Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,550 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 2.2 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:
16550 movie reviews
  1. The story being told lacks depth and insight; but it does have snap and polish, and it features a lot of astonishing art. In a way it’s a true Stan Lee experience.
  2. Classify Pietro Marcello’s sweet new film Scarlet at your own risk, because its pleasures are as diverse and unexpected as a stroll through uncharted lands: Mapping the terrain wouldn’t be half as enjoyable as letting the place host its own truths and enchantments.
  3. A lumbering Frankenstein’s monster of a B movie.
  4. Any effort that manages to incorporate pointed observations about Islamophobia, casual xenophobia, female objectification and sexual hypocrisy, at the same time working in a loud make-out session in a cathedral confessional certainly can’t be accused of slacking, no matter how kooky or tedious things become.
  5. Even without its paranormal elements, Jagged Mind is a powerful portrait of the dissociation that occurs when a person tries to justify the misbehavior of someone they love.
  6. What results is a down-to-earth kind of horror movie, about the common feelings of despair fathers feel during those draining first few weeks.
  7. While Anchorage, like its doomed passengers, might come up short in reaching the intended destination, the existential road to not getting there is nevertheless paved with its share of inescapably persuasive intentions.
  8. That it ultimately manages to work as effectively as it does is a credit to the firm, focused visual grip of director Perelman, best known for his Oscar-nominated 2003 drama, “House of Sand and Fog,” and, especially the impressively-rooted portrayals of the two leads.
  9. Demolition is a state of mind in White Building, Cambodian filmmaker Kavich Neang’s sad, beautiful feature debut, an urban elegy about what’s thick in the air when the home one has always known is not long for the world.
  10. Garcia is an utter joy to watch. His disarming lack of cynicism and optimistic disposition while in Richard’s shoes compel us to wish the humble character’s grand aspirations materialize. May Flamin’ Hot serve as testament to Garcia’s range and ability to lead a cast. Meanwhile, a marvelous Gonzalez rides a similar wavelength of cheerful determination.
  11. Philippe winds up with a curatorial hodgepodge; the lovingly cited connections about shifting realities, artifice, searching and all those plush Lynchian curtains never coalesce into anything unifying, and sometimes get repeated by different narrators.
  12. While the message is pat, the way it’s presented is poignant, thanks to an arresting lead performance from Gong, who manages a tricky balance of chilliness and charm.
  13. Jeffers and Hay have a strong chemistry, and they make Peter and Winona’s vivacity and pain feel equally real, even when the movie around them is shading toward the phony.
  14. Most of what makes Brooklyn 45 so entertaining doesn’t cost a lot of money. It just takes talent, and diligence.
  15. Nothing in the story really sticks, or stings. The ace cast makes the movie better. But they deserved a better movie.
  16. Directing his first documentary feature, Corbijn, a longtime music photographer who made the Joy Division docudrama “Control,” is well suited to this material’s creative highs and human dimensions.
  17. If the first film seemed indicative of much of what is wrong with movies in the streaming era, feeling inessential and disposable, a cog in a machine rather than something unique, “Extraction 2” is a snapshot of a sequel in this moment, bigger, expanded and even less necessary.
  18. The conceit itself is by turns intriguing and laborious, and depending on your willingness to unpack it, it will be either the revelation that sends this movie soaring into the stratosphere or the heavy stone that drags its featherweight pleasures down to earth.
  19. Keaton’s performance — sly, affectionately cranky, subtly reverberant — is certainly one of The Flash’s highlights. But it also reveals, with depressing clarity, the imaginative poverty of the movie’s design.
  20. Oakley’s interrogating approach of a moral moment and McEwen’s portrayal of see-through armor help us understand the viewpoint of someone who was never going to be a hero, but who could tragically internalize a rising hatred that might upend her life at any moment.
  21. It succeeds as a comedy but not quite as a horror film, the genre merely a setting and style for sending up insidious character stereotypes.
  22. The film’s refusal to tie up loose ends has already inspired comparisons to Bong Joon Ho’s “Memories of Murder” and David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” two of modern cinema’s great cold-case classics. Moll’s movie doesn’t leave behind the same deep, implacable chill of those earlier works, but its lingering rage and sorrow are no less easy to wave aside.
  23. It’s easy to take for granted what’s good about Dalíland, namely Gala and Dalí as played by Sukowa and Kingsley. Sukowa’s depiction of a Russian woman with a taste for drama and the finer things in life is over the top, but deadly accurate; Kingsley balances imperiousness and vulnerability beautifully and with an ease only he seems capable of achieving.
  24. In general, Stephen Camelio’s script, sensitive and convincing as it is, attempts to pack too much emotion, back story and metaphor into a relatively slender tale. The result is a two-hour film that would have benefited from a judicious trim, a quickened pace and less melodrama.
  25. While ideas concerning the awakening of the dead are rife with transformational potential, in The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster the means used to materialize them leave much to be desired.
  26. While it is engaging to witness and hear of the ways that Hammons has continued to reject and undermine this market-minded approach to his work in the present day, the film’s focus on tracing Hammons’ work through capital, be it social or monetary, leaves the film with a bottom-heavy feeling of what can only be described as “ick.”
  27. Kudos to the Stedelijk for opening itself up to such firsthand scrutiny and to Vos for spotlighting such a vastly relevant topic in a way that’s both insightful and entertaining.
  28. 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.
  29. Montréal Girls emerges as a vivid, immersive paean to artistic expression and youth’s unhindered possibilities.
  30. It’s a winning cast, but don’t be surprised if you think about how many commercials for good times with friends or wellness products could be excerpted from the buoyant cinematography and editing style of Rise.

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