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. Goodnight Mommy
    Beginning with a gentle lullaby and ending with a tightly packed wallop, Goodnight Mommy is one viscerally chilling, seriously unsettling horror film.
  2. The Visit
    Shyamalan's script puts down reality shows, but this shocker works on the level of a game show, compelling audiences to yell out advice for Becca and Tyler as they steer through one trouble spot after another. This writer-director depends on hoary provocations.
  3. A Brilliant Young Mind
    A Brilliant Young Mind doesn't fit into any familiar inspirational box. Many of its characters are complex, contrary individuals who are not even close to being comfortable in their own skins, and this film refuses to shortchange how frustratingly edgy and difficult they are to interact with.
  4. Sleeping with Other People
    Though the leads lend charm and comic timing to the unpersuasive material, it would take a ground-up rewrite to make the fate of their characters matter.
  5. Time Out of Mind
    Given what it attempts, Time Out of Mind should be considered a success. An attempt to use a movie star to shine a dramatic light on the intractable problem of urban homelessness, the film's tone of austerity helps it to avoid sentimentality and simplistic answers.
  6. Meet the Patels
    Meet The Patels is more than just a hoot. Its candor and empathy allow it to make keen points about love, marriage, family and the unexpected complications that American freedoms can bring to immigrant lives.
  7. Coming Home
    Zhang and his sterling actors have made something fairly unforgettable about the tragedy of forgetting.
  8. The Transporter Refueled
    Cheap silliness abounds, including car chases that are more about loud crashes and CGI than the thrill of speed.
  9. Slow Learners
    Being big on improvisation doesn't necessarily mine nuggets of comic brilliance, and there are times you wish Argott and Joyce would have adhered more closely to the Matt Serword-penned script.
  10. Contracted: Phase II
    Novice screenwriter Craig Walendziak has followed England's template, charting the daily worsening of the symptoms. But he doesn't get that the 2013 "Contracted" was special because it was much more than a zombie flick.
  11. My Voice, My Life
    The film might have gained some heft had director Ruby Yang let the transformations unfold before our eyes instead of force-feeding us testimonials.
  12. Dirty Weekend
    That Les isn't one of LaBute's garden variety sadists is the best thing you can say about Dirty Weekend.
  13. Dragon Blade
    The movie's grandiose emotional quotient never feels any more real than its ham-fisted dialogue, dubious accents, strained "Kumbaya" moments or eclectic hairdos.
  14. Bloodsucking Bastards
    The film takes a long time to get going because of all the prolonged, glib chit-chat that loses whatever satirical edge it might have initially possessed.
  15. Before We Go
    There's so little urgency, cleverness or romantic comedy zing to this effort from four credited screenwriters (including Oscar winner Ron Bass) that the whole effort seems to run solely on the smiles of its photogenic leads.
  16. 7 Chinese Brothers
    An intelligent actor whose sad sack demeanor has often been put to good use by director Wes Anderson, most effectively in "Rushmore," Schwartzman does similarly well by Byington, whose slight portrait (taking its name from the title of an R.E.M. song) might not otherwise sustained its quirky charm without him.
  17. Break Point
    This light comedy stretches beyond sports to find emotion at its core, without sacrificing laughs.
  18. Chloe and Theo
    The climax is overwrought and cheesy, which doesn't match with the quiet dignity of the Inuit man. He carries a profound and sage warning, but Chloe and Theo just isn't the right dramatic package.
  19. Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine
    While the filmmaker's trademark mixture of talking heads, archival footage and investigative ethos is familiar, Gibney is certainly good at what he does, and "Steve Jobs" is at its best in providing a brisk summation of the man's life. Or, more accurately, lives, for Jobs seemed to have been more people than one would have thought possible.
  20. A Walk in the Woods
    Despite Redford's enthusiasm and best efforts, A Walk in the Woods is a tedious journey to nowhere special.
  21. War Room
    Preachy doesn't begin to describe War Room, a mighty long-winded and wincingly overwrought domestic drama.
  22. Blood Punch
    Writer Eddie Guzelian's grindhouse-meets-"Groundhog Day" scenario is not without its clever plot turns, but his terrible faux-noir dialogue is mostly crass, witless snark, and the fresh-faced, hollow actors don't have the scuzzy charm or fatalistic comic rhythms needed to make this material disreputably fun.
  23. A Reason
    Unfortunately, A Reason doesn't have enough story to justify its running time of nearly two hours, and though the performers are skilled, the melodramatic score and deliberate pace result in a piece that is overwrought but underdone.
  24. The Golden Dream
    The movie exists in a space beyond arguments about immigration policy and border security, and while sometimes a little too willfully pokey, it speaks to something indelibly human about dreams and their costs.
  25. Windsor Drive
    There isn't a whole lot to the script, and the exasperating direction by Natalie Bible only makes the film look like an extended trailer that teases but never delivers.
  26. When Animals Dream
    Though the careful mood is invariably dissipated when it comes time to kill, kill, kill, Arnby's ace in the hole remains Suhl, a young actress of Streep-ian intensity.
  27. The Mend
    By turns opaque, harsh, self-aware, indulgent and wickedly funny. It's never dull, pummeling you with its prickly smarts.
  28. Unsullied
    It's almost inconceivable that this effective, nerve-racking thriller is the first feature from former NFL defensive end Simeon Rice. It requires the usual suspension of disbelief, and pacing problems are a sign of Rice's directorial inexperience. But the tension he creates is unrelenting.
  29. Guidance
    Mills peppers his fresh script with an assortment of throwaway lines, kooky character beats and off-kilter emotional truths. That he packs so much memorable silliness into one 80-minute film is quite the feat. Sequel, please.
  30. Butterfly Girl
    Sometimes it's those with the hardest struggles in life who remember to appreciate life more than anyone else. This message comes through loud and clear in Cary Bell's documentary, Butterfly Girl.
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