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. Good Manners
    This is a different kind of monster movie, no doubt. It’s beautiful and magical, and as aware of the real world as it is of classic Hollywood. Good Manners is a haunting tale of love — and the burdens that come with it.
  2. The Fall of Fujimori
    A confoundingly mercurial figure, Fujimori is a fascinating subject. But in her focus on the man, Perry fails to paint a broader picture of a racially diverse and extremely complex country.
  3. Clueless
    Effervescent, unflappable, supremely pleased with herself, Cher (delightfully played by the much-publicized Alicia Silverstone) is the comic centerpiece of Clueless, a wickedly funny teen-age farce from writer-director Amy Heckerling that, like its heroine, turns out to have more to it than anyone could anticipate. [19 July 1995]
    • Los Angeles Times
  4. The City of Lost Children
    The City of Lost Children is a stunningly surreal fantasy, a fable of longing and danger, of heroic deeds and bravery, set in a brilliantly realized world of its own. It is one of the most audacious, original films of the year. [22 Dec 1995]
    • Los Angeles Times
  5. Approved for Adoption
    A vibrant example of hybrid nonfiction filmmaking, using hand-drawn animation, live action, home movies and newsreels in a rich synthesis of personal and historical memory.
  6. Sing Your Song
    Really more of an effusive autobiography of the 84-year-old singer-actor than a traditional documentary, so be prepared for something close to sainthood in its tone.
  7. Uprising (2013)
    Ultimately, more than 800 demonstrators died amid countless displays of bravery and commitment. Uprising is a vital and valuable tribute to these courageous men and women - and to love of country.
  8. A Picture of You
    Nimbly avoiding the excesses of melodrama and the recessiveness of mumblecore, Chan and his likably low-key cast navigate hairpin turns from drama to comedy to outright farce with an impressive sense of proportion.
  9. Dying Laughing
    An involving examination of and tribute to the art and agony of stand-up comedy, "Dying Laughing" will leave you convinced that a) comedians spend a lot of time thinking about their work and b) it's too difficult and even painful a vocation to take on unless you absolutely feel it as a calling.
  10. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
    Black Power Mixtape's contemporary audio, though it tries hard to involve us, can't hold a candle to this kind of footage. But if having these current voices on board helped get the luminous glimpses of the past back on the screen, we owe them a vote of thanks.
  11. The Blue Room
    What tantalizes is the way the story moves between their private passion and their public shame, the way then and now become synchronous. Amalric navigates the shifts with a lapidary precision.
  12. Almost Holy
    Almost Holy captures something meaningfully urgent in the brutal day-to-day of tough love amid a world of tougher indifference.
  13. Leonor Will Never Die
    As Leonor Will Never Die parties to its close, Escobar reminds us that while life is unerringly finite, cinema is the complicated, messy, riotous love affair that never has to end.
  14. Amreeka
    This is a pointed, emotional story of a divorced Palestinian woman and her son who immigrate to the U.S. just after the invasion of Iraq, a story that benefits from Dabis' background as a child growing up in the Midwest during the Gulf War as the daughter of a Palestinian father and a Jordanian mother.
  15. 93Queen
    Surprising and deeply satisfying.
  16. CODA
    Because Heder — whose previous work includes the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” and “Glow” and feature “Tallulah” — is so adept at establishing the emotional bonds between the film’s close-knit family, the presence of all these conventions doesn’t matter.
  17. Polyester
    Polyester isn’t quite up to the low standards of Pink Flamingos, but it’s still a worthy effort by Waters.
  18. Fire Island
    The heart behind the familiar rom-com choices: the parting of two flames, the last-second pursuit to save a relationship and the happy ending that follows — cannot be doubted. It’s laughter and it’s loving that Ahn’s “Fire Island” gleefully contains.
  19. Will-o'-the-Wisp
    Like the fiery folklore entity that lends it its name, Will-o’-the-Wisp burns bright with idiosyncratic ambition. Few cineastes out there are making deliciously defiant art like Rodrigues, and this entry in his catalog is a concentrated shot of his sardonic mastery.
  20. Neither Heaven Nor Earth
    Neither Heaven Nor Earth is a case of the inexplicable rendered without forced mysticism or explanation, but rather explored with a clinical dramatic focus that somehow boosts the eeriness.
  21. Bros
    That it succeeds as well as it does can be chalked up to a lot of different things, including the pleasures of Provincetown in the fall, the sights of New York at Christmastime and the unerring perfection of Luke Macfarlane’s five o’clock shadow.
  22. Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical
    For a movie that bristles with more revolutionary fervor than Dahl’s quieter, more inward-focused story, “Matilda the Musical” could use a little messier, more rambunctious energy.
  23. Stevie
    Of course, James is exploiting Stevie, but the peculiar power of this film lies in James' indirect acknowledgment of it and his hope that his film has some point and value.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Song for Martin
    From its invitingly upbeat overture to its pathos-filled but ultimately life-affirming finale, "Martin" is a masterfully conducted work.
  25. Road to Perdition
    Mendes, in only his second feature (following the Oscar-winning "American Beauty"), has told this surprisingly resonant story with the potent, unrelenting fatalism of a previously unknown Greek myth.
  26. Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
    Moving and invaluable.
  27. Hagazussa
    For those who can embrace Hagazussa more as an experience than as a spook show, this film is utterly absorbing and hard to shake.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bishop's Wife
    What really sets The Bishop's Wife apart is its subtlety; it never resorts to "what-might-have-been" magic to convey its message. [16 Jan 1992, p.11]
    • Los Angeles Times
  29. Ammonite
    Ammonite, a work of art rather than science or history, has no qualms about departing from the known record — and does so with wit, beauty and a modernism that feels all the more bracing in this Victorian context.
  30. Climates
    An intimate drama that views the deterioration of a relationship from the inside out. Moving from summer through fall and concluding in winter, it's minimalist cinema that turns on subtle emotion rather than narrative and demands the audience's full attention.
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