Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,524 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: 8,698 out of 16524
  2. Mixed: 5,809 out of 16524
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16524
16524 movie reviews
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  1. The Lovers
    Its emotional reserves are deeper and more capacious, its sense of mystery more profound, than in just about any American movie of any scale I’ve seen in recent memory.
  2. The Panama Papers
    The Panama Papers serves as a reminder of the important work reporters do in fighting abuses of power and the way that work is evolving in an increasingly fractured global landscape.
  3. Nothing Compares
    Nothing Compares stays confined to the six-year whirlwind when O’Connor was at her most famous, and steers clear of the decades of scandals that followed. This is clearly a conscious — and astute — choice by Ferguson, who means to show that even at the peak of her commercial powers, O’Connor was questioned, mocked and belittled.
  4. Hokum
    Hokum is a fabulous horror film for all tastes.
  5. Sound City
    High-spirited, emotional and funny, Sound City is, of all things, a mash note to a machine. Not just any machine, however, but one that helped change the face of rock 'n' roll.
  6. Greenberg
    Any comic relief it affords comes with such an undertow of repressed emotions and displaced anger that it all starts to feel more depressing than dramatic.
  7. The Mend
    By turns opaque, harsh, self-aware, indulgent and wickedly funny. It's never dull, pummeling you with its prickly smarts.
  8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    A mind-bending and mesmerizing thriller that takes its time unlocking one mystery only to uncover another, all to chilling and immensely satisfying effect.
  9. Five Star
    The loose structure of Five Star lends to the realism and documentary feel of the film but can often make it a bit hard to hook into the narrative. However, it's eye-opening to see an indie approach to this genre.
  10. The Fire Inside
    While the boxing is kinetically directed, Morrison grasps that the movie’s fiercest stands are taken outside the ring, when Claressa — faced with tough choices about her future — asserts herself to the people who need to hear it.
  11. Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
    A project such as Operation Homecoming should shed light on their experiences, but Robbins' film just falls short. [06 Apr 2007, p.E17]
    • Los Angeles Times
  12. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    What's best about it is that it seems real by the logic of childhood - it looks as things SHOULD look, if kids had it their way.
  13. For Ahkeem
    A tenderly intimate, affecting documentary portrait.
  14. Once Upon a Time in America
    Helped by Ennio Morricone's trademark score, especially the haunting playing of pan pipes by Gheorghe Zamfir, this is a work whose overall mood is one of overwhelming melancholy and sadness, of youthful yearning, mature regret, and the transcendent but fleeting nature of memory itself. [10 Jul 1999, p.F1]
    • Los Angeles Times
  15. Kids for Cash
    A vital, urgent and infuriating look at the devastating failures of the juvenile court system and the insidious reach of prison privatization.
  16. Encanto
    It’s a simple but resonant tale, but Encanto is a charmed and charming film that just might offer a bit of healing too.
  17. Don't Blink - Robert Frank
    Rather than being a film about an artist, it’s an attempt to show us what it's like to actually be an artist.
  18. Yourself and Yours
    Though it is only now receiving a U.S. release, it says something about the ever-prolific filmmaker’s consistency and extremely high level of proficiency that the film still seems fresh and enchanting, by turns delicate, romantic, mysterious, witty and crushing.
  19. The Bad Kids
    This isn’t just a necessary or powerful story; it’s a well-told one.
  20. The Hit
    The Hit is something special: thoughtful, perfectly performed and carrying the clear stamp of an extremely interesting director.
  21. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
    A meditative piece that is by turns hypnotically beautiful and painfully slow. It's the kind of film perhaps best appreciated in smaller doses, in the same way bench rest can help sustain a tiring museum visit.
  22. Farewell Amor
    Its beauty lies in its empathy — something currently in short supply and therefore very welcome in the stories we consume.
  23. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
    Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer takes some getting used to because it's the kind of film we're not used to seeing.
  24. A Family Affair
    Tom gradually chips away at the preening facade to seemingly unmask a complex woman whose self-image was largely shaped by her appearance-obsessed father. However, the deeper he digs, the more elusive his subject becomes.
  25. Lucas
    Lucas is as irresistible as its slight, brilliant, bespectacled 14-year-old hero (Corey Haim), a kid who in his spare time catches insects in a net--but only to study them, not to kill them.
  26. Kiss the Future
    The story that Kiss the Future tells — culminating in U2’s 1997 concert in Sarajevo, two years after the Dayton Peace Agreement — offers an admirably potent blend of darkness and light. Specifically, the light that can emerge from darkness.
  27. Taboo
    It takes a director with exceptional talent, skill and experience to explore ambiguity in all aspects of human nature and behavior, and Oshima has created a film of resilient, downright tensile strength that ends on a satisfyingly ironic note.
  28. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
    Aviva Kempner's warm and intelligent mash note to a man who clearly deserved it.
    • Los Angeles Times
  29. State and Main
    A quintessentially wised-up insider comedy, ideally cast and filled with sharp writing from start to finish.
  30. OT: Our Town
    A whole world can be fit into 76 minutes, and that's what the splendid documentary OT: our town manages to do.
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