Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,539 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 16539
  2. Mixed: 5,816 out of 16539
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16539
16539 movie reviews
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  1. Sexy Baby
    The result is a kind of "Three Ages of Woman, With Plastic Surgery," that veers between insight and hand-wringing.
  2. That's What She Said
    Avoid this one like, well, a yeast infection.
  3. Simon & the Oaks
    A two-hour theatrical feature that has the kind of emotional and storytelling reach regularly found these days only in cable TV miniseries. It's a warmly done family and personal drama that seems to cover familiar territory, but only up to a point and very much in its own way.
  4. For Ellen
    A small but exquisite film, beautifully observed and impeccably executed. Written and directed by So Yong Kim, it shows a different side of an actor we thought we knew and reveals unexpected aspects of a character who turns out to be not as familiar as he seems.
  5. Nobody Walks
    If you allow yourself to drift with it, rather than get frustrated by all the non sequiturs, Nobody Walks becomes a more enjoyable film.
  6. The Sessions
    In a country that embraces cinematic violence with such ease but blushingly prefers to keep sex in the shadows or under the sheets, the grown-up approach of The Sessions is rare.
  7. Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike
    Budgetary constraints aside, director John Putch struggles to find balance or generate a single spark from the clunky mix of romance, political diatribe and thriller.
  8. Paranormal Activity 4
    This film's strong suit is that it finally feels contemporary.
  9. Alex Cross
    The best of the Alex Cross mess suggests that as an actor, he has the talent to move beyond the world of Madea should he want to. He just needs to look for much better material.
  10. Smashed
    Winstead, who appears in nearly every scene, can be compelling but, like the material, often pushes too hard, especially in Kate's climactic dive off the wagon. In a far more limited role, Paul is lower-key and convincing.
  11. Step Up To The Plate
    As for the so-called "food compositions" seen here, like the film itself, they're more impressionistic and artistic than enticing. For a far more satisfying cinematic meal, check out the similarly themed "Jiro Dreams of Sushi."
  12. Fat Kid Rules the World
    Endearingly uneven.
  13. Now, Forager
    Despite an awkwardly jokey title, Now, Forager has charm, intelligence and a cool passion for its principled characters - an appealing off-menu slice for hungry indie admirers.
  14. Wuthering Heights
    It's just that there isn't enough story - the book shouldn't be required reading for the film to make sense.
  15. Excuse Me for Living
    Vaguely misogynistic and defiantly paternalistic, the movie fails at nearly everything.
  16. War of the Buttons
    Though it's handled with little subtlety, the way the atmosphere of suspicion in Vichy France filters down to the kids is a smart slant on the material.
  17. The Thieves
    While the movie's second half feels more consequential - and more impressively action-packed - than its first part, it also loses some of its initial charm and quirk via a protracted, often dizzying descent into a kind of booty-centric game of hot potato.
  18. Sinister
    Rather than another drearily workaday horror picture, Sinister uses the supernatural to underline its examination of the all-too-human foibles of insecurity and myopic self-centeredness. As the best horror stories so often do, Sinister makes clear that we are our own boogeymen, the worst monsters of all.
  19. Here Comes the Boom
    The film works hard at its inoffensiveness. Throughout, jokes are left on the table, setups never pay off in any significant way.
  20. Seven Psychopaths
    Unlike "In Bruges," the outlandish parts of Seven Psychopaths, though often bleakly entertaining in their own right, remain a collection of weird riffs that not even engaging acting by Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken and Tom Waits can bring together.
  21. Middle of Nowhere
    So though it echoes the films of Charles Burnett, the plays of August Wilson and "A Raisin in the Sun," at its heart Middle of Nowhere is old-school, character-driven narrative at its most quietly effective.
  22. Argo
    Affleck easily orchestrates this complex film with 120 speaking parts as it moves from inside-the-Beltway espionage thriller to inside Hollywood dark comedy to gripping international hostage drama, all without missing a step.
  23. Just 45 Minutes from Broadway
    An investment in theatrical self-indulgence with diminishing returns.
  24. Mulberry Child
    In the film based on her memoir Mulberry Child, Jian Ping speaks of her family's ordeal during the Cultural Revolution with searing detail and not an ounce of sentimentality. The same can't be said of director Susan Morgan Cooper's heavy-handed approach to the material.
  25. Detropia
    It is a striking and moving study of "what was" versus "what it has become" as the filmmakers try to get at the whys.
  26. Decoding Deepak
    Decoding Deepak does not feel, as it might, like an indictment of those messages but rather a straightforward portrait of someone working hard to present the product he is selling.
  27. V/H/S
    Had V/H/S been a nasty jolt of three, it might have been memorable, but at nearly two hours, the gimmick punctures a hole in itself, causing ambience bleed-out. Recommended cure: a tripod
  28. Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
    Cogent, convincing, determinedly non-ideological, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare tells us that everything we think we know about that incendiary topic might be wrong. And it offers us a way out of the morass.
  29. Butter
    The would-be satire is nothing more than a bunch of sketch characters and jokes welded to a sentimental subplot.
  30. The Paperboy
    There is such unflinching passion in the piece that The Paperboy deserves to be seen even though it can feel almost as flawed as its characters.
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