Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,533 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: 8,703 out of 16533
  2. Mixed: 5,813 out of 16533
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16533
16533 movie reviews
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  1. Freaky Friday
    Turning ordinary life into movie magic is one of the most difficult, least-heralded challenges for any filmmaker. What makes Freaky Friday a charmer isn't how far-out things get for this mother and daughter, but how sweet and distinctly un-freaky a kid, her mom and their love for each other can be.
  2. Boys Life 4: Four Play
    Brent Sloan is the executive producer for the 87-minute Boys Life 4, each segment of which is polished, succinctly developed and well-acted. It deserves as warm a reception from audiences as its predecessors.
  3. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...
    The perfect summer tonic for mature audiences looking for sophisticated escape. It's filled with beautiful people in gorgeous, exotic locales.
  4. The Secret Lives of Dentists
    A stylish work from an accomplished, sophisticated filmmaker that bristles with intelligence and gleams with Scott's and Davis' multifaceted, astutely judged portrayals.
  5. Enemies of Laughter
    Paymer and many others in a large cast are well-established players with strong credits, and they do the best they can to pump life into remorselessly glum material.
  6. The Magdalene Sisters
    Graced with performers who bring a purity of emotion to their work, the film is always dramatically convincing. There is a fundamental air of truth about it, a sense that, horrific though things seem, this is how it must have been.
  7. American Wedding
    Scott's energy helps keep the movie going during its sluggish moments and animates its few bright spots, including a pleasurably dumb showdown on the dance floor of a gay bar.
  8. Gigli
    Nearly as unwatchable as it is unpronounceable.
  9. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
    However caricatured a vision of female empowerment, Lara Croft exercises an irresistible tug not just on the adolescent male imagination but the 12-year-old female imagination as well.
  10. Mondays in the Sun
    A triumph of quiet realism, a piece of sophisticated, subtle filmmaking that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking.
  11. Buffalo Soldiers
    Even Phoenix, an actor who can make an incestuous-minded Roman emperor seem sensitive, can't smooth over political nihilism this unsavory.
  12. Hotel
    Figgis certainly was after something different, but like "Timecode," in which four linked stories unwind in separate panels, Hotel proves to be a fundamentally insipid bid at experimental narrative.
  13. Seabiscuit
    It is not as exceptional a film as the reality deserves, but with a story this strong and races this expertly re-created, it squeezes out a victory by being as good a movie as it needs to be. On some days, that is enough.
  14. Lucía, Lucía
    An exhilarating celebration of the possibilities of love and friendship, and Lucía, Félix and Adrián could not be more likable.
  15. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
    A good example of complex Hollywood wizardry placed in the service of sharp, intelligent family entertainment.
  16. Camp
    Has a good deal of the appeal, and the drawbacks, of a high school play. It can be pokey and overly earnest and its dramatics are not always polished, but, on the other hand, would you want them to be?
  17. Masked and Anonymous
    The look of the film is great, the soundtrack glorious, but more often than not the dialogue is atrocious, featuring a lot of long-winded gobbledygook.
  18. Cuban Rafters
    The creators of the magnificent Balseros stayed involved with its subject, a group of Cuban boat people who made it to the United States, for a full seven years. If you put in that kind of time, you witness life happening in front of you in all its compelling, confounding drama. What could be better than that?
  19. This Thing of Ours
    A decently crafted, standard Mafia blood bath with a few new wrinkles and an aura of authenticity.
  20. Sakura Wars
    Duller-than-dirt.
  21. Johnny English
    A comic actor of genius who raises silliness to an art form, the wonderfully expressive Atkinson makes excellent use of those devastating looks in the spy spoof Johnny English, where he turns up as a James Bond type more likely to kill adversaries by accident than on purpose.
  22. The Embalmer
    From start to finish Garrone charges The Embalmer, a richly visual film, with an effective ambiguity and sense of foreboding.
  23. How to Deal
    Works up some genuine emotion offset by occasional humor and creates individuals of a certain degree of complexity, but the film is glazed over with an aura of artificiality.
  24. The Sea Is Watching
    An exquisite period film from a script Akira Kurosawa did not live to direct. It has a softer edge than the master probably would have delivered, but it is deeply affecting.
  25. Dirty Pretty Things
    This is a film that insinuates itself deeply into our awareness. It's that rare pulp story with something on its mind, an unnerving, socially conscious thriller with a killer sense of narrative drive.
  26. The Anarchist Cookbook
    An admirably ambitious political satire but is stronger on soundtrack narration than on-camera dramatization.
  27. Bad Boys II
    With a body built for action and a smile made for comedy, Smith eases through his scenes -- cool but never scary, a touch hip-hop and thoroughly audience-friendly. And unlike Lawrence, he can act. Smith's ability to put over a scene, combined with his matinee charm, goes a long way to making the film's violence palatable.
  28. September 11
    It's no surprise that Imamura has directed the best film in September 11, which is doubtless why the producer saved it for last.
  29. Garage Days
    Like real indie films, garage bands are by definition rough around the edges, but what separates the true believers from the poseurs is their passion, their commitment -- and not just how cool they look on screen or on stage. A mainstream endeavor tricked out as an indie, Garage Days gives us plenty to look at but no reason to care.
  30. A Housekeeper
    A summer treat for sophisticated moviegoers -- graceful and serious, yet not overly so. This easy-to-take movie gets everything just right and is a pleasure to watch.
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