Los Angeles Times' Scores

For 16,550 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:
16550 movie reviews
  1. A dazzling suite of emotions plays out within the confines of Boutefeu’s subdued, sensitive, gradually mesmerizing performance. At times she stares with laserlike focus into the camera, as if she had located the object of her scorn seated just behind the lens. Mostly she stares pensively into the middle distance, lost in the phantasms of memory.
  2. Tonally, Devotion remains steady, never going for over-the-top emotion or sensation, simply seeking to express something authentically moving and human. It unmistakably achieves that, delivering a stirring story of friendship during war, and beyond, that is both rare and real.
  3. In her elegantly unsettling portrait of an invisible woman straddling two notions of home — far from what she’s known, working inside a perilous system — Jusu is letting us know she’s got all diasporic women employed by wealthy families on her mind. And that their fears can easily become nightmares.
  4. Sr.
    Sr. proves a tender portrait and fitting tribute to an offbeat hero and creative pioneer.
  5. Clermont-Tonnerre’s emphasis on playfulness and energy is understandable, but an opportunity to bring back a layered epicness to sex on film feels lost.
  6. One of Strange World’s triumphs is the vibrant, weird, visually stunning subterranean world that the film’s heroes stumble upon during their quest to save their way of life. From its lush palette to its cute and deadly flora and fauna, this strange, mysterious world is very much deserving of its status as the film’s title character.
  7. At its best, Taurus captures the tumult of the artistic process, where happy accidents and unpleasant truths are perpetually in conflict.
  8. The lingering trauma of Morton’s upbringing is an ongoing challenge for him, even with all of his success; and this quietly moving movie examines how the right opportunities or the wrong expectations can make all the difference in who a person becomes.
  9. We don’t learn much about how the government or politics work in Afghanistan; and there’s very little in the way of historical background. But by giving a voice both to Ghafari and — in a few scattered scenes — her fierce opposition, In Her Hands does capture with direct immediacy how hard it can be to loosen up a culture with a tradition of rigidity.
  10. What makes this film so fascinating is that its subject remains an enigma: a pioneer who did a lot of good and inspired a lot of people, then faded quietly away, leaving questions about who he really was.
  11. This film has a worthy goal: to change the perspectives of people who might be hurting right now. For those willing to go with its flow, it has a real power.
  12. Adams is still an absolute dynamo as Giselle, fluctuating between preternatural cheeriness and storybook meanness. As in the first film, the actress strikes a graceful balance between the silly and the sincere, embodying and even humanizing everything people love about fairy tales.
  13. With care, thoughtfulness and rigor, Schrader and the filmmakers of She Said craft a film that shows the process of building this paradigm-shifting piece of journalism in a manner that is simultaneously thrilling and grindingly methodical, aided greatly by Nicholas Britell’s score.
  14. Being privy to this proud, close family at such a heavy, teetering moment is naturally emotional, which means Sbarge’s occasional voice-over commentary and the overactive music score can feel superfluous. But it’s well-intentioned empathy.
  15. The intimate and remarkably relatable documentary that is "Bad Axe” takes its name from the rural Michigan town where Siev’s Cambodian refugee father and Mexican American mother raised a family and ran a restaurant; Bad Axe turned out to provide a tellingly relevant backdrop for the film.
  16. Heineman’s trust in what his camera reveals — in the forlorn faces of U.S. soldiers, in the slump of Sadat’s demeanor, in the distraught eyes of a mother caught in that Kabul airport scrum of the desperate — tells its own necessary story of war wreckage.
  17. In its most moving and offhandedly momentous moments, The Inspection becomes a chronicle of not just persecution and survival but also solidarity, in which the all-American brotherhood in which Ellis finds himself actually can function as advertised.
  18. Part horror film, part coming-of-age tale, part romance, the adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ young adult novel Bones and All is a small marvel, unsettling and heartbreaking in equal measure.
  19. The Menu is a tightly wound, sharply rendered skewering of the dichotomy between the takers and the givers, or in this case, the eaters and the cooks.
  20. The result is a fairly cerebral genre hybrid that still connects on a gut level.
  21. Anyone gripped by “The Good Nurse” won’t be surprised to learn that the film followed what actually happened pretty closely. But whether dramatized or presented as journalism, it remains shocking to hear how the problem of Cullen kept getting passed from one institution to another.
  22. The stars can’t save it.
  23. Bar Fight! is so low-stakes and small-scale that at times it feels more like a TV sitcom pilot than a film. But this would be a pilot worthy of a pickup.
  24. The result is something visually dazzling and emotionally resonant, though likely to appeal primarily to youngsters and genre buffs.
  25. This doc is a welcome reminder of how Mays’ very presence in American popular culture was a game-changer, given that only the most virulent of racists could deny his superiority to nearly everyone on the field. It’s also a gift to hear from Mays himself, still kicking at 91.
  26. Spirited, the umpteenth screen incarnation of Charles Dickens’ evergreen “A Christmas Carol,” is such an amusing, buoyant and good-natured entertainment that it’s not hard to forgive this flashy musical-comedy-fantasy’s missteps. Grinchy viewers, however, may sing a different tune.
  27. This is a tumultuous and ultimately tragic tale about the exploitation of athletes.
  28. There’s a tear-jerking moment roughly every five to 10 minutes in this movie, as Gomez reveals her essential dilemma of being someone who loves making fans happy and loves being creative but lives in fear — as many people do — of disappointing their benefactors and loved ones.
  29. Viewers who can endure the at-times tediously dour first hour of “Next Exit” are rewarded with a tense and emotional final stretch, with a lot to say about what gives life meaning.
  30. The leads have a wonderful chemistry, with Bell hitting the right notes of anger and confusion and Morales maintaining the alien’s comic deadpan. Everyone involved has clearly thought through how such a wild fantasy situation might play out — and more importantly, how it would feel.

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