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. 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.
  2. She's Lost Control
    She's Lost Control is a quiet triumph, a true herald of a distinctive and necessary voice in cinema.
  3. Sibyl
    A smart and absorbing new French comedy that initially unfolds like a series of psychotherapy sessions and eventually brings its story to a suitably mythic climax not far from a sputtering volcano.
  4. Mortal Kombat
    A martial arts action-adventure with wondrous special effects and witty production design, it effectively combines supernatural terror, a mythical slay-the-dragon, save-the-princess odyssey and even a spiritual quest for self-knowledge. [21 Aug 1995 Pg. F3]
    • Los Angeles Times
  5. Gunnin' for That #1 Spot
    It's sure to satisfy the film's target youth audience's appetite for zippy visuals and swift pacing.
  6. Drift
    Drift is a slender, intimate tale that is thoughtful and revealing, nicely written, directed and acted.
  7. Fantasia 2000
    Grainy as it looks in its massive Imax blowup, Mickey's misadventures with water and a broom still have the kind of magic even modern technology can't always manage.
  8. Only the Strong Survive
    It emphasizes its stars' capacity to endure as individuals and entertainers and does not dwell on the harder times and personal travails they survived. However, it acknowledges the well-known exploitation black artists have traditionally experienced in the pop music industry.
  9. Big Eden
    An accomplished heart-tugger, a serious romantic comedy that tackles two dilemmas with honesty and compassion.
  10. The Rundown
    For much of the film, Berg is content to act like a Michael Bay wannabe, orchestrating large action set pieces that get increasingly tiresome and WWE-like as individuals get mindlessly slammed into the dust.
  11. The Perfect Storm
    Has noticeable problems with characterization and dialogue. But once that awesome storm, one of the most terrifying ever put on film, gets cranked up, it's hard to remember what those difficulties were, let alone care too much about them.
  12. Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements
    The movie works best when it focuses on the senses and the specific connections between hearing, language (both ASL and oral) and music.
  13. Beowulf
    Beowulf appears so cartoony, in fact, that the academy just put it on the short list of films to be considered for the Oscar in feature animation.
  14. Voyeur
    [A] fascinating and frustrating documentary.
  15. 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.
  16. See for Me
    Aside from the quirky and exciting gaming angle, See for Me is a pretty straightforward suspense film — but a well-crafted one.
  17. Hidden Blade
    The bluntness keeps the film from approaching greatness, although history buffs and genre fans might appreciate a World War II story told from a unique, non-Western perspective.
  18. Being Maria
    Palud’s directorial emphasis on that internal experience, guided by a simple shooting style trained on Vartolomei, is what keeps Being Maria afloat on its turbulent seas.
  19. The Last Mimzy
    Being a "family film" may excuse many faults, considering the intended audience, but it's hard to think of a recent movie that has more determinedly married the engaging with the banal.
  20. Seeds of Time
    Although it may not be the most vivid or exciting subject for cinematic exploration, the documentary Seeds of Time offers a vital, clear-headed look at the effects of climate change on global food security.
  21. The Wanted 18
    Imaginatively interspersing testimonials with reenactments, comic panels and Claymation, the film plays out like an entertaining absurdist satire.
  22. Breakfast on Pluto
    In the end, his (Patrick) disaffection make him a singularly uninvolving character, and his disengagement makes him seem alternately shallow, selfish and perverse.
  23. Yosemite
    Although evocative and nicely observed, the coming-of-age drama Yosemite ultimately proves too low-key and elliptical to make much of an impression.
  24. Spider-Man 3
    Though aspects of it are entertaining, the presence of all these mismatched pieces give Spider-Man 3 an ungainly, cumbersome feeling, as if its plot elements were the product of competing contractors who never saw the need to cooperate on a coherent final product.
  25. Mission: Impossible II
    The power of film to irrationally transform and exalt is almost a religion to Woo, and another reason why he was the natural go-to guy for this lucrative movie franchise.
  26. Disco and Atomic War
    Although like the Cold War itself, the film does drag on at times, "Disco" really is a delight.
  27. Mom and Dad
    The comic incongruity of doting parents stalking children becomes less funny over time; and often it feels like Taylor hasn’t thought through the particulars of his premise, or the places he could’ve taken it.
  28. Road to Nowhere
    In its masterful use of evocative imagery and music, Road to Nowhere is flawless.
  29. Unconscious
    Unconscious is a ribald sex farce of considerable imagination and inspired wackiness and a meticulous period piece of the Art Nouveau era.
  30. Daughter
    The symbolism remains heavy, but it’s all in service of a powerful prisoner’s story, about the small ways people find freedom.
  31. Unbroken
    With what we see on screen weighted too much toward pain and too little toward redemption, this is a film we respect more than love, and that is something of a wasted opportunity.
  32. Into the Forest
    Rozema has a careful but unflinching eye when it comes to presenting the physical and emotional traumas the sisters experience. Even when some of the events escalate to operatic, nearly mystical levels, the direction feels assured and solidly rooted.
  33. Fuze
    Instead of bothering much about dialogue, Fuze is a blueprint of how stress and deference exert themselves upon a workplace.
  34. Seducing Doctor Lewis
    The kind of shrewd, genial comedy it provides doesn't intend to break new ground, but its traditional satisfactions are so effectively done and so long in coming our way that to see it is to realize just how hungry we've been for this kind of old-fashioned treat.
  35. The Living Daylights
    I feel just rotten about this, but I'm afraid I've outgrown James.
  36. The Shallows
    On its own unpretentious, unapologetically pleasure-seeking terms, “The Shallows” has enough to recommend it — not least the fact that you could watch it twice in roughly the same amount of time it would take to watch “The Revenant,” and with little appreciable loss in adrenaline or poetry.
  37. The Experiment
    As an exploitation picture, Das Experiment is mindlessly potent; subtitles are no guarantee of sophistication and subtlety.
  38. The Clovehitch Killer
    Skiles keeps the film’s pacing slow, which at times builds tension, at times makes everything feel more off-kilter, and at times is … well, just slow. Mostly the director and his superb cast use the extra time to explore the nuances of Ford’s tale of sick compulsions and social pressures.
  39. Make Believe
    The various sleights of hand are impressive even if we're afforded little insight into their actual execution. Still, it's fun stuff.
  40. Torn
    Though Torn contains its share of convincingly lived-in moments, there's a heavy-handed quality to both Jeremiah Birnbaum's direction and the script by Michael Richter that often undermines the movie's potential to truly grip and move.
  41. 24 Days
    Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.
  42. Italian Studies
    Italian Studies is a unique curio of a film, a free sketch of time and place melting into a singular subjective experience that asks “does memory matter?”
  43. Boesman and Lena
    Gradually, the power of the material and the stars takes hold, flashbacks begin to flesh out the characters' lives, and Boesman & Lena comes alive--achingly and passionately.
  44. Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade
    Offers a violent but compelling vision of what an animated feature can be.
  45. L'ennui
    Such a rigorous exploration of sexual obsession that it proves to be a most demanding film.
  46. Waking the Dead
    It is a film of uncommon intelligence and rigor that illuminates a complex era, and the romance at its center is also one of exceptional passion and honesty.
  47. A Home at the End of the World
    Charged by a passion for life, A Home at the End of the World is a major achievement.
  48. The Best Man Holiday
    A joyous, raucous, righteous film but also a frustrating and disappointing one.
  49. Copying Beethoven
    Shot by Ashley Rowe to look like a cross between a Vermeer retrospective and a music video, Copying Beethoven is silly and misguided, if reasonably entertaining for its charming lack of self-awareness, its weakness for lines like "Loneliness is my religion!" and its transcendently beautiful music.
  50. Restless City
    In its portrait of a Restless City the film is strangely inert and feels like the work of image-makers, not storytellers.
  51. Outlaw King
    Over the course of a generous 137-minute running time, Mackenzie evinces a patience in his own storytelling that only occasionally tests yours. There are excesses and longueurs, to be sure, but crucially, the tone of the piece never feels monotonous.
  52. Biosphere
    All the elements are there — writing, performance, themes — but there’s not enough plot to sustain a nearly two-hour feature, and as the situation escalates, it becomes clear that they don’t quite know where or how to end things, and it lands with a thud.
  53. Shakespeare High
    It's impossible not to root for these driven, high-spirited participants - and for the longevity of this invaluable program.
  54. A Land Imagined
    A Land Imagined never congeals into anything intriguing or compelling enough to earn our required patience.
  55. Outside the Law
    The filmmaker is at his best unspooling the politics of independence, which he does with such confident fervor that you always understand the fight.
  56. Better Than Chocolate
    Even though you could wish that Better Than Chocolate was a little more substantially developed, it nonetheless brims over with good humor and high spirits and has some moments of stunning yet tasteful eroticism. [13 Aug 1999, p.F10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  57. Lemon
    In Lemon, Bravo and Gelman find a transcendent absurdity in the mundane that’s awkwardly enchanting. It’s more tart than sweet, but deliciously weird nonetheless.
  58. I Smile Back
    Without pandering to audience sympathy, Silverman's dark shadings lend something unexpected and real to the role.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Monsters
    The main reason why Little Monsters recovers well from its off-putting start is because of Nyong’o, who is so bright and funny as a capable caregiver, with a catchy song for every occasion.
  60. Tower Heist
    Tower Heist might not be a classic (it's not), but at least for a little while it will make you laugh instead of cry about the current state of affairs, which is more than you can say about a lot of things.
  61. Untamed Heart
    By all rights, a movie about a girl who finds true love with an orphaned busboy (Christian Slater) who needs a heart transplant should be a hoot. It’s a unique premise--that doesn’t mean it’s a good premise. And swatches of the film are indeed as goopy as one might fear. But what keeps the film together is Tomei’s performance.
  62. Sarah's Key
    Sarah's Key is more powerful than you expect, maybe even more powerful than it should be.
  63. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.
  64. Blueback
    The lovely and lyrical Blueback is a transporting mother-daughter (and fish) drama as well as a beautifully shot memory piece that will reward patient viewers able to settle in and enjoy the film’s accessibly low-key vibe.
  65. The Silent Twins
    It is a beautiful blend of unforgettable physical performance and visual lyricism brought to bear on the tragic life story of the Gibbons twins, their wildly imaginative writing woven throughout like a sparkling thread, offering a brief glimpse into their realm of existence and imagination.
  66. Between Two Ferns: The Movie
    Like some of the feature-length spinoffs of old “Saturday Night Live” sketches that proliferated in the ’90s, it feels like a padded version of a bit that was a lot sharper in five-minute increments.
  67. Don't Move
    has a rich, lyrical sweep and floats between past and present, reality and imagination, with ease. It is a richly satisfying experience.
  68. Army of Darkness
    Ash's dialogue keeps the movie just goofy enough that even audiences that don't go in for schlock-horror phantasmagorias will be tickled. [19 Feb 1993, Calender, p.F-8]
    • Los Angeles Times
  69. All Is True
    A fitfully engaging, well-intentioned but disappointing original biographical drama.
  70. Winter Solstice
    Sternfeld's approach is rigorously minimalist, which is a plus since the Winters family is in no way extraordinary or distinctive.
  71. Sleep Dealer
    Adventurous, ambitious and ingeniously futuristic, Sleep Dealer is a welcome surprise. It combines visually arresting science fiction done on a budget with a strong sense of social commentary in a way that few films attempt, let alone achieve.
  72. Anywhere But Here
    While adapting accomplished fiction such as this is a lure Hollywood can never resist, some characters breathe better on the page, and that is the case here.
  73. Happenstance
    It brims with the charm, wisdom and light touch that have endeared French films to international audiences for more than a century. It doesn't hurt that its star is "Amelie's" Audrey Tautou.
  74. The First Wives Club
    Yet with so much going for it, the film's creators have made the classic Hollywood choice and treated its actresses like flesh-and-blood special effects. If you've got talent like this, or so the theory goes, a coherent story is a luxury that can be dispensed with.
  75. The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez
    Mournful and engrossing, the film traces Gutierrez's life through the people he knew and the places he lived.
  76. My Afternoons with Margueritte
    The film is a reminder of the pleasure to be found in simple things - reading a book, sitting on a park bench with a friend, spending an afternoon with Margueritte.
  77. Champs
    Champs is all over the place and at times too polished for its own good — too many celebrity fan testimonials when more insider insights would have helped. But it comes from a place of caring for an oft-maligned sport.
  78. Amnesia
    While its insights into the consequences of selective memory loss continue to resonate the world over, at its heart, Amnesia is a beautifully acted depiction of confronting regret.
  79. Crooked House
    The twists and turns of the story keep you on your toes until the very end, never giving anything away. The verbal blows drop as fast as the bodies, and if British aristocrats fighting over money, beautifully, is your thing, Crooked House will more than satisfy, it will thrill.
  80. Dragon Ball Super: Broly
    “Broly” delivers exactly what “Dragon Ball” fans want from a feature; newcomers may find themselves lost in places.
  81. Jirga
    A remarkable truthfulness shepherds Benjamin Gilmour’s tightly written and conscientiously produced drama Jirga as it renders an image of Afghanistan not as a ravaged battleground but as an arrestingly rich land.
  82. Judy & Punch
    The movie would like to see itself as a feminist allegory of abuse and systemic oppression, but it comes off as something far more scattered and unfocused.
  83. Dads
    Nothing here is especially revealing or deep; but the doc is pleasantly positive, and it does have something to say about how the expectations for dads today are higher than ever.
  84. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
    It is the inventive design of the many creatures that feels so fresh. The detail is so rich, and so dense, that you wish some of the frames would freeze so you had more time for savoring.
  85. Rory O'Shea Was Here
    A shameless heart-tugger of considerable appeal that, like many movies that start off with much going for them, could have been so much better had its makers aimed higher.
  86. The Djinn
    For the most part, The Djinn is effectively taut and tense, helped along by a spooky, synth-heavy score, some nifty special effects and a genuinely disturbing twist ending.
  87. Godzilla vs. Kong
    After so many tentpoles that have insisted on being metaphors for this or that, the abundance of sound and fury here — take a bow, Tom Holkenborg, composer of the majestic synth score — blissfully signifying nothing, qualifies as a colossal, giddily escapist relief.
  88. Cry Freedom
    Cry Freedom is not a great movie -- it's an earnest, clunky, awkward one without a fluid sense of story and with its most charismatic figure, the martyred black South African activist, Bantu Stephen Biko, gone before the film's 2 hours and 35 minutes are half over. [06 Nov 1987, p.1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  89. The Ballad of Jack and Rose
    Powered by an exceptional performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, this artfully disturbing film is a compelling, imaginative look at the potent emotional bond that forms not between romantic lovers but between fathers and daughters.
  90. Go for Sisters
    It's a plot that never takes hold, a mystery devoid of suspense... But the actors' unforced chemistry defies the artifice.
  91. What's Love Got to Do with It?
    James and Latif make an appealing, soulful twosome, infusing their nicely dimensional, well-modulated characters with low-key charm and credible longing.
  92. Doctor Sleep
    Where so much horror cinema wields the sledgehammer, Flanagan consistently applies a scalpel. His work here is notable for its visual control, its refreshing dearth of jump scares and the delicate filigree of its world building.
  93. Cape of Good Hope
    The stories are interlinked effectively, and the film strikes an upbeat note yet does not address racism and discrimination. For all its affection toward its characters, however, the film is too long and too slack.
  94. The Contender
    It does move right along and it's enlivened by stronger, more enjoyable acting than this kind of picture usually provides.
  95. Mystic Pizza
    Beyond some well-observed sibling interaction, the mutual effort of four writers is mutually uninspired. Whoever wrote the episodes between hot-to-trot Jojo (Taylor) and her balky boyfriend Bill (D'Onofrio) should be ashamed. [21 Oct 1988]
    • Los Angeles Times
  96. The Princess Blade
    With its stylized, near-surreal comic-book look and roots, The Princess Blade has all the makings of a cult film.
  97. Fade to Black
    It's clear early on, however, that this is standard concert-film fare geared to the faithful.
  98. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
    It's not just that we've been there before but also that Steven Spielberg and his associates simply haven't been able to imagine as many flat-out scary moments this time around.
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