Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,536 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:
  1. Positive: 8,706 out of 16536
  2. Mixed: 5,813 out of 16536
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16536
16536 movie reviews
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  1. Out of the Furnace
    Bale, Affleck and Harrelson are in their element as men battered by life, delivering exceptional performances that hold nothing back. Bale and Affleck are as nuanced as Harrelson is unhinged. It is among the finest work done by all three.
  2. The Unbelievers
    Unbelievers' is a high-minded love fest between two deeply committed atheistic intellectuals and their rock star-like fan base.
  3. These Birds Walk
    Deeply moving and devoid of melodrama, These Birds Walk is as pragmatic as its subjects.
  4. Sweet Dreams
    The most memorable thing about Sweet Dreams is that it allows us to experience the resilience, the capacity for happiness these women retain in spite of all they've been through. There's a lesson there for all of us.
  5. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
    It is the incendiary work of British actors Idris Elba and Naomie Harris as the couple in question that elevates our involvement in this authorized film version of Nelson Mandela's autobiography.
  6. Bettie Page Reveals All
    [A] highly watchable portrait.
  7. The Punk Singer
    The Punk Singer fascinatingly traces the evolution of a woman.
  8. Reaching for the Moon
    Everything ultimately gives way to the stately, simplistic, inevitable pace of by-the-numbers biopics, from some woefully tinny, hit-and-run screenwriting to the usual difficulties surrounding the dramatization of an author's craft.
  9. Homefront
    [A] contemporary B-movie Western with designs on stylistic flair.
  10. Black Nativity
    Many of the transitions between narrative and music are rough. The temptations of the street, all too real in the real world, feel forced. Confrontations become clichés. The substance of human motivation is missing. And thus the heart never beats as it should.
  11. Oldboy
    Oldboy suggests a filmmaker doing almost as much soul-searching as the main character. There is a brashness in the risks taken, the very imperfections revealing an artist finding new inspiration. For Lee, this weird, brutal film seems to have freed him.
  12. Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird
    Jaffe deftly captures his subject's creative process, helpfully illuminating the method to Wilson's comic madness.
  13. Delivery Man
    Delivery Man, a heart-tugging new comedy about fatherhood and family, is warm as well as wry.
  14. Frozen
    Frozen is fabulous.
  15. The Great Beauty
    As its name promises, The Great Beauty is drop-dead gorgeous, a film that is luxuriously, seductively, stunningly cinematic. But more than intoxicating imagery is on director Paolo Sorrentino's mind, a lot more.
  16. Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury
    The mix of computer-generated imagery, hand-drawn simplicity in the humans and depth-conscious, textured backgrounds makes for a potent visual intelligence.
  17. Philomena
    Dench is not the only reason to see this unapologetic crowd-pleaser, but she is the best one.
  18. Sugar
    As a whole, the film's characters touchingly illustrate the tolls of living with unresolved trauma and chronic uncertainty, as well as the solidarity and relative freedom this community of outcasts enjoys.
  19. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
    I don't know whether the tall man is happy, but I do know that Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? is intellectually and visually groundbreaking, and most certainly a film.
  20. The Christmas Candle
    The Christmas Candle" seems destined to be a Hallmark movie of the week. But in spite of the hammy histrionics requisite for the genre, it is not at all a turkey.
  21. Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven's Final Symphony
    Despite the good intentions, structurally it's all over the place with an excess of montages, archival footage, interviews and information practically drowning out any chance to appreciate the richness of the German composer's beloved achievement.
  22. Geography Club
    Sweet, slight and frequently familiar, Geography Club, based on Brent Hartinger's novel about sexual identity among suburban teens, often feels as if it's circling its expiration date.
  23. Home
    The great achievement in writer-director Jono Oliver's poignant, superb debut, Home, lies in the balance between the film's empathy for those like Jack who seek independence and its compassion for others who may need care indefinitely.
  24. All God's Children
    Between the heavy-handed lines, director Adrian Popovici provides telling glimpses of a provincial, aggressively retrograde attitude toward women and the seedy nightclubs where they're preyed on. He elicits uneven performances from a cast working in several languages.
  25. Contracted
    Although this horror flick is somewhat absurd and seemingly forgettable when viewed in a vacuum, its coincidentally contemporaneous release with "Blue Is the Warmest Color" urges immediate reconsideration.
  26. 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.
  27. Faust
    Alexander Sokurov's Faust is a grueling side show of a film, a morbid, mightily uninvolving piece.
  28. JFK: A President Betrayed
    The information comes fast from talking heads who, let's face it, can get a bit dry. Lose focus, and you risk missing the significance of what's being conveyed.
  29. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
    An effective piece of melodramatic popular entertainment that savvily builds on the foundation established by the first Hunger Games movie.
  30. Nebraska
    Nebraska offers something deeper and more mature, the ability to make us care about its characters and their story on a different level than Payne has given us before.
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