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. Mine
    The film is often a marvel of visual and narrative resourcefulness. But with its single primary location, blistering atmosphere, small cast and narrow focus, “Mine” may prove too grueling for some.
  2. 1 Mile to You
    The film feels cluttered by all the other nonsense of girls, rivalries and friendships that could have been pared down for a more efficient narrative.
  3. The Void
    Few horror fans will complain about a movie that’s so generous with well-constructed, energetically staged set pieces featuring elaborate makeup effects and plenty of nondigital goo. The Void is derivative, but delightful.
  4. Bethany
    James Cullen Bressack’s Bethany is polished, well-acted and filled with memorably disgusting images, but its portrait of a frazzled adult survivor of child abuse is ultimately formulaic and a little sleazy.
  5. The Ticket
    Directed by Ido Fluk from a screenplay he wrote with Sharon Mashihi, the film is sensitively observed, its performances convincingly understated. But it rapidly devolves into a standard, and increasingly unfocused, story of materialism and greed.
  6. Colossal
    Neither Hathaway nor the script makes any overt bids for the audience’s sympathy in Colossal, which may explain why they earn it so handily.
  7. Queen of the Desert
    The main flaws in “Queen,” however, are a lurching narrative coupled with dialogue awkwardness, and a blasé approach to Bell’s motivations.
  8. Salt and Fire
    Like something you peer at rather than absorb, Salt and Fire is both awful and a tad fascinating.
  9. Speech & Debate
    Although the story, which feels a tad past its expiration date, never digs too deeply into its central issues (hypocrisy, loneliness, censorship, finding one’s voice), Dan Harris’ peppy direction and nimble turns by the film’s young leads prevail.
  10. Going in Style
    If anything, it uses its gifted veterans to disguise how tired, implausible and overly sentimental the proceedings turn out to be.
  11. Smurfs: The Lost Village
    Though it's nice to see Smurfette get her due, the whole endeavor feels tired and tiring.
  12. Aftermath
    Aftermath can’t quite sustain its controlled tone, relying on operatic melodrama and limp plot twists as it concludes in an uneasy resolution.
  13. The Assignment
    There’s howlingly awful and then there’s The Assignment, a thoroughly ridiculous, numbingly slow neo-noir thriller.
  14. Your Name.
    The movie’s spirit is by turns energetic and serene, impetuous and wise, its wild shifts from comedy to tragedy to romance revealing themselves not as tonal swings so much as variations in a larger cosmic pattern.
  15. Gifted
    No one is likely to disagree with the basic correctness of the movie’s conclusions, though you may well object to the process by which it arrives at them.
  16. bwoy
    Bwoy (Jamaican patois for boy), which largely plays like a stage-appropriate two-hander, is ultimately a surprising and cathartic, if often unsettling, film anchored by Rapp’s superb portrayal of a tortured soul desperate to connect. Brooks’ deftly enticing turn is also a standout.
  17. Fare
    Forced character arc aside though, this is a tightly constructed and well acted indie with a few standout sequences. It’s further proof that sometimes all a filmmaker needs is a cab and a camera.
  18. Pitching Tents
    From the homophobic slurs to the lowest common denominator body humor to the stale gender politics, Pitching Tents is all cutesy retro raunchiness without any innovation or comedic payoff. It might have been excusable back in the day, but now it’s just boring.
  19. Here Alone
    This is the first act of a better movie, stretched to fill a feature.
  20. Despite the Falling Snow
    Despite the Falling Snow is ostensibly a love story set against a Cold War thriller backdrop, but it features no heat and little tension.
  21. In Search of Israeli Cuisine
    If the pacing flags a bit en route, enough vivid imagery remains to hold interest, with Solomonov proving a smart, appealing and personally invested guide.
  22. The Levelling
    Set on a dairy farm in southwestern England, The Levelling is a modestly scaled, superbly crafted drama with a powerful sense of place.
  23. The Prison
    Two tedious hours later, the sensation of doing time is all too tangible.
  24. I Called Him Morgan
    Artistic, obsessive and intoxicating, I Called Him Morgan is a documentary with a creative soul, and that makes all the difference.
  25. For Here or to Go?
    In attempting to address its many concerns, the film’s agreeable, lightly satirical tone gives way to increasingly didactic dialogue and a stalling pace.
  26. Ghost in the Shell
    Your head might not be spinning as you exit the theater, but your senses will be deeply and thoroughly ravished.
  27. The Blackcoat's Daughter
    Eventually, The Blackcoat’s Daughter connects the pieces and ends strongly, though Perkins smartly spends more creative energy on crafting creepy situations than on pointing toward the payoff.
  28. Carrie Pilby
    Carrie Pilby is a studiously quirky affair, but only the natural charm of Powley salvages that tone. The film swings wildly from melancholy to wacky, never truly melding the two; it somehow also lacks verve and energy.
  29. The Zookeeper's Wife
    An emotional experience that is straight-ahead but satisfying.
  30. The Discovery
    Director Charlie McDowell, who co-wrote the film with Justin Lader, sidesteps the material’s more intriguing ideas, ultimately settling for a conventional story about love, loss and second chances. The disappointment comes not in the lack of answers but in the relative absence of audacity in tackling such a trippy concept.
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