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. Little Accidents
    The look helps provide a little subtext, but not enough. For such an emotional piece, the dialogue stays too close to the surface. More problematic, the trio's encounters feel contrived; you can see the filmmaker's hand staging each one.
  2. Paddington
    Artfully and cleverly, the sweet spirit of that young bear from darkest Peru and his many London misadventures materializes brilliantly on screen in the very good hands of writer-director-conjurer Paul King.
  3. Blackhat
    Technology may have changed, cyber-crime may be all the rage, but the narrative song remains the same in films like this, and it's a tune this director knows by heart.
  4. The Wedding Ringer
    It's not quite a match made in heaven, but there is considerable comic chemistry between the high-octane Kevin Hart and the energy-conserving Josh Gad. A good thing since theirs is the only relationship worth watching in The Wedding Ringer.
  5. Match
    Though the thin mystery at the center becomes a narrative albatross, and Lillard and Gugino seem hamstrung by the schematic nature of their characters, Stewart's melancholic electricity manages to maintain its appeal.
  6. Black November
    There's little going on in the final product other than good intentions, as Jeta Amata always seems overreaching for the right buttons to push.
  7. Diving Normal
    The film takes a few rough turns that lead to Dana's inevitable bottoming out. Otherwise, this well-acted piece is a gentle, humanistic look at the unexpected ways in which relationships form, flourish and flounder and how we define who — and what — is "normal."
  8. Druid Peak
    Writer-director Marni Zelnick makes an assured debut, coaxing considerable production value out of her limited budget while weaving in an understated, enlightening conservation message that feels organic to the story.
  9. Taken 3
    This time around the dramatics and dialogue are so laugh-out-loud funny that if there is a "4" — despite the promises that "3" is the final chapter — maybe it should be a straight-out satire.
  10. Song of the Sea
    Song of the Sea is a wonder to behold. This visually stunning animation masterwork, steeped in Irish myth, folklore and legend, so adroitly mixes the magical and the everyday that to watch it is to be wholly immersed in an enchanted world.
  11. Ode to My Father
    Each sequence is masterfully calibrated for maximum lip-quivering effect, swelling strings and all.
  12. Beloved Sisters
    As lengthy and passionate as a drawn-out kiss, Beloved Sisters is a beautifully made romantic drama set in 18th century Germany that's smart, sensual and emotionally resonant.
  13. Two Days, One Night
    That Two Days, One Night retains such an organic sensibility, even with a major star in the lead, is credit to both filmmakers and actress.
  14. Let's Kill Ward's Wife
    Let's Kill Ward's Wife gets by on the casual charms and deft timing of its appealing cast until the midpoint, when the film's pacing and narrative structure take a hit — and never quite recover.
  15. The World Made Straight
    The movie finally feels more manufactured than organic, a travelogue of portent, complete with plangent guitars and peopled by characters from the backwoods playbook.
  16. Predestination
    The Spierig brothers have deftly fashioned an unpredictable thrill ride, and the joy is to fit together all its puzzle pieces.
  17. Two Hundred Thousand Dirty
    Writer-director Timothy L. Anderson mistakes foul language for wit, and the result is all painfully humorless.
  18. The Historian
    The appealing Doleac, who also produced, acquits himself as an actor. But as a director, he shows a wobbly visual sense and an uneven hand with his cast.
  19. The Search for General Tso
    Like any well-researched piece worth its weight in MSG, the documentary uses food as an angle to something else: a look at immigration and at a melting pot stirred by prejudice and persecution, later seasoned with adaptation, innovation and acceptance.
  20. The Taking of Tiger Mountain
    Tsui will try anything once in 3-D. Splatters of blood travel in bullet-time, and the requisite ridiculousness — like action scenes with skis and zip-lines — characterize Tsui's work. But bookending the story with the 2015-set prologue and epilogue turns out to be his most inspired touch.
  21. The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death
    The new installment is, at best, a serviceable creep show, one with far more chills than thrills.
  22. Cake
    It's a letdown that the film itself, written by Patrick Tobin and directed by Daniel Barnz, doesn't take half the chances its leading lady does and is content to paddle around the shallows rather than plunge into the deep end.
  23. A Most Violent Year
    A vibrant crime story filled to overflowing with crackling situations, taut dialogue and a heightened, even operatic sense of reality, A Most Violent Year captures us and doesn't let go.
  24. PK
    A biting, whip-smart satire on the thorny subject of organized religion, the Bollywood musical "PK" enlightens and provokes through outrageous slapstick.
  25. Goodbye to All That
    A charming supporting cast fails to invigorate Goodbye to All That, a relentlessly flat seriocomic take on contemporary relationships.
  26. Free the Nipple
    Director and star Lina Esco keeps this compact film moving with enjoyable buoyancy until it bids adieu with a showy climax that needs a serious postscript.
  27. Big Eyes
    This portrait of a woman on the verge — of success, of suppression, of submission, of rebellion — is never fully realized.
  28. Into the Woods
    What makes Into the Woods so entertaining is the cleverness of the tale itself and the way specific characters match the talents of its storytellers.
  29. American Sniper
    American Sniper is at its best when it deals with the assembly-line-of-death relentlessness of combat for Kyle, how it simultaneously consumes him and wears him down, and how, to his wife's distress, it turns the civilian life he returns to between tours of duty into the aberration, not the norm.
  30. Unbroken
    With what we see on screen weighted too much toward pain and too little toward redemption, this is a film we respect more than love, and that is something of a wasted opportunity.
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