Los Angeles Times' Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 8,714 out of 16550
  2. Mixed: 5,819 out of 16550
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16550
16550 movie reviews
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  1. Black '47
    The mournful film, which includes equally sturdy performances from old reliables Stephen Rea and Jim Broadbent, admittedly puts a hefty premium on tone at the expense of more intricate plotting and character development.
  2. Chasing the Blues
    The script from director Scott Smith and co-writer Kevin Guilfoile thinks the rivalry between the two collectors is enough to sustain the narrative, but it doesn’t devote much of its energies to developing the relationship between Alan and Paul.
  3. Ride
    Ultimately, Ride feels a little like a drama class exercise, with the leads digging deep into their characters’ motivations and feelings. All three nail their parts. But their story never gets out of first gear.
  4. Knuckleball
    For the most part, this is a tautly constructed exercise in suspense, set among striking-looking snowbound fields and farmhouses. It’s a vivid slice-of-life, even before the literal slicing begins.
  5. A Crooked Somebody
    Sommer, who did fine supporting work on TV’s “Mad Men,” doesn’t prove a distinctive or charismatic enough presence to carry an entire film, especially one as uneven as this.
  6. Private Life
    Jenkins constructs an entire narrative from little exchanges, reveries, complications and setbacks. With a mix of concentration and expansiveness that can take your breath away, she unpacks exactly what “they’ve tried everything” means.
  7. Venom
    Directed with flat, joyless competence by Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland,” “Gangster Squad”), “Venom” brings with it a laborious, decades-spanning development history. A movie this long in the works should arrive on-screen feeling like more than just an afterthought.
  8. A Star Is Born
    Gorgeously shot, lighted and scored, and acted by both leads with an incandescence that feels fully lived in, Cooper’s movie seduces you almost immediately. It doesn’t promise the shock of the new, but from the first frame it casts a spell, the kind that lets you know immediately that you’re in good hands.
  9. Hell Fest
    Hell Fest has exactly one genuinely nail-biting scene.... Otherwise, the movie does little to update, subvert, or comment on the trappings of classic thrillers like “The Funhouse” and “Halloween.”
  10. The System
    Taking aim at American society’s seriously broken criminal justice system, Iroc Daniels’ well-intentioned multi-character drama The System compensates in compassion for what it lacks in a more accomplished delivery.
  11. Domain
    Writer-director Nathaniel Atcheson has found a clever way to tell a lot of story without many resources — although the end result is still more exhausting than enticing.
  12. Maggie Black
    Actress and screenwriter Jessalyn Maguire brings her own challenges with anxiety and depression to both the lead role and the script, but the good intentions don’t create a good film with this psychology-driven drama.
  13. MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A.
    It inspires deep respect for the fierce and independent artist she is, a person whose voice is necessary, now more than ever.
  14. Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution
    Leyser’s film is an important document capturing the influence of queercore, an underground movement that enjoys life on the fringes, where identifying as an anti-establishment “arty weirdo” is just as important as sexuality.
  15. 3 Years in Pakistan: The Erik Aude Story
    Padding Audé’s first-person account — and those hammy dramatizations — with glowing testimonials from family and friends including José Canseco and, distractingly, the director herself, the overlong hodgepodge proves to be an ordeal in and of itself.
  16. The Healer
    Perhaps in the unique case of The Healer, it could just be said that although the cause may be noble, the end effect is decidedly less rewarding.
  17. Summer '03
    Summer ’03 bounces between plot lines and themes, shuffling through elements of better films with a lack of focus and little insight into Jamie. It never transcends its teen movie origins to become something more.
  18. Tea with the Dames
    Candid, insightful and unpredictable, Dame Eileen Atkins, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Joan Plowright and Dame Maggie Smith are not only acting legends but also great friends. And a treat to hang out with.
  19. Smallfoot
    Although Smallfoot is formulaic and predictable, what sets it apart is its willingness to dive into the themes of questioning blind faith.
  20. The Last Suit
    The Last Suit is a bumpy ride tonally, but its stubborn heart is in the right place.
  21. Little Women
    This adaptation completely bungles the update.
  22. Maximum Impact
    Maximum Impact is a dopey international thriller that’s fully aware of how dumb it is, This doesn’t make it a good movie, but it does make it easier to sit through.
  23. Free Solo
    Both intimate and expansive, Free Solo is a documentary beautifully calculated to literally take your breath away. And it does.
  24. Bad Reputation
    The movie balances electrifying archival footage with useful contextual cultural analysis.
  25. Call Her Ganda
    Even with its stumbling nature, though, Call Her Ganda is still a valiant effort to fuse inquiry, testimony, heart and protest in dealing with its complex intertwining of facts and issues.
  26. The Old Man & the Gun
    It’s a puckish film with a wistful quality, a gently comic end-of-the-line adventure about doing what you love, the passage of time and the things that might have been.
  27. Hold the Dark
    Its determined ambition and atmospheric skill keeps Saulnier firmly in the category of directors to watch.
  28. Museo
    Museo is a fun, stylish, singular heist flick that’s about so much more than the theft itself.
  29. The Padre
    A heavyweight cast and superb location-shooting carries The Padre, an otherwise meandering crime thriller.
  30. Night School
    For all her improvisational skill and that of her top-billed costar, the much-vaunted Hart-and-Haddish pairing never pays dividends. It feels more like Half-and-Half.
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