Los Angeles Times' Scores

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:
16536 movie reviews
  1. A forgettable title and a barely there theatrical release don't do justice to the captivating and nostalgic coming-of-age dramedy That's What I Am.
  2. Resourceful writer-director Jim Mickle covers both in his realism-tinged indie Stake Land and shows that a savvy mixture of characterization, atmosphere and gore-eographed suspense can make even the most familiar fright tropes feel vaguely organic again.
  3. Few filmmakers juxtapose cruelty and beauty as audaciously as Japan's Takashi Miike. A master director with great style and panache, Miike's latest, 13 Assassins, is a classic samurai movie, right up there among the finest in the genre.
  4. Despite the powerful sense of place, Sympathy for Delicious unwinds a narrative thread that grows increasingly tattered and flimsy.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Making the Boys reveals just how bound up Crowley's play is with the history of the gay community, most heartbreakingly in the number of original company members who died from AIDS.
  5. For what makes this tale something more than a puzzle to be solved is a level of emotional impact that genre exercises don't often provide, emotion traceable to sensitive acting that is similarly rare.
  6. In sitcom savant Phil Rosenthal's world, truth is at least as strange as fiction and usually it's funnier, which works to his advantage in the very entertaining cultural exchange that is Exporting Raymond.
  7. It's a privilege and a pleasure to be present in a sacred space where the human and the mystical effortlessly intertwine, and we are in Werner Herzog's debt for that great gift.
  8. Hansel and Gretel are this movie's breakout stars, but it's not enough to make Hoodwinked Too feel like anything but a storybook hurled straight at your head.
  9. The sheer audacity of Fast Five is kind of breathtaking in a metal-twisting, death-defying, mission-implausible, B-movie-on-steroids kind of way. Not complaining, just saying.
  10. Director Satyajit Bhatkai has brought plenty of energy to an imaginative and thoughtful script by many hands.
  11. That there is little difference in tone between the end credits gag reel and the previous 100 minutes represents a triumph of consistency that Burt Reynolds, even in his heyday, never achieved.
  12. Despite its family-friendly trappings, "Cats" is largely serious stuff; deliberately paced, thematically dark and often wistfully told, with enough moments of survival-oriented tension and dread to question its G rating.
  13. Spurlock creates a good time along with some surprisingly salient observations as he tries to keep his balance on this very slippery slope.
  14. The past is where all the intrigue of the movie lies, and that is where the film is at its most compelling, with the present sometimes wilting in the desert heat.
  15. Writer-director Steven Silver (with an able assist from cinematographer Miroslaw Baszak) captures this brutal time - which led to the country's first free, multiracial elections in 1994 and the end of apartheid - in vivid, often bold, but never overpowering strokes.
  16. Unexpectedly flatfooted when it should be light on its toes, Legend of The Fist fails to pack much of a punch.
  17. A lame, tedious comedy.
  18. A lyrical poem for some, like watching paint dry for others. I'd argue for embracing the poetic, a rare commodity in American films these days.
  19. A film of rare visual poetry that's simultaneously personal, political and philosophical, it's a genuine art film that's also unpretentious and easygoing.
  20. If the circus is a hierarchical pyramid, August is at the very top. It's a part tailor-made for the accomplished Waltz, an Oscar winner for "Inglourious Basterds," and he eats it alive.
  21. Epic and intimate, historical and contemporary, moving and thought-provoking, the impressive The Princess of Montpensier has something for all and sundry but especially for those who like to believe that films can be as boldly intelligent as they are entertaining.
  22. The lovely, heartbreaking Fly Away benefits from superb performances and a gripping story managed with simplicity and grace by writer-producer-director Janet Grillo.
  23. This often risible head-scratcher never cracks the surface of its muddled ambitions, largely wasting its iconic settings on a series of motley interactions, Tinseltown trivia and self-conscious philosophizing.
  24. Posthumous albums and now this film are securing his legacy and enduring influence.
  25. The road trip provides some spectacular images, but it's the two protagonists that hold the most interest. Their reactions are unpredictable; their insights, illuminating and often quite funny.
  26. In only his second feature, Frammartino has found a fresh and ravishingly poetic and beautiful way to explore the relationship between the spirit, man and nature.
  27. Beyond his (Reeves) performance, the film's ungainly mix of heist, romance and backstage comedy never jells. It's never painful, though, especially when James Caan and Vera Farmiga are onscreen. But there's only so much life anyone could breathe into this inert caper.
  28. The resolution and strength of Wright's unimpeachable performance makes the whole story seem flesh-and-blood real in a way that it would not otherwise be.
  29. Rio
    What we have here is truly a rare bird, and I'm not talking about the world's last two blue macaws...No, the nearly extinct species of which I speak is the G-rated family movie - nice for a change to sit through a film with literally no cringe or fear factor.

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