Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 16,520 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 2.4 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: 8,697 out of 16520
  2. Mixed: 5,806 out of 16520
  3. Negative: 2,017 out of 16520
16520 movie reviews
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    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    He Knows You're Alone
    Standard grisly rampaging killer fare that marks a no-more-than-competent feature debut for director Armand Mastroianni, billed by MGM as an American cousin of the great Marcello. [17 Jan 1988, p.3]
    • Los Angeles Times
  2. Scum
    In Scum, one of only three features he directed for the big screen, Clarke finds a bleak beauty in an institution devoted to controlling, yet also propagating, all manner of human ugliness.
  3. The Big Red One
    Marvin's performance, much enhanced by "The Reconstruction," is a marvel.
  4. How to Beat the High Cost of Living
    A silly trifle about three housewives (Susan Saint James, Jessica Lange and Jane Curtin) who'd rather plan a shopping mall robbery to ease their dire financial straits than try to get a job. [04 May 1986, p.6]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Hollywood Knights
    Despite its cult status, Hollywood Knights is pretty much a guy flick with its share of bare-breasted females, cheerleaders without undies and crass jokes.
  6. The Shining
    There are moments so visually stunning only a Kubrick could pull them off, yet the film is too grandiose to be the jolter that horror pictures are expected to be. Both those expecting significance from Kubrick and those merely looking for a good scare may be equally disappointed.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    It is expansive but more tightly time-framed in terms of plot. I wish it were a handful of minutes shorter, but this is my single caveat about another richly imaginative, engrossing and spectacular motion picture from the redoubtable George Lucas. [18 May 1980]
    • Los Angeles Times
  8. The Long Riders
    A striking Western but empty as it is elegant. [25 Jan 1987, p.5]
    • Los Angeles Times
  9. Roller Boogie
    It's the story of a rich girl (Linda Blair) who runs away to enter a disco roller-skating contest with a poor boy (Jim Bray). Along the way, they hook up with other skaters to keep the mob from taking over their favorite roller rink. It's as dumb as it sounds. [09 Dec 1993, p.F2]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Star Trek: The Motion Picture
    What you see is what you respond to, and what you see is a unique cultural phenomenon, and a film that for all its visual splendors falls well short of its aspirations.
  11. The Europeans
    What’s attractive about revisiting The Europeans now is how it’s more indie-flavored, its pleasurable finery and delicate ironies — even the filmic stiltedness — befitting a novel whose lightness of tone James himself recognized when he subtitled it “A Sketch.”
  12. Nosferatu the Vampyre
    No disrespect to Bela Lugosi, but Klaus Kinski delivers a mesmerizing performance as the original vampire in Werner Herzog's hypnotic adaptation of the horror classic. [16 Feb 2014, p.D1]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Yanks
    Some may find parts of Yanks slow going. The lengthy film would have benefited from additional editing. Nevertheless, it is an emotionally and visually compelling work that will not be easily forgotten.
  14. Love and Bullets
    The credible, appealing relationship that develops between Bronson and Ireland gives this 1979 film its substance. [11 Aug 1991, p.6]
    • Los Angeles Times
  15. Monty Python's Life of Brian
    The more things change, the more we have to laugh if we are to have a prayer of remaining sane, and the Pythons are the best possible step in that direction.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    North Dallas Forty
    Despite its seriousness, the film is also among the funniest sports movies ever made. [01 Feb 2009, p.E4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  17. Alien
    Twenty-four years later -- digitally spruced up, with some scenes shaved and others padded with previously cut material -- Scott's film still shreds nerves.
  18. The In-Laws
    As the film's linchpin, Falk comes across as a crummy, low-life Pied Piper with a stupefyingly irresistible charm. [18 Aug 1985, p.5]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The China Syndrome
    Made in 1979, The China Syndrome proved to be one of the most prophetic films ever made, having been released shortly before the Three Mile Island catastrophe. At once a fervent anti-nuclear protest and an edge-of-the-seat thriller. [27 Nov 1988]
    • Los Angeles Times
  20. The Silent Partner
    An undervalued 1978 thriller with an ingenious script by Curtis Hanson. [23 Feb 2001, p.18]
    • Los Angeles Times
  21. L'Innocente
    L’Innocente is the kind of opulent, passionate drama that risks folly to attain the sublime. Giannini and Antonelli are equal to the challenge while O’Neill, who looks ravishing, provides a dispassionate counterpoint.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Magic
    Hopkins is quite good as the timid ventriloquist-magician, but the film suffers with the addition of an awkward subplot involving an unhappily married woman (Ann-Margret). [25 Apr 2006, p.E2]
    • Los Angeles Times
  23. Comes a Horseman
    Handsome but overly studied. [09 Mar 1986, p.5]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
    Jeanne Dielman belongs to the rare class of films capable of transforming the world around you, though it requires the kind of patience and dedication that can be hard to come by at home. [23 Aug 2009, p.D10]
    • Los Angeles Times
  25. Death on the Nile
    The performances remain delectable, the multiple murders startlingly bloody -- even the ones that are presented purely hypothetically. [02 Nov 2018, p.E4]
    • Los Angeles Times
  26. The Duellists
    Scott gets strong performances from his supporting cast and is able to salvage the movie through the alchemy of the striking visuals. [13 Feb 1992, p.13]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    It is a warm celebration, positive and pleasurable. The humor is folksy and slapstick rather than cerebral, as if to confirm that our encounter is with a populist vehicle.
  28. 1900
    Even in the full-length Italian version, 1900 is too emotionally extravagant ever to be considered a masterpiece. Rather, it’s a monumental achievement like such original and impassioned but scarcely flawless screen epics as D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Abel Gance’s Napoleon.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hills Have Eyes
    Taut, unsettling tale. One of the seminal horror films of the 1970s. [29 Oct 2003, p.E5]
    • Los Angeles Times
  30. Ceddo
    With a traditional structure combined with daring flash forwards and a modern soundtrack, Ceddo is powerful and uncompromising.
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