Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,526 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: 8,699 out of 16526
  2. Mixed: 5,810 out of 16526
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16526
16526 movie reviews
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  1. Death Defying Acts
    Far more diverting and well crafted than its promotion-free release campaign might suggest. Then again, for a film largely based on the notion that "nothing is what it seems," such lowered expectations may actually work in its favor.
  2. Giorni e nuvole
    An intelligent adult drama that's especially relevant in these harsh economic times.
  3. The Stone Angel
    Burstyn gets to use her full bag of tricks to bring this crabby, hard-knocks survivor to life. Though she's aged 15 unflattering years, forced into awful old lady clothes and her character teeters on unsympathetic, the actress manages a rich, vanity-free performance, perhaps her best since "Requiem for a Dream."
  4. Harold
    Where "Superbad" found something raucously winning in hanging with adolescence's loser elite, Harold is a disingenuous, one-note underdog portrait.
  5. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    Instead of pushing for tough answers to difficult questions, this film is content to mythologize Thompson's bad-boy behavior, celebrating things like his willingness to drink a bottle of bourbon a day and go hunting with a submachine gun.
  6. Holding Trevor
    Director Rosser Goodman makes the crucial decisions facing Trevor suspenseful and involving -- and tinged with humor as well as pathos.
  7. Kabluey
    A dark piece of whimsy that enchants and befuddles in equal measure.
  8. Diminished Capacity
    All of the actors convey the ebullience of old friends convening for an on-the-cheap reunion. The shared good spirits result in a diminutive comedy with a bounty of charm and shrewd humor.
  9. The Wackness
    Emulating its hero's recklessly independent spirit, The Wackness aspires to be something more than your average psychiatrist-bashing, dysfunctional-parents coming-of-age dramedy à la "Running With Scissors." It snows us with more visual flash than it knows what to do with.
    • Los Angeles Times
  10. Tell No One
    Author Coben, who says he is a fan of "stories that move you, that grab hold of your heart and do not let it go," has gotten a film that does exactly that.
  11. Hancock
    It's a strange feeling to see the summer's most promising premise self-destruct into something bizarre and unsatisfying, but that is the Hancock experience.
  12. Finding Amanda
    The problem comes largely in the conception of the hooker-niece character, Amanda, played by Brittany Snow. Tolan never quite figures out whether she is supposed to be a variation on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold or a genuinely troubled teen.
  13. WALL-E
    Daring and traditional, groundbreaking and familiar, apocalyptic and sentimental, Wall-E gains strength from embracing contradictions that would destroy other films.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wanted
    Wanted's hyperkinetic antics are sometimes weighed down by a surfeit of adolescent misanthropy. But the adrenaline-overdose strategy works for viewers as well as hit men. As long as Bekmambetov keeps the pedal to the metal, you don't notice the rotten scenery outside.
  15. Gunnin' for That #1 Spot
    It's sure to satisfy the film's target youth audience's appetite for zippy visuals and swift pacing.
  16. Trumbo
    An unconventional film about an unconventional man. Part documentary, part expertly staged readings, it focuses on the unquiet life and unforgettable words of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, someone who, as his son puts it, never had to go looking for trouble because it always came to him.
  17. Elsa y Fred
    The film may be fearlessly sentimental, but it is sturdy enough to provide rewarding major roles for two veterans, who are of an age when such starring parts are rare.
  18. The Last Mistress
    The Catherine Breillat-directed period piece is an extreme cinematic pleasure, a well-told yarn of merciless desire.
  19. Red Roses and Petrol
    This is the kind of movie in which characters revere poetry, yet hardly anything about the writing (it's based on a stage play by Joseph O'Connor) or directing (by Tamar Simon Hoffs) qualifies as poetic.
  20. Get Smart
    Get Smart neglects the laughs and amps up the action, resulting in a not very funny comedy joined at the hip to a not very exciting spy movie. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
  21. The Love Guru
    The film's sunniest moments occur whenever song preempts all the fighting and smirking. Myers leads the cast in sitar-accompanied covers of such Bollywood favorites as "9 to 5" and Steve Miller's "The Joker," revealing a glimmer of the cross-cultural romp that could have been.
  22. Brick Lane
    Brick Lane has been whittled down from Monica Ali's expansive 2003 novel into a glossy but overly efficient drama that, like Nazneen's husband, is ultimately too ineffectual to make much of a dent.
  23. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
    This can be strong stuff for kids, but the film's humanistic approach preaches tolerance and hope.
  24. Medicine for Melancholy
    The narrative, at times, veers into overstatement, but for the most part we're allowed to eavesdrop on their self-examination guilt-free.
  25. Expired
    The ways in which very ordinary, uncharismatic people try to cope with their needs and longings is ultimately most affecting.
  26. The Happening
    It doesn't help that Wahlberg, whose work usually ranges from solid to inspired, is bewildering off-key here, though it may have something to do with playing off Deschanel, who reduces the whole marriage story line to a parody.
  27. The Incredible Hulk
    The result is solid and efficient, if unadventurous, illustrating both the lure and the limitations of comic book extravaganzas.
  28. Chris & Don. A Love Story
    Though drawn together by the thrill of infatuation, fostered by Isherwood's penchant for emergent male youth and Bachardy's awe of fame and glitz, the pair developed a durable love strengthened by nurturing and patience. In recounting this journey, directors Guido Santi and Tina Mascara make rich use of the couple's glamorous home movies.
  29. My Winnipeg
    This haunting phantasmagoria of a film -- comic, singular, surreal -- is not only something no one but the Canadian director could have made, it's also a film no one else would have even wanted to make. Which is the heart of its appeal.
  30. Quid Pro Quo
    Stahl and Farmiga give layered, restrained performances that keep what might have been a schlock fest with an improbable twist ending from devolving into trashiness. Instead, Brooks and his actors manage to render an involving and thoughtful story from some pretty dubious material.
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