Los Angeles Times' Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Black Butterfly
    Thanks to tight direction by Brian Goodman and lively performances from Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the film’s engaging even when it’s ridiculous.
  2. Berlin Syndrome
    Shortland and Grant build to a climactic final act that’s almost unbearably intense.
  3. Drone
    Utterly dull thriller Drone tries to raise ethical and moral questions about modern warfare, but the audience can only dwell on the illogical plot and unsympathetic characters — if they can engage at all.
  4. 96 Souls
    Jacobs simply can’t make any of it work.
  5. Buena Vista Social Club: Adios
    Beautiful gems of wisdom and life lessons are contained within Buena Vista Social Club: Adios. The picture is an edifying celebration of this music, humanizing and contextualizing it beyond its popularity, locating its roots within a history informed by politics, colonialism, oppression, and racism.
  6. Long Strange Trip
    Thoughtful, deeply affectionate and concerned more with essence than chronology, it recounts the band’s 30 years in a way that should enlighten diehards as well as the uninitiated.
  7. Wakefield
    If it struggles to make sense emotionally (or logistically), it benefits from the confident pace of a literate, mainstream entertainment, and the tactical showmanship of star Bryan Cranston, who’s made something of a specialty out of the average guy going through a metamorphosis.
  8. Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower
    Director Piscatella maintains an engaging grip on his unassuming subject’s ascendancy.
  9. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
    There are no new treasures to be found in this installment, which is dragged down by the anchor of a prescribed franchise blueprint.
  10. War Machine
    War Machine is the first of Australian filmmaker Michod's three films...to have a dominant sense of humor. What unites it with its predecessors is Michod's fierce intelligence and formidable directing skill.
  11. Baywatch
    Baywatch...is for those fans who couldn’t resist the show’s soapy charms. New ones who crave a summer blockbuster comedy might enjoy how much it not only owns its dumbness but hurtles itself all the way back around through a flurry of genitalia jokes and F-bombs to splash unapologetically in an R-rated surf of winking postmodernism.
  12. Fight for Space
    Though Fight for Space doesn’t innovate artistically, first-time director Paul J. Hildebrandt’s documentary makes strong arguments for scientific innovation.
  13. Last Men in Aleppo
    It’s raw, powerful, moving and candid. This is what it is like to be on the ground in Aleppo.
  14. Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS
    The 100-minute film does a phenomenal job detangling the numerous scenarios that led to Syria’s civil war and current bloodbath, dispelling the notion that this conflict is too complicated for those not versed on the Middle East to understand.
  15. Devil's Domain
    The film as a whole doesn’t make a lot of sense, but from moment to moment it is effectively visceral and raw. It’s compelling almost by accident.
  16. The Wedding Plan
    At its heart, the film is a kind of mystical fairy tale whose messages of belief, endurance, family and belonging transcend its memorably specific people and setting.
  17. The Commune
    As an ensemble movie, The Commune isn’t the most gripping, but when it zeroes in on Dyrholm’s affecting portrayal, it’s like Tolstoy’s famous line about the uniqueness of unhappy families, poignantly adapted for group living.
  18. The Last Shaman
    The film is a fascinating and sometimes terrifying introduction to ayahuasca. Surreal sequences mimicking the hallucinogenic experiences during the ceremonies are unnecessary and pale in comparison to the real transformation we witness.
  19. Sacred
    The film articulates a concept of universal humanity. No matter the religion or circumstances, we all have the same desires for peace and connection throughout life.
  20. The Survivalist
    The camera work is meticulous and exquisite in its expression, creating a sense of tense foreboding throughout, linking characters and images with a creepy omniscience.
  21. Paint It Black
    An intriguing audio-visual sense, deft editing and Shawkat’s committed performance elevate this strangely watchable film.
  22. Alien: Covenant
    This movie may be a convulsively entertaining throwback to Scott’s glory days, but to look upon Fassbender, with his icy and seductive post-human gaze, is to behold this franchise’s future.
  23. Wrestling Jerusalem
    Rather than pulling the viewer in, all the inter-cutting between the barren stage and the barren desert ultimately has a distancing, artificial effect that waters down much of the dramatic potency generated by the shared experience of a live performance.
  24. Dead Awake
    Despite Donahue’s best efforts in a grand finale sleep session with life-or-death stakes, the premise never lives up to its promise.
  25. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story
    Their personal story is no less fascinating than their experiences working on hundreds of movies, together and separately.
  26. Paris Can Wait
    The refreshing element is that the story resists normative fantasies of sex or romance — in Paris Can Wait, Coppola focuses on the relationship to the self.
  27. A Woman's Life
    Riveting in its slow and steady accretion of details, its penetrating and richly textured gaze, A Woman’s Life is a bracing reminder that our experiences are often shaped less by what we achieve than by what we endure.
  28. Urban Hymn
    Urban Hymn is so carefully and lovingly made by director Michael Caton-Jones and his leads that it’s hard to begrudge the British drama its familiar premise, especially as you squint at the screen through tears.
  29. Hounds of Love
    Young’s vision of quiet middle-class mayhem, drawn from the three-handed struggle between young Vicki and her tormentors, is bold and unflinching.
  30. Snatched
    Snatched may represent a failure of sensitivity, but it’s an even greater failure of nerve.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »