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. Word Wars
    The film stands up well to the inevitable comparisons to "Spellbound," a riveting documentary about young spelling bee contestants.
  2. Imagining Argentina
    Severely marred by a plot device so ludicrous it turns a serious drama into something silly.
  3. Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
    Moving and invaluable.
  4. The Chronicles of Riddick
    Not since John Travolta sprouted a head of dreadlocks and strapped on platform boots for "Battlefield Earth" has cinematic science fiction been such good-bad fun as in The Chronicles of Riddick.
  5. The Stepford Wives
    It was somebody's nitwit idea to rip out the story's guts and brains for a sour sellout of a finale -- which finds the filmmakers behaving exactly like Stepford men and turning an original into a dummy.
  6. Garfield
    Bill Murray completists, tots under 5 and their unfortunate chaperons are the only ones who need experience the soulless excuse for an entertainment called Garfield: The Movie.
  7. Napoleon Dynamite
    It's a simple collection of sight gags and pratfalls that mines the overly familiar turf of awkward adolescence without bringing anything truly original to the experience.
  8. Imelda
    Diaz has said that she hopes the film asks the right questions. But it seems, in this case, that the questions are leading - and rightly so. Marcos is given all the tape she needs to hang herself.
  9. The Story of the Weeping Camel
    "Weeping" is a simple tale of animal estrangement and reconciliation that in its own quiet way manages to be soothing, hypnotic, even magical.
  10. The Corporation
    The Corporation takes great and successful pains to be as visually diverse and clever as it is intellectually provocative.
  11. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
    Azkaban breaks free of all these shackles in its final hour. Working with the persuasive Thewlis and Oldman, able to focus his gifts on what's distinctive, dramatic and surprising about the story, Cuarón creates on screen the heartfelt magic that has enthralled so many on the page.
  12. Carlos Castaneda: Enigma of a Sorcerer
    Does little to unravel the riddle of the title. Unless you are already a fan of Castaneda, the film is likely to leave you feeling as though you've just watched a very long, lost episode of that old TV series "In Search of ..."
  13. Bukowski: Born into This
    Accomplishes beautifully what it sets out to do, which is to reveal the man behind the crusty, hard-drinking, tough-talking persona Charles Bukowski so artfully crafted.
  14. Soul Plane
    Flashy production design can't save Soul Plane from crashing and burning in a debris field strewn with stereotypes and raunch.
  15. Saved!
    It's no great surprise that after a tough beginning, Saved! soon starts to sound a lot like the inspirational TV movie (with Valerie Bertinelli).
  16. The Mother
    Every element of The Mother, directed by Roger Michell and written by Hanif Kureishi, fits together with perfection. The film's staging -- the way its settings create a world that allows for striking images that echo the psychological interplay of its people, the way in which every performance could not be any better -- is awe-inspiring.
  17. Baadasssss!
    In its spirit and execution, Baadasssss! lives up to its forebear.
  18. The Day After Tomorrow
    The story is too silly, too woefully underwritten, to stake a claim on seriousness.
  19. Union Square
    Far more troubling than the documentary's lack of data and analysis, its refusal to pose even basic questions -- whether, for instance, the so-called war on drugs is a total farce -- is the sense that these seven lost souls are principally on display for our viewing displeasure.
  20. Wake
    Nothing is allowed to build, so there is no tension or surprise left for the film's climax, resulting in a reductively pulpy rehash of 20th century American drama.
  21. Frankie and Johnny Are Married
    A bittersweet, wryly amusing "dramatic fiction"
  22. The Five Obstructions
    A complete original. This ingenious, almost indescribable film won't remind you of anything else because there's nothing else like it.
  23. Raising Helen
    The agreeable cast led by Hudson and Cusack manage to extract a handful of laughs from the forgettable dialogue, but at nearly two hours, the film goes on far too long.
  24. My Mother Likes Women
    The attempt to find humor in mean-spiritedness is way beyond Paris and Fejerman's abilities, and their last-reel attempt to portray Sofia as an ultimately liberating force for her daughters is as contrived as My Mother Likes Women is repellent.
  25. Stateside
    The film is plagued by Anselmo's inability to focus on the heart of his story.
  26. Love Me If You Dare
    The film is loaded with striking visuals, high energy and all-stops portrayals from its actors, but for all of Samuell's imaginative cinematic bravura, it is, finally, mainly exasperating. Phooey on Julien and Sophie's excruciating l'amour fou.
  27. Control Room
    Think of Control Room as a through-the-looking-glass movie. Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, viewers of this remarkable documentary will be disconcerted by a glimpse of a world where everything is reversed.
  28. Twist
    Under Tierney's admirably low-key, unexploitative direction all his actors are memorable and never seem to be acting. Twist is decidedly dark but consistently engaging.
  29. Shrek 2
    Its cleverness and its good heart enable it to overcome a slow start, which is how all good fairy tales end.
  30. With All Deliberate Speed
    Rather than merely chronicling the events leading up to the May 17, 1954, Supreme Court decision that ordered the desegregation of public schools in the U.S., the film explores both its effect and ways in which it has fallen short in creating true equality.
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