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. California Typewriter
    Doug Nichol’s documentary California Typewriter is a rich, thoughtful, meticulously crafted tapestry about the evolution of the beloved writing machine for purists, history buffs, collectors and others fighting to preserve or re-embrace analog life.
  2. Birth of the Dragon
    It’s unusual to see a film like this make its nominal hero into a jerk, who learns something essential from his nemesis. True or not, the complex characterization does make for a better story.
  3. All Saints
    The cinematic execution of All Saints is serviceable at best. It's stilted at times, with too much dead air hanging around, and the stakes and roller coaster of ups and downs in the script often seem out of step with the emotion on-screen.
  4. Revelator
    As writer, director, producer, star, editor and more, J. Van Auken brings a cool central concept and strong visuals, but the film ultimately never finds solidity.
  5. Leap!
    Though the distressingly large lollipop heads of the characters are often disconcerting, some of the animation is striking and near photorealistic. At times though it seems all of the resources have been put into the background environment instead of the characters.
  6. Unleashed
    Unleashed, written and directed by Finn Taylor, works because of the collective commitment to the magical realism on-screen.
  7. Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman
    Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman is an involving film that tells a more complicated story than its unexciting title would indicate.
  8. Served Like a Girl
    A truly inspirational, emotional and profoundly moving film.
  9. Ghost House
    Visually, Ghost House makes good use of its setting, offering Instagram-ready images of its location shot by Pierluigi Malavasi. Unfortunately, Thai people are used in ways that rely on cultural stereotypes, a blemish on an otherwise effective and unsettling film.
  10. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
    Inevitably cursory, it’s nonetheless a fascinating introduction to the ways that core components of Americana wouldn’t be eradicated. Or silenced.
  11. Bushwick
    Realistically depicting full-scale domestic terrorism is one thing, but directors Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott seem unaware of how their long-take gimmick — the cuts are easily determined — destroys logic, emboldens the use of stereotypes, and kills suspense.
  12. Sidemen: Long Road to Glory
    It may have been a long road to glory, but seeing Perkins (then 97) and Smith (75) enthusiastically accept a 2011 Grammy for their album “Joined at the Hip,” it’s readily apparent that it was worth the trip.
  13. Tales of an Immoral Couple
    It won’t replace your favorite girl-meets-boy classics, but it yo-yos between the heart and the loins with admirable verve, and it boasts a few richly comic turns.
  14. Crown Heights
    Acted with gravity, emotion and a sense of the serious issues involved by stars Lakeith Stanfield, Nnamdi Asomugha and Natalie Paul, Crown Heights deals with the intensely human factors tragic events bring into play — perseverance and despair, love and longing.
  15. The Villainess
    While I’m generally inclined to applaud an action movie that seeks to be more than just an exercise in carnage, The Villainess turns wearyingly stop-and-go whenever it tries to fill in the void of its protagonist’s emotional and psychological history.
  16. Beach Rats
    Harris Dickinson, the spellbinding British newcomer who plays Frankie, rewards the director’s scrutiny with piercing emotional depth and a startling lack of self-consciousness.
  17. Death Note
    What Wingard has delivered is a fitfully entertaining, clearly compromised hybrid of action, horror and science-fiction.
  18. Red Christmas
    Mostly, it’s a tightly constructed, unapologetically nasty little thriller, given depth and weight by Wallace’s interpretation of a sweet woman suffering for her past.
  19. The Monster Project
    While there are some cool creature effects and committed, physical performances by the actors playing the monsters, the movie’s worst sin isn’t the found-footage rules it ignores. Instead it breaks the cardinal rule of the larger horror genre, running 95 minutes without a single scare or moment of dread.
  20. Gook
    The low-budget movie, shot in artful black-and-white by Ante Cheng, pulses with yearning and sorrow and love for its characters. Its brightening touches of underplayed humor strengthen and comment on the main action.
  21. Women Who Kill
    Women Who Kill is delightfully specific in its approach to its characters and their community. It takes a familiar theme of romantic comedies — the fear of commitment — and gives it new life by adding a morbid element to the mix.
  22. The Fencer
    Director Klaus Härö, working from a script by Anna Heinämaa, deftly captures the grayish gloom and day-to-day paranoia of postwar Soviet life, while infusing this absorbing tale with affecting emotion.
  23. Planetarium
    Although Planetarium may not wholly satisfy as the kind of statement film it so ambitiously aims to be, this intriguing drama, confidently directed by Rebecca Zlotowski (who co-wrote with Robin Campillo) proves a singular, at times haunting experience.
  24. The Queen of Spain
    Had the comedy been sharper, this movie-loving movie might have convincingly meshed its Technicolor caricatures and antifascist heroics.
  25. What Happened to Monday
    Fans of outsized genre fare should appreciate how much fun Rapace appears to be having, showing off different skills in different wigs. Her enthusiasm doesn’t make this a good movie, but it does makes it likable.
  26. 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.
  27. Lycan
    While its DIY spirit is admirable, this tedious shocker feels like it was cobbled together from a kit.
  28. Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey
    Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey lacks a sense of what is essential to its story. It dwells on insignificant moments and inserts transition shots without logic, but skips over scenes or dialogue that could support Liza and Brett’s characters, their relationship and the choices they make.
  29. The Ice Cream Truck
    While writer-director Megan Freels Johnston makes some unusual choices that set her film apart from run-of-the-mill low-budget horror, too much of her movie feels warmed-over.
  30. Dave Made a Maze
    While the dramatic underpinnings could have used more work, the labyrinth that’s the focus of Dave Made a Maze is truly an amazingly inventive sight to behold.
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