Los Angeles Times' Scores

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:
16526 movie reviews
  1. Filmmakers Brad and John Hennegan follow six horses and their trainers through the arduous 2006 race season, building up to the Derby, but they are never able to find the balance between insider wonkery and genuine human (or animal) drama.
  2. It is easy to see the film as two movies crammed together, neither of them being very good.
  3. This is as listless, mindless and utterly useless a piece of corporate brain-clog as one is likely to come across for quite some time.
  4. An unassuming but quietly heartbreaking drama.
  5. Not exactly bad, but it disappointingly never really discovers the movie that it wants to be.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    If you were going to show what happens to a man who loses the best part of himself, you'd want to cast John Leguizamo, who has spent his career leaping from one extreme characterization to another.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The contrast between grainy videos of street fights and gorgeous scenes of the same boys conquering enormous waves is simultaneously inspiring and sad. Imagine a world in which gang members looked forward to singing in the Sunday choir.
  6. Bubbly to the point of indigestion and mechanical about ticking off the romantic trajectory.
  7. It's the kind of observational comedy, that'll be hard to find come summertime and should be enjoyed while there's still a chance.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    If you swiped the most insipid dialogue of the teenage-angst movies of John Hughes and Kevin Smith and Amy Heckerling, you would still have a script -- and a movie -- far superior to the newest of the genre, Remember the Daze.
  8. Politics recede in the face of the realities of Young's life, and Spiro and Donahue would have succeeded in making the same point had they omitted all but his day-to-day existence. Together, however, they comprise a powerful indictment of the tactical politics that led to the invasion and a heartbreaking account of one man's living with the aftermath.
  9. This may sound like a suspect enterprise, a musical gimmick impossible to embrace, but the reality is otherwise. For what the members of this uncanny chorus lack in pure ability they make up for in irrepressible spirits and a desire to simply have fun.
  10. The camera is so unobtrusive and the acting so naturalistic that it takes a while for a narrative to emerge. When it finally does, you're surprised to find you're deeply invested in the characters.
  11. Yes, Jellyfish says, it's a wonderful life, not in that old-fashioned style we've perhaps tired of but in a surprising new and magical way all its own.
  12. Leatherheads proceeds agreeably, hitting occasional high notes when it isn't getting bogged down in forced slapstick hi-jinks.
  13. It isn't any good.
  14. The use of recognizable movie stars doesn't help, r serve Wong's style. My Blueberry Nights" should have played like a memory, but its hard-living, luckless losers are too beautiful to be believed.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The premise, from the book by Wendy Orr, is terrific, but the execution seems designed to make all but the youngest viewers fling copies of the book at the screen in frustration.
  15. The characters never evolve past mere functionality, and the adherence to certain tried-and-true horror tropes -- the good girl who doesn't want to go but does, the generic naughty kids who get it first -- feels workmanlike, robbing the story of any real suspense or surprise.
  16. Shine a Light may not be the last Rolling Stones movie, but it's likely to be the last one with a touch of the poet about it.
  17. The elegant Water Lilies is not about answers but about discovery of self and of others in all its pain and pleasure.
  18. Thoroughly gratifying in its consistent inventiveness and has a grasp of human nature so universal that there's no feeling of the exotic about the film and its people.
  19. Snarkiness and sentiment are in constant battle for supremacy throughout Run, Fat Boy, Run with no chance of a comfortable draw.
  20. 21
    What might have been a complex story dealing with greed and high-stakes betrayal among the young intellectual elite in America's gaming playground is instead treated as a slick, glossy romp.
  21. Petraglia and Rulli once again display their gift for bringing the texture of reality to family drama, for creating people and situations that involve us completely. My Brother Is an Only Child is not the only film that does this, but it's a product that's in shorter and shorter supply every year.
  22. A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, or so the saying goes, but the unadulterated joy Irène takes in throwing open the closet door to show Jean how this gold digging is done is positively infectious.
  23. Stop-Loss is a film that does it right.
  24. The very act of writing critically about Superhero Movie inspires something of an existential crisis -- no one likely to turn out for it is reading this review, and anybody reading this review is probably not inclined to see it under any circumstances.
  25. The luminous humanity that characterizes the films of Alexander Sokurov is in full force in Alexandra. On the surface, it is a work of the utmost simplicity but is charged with the eternal complexities and contradictions of both love and war.
  26. An understated gem. Writer-director Jeff Nichols, making his feature debut, has created a richly textured world.

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