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. Plainclothes
    There may be little that’s psychologically fresh about Plainclothes, but the fact that its low-key, close-framed style suggests a taut, moody gay indie you might have seen in the ’90s works in its favor. It’s also well cast.
  2. Are We Good?
    It’s a tricky balancing act that Feinartz depicts with candor, grace and patience, never letting the film’s provocative pathos turn overly grim or sentimental.
  3. Ballad of a Small Player
    It’s an overload of overkill, yet as tedious and empty as the last day of a 72-hour trip to Vegas when the novelty has worn off and you just want to go home and sleep.
  4. The Perfect Neighbor
    While The Perfect Neighbor is, on the most visceral level, a documentary horror film built with police footage, it also reveals how a violent tragedy can be unwittingly manifested by unchecked grievance and a law that weaponizes white fear more than it guards anyone’s peace.
  5. Kiss of the Spider Woman
    Earlier incarnations of this story had activism as the end goal, Valentin for his principles and Molina for his new friend. Condon is more focused on their humanity. Caring for each other makes this bleak world worth fighting for. Without joy, we’re already in chains.
  6. Roofman
    Roofman plays like an indie drama photobombing a studio rom-com.
  7. Urchin
    Dickinson’s first feature is so assured in every other regard that you can give him a pass for these interludes. Urchin establishes him as a filmmaker to watch: a storyteller willing to look at a thorny subject and admit that there are no easy answers.
  8. A House of Dynamite
    Bigelow making a movie in which most of the story takes place in rooms full of people talking would seem like a misuse of the talents of one of our great action directors. It’s not. A House of Dynamite is a tightly wound dynamo, elevated by her production team.
  9. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
    The magic trick of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is that you find yourself caring deeply for Linda, thanks to Byrne’s vivid, impassioned performance. You can’t shake her.
  10. After the Hunt
    He’s made a mystery with no curiosity, a cautionary tale with no good advice. It’s unclear if Guadagnino’s elites believe their moral arguments don’t apply to themselves or if they’re just stupid — or if the script makes them do stupid things to keep the audience off guard. Regardless, raise a glass of Pinot anytime someone says “This was a mistake.”
  11. Anemone
    There’s reason to celebrate that Daniel Day-Lewis has chosen, at least temporarily, to cancel his retirement, but “Anemone” as a whole strains for a greatness that its star effortlessly conveys. Amid the film’s self-conscious depiction of a brewing tempest, he remains a true force of nature.
  12. The Smashing Machine
    Having stripped away most of the documentary’s narration and sit-down interviews with Kerr’s family and friends, the film barely explores anyone’s psychology — and Blunt’s railroaded Dawn loses her chance to speak for herself.
  13. Good Boy
    I liked the plot better on a second watch when I knew not to expect Jamie Lee Curtis on all fours. The ending is great and the build up to it, though draggy, gives you space to think about the interdependence between our species.
  14. The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue
    The movie ultimately treats us like adrenaline junkies, assuming we lack curiosity.
  15. The Alabama Solution
    The movie, its many strands brilliantly threaded for maximum impact, is also an argument for the necessity of independent inquiry, and for a reassessment of what a “true crime” documentary means when the lion’s share of attention goes to sensationalized, overreported tabloid tales that go down easy in streaming formats.
  16. One Battle After Another
    Paul Thomas Anderson’s fun and fizzy adaptation views its Molotov cocktail as half-full. Yes, it says, the struggle for liberation continues: ideologues versus toadies, radicals versus conservatives, loyalists versus rats. But isn’t it inspiring that there are still people willing to fight?
  17. Him
    The film is so stylishly done that I could accept it on those plain terms.
  18. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
    Like Kogonada, I believe that artifice is a useful tool to dig up honesty. But a script with this much contrivance only works if it’s delivered with snap and confidence. “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is sticky sweet and sludgy and so cloyingly aesthetic that the roadkill bleeds ropes of twee entrails.
  19. Megadoc
    Figgis gets moments of real tension and genuine behind-the-scenes drama, but is also too respectful and admiring of Coppola, understandably so, to push his own inquiry to its limits.
  20. Steve
    “Steve,” sincere in its hardcore concern, believably acted, is too scattered and schematically plotted to fully pull us into the emotional toll and scruffy joys of this work.
  21. The Lost Bus
    There are scenes of nerve-jangling terror that weld you to your seat, but they’re sandwiched in between a lot that feels very much sculpted for three-act character arc effect by Greengrass and co-writer Brad Ingelsby.
  22. The History of Sound
    For all the movie’s crisp attention to bifurcated lives, The History of Sound more aptly resembles a painstakingly dry still life than a moving picture.
  23. Riefenstahl
    It answers Riefenstahl’s carefully chosen narrative, a fable of disillusioned purity, with an equally forensic counternarrative exposing her childlike narcissism about the impact of her talent. More disquietingly, she reveals a selective ignorance regarding the circumstances that brought her power and recognition.
  24. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
    When the key comic minds behind that singular sendup of past-prime glory-seekers aim to rekindle their magic, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues leaves one thinking some classics are better left in their original, endlessly re-playable states.
  25. Twinless
    A shrewdly constructed, heartrending dramedy.
  26. Love, Brooklyn
    A tender city romance about about gentrification and Black melancholy, “Love, Brooklyn” brings together appealing actors and the charms of New York’s ever-changing borough into soft focus. It feels a little too carefully arranged to ever truly get under your skin as a modern-day affair about disillusioned hearts.
  27. The Toxic Avenger
    Whether poking at superhero cliches (there’s a choice post-credit scene) or trying to be kill-clever, it’s all in dopey, gruesome fun, although, to reiterate, a “Toxic Avenger” even normies can enjoy doesn’t exactly sound like a true Troma tribute.
  28. Caught Stealing
    It’s the kind of intimate tour of New York that usually gets called a love letter to the city, except the corners Aronofsky likes have so much grime and menace and humor that it’s more like an affectionate dirty limerick.
  29. The Roses
    Roach has insightfully made this about people, not societal scapegoats. He and McNamara have changed up nearly everything in this disaster except its vibrations of dread.
  30. Relay
    Relay proves there’s still more room for smart, punchy cloak-and-dagger options.
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