Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,526 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: 8,699 out of 16526
  2. Mixed: 5,810 out of 16526
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16526
16526 movie reviews
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  1. Margot at the Wedding
    One of the dark pleasures of "Margot" is watching Kidman and Leigh inhabit these two roles with a fierce passion.
  2. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
    While endearingly heartfelt and G-rated to boot, its storytelling suffers from a lack of locomotive force and characters that feel disappointingly two-dimensional.
  3. Redacted
    By any rational standard, this film is kind of a mess. Even if you agree with its politics, you will probably weep at the ineptitude of it all.
  4. Smiley Face
    Gregg Araki's delirious Smiley Face is an unabashed valentine to Anna Faris, an opportunity for the actress to show that she can carry a movie composed of often hilarious nonstop misadventures.
  5. What Would Jesus Buy?
    Loud, proud and cheeky, the film runs roughshod over corporate behemoths Disney, Starbucks and Wal-Mart as it preaches a sermon of simplicity and consumer awareness.
  6. Southland Tales
    You get the sense that Kelly is too angry to really find any of it funny. It's easy to empathize with his position, not so easy to remain engrossed in a film that's occasionally inspired but ultimately manic and scattered.
  7. No Country for Old Men
    An intense, nihilistic thriller as well as a model of implacable storytelling, this is a film you can't stop watching even though you very much wish you could. That's because No Country escorts you through a world so pitilessly bleak, "you put your soul at hazard," as one character says, to be part of it.
  8. Fred Claus
    The sweetest thing about Fred Claus is that the message about filial love feels genuine. I wouldn't have expected that watching Giamatti tell Vaughn, "You're the best big brother anyone could ask for," would make me choke up, but it did.
  9. Lions for Lambs
    Redford and Carnahan would like us to ponder our role in their fate. And maybe we would, if the lecture weren't so dull and self-satisfied.
  10. War Dance
    An enormously emotional and spirit-raising documentary.
  11. Steal a Pencil for Me
    Tells this most unusual love story with grace and compassion.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fat Girls
    Without insight, memorable dialogue or interesting characters, Fat Girls quickly wears thin.
  13. American Gangster
    Finely made and richly satisfying film.
  14. Bee Movie
    There's no real jeopardy. The stakes are low. It's a bee movie about nothing.
  15. Darfur Now
    Attempts to both explain the situation to audiences and offer some reason to hope for the future. It's an almost impossible task, and though the film does better than anyone might expect, its success is not complete.
  16. Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
    The film is a rigorously thorough biography and an impassioned accolade. Temple spends as much time on Strummer's life before and after the Clash as he does charting the band's powerful musical and political influence.
  17. Martian Child
    Martian Child would like to be "About a Boy (Who Thinks He's a Martian)", but, disappointingly, it doesn't even come close.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sharkwater
    Ecological passion meets unquenchable self-aggrandizement in the beautifully filmed deep-blue-alert documentary Sharkwater.
  19. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
    This is no nostalgia trip taken by an 83-year-old director. It's a fierce, hot slap of a movie, a shameless melodrama with bite.
  20. Bella
    Certainly a sweet, life-affirming picture, but it's just not authentic or captivating enough to justify its wildly concocted scenario.
  21. Dan in Real Life
    Dan offers the most pleasing kind of unforced charm as it uses a terrific plot device to examine the conflicts between family and romance as well as the joy and pain of being in love.
  22. Jimmy Carter Man from Plains
    This narrowly cast documentary focuses so exclusively on a publicity tour the former president took in the closing months of 2006 that a more accurate title might be "Jimmy Carter How I Sold My Book."
  23. Music Within
    The result is that they never truly find the innate drama in Pimentel's story, instead simply recounting four or five decades' worth of events that shaped the man.
  24. Rails & Ties
    As lovely as some of the footage looks and as committed as are the three lead performances, they serve only to make Rails & Ties play like an exceptionally well-acted and well-made Lifetime movie.
  25. Slipstream
    Taking a cue from David Lynch, Hopkins fractures the narrative from the first frame, but unlike Lynch he doesn't go far enough in establishing a context from which to deviate. If the story fragments we're watching spring from the same mind, in other words, it's not obvious.
  26. Mr. Untouchable
    A slick package all around. Adroitly edited, filled with fine music like Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman" and more people flashing needles than at a garment worker's convention, this film is less a dispassionate examination than a celebratory infomercial on its central character.
  27. 30 Days of Night
    The movie thus moves from truly creepy to truly inane, which is, unfortunately, all too common in films of this ilk.
  28. The Comebacks
    You'll be goaded throughout The Comebacks to think of "Bend It Like Beckham," "Remember the Titans," "Rudy," "Hoosiers," "Field of Dreams" and their ilk. What you also think about is how much this stuff worked better in "Airplane!" or "Blazing Saddles."
  29. Gone Baby Gone
    By and large a notable piece of work, a strong directing debut by actor Ben Affleck that highlights attention-getting performances...But, as adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, this brooding, somber film is also ragged around the edges and not without problematic aspects.
  30. Rendition
    Rendition offers few surprises, and it tips its hand too soon and too predictably to do much more than goose your weary outrage.
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