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. Wild Things
    The movie has more twists than Chubby Checker, and as soon as you think Stephen Peters' script has used up every conceivable opportunity, it twists again.
  2. Punch-Drunk Love
    Charming and outlandish by turns, this misfit love story of disconnected people trying to find one another in an antagonistic world is a comedy of discomfort and rage that turns unexpectedly sweet and pure.
  3. Crimson Gold
    Through everyday actions and gestures -- in Hussein's awkward exchanges with other people, in his tender fumbling of his fiancée's purse -- Panahi shows a man for whom life has become increasingly arduous, alien. The filmmaker captures, in other words, what Bresson called "the force in the air before the storm."
  4. The Widow of Saint-Pierre
    Faraldo's most engrossing and inventive script, alternately serious and comic, is beautifully realized by Binoche, Auteuil and Kusturica, all of whom reveal a nobility of spirit and stylish gallantry so cherished by the French.
  5. The Full Monty
    If you don't go expecting the depth and subtlety of a Mike Leigh working-class film, The Full Monty can be heart-warming fun with more serious undertones than you might have expected. [13 August 1997, Calendar, p.F-5]
    • Los Angeles Times
  6. Knafayim Shvurot
    When the melodrama does get strong, and it does, when bad things happen on a dark and stormy night, we go with it rather than resisting. The film has won our trust, given some heft to its characters and involved us in their lives, come what may.
  7. Miracle
    Powered by an excellent Kurt Russell performance, Miracle treats old-fashioned, emotional material with an intelligence that respects both the story and the audience.
  8. 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.
  9. The Business of Strangers
    Crisp and provocative, and no small amount of its pleasure derives from Channing's dazzling performance.
  10. In This World
    What we are seeing may be a representation of the truth, but it is not real, and this collision of artifice and reality is jarring and disconcerting. This is a hurdle but not an insurmountable one. Even if it is counterfeit in a number of ways, the story In This World tells finally wins us over because it is too disturbing and well told not to.
  11. Audition
    A diabolically adroit piece of filmmaking that goes even further than the films of Italy's excruciatingly macabre Dario Argento.
  12. October Sky
    One of the most unfashionable movies of the new year, and one of the more appealing. [19 February 1999, Calendar, p.F-10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  13. En la ciudad sin límites
    Somber yet not without flashes of humor, The City of No Limits unfolds with a steady, cumulative power to a climax of surprises within surprises.
  14. Secretary
    For all the dolorous trim, Secretary is a genial romance that maintains a surprisingly buoyant tone throughout, notwithstanding some of the writers' sporadic dips into pop Freudianism.
  15. Undercover Brother
    A funkadelic fun ride that shrewdly reinvigorates the eye-popping styles and pulpy veneer of '70s blaxploitation flicks.
  16. The Score
    A top-drawer heist movie that ratchets up the tension inch by careful inch, The Score will remind you of classic caper films of the past, and that is a good thing.
  17. Identity
    Fine escapist fare with a saving sense of humor and an underlying premise that, when revealed, proves to be arguably plausible even if a reach.
  18. The Story of the Weeping Camel
    "Weeping" is a simple tale of animal estrangement and reconciliation that in its own quiet way manages to be soothing, hypnotic, even magical.
  19. Jeepers Creepers
    As stylish as it is grisly, Jeepers Creepers has cult film written all over it, and it's not for nothing that Francis Ford Coppola has been a staunch Victor Salva mentor.
  20. The Dancer Upstairs
    If the screenwriter and director had followed their cinematic instincts fully, they would have collaborated on one of the more satisfying political thrillers in years; instead, they've managed to create three-quarters of one.
  21. Enemy of the State
    A solid and satisfying commercial venture with more than enough pizazz to overcome occasional lapses in moment-to-moment plausibility.
  22. Animal Factory
    One of the least sensationalistic--and therefore, more unsettlingly plausible--visions of prison life ever transfigured into big-screen drama.
  23. Last Life in the Universe
    The stars and Doyle's expressive cinematography add up to a disarmingly seductive yet always precarious film experience.
  24. Deep Blue Sea
    An example of how expert action filmmaking and up-to-the-minute visual effects can transcend a workmanlike script and bring excitement to conventional genre material.
  25. Bright Leaves
    Inevitably poignant but also often amusing and always deeply touching.
  26. Twister
    Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to the rush of raw excitement "Twister" creates is that it makes it possible to ignore the painful awkwardness of the film's expository sequences and thudding dialogue of the "OK, boss lady, hold your horses" variety.
  27. Final Destination
    A terrific theatrical feature debut for television veterans Glen Morgan and James Wong.
  28. X-Men
    While X-Men doesn't take your breath away wire-to-wire the way "The Matrix" did, it's an accomplished piece of work with considerable pulp watchability to it.
  29. Calle 54
    Visually as pleasing as it sounds.
  30. Don't Say a Word
    Smart, stylish and, most important, satisfying.
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