  56. X-Men: Days of Future Past
    There is action galore, but Future Past is a deeper, richer, more thoughtful film, more existential in its contemplations than earlier Xs, all rather nicely embedded in the mayhem churned up by the mutants' altered states.
  57. 50 to 1
    Far too much of this plodding picture is spent on odd couple Chip and Alex's road trip transporting Mine That Bird to Kentucky. Forced atmospherics, clichéd action bits and some tone-deaf slapstick weigh things down as well.
  58. The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
    The movie doesn't even need five minutes to signal that it's already a goner.
  59. Chinese Puzzle
    The ground-level view of New York — high-energy, semi-farcical — avoids clichés while finding its own romantic pulse with Duris' charmer the compelling center of the buoyant and bittersweet storm.
  60. The Dance of Reality
    At times exquisitely attuned to the commingling of the bitterly funny and tragic, and at other times an eye-roll-worthy collection of ready-made fetish videos (Flores is one brave avatar of outré sexuality), The Dance of Reality is nonetheless proof that the legendary provocateur is still a font of out-there invention.
  61. Blended
    It could have been a bit smarter and a lot shorter, but Blended, the third big-screen pairing for Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore (after "The Wedding Singer" and "50 First Dates"), is a fun, often funny, largely enjoyable romp.
  62. How We Got Away with It
    By performing narrative gymnastics, the film sacrifices any possibility for viewers to identify with the characters. Although the film does answer the myriad questions it raises along the way, it would have benefited from more straightforward storytelling.
  63. The Retrieval
    The Retrieval comes at you like a haunting slip of a memory, one that writer-director Chris Eska retrieves from a mostly forgotten era in unforgettable ways.
  64. Wolf Creek 2
    Everything we can gather seems to nullify any virtues we saw in the original film.
  65. Breastmilk
    Audiences will find themselves face to face with their own prejudices, assumptions and, perhaps, squeamishness.
  66. The Immigrant
    Though the film is sometimes as fraught as the immigrant experience, in the end the ideas are so rich, the look so lovely, Ewa's journey so heartbreakingly real, even the flaws seem to suit it.
  67. Million Dollar Arm
    You can see the stuff Million Dollar Arm throws at you from miles away, but that doesn't stop this baseball movie from being genially enjoyable.
  68. Godzilla
    Ironically this big, lumbering movie could have used more, not less. More Godzilla without question, and more emotional content for its very good cast too.
  69. Don Peyote
    All the controlled substances in the world couldn't improve a viewing of the execrable Don Peyote, a tedious, incoherent look at a paranoid stoner's emotional and spiritual unraveling.
  70. Llyn Foulkes One Man Band
    For a movie about art and artists, it's not a particularly visually inspired or vibrantly crafted work. Still, Foulkes... holds interest with his off-kilter narcissism, obsessive creative process and frank views on his place — or lack thereof — in the art world.
  71. A Night in Old Mexico
    This poky, clichéd, slackly told picture, directed by Emilio Aragón, would've felt dated a few decades ago; now it feels like a downright relic.
  72. Stage Fright
    None of it works, really, as either musical satire or genre Chex mix.
  73. DamNation
    DamNation is certainly a picturesque splash of doc advocacy, as long as you don't dwell on the cracks.
  74. Hanna Ranch
    Without passing judgment, Dickman illustrates how Hanna's way of life and personal convictions compelled his politics. He also allows Steve Hanna a fair shot at presenting his version of the events.
  75. Chapman
    The gratingly underdeveloped plot has all the dramatic effect of a toddler with her hands behind her back chirping, "Guess what I've got?" for more than an hour.
  76. Moms' Night Out
    Moms' Night Out is a hectic mess that does just the opposite of what it clearly set out to do: It makes motherhood seem like one of the most ill-conceived ideas since New Coke.
  77. Neighbors
    This raunchy unrooting of a settled suburban idyll exposes the considerable angst of emerging adulthood with a kind of scatological fervor designed to elicit oodles of inappropriate laughs. It succeeds.
  78. Palo Alto
    With Palo Alto Coppola transforms weakness into strength, vulnerability into armor.
  79. NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage
    It's that rare film that captures and conveys the romance of the theatrical experience.
  80. God's Pocket
    The script, written by director John Slattery and Alex Metcalf, drifts too quickly into blue-collar cliches, leaving its interesting collection of characters only half-drawn at best.
  81. The Double
    It is the interplay between Wasikowska and Eisenberg that gives "The Double" both its tension and its charm... Their struggle captivates, the resolution shocks, and you can't help but wonder what windmills Ayoade will tilt next.
  82. Broken
    The film's solid acting, relatable premise and strong emotional core carry the day.
  83. Cyber-Seniors
    Even for the most techno-wary at the Toronto assisted living centers where the movie was primarily filmed, the lure of virtual visitation seems to go a good way toward bridging what's been a large and digitally contoured generation gap.
  84. Redwood Highway
    The script (by director Gary Lundgren with James Twyman) is modestly feel-good to a fault and the scenery expectedly beautiful, but it's the unforced acting providing the most nourishment.
  85. Devil's Knot
    Egoyan, who has never shied away from the lurid aspects of lost innocence, takes a measured approach that successfully avoids sensationalism. But the film's restraint verges on blankness.
  86. Fed Up
    Soechtig puts mainstream clout to work to deliver a hard-hitting message. Her mix of archival material, punchy graphics and concise talking-head commentary traces a troubling modern history.
  87. Chef
    If this all sounds fairly rote, it's far from it. That's because the filmmaker largely eschews done-to-death family dynamics, forced obstacles and predictable responses for authentic interaction, organic humor and a hopeful vitality.
  88. Documented
    The film blurs lines between documentary, reality television and "Candid Camera," with Vargas instigating the proceedings.
  89. Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return
    If it only had a brain, a heart and the nerve.
  90. Water & Power
    Water & Power remains a quintessential L.A. story that is worth seeing for what it has to say, if not necessarily for how it says it.
  91. Walk of Shame
    Even without the queasy racial stereotypes, Walk of Shame feels perfunctorily assembled, its obstacles straining even screwball logic.
  92. Journey of a Female Comic
    The invitingly loud Melendez posits herself as both a victimized failure and a triumphantly persevering pioneer, and though one can certainly be both, the film doesn't say anything new or meaningful about the industry she's been dying to join for the last two decades.
  93. Where We Started
    For all the emotional onion-peeling here, little is revealed that's surprising, unique or particularly deep.
  94. Farmland
    The slickly produced documentary Farmland often comes off like lobbyist propaganda, profusely extolling the virtues of the independent American farmer.
  95. Friended to Death
    Only during the movie's sweet epilogue do we get a sense of what Friended could have been had the filmmakers taken a smarter, gentler, more human approach.
  96. Bad Johnson
    Little more than an 88-minute "it has a mind of its own" gag, Bad Johnson should have kept its premise in its pants.
  97. Bicycling With Molière
    "Molière" is a polished, character-driven entertainment enlivened by flashes of droll humor.
  98. Mr. Jones
    Mr. Jones has the bones of something freaky but succumbs to a penchant for alienating chaos over sustained, abiding creep.
  99. Unclaimed
    Ngoc and Faunce certainly make fascinating subjects, and the film persuasively argues to give them the benefit of the doubt. But one can't help but think that in the hands of a shrewder filmmaker like Errol Morris, this stranger-than-fiction account would have been absolutely riveting.
  100. Belle
    Belle is greatly buoyed by Mbatha-Raw's performance. She infuses Dido with a confident and intelligent grace that keeps you engaged long after the tangled story has let both the actress and audience down.
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