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. Sonatine
    In his sleek, punchy and altogether captivating Sonatine, Japan's fabled writer-director-tough guy star Takeshi "Beat" Kitano makes it seem as if we've never seen such a tale on the screen. In doing so, Kitano creates one of the most effectively anti-violence violent movies since The Wild Bunch. [10 Apr 1998, p.F10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  2. The Cave of the Yellow Dog
    Davaa has made a sweetly meditative film.
  3. Sorry Angel
    What's bracing about Sorry Angel is that it refuses to allow the specificity of its characters — specifically drawn and superbly played — to be obscured or flattened by the drama of terminal illness. Neither man is made nicer or more palatable than he has to be.
  4. Karl Marx City
    Shot in evocative black and white, Karl Marx City is a sleek, absorbing detective story, a fascinating primer on mass surveillance in the pre-Snowden era, and a roving memoir of East German life.
  5. The Great Mouse Detective
    The Great Mouse Detective reflects the energy and enthusiasm of a talented group of young artists stretching their wings for the first time. That group has gone on to produce some truly extraordinary work, win awards and earn sums no one believed could be made from an animated film. And, as has often been the case at Disney, it all began with a mouse.
  6. When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan
    As compelling as the music and concert footage is, it is the vitality of the performers as characters that enables the movie to transcend the music documentary genre.
  7. Sunset Song
    Sunset Song, Davies’ adaptation of a 1932 novel about a Scottish farming family, falls short of the intended cumulative effect, its emotional power undercut by its studied, episodic unfolding.
  8. Free Chol Soo Lee
    In its clear-eyed empathy for the totality of life, Free Chol Soo Lee is only deepened by not ignoring what happens when the spotlight fades on a righted wrong, and what’s left are demons, trauma, guilt and that thing both sought after and scary: being free.
  9. The Memory of a Killer
    This is one terrific thriller with several wicked tricks up its sleeve, each more satisfying than the last.
  10. Casino
    One of the ironies of Casino is that even though Scorsese is interested in the story's wider implications, he focuses so much energy on that unsavory romantic triangle that he and the film lose sight of the larger issues.
  11. Transpecos
    Unlike the highly charged “Sicario” and other recent drug trade-themed movies, the film, shot in New Mexico, eschews explosive confrontations and political judgments in favor of complex, thoughtfully portrayed characters and tense, compelling situations.
  12. Re-Animator
    It's simply the best, funniest Grand Guignol horror picture to come along in ages.
  13. Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America
    In sharing these often harrowing stories, “Unsettled” paints a sobering but ultimately hopeful portrait of possibility for those who are allowed to enter.
  14. Supernova
    Both actors know how to hit Macqueen’s more emphatic dialogue with a soft, glancing touch; they also know how to settle into the script’s familiar narrative grooves, its intimations of mortality and grief, in ways that will yield fresh, distinctive notes of humor, emotion and even surprise.
  15. Meet the Parents
    This buoyant, giddy comedy of catastrophe is the funniest film of the year so far, possibly the most amusing mainstream live-action comedy since "There's Something About Mary."
    • Los Angeles Times
  16. 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.
  17. The Matrix
    A wildly cinematic futuristic thriller that is determined to overpower the imagination, The Matrix combines traditional science-fiction premises with spanking new visual technology in a way that almost defies description.
  18. Lucy and Desi
    [An] absorbing, entertaining and lovingly crafted documentary.
  19. Last Flight Home
    Ultimately, and perhaps most beautifully, the film makes a case, à la the musical “Rent,” about how, in the end, we must measure our life in love. On that score, Eli Timoner left the world a very wealthy man.
  20. 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.
  21. The Impossible
    Bayona achieves a rare sense of balance between the big and the powerful as well as the small and the intimate in the family's survival against impossible odds, no doubt the inspiration for the title.
  22. Calle Málaga
    Touzani, an unfussy, patient director with a fondness for the simplicity of human interaction, implicitly trusts her star to carry the film’s effervescence and complexity, although you may wish the filmmaking was a little less straightforward.
  23. After the Life
    Central to the last film's success are Manise and Blanc, who invest the story with intensity unmatched since Belvaux stormed through the first feature.
  24. Last Life in the Universe
    The stars and Doyle's expressive cinematography add up to a disarmingly seductive yet always precarious film experience.
  25. I'm Not Scared
    With a graceful confidence Salvatores has made a movie in which good and evil flow into each other as easily as day and night.
  26. Super Size Me
    Packs a lot of good information, witty visual aids and expert testimonials into its fast 96 minutes, and all the bad eating certainly makes for compelling if at times repugnant viewing. But the film ends up too short and, as a consequence, frustratingly glib.
  27. Second Skin
    Entertaining portrait.
  28. Heading South
    Lonely, bitter, insecure and clearly unstable, the women are meant to level the emotional playing field and add depth to what is, at heart, a story about the exploitation of poor nations by rich and powerful ones. But they wind up being too bitter and unstable to elicit much sympathy.
  29. Le Week-End
    Le Week-End is a sour and misanthropic film masquerading as an honest and sensitive romance. A painful and unremittingly bleak look at a difficult marriage, it wants us to sit through a range of domestic horrors without offering much of anything as a reward.
  30. Exiled
    To packs the moments of contemplation with as much suspense as the action sequences and is a master of ratcheting up tension through small details.
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