Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,520 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: 8,697 out of 16520
  2. Mixed: 5,806 out of 16520
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16520
16520 movie reviews
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  1. My Son
    [An] engrossing, propulsive film.
  2. Carmine Street Guitars
    Carmine Street Guitars is a leisurely Sunday stroll of a documentary.
  3. The Hustle
    The Hustle nods to its predecessors and feels at times like “To Catch a Thief” meets “Absolutely Fabulous.” But what makes “The Hustle” work is its stars.
  4. Non-Fiction
    What makes Non-Fiction stand out is the adroit way it keeps everything in balance. The writing and the acting, the questions about contemporary society as well as personal relationships, they all exist in enviable harmony to create an incisive snapshot of the present moment.
  5. Ask Dr. Ruth
    The experience of watching Ask Dr. Ruth is a bit like that of meeting someone unaccountably delightful and almost being knocked backward by the gale-force strength of her personality, and then wanting to go out and buy one of her books so as to actually learn something about her ideas.
  6. Charlie Says
    Charlie Says is a fascinating and feminist exploration of Manson’s first victims: the girls themselves.
  7. The Biggest Little Farm
    The combination of technique and message is ultimately winning. It’s tempting to think of Biggest Little Farm as the real-life equivalent of an epic pastoral storybook tale, but with the kind of happy ending that suggests a blueprint for saving the earth.
  8. Poms
    The story is thin and merely serviceable at best, and it often feels like the film has barely been written.
  9. Rafiki
    To merely describe what happens in Rafiki would be to overlook its transporting sense of place, its striking visual pleasures and its credible and moving performances.
  10. Wine Country
    It isn’t good, exactly — as boozy friend-reunion comedies go, it’s no “Girls Trip” or “The World’s End” — but it has its ticklish grace notes, plus some first-rate second and third bananas, despite a script that seems to be working both too hard and not hard enough.
  11. Tolkien
    What Tolkien offers instead is a picturesque, amber-soaked balm for armchair Anglophiles: the manners and mores, the crisp witticisms and stirring, stiff-upper-lip sentiments. These pleasures aren’t negligible. But neither are they a substitute for a genuinely cinematic window into a genius’ mind.
  12. Bardo Blues
    Though well shot by Justin and Ian McAleece, the narrative is a disjointed mess that ends in an eye-rolling conclusion. Its spiritual insights feel like a mishmash of appropriated sentiments from a variety of philosophies.
  13. Go for Broke: An Origin Story
    Go For Broke unfolds across Hawaii with lo-fi charm but introduces more characters than it can balance, falling into uneven and overly earnest stretches.
  14. Tesla Nation
    Less would have been more here; a less scattershot approach would have yielded a more resonant film.
  15. If the Dancer Dances
    Modern dance devotees and fans of legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham will find much to appreciate in the lovingly crafted documentary If the Dancer Dances. For others, the film may prove too repetitive and narrowly focused.
  16. Foster
    An intimate, intensely dramatic film that holds us in its grip like a page-turning novel. Except it’s all true.
  17. The Intruder
    Directed by Deon Taylor with a cheeky sense of fun and deep knowledge of the genre, The Intruder is the kind of schlocky yet satisfying genre filmmaking that makes you jump and laugh at the same time.
  18. Meeting Gorbachev
    Less a journalistic endeavor than an admirer’s tour — with room for blackly funny Herzog-ian touches in his choice of archival clip or patently demonic voice-over.
  19. Shadow
    Fortunately, both the film’s gorgeous look and its meticulously choreographed action sequences keep us more than occupied until the plot pieces fall into place.
  20. The Russian Five
    One of the most dramatic and emotional of sports stories gets the expert film it deserves in The Russian Five, a documentary that is moving in ways you won’t see coming.
  21. Tell It to the Bees
    Paquin, in one of her strongest performances since The Piano, and especially Grainger (best known for a substantial résumé of British television) shoulder the film’s dramatic burdens with grace and ease. They’re a pleasure to watch. But the unassumingly square and overly familiar film simply isn’t the buzzworthy vehicle their work deserves.
  22. Bolden
    Unfortunately, the film, costarring Erik LaRay Harvey, Robert Ri’chard and Ian McShane, turns overly violent, raw and showy, undermining the glorious music (written, arranged and performed by Wynton Marsalis), superb period re-creation and Carr’s powerful lead turn.
  23. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
    If the idea was to tell the story from Liz’s perspective, the movie botches that perspective badly: Abandoning any sense of narrative rigor, it can’t keep hunky, charming Ted from becoming the protagonist of his own hideous story.
  24. Hesburgh
    As informational as it is inspirational, Patrick Creadon’s Hesburgh is a thoroughly engaging documentary chronicle of the life and turbulent times of longtime Notre Dame president Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, whose tenure coincided with a particularly pivotal stretch of American history.
  25. El Chicano
    Reminiscent of Hollywood cop movies from the ’80s, when masculinity came only in a macho shade, but propelled by the fresh winds of inclusion, El Chicano stands as a solidly acted and technically accomplished spectacle, the latter likely the result of Hernandez Bray’s time delivering stunt magic behind the scenes as a stunt coordinator.
  26. The River and the Wall
    Director Ben Masters’ compelling, gorgeously shot, super-timely documentary The River and the Wall should be required viewing of anyone charged with making a public case for or against a border wall between the United States and Mexico.
  27. Long Shot
    At times it might remind you of a slightly edgier version of the genteel White House romances that flourished in the mid-’90s, like Dave and The American President. Long Shot may nod overtly to a world under threat by terrorism, corruption and climate change, but it also yearns for a gentler, less polarized moment in our political discourse.
  28. Room for Rent
    It’s not the easiest movie to watch; but that’s only because Shaye’s admirably unafraid to tap into the parts of herself that weird people out.
  29. The Convent
    The film’s well-made, thick with spooky 17th century atmosphere. But it’s also as dreary as its setting, with little original or exciting to add to an already limited horror sub-genre.
  30. Clara
    Writer-director Akash Sherman gives the film a handsome look, and gets two strong lead performances, but his picture still comes out too static and somber.
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