New York Daily News' Scores

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For 6,911 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 8.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 Fruitvale Station
Lowest review score: 0 The Fourth Kind
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,885 out of 6911
  2. Mixed: 2,801 out of 6911
  3. Negative: 1,225 out of 6911
6911 movie reviews
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  1. Meet the Patels
    Funny and fascinating documentary that pulls off an amazing trick: Everyone will be able to relate to Patel’s struggle, despite the specifics of his case as a 21st-century Indian-American.
  2. Listening
    Director Khalil Sullins’ movie has its heart and brain in the right place, but its guts are a mess.
  3. Time Out of Mind
    The fear, desperation and hope of Time Out of Mind is painfully, hauntingly human.
  4. Dirty Weekend
    The only thing more boring than this comedy about two colleagues on a layover in Albuquerque might be an actual layover in Albuquerque.
  5. Chloe and Theo
    This tale of an Inuit coming to New York City to warn about the perils of climate change is like a 1970s PSA, complete with stock, one-note characters and message-y dialogue.
  6. A Sinner in Mecca
    People often use the term “dangerous filmmaking.” Here is someone willing to put his life on the line for his art.
  7. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
    Not a particularly exceptional movie in form, but as a thorough record it is extraordinary.
  8. Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine
    What this rich film does go into — in a lengthy tangent that’s less punchy but important — is the impropriety Jobs trafficked in when he allowed himself and high-ranking Apple-ers to be granted backdated stock options. They got wealthy as their product was being made, amid some scandal, for a pittance in China.
  9. The Transporter Refueled
    The Transporter Refueled should be put up on blocks.
  10. Before We Go
    Unfortunately, there’s a more potent power present here: dullness.
  11. A Walk in the Woods
    “Natural” perfectly describes Nolte’s performance, too. With his growly voice and bear-like aura, he might be dismissed as a walking sight gag, but don’t let that fool you. Nolte’s way with a joke is nimble, and his delivery is spot-on.
  12. Dragon Blade
    An epic in China, it’s been trimmed here in the States. But this movie didn’t need a cut, it needed a beheading.
  13. Z for Zachariah
    Terrific and gripping.
  14. Queen of Earth
    It’s rare when a psychological drama gets us into a character’s head without tricks or a voiceover. This drama from Alex Ross Perry burrows so deep that it’s scary.
  15. When Animals Dream
    An eerie, imported horror tale that’s rich with tone but otherwise lacking bite.
  16. Zipper
    On all counts, Zipper comes up short.
  17. We Are Your Friends
    The big finish doesn’t quite land, but in fairness, it’s hard to make standing at a laptop mixing tunes look like a triumph. Still, for teens who can’t wait to be 20, this will get ’em on their feet.
  18. 7 Chinese Brothers
    Jason Schwartzman does the full Bill Murray in 7 Chinese Brothers.
  19. No Escape
    There’s no fleeing the clunkiness in No Escape.
  20. Digging for Fire
    The cool cast includes casual drop-ins from Sam Rockwell, Melanie Lynskey and Sam Elliott. The actors give off the feeling that we’ve wandered into the middle of a conversation among friends. This being a Swanberg movie, that’s kind of what is happening, complete with tiny epiphanies and people you want to hear keep talking.
  21. Hitman: Agent 47
    Hitman: Agent 47 is a by-the-numbers schlock action sequel that writes its own epitaph when a character mutters the dusty insult, “You’re dead, too. You just don’t know it yet.”
  22. Being Evel
    Those who came of age during Knievel’s rise, rise and fall will enjoy the fun moments. But this family-sanctioned film comes up short in terms of objectivity.
  23. Learning to Drive
    Hungry for some grownup entertainment? Take Learning to Drive for a spin.
  24. After Words
    Director Juan Feldman trusts his actors to charm us, which they do — up to a point. But there’s only so much that can be wrung out of this spinster-meets-exotic stud, “Summertime”-lite affair.
  25. The Mend
    A terrific, quirky New York-set character piece.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Slow Learners
    Even if this movie isn’t fresh, it’s often amusing.
  27. Grandma
    As Elle, Tomlin is Tomlin, which is to say great. Garner’s Sage is whiny, wise and winsome, which is to say an excellent 18-year-old.
  28. Sinister 2
    Say one thing for these killer kids: they’re creative.
  29. American Ultra
    This stoners-meet-government-assassins mashup is as meandering and paranoid as a guy toking up in front of City Hall. Sometimes that’s amusing, but most of the time it’s tiring.
  30. Tom at the Farm
    The movie can’t decide if it’s a drama about homophobia, a horror-tinged thriller or psychological surrealism. The cross-pollination makes for some nice-looking scenes. Ultimately, though, there’s a crop failure.
  31. Mistress America
    Full of smarts, sly insight and New York personality. As a feather in its jaunty hat, the movie also reinvigorates the art of screwball comedy.
  32. Final Girl
    Shocking. Horrific. Stunning. The plot twists in Final Girl? No, the fact that the movie itself was even made — and that Abigail Breslin is in it.
  33. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
    It’s slow, lethargic, utterly lacking in charm and undeserving of the Cold War setting that is its best trait.
  34. Return to Sender
    Pike phones in a reprise of her Oscar-nominated “Gone Girl” performance, complete with brittle perfection and a loose screw. Fernandez can’t decide whether his rapist is a menacing thug or a sexy innocent. And as Miranda’s father, a bearded, hatted, suspendered Nick Nolte seems to have wandered in from the set of “Witness 2: Amish and Loving It.”
  35. Ten Thousand Saints
    The cast all do well with banal material that’s beneath them, especially Emily Watson.
  36. People Places Things
    This is boilerplate rom-com fare with few plot surprises. But thanks to witty dialogue, strong performances and sure-handed direction, the movie’s also smart, hilarious and an absolute delight.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Straight Outta Compton
    No movie could capture all the alarming incidents and contradictions that make up the complete N.W.A. story. But in order to stress the group’s most righteous side, the movie downplays their youthful excesses as well as their flagrant sexism.
  38. Dark Places
    One of 2015’s dullest.
  39. The Gift
    It’s fun to see Bateman channel his inner prick. But the gaslighting husband/cruel high school tormentor subplot is so underwritten that it feels tacked on.
  40. Fantastic Four
    Someone forgot to put anything fantastic into Fantastic Four.
  41. Ricki and the Flash
    The story here, like a lot of bar bands, goes loud to cover up mediocrity. When Streep sings, though, so does the film.
  42. Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet
    A work of words as lovely as “The Prophet” deserves a better artistic interpretation than this animated venture, which consists mostly of pedestrian, ’70s-quality visuals.
  43. Call Me Lucky
    Angry, quixotic, tragic, heroic — Crimmins’ life is stunning. Catch this portrait and you can definitely call yourself lucky.
  44. Shaun the Sheep Movie
    From the company that gave us “Chicken Run” and “Wallace and Gromit,” this adorable tale about a sheep who leads his comrades on a big-city adventure is some of the most pure visual storytelling you’re going to see this year.
  45. The Diary of a Teenage Girl
    Busy British newcomer Bel Powley is extraordinary as the teen finding her identity in mid-1970s San Francisco.
  46. Cop Car
    Despite the real, bloody stakes, Cop Car keeps a boyish sense of action and adventure through to a twist ending. You have a right to remain thrilled.
  47. The Runner
    The Runner, while painfully low-budget and a little patchy, is an interesting look at how sausage is made.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    6 Ways To Die
    I checked my watch over and over — and I wasn’t even wearing one. The only death the movie really supplies is one from boredom.
  49. The End of the Tour
    One of the best movies of the year.
  50. Best of Enemies
    This terrific, full-meal chronicle of the men and their mouths lets us hear from them not only during debates, but also in subsequent interviews, memoirs and articles.
  51. A LEGO Brickumentary
    As Corporate promotional videos go, this one snaps together right out of the box. As a movie, it can be as annoying as stepping on a stray LEGO brick with your socks off.
  52. Listen to Me Marlon
    The result is fascinating. That goes both for acting students, since we get insights into Brando’s craft, and those looking for gossip.
  53. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
    The perfect summer action flick. It’s full of attractive people, gorgeous locations, loathsome bad guys and a pounding score that ties it all together. This is what the “Fast and Furious” movies want to be, and the Bond pictures used to.
  54. The Kindergarten Teacher
    Slightly mesmerizing performances from Larry and young Shnaidman just manage to sustain interest in this quiet story. Even if it’s going nowhere.
  55. Extinction
    If only they had more screen time. The film’s core problems: too little zombie and too much plot. The upside, though, is McColgan as Lu. Chafing against her small world, McColgan is cute, charming and clearly someone to watch.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Am Chris Farley
    The movie is never able to get to the bottom of why the man so loved by his friends was unable to be comfortable out of the spotlight. But I Am Chris Farley is a warm, nostalgic reminder of a talent who died before his time.
  57. Jenny's Wedding
    Any humor, though, is buried deep in bad writing. So the joke’s on us. Writer-director Mary Agnes Donoghue is surely well-intentioned, but her tin ear and very-special-episode worldview miss the mark.
  58. Vacation
    After a while, Vacation starts to reek like a car when the kids have their shoes off. Really, though, that stench is a studio digging through its old titles, trying to find something fresh to remake.
  59. Paper Towns
    If you’re searching for smart, soulful teen entertainment, you can start looking inside Paper Towns.
  60. Pixels
    Every joke is lame, every special effect unspecial.
  61. Frank the Bastard
    Why doesn’t Wendy Vanden Heuvel do more film? As Clair’s cranky cousin Alice, she does more acting with a smirk and a turtleneck than the rest of the cast combined.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Outrageous Sophie Tucker
    This gossipy, affectionate movie about the daughter of Jewish Ukranian immigrants’ rags-to-riches story and her survival as a star into the mid-1960s is a lot of fun. But it doesn’t get under her skin.
  63. Southpaw
    When boxing cliches work, they can deliver a knockout. When they don’t, as in Southpaw, we get just punch-drunk.
  64. Samba
    With the tender love story, charming comedy and underlying point of shared humanity all getting equal standing, directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache earn the benefit of the doubt. You won’t be bored.
  65. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s film underserves its cast of up-and-comers (Thomas Mann, Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan), allows the usually solid actor Michael Angarano to go astray with a scenery-chewing role and buries Crudup in fretting and sanctity. Worse, the experiment’s inherent drama is exacted with a tin ear and a cheesy style.
  66. Staten Island Summer
    It all goes nowhere slowly, with only a few visual jokes to break the monotony.
  67. Famous Nathan
    Some segments are too long, but Famous Nathan contains a unique flavor that history-loving New Yorkers should relish.
  68. Lila & Eve
    You can get a little lost following the chain of drug dealers who Lila and Eve gun down. Then again, narrative coherence isn’t really the point. What is vital is Davis’ wrenching performance as a mother who’s done everything right, but remains powerless to keep her children safe.
  69. Mr. Holmes
    Stories about mythic figures at the end of their days are compelling — but they still need some zing. That’s what Mr. Holmes is missing.
  70. Web Junkie
    China has classified Internet addiction as a clinical disorder, calling it the single most dangerous threat to the health and well-being of Chinese teenagers. That’s a tough superlative to achieve, considering the levels of air and water pollution in China.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trainwreck
    Trainwreck is rarely as laugh-out-loud funny as early Apatow or “Inside Amy Schumer,” but it is consistently amusing and constantly engaging.
  72. Irrational Man
    Irrational Man plays, like so much of Woody Allen’s work over the past 20 years, like a bad Woody Allen parody.
  73. Ant-Man
    Because of his easygoing comedy persona, Rudd is a perfect choice — and another example of Marvel’s savvy casting. He never takes anything too seriously, but he seems invested in the emotional side of the story.
  74. Tangerine
    Tangerine offers a warts-and-all depiction of a subculture seldom treated with respect by straight society. The movie handles it in a sincere way that’s entertaining, too.
  75. Tap World
    This crowded 72-minute doc “focuses” on at least 13 different dancers in a well-meaning but misguided and ultimately frustrating love letter to tap.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Minions
    Introduced in “Despicable Me” in 2010, those yellow, pill-shaped, gibberish-speaking “Minions” now have their own spinoff — and they still ride a fine line between irritating and adorable.
  77. Mad Women
    It’s a good thing writer-director Jeff Lipsky is a film distributor in real life. He’s his own best hope for getting this dreck out there.
  78. Self/less
    Laughable/Bad
    • 30 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Gallows
    Sorry, but this kind of high-school horror was old when Jamie Lee Curtis was young. All the ugly, shaky, night-vision camerawork in the world will not make it seem fresh. Or remotely scary.
  80. Strangerland
    The brooding and emotional prickliness gets overwhelming. Kidman tries her best to flesh out her character, but writer-director Kim Farrant gives this still-undervalued actress little to do.
  81. What We Did on Our Holiday
    “Holiday” is more palatable than similar, American-bred films like “The Family Stone” or This is Where I Leave You. Still, once Connolly’s sad-eyed, hippie-ish cancer sufferer is gone, there’s little reason to keep going.
  82. Boulevard
    It may not be one of his finest roles or one of his more memorable films. But in its own way, Boulevard may be one that says the most about him.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jimmy's Hall
    This companion piece to Loach’s 2006 drama “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” tenderly conveys the generosity of working people. It’s the last biographical fiction movie the 79-year-old Loach has said he’ll direct.
  84. Stung
    Director Benni Diez tries for schlock shocks in this giant-bug flick. Sadly, what’s left out here is the fun.
  85. Jackie & Ryan
    Barnes, on the other hand, is the macho-sensitive singer coeds dream about. He plays guitar and repairs roofs, proving that sexy and useful is a winning combo. Barnes reminds me of a young John Hawkes — with a little bit of Nick Drake.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amy
    The result may be depressing, but the performance footage balances it with rousing evidence of Winehouse’s eternal talent.
  87. Cartel Land
    There’s politics involved, along with personal stories, extraordinary tense standoffs and down-and-dirty drug business.
  88. Terminator Genisys
    One achievement of James Cameron’s “Terminator” is that it overcame its low-rent, B-movie trappings. The great sin of “Genisys” is that it costs millions and yet isn’t worth a dime.
  89. Magic Mike XXL
    There are laughs in Magic Mike XXL.... But the real eye-openers are the moments of sex-positive, woman-positive and emotion-positive contemplation.
  90. Fresh Dressed
    Early on, the doc is lively, with witty animation. As the music and the fashion trickle up, both getting more polished and produced, the film also settles down. It’s still interesting, just not as much fun.
  91. Glass Chin
    Corey Stoll is the only reason to sit through this muddled Jersey-set drama.
  92. Big Game
    There are parts of “Escape From New York,” “Air Force One,” “Cliffhanger” and countless Luc Besson movies strewn about. Big Game doesn’t stomp on their memory, but like an overenthusiastic fan, it does smother them with amateurish zeal.
  93. Escobar: Paradise Lost
    Director Andrea Di Stefano’s filmmaking debut has a spotty sense of urgency, but we get to know neither Nick nor Escobar, so both the innocence and the fiery threat lack impact.
  94. Max
    Dullness, as well as hoary preachiness, neuters the family-and-their-war-dog drama Max.
  95. Advantageous
    This is dark stuff, but a striking humanity shines through.
  96. Batkid Begins
    Scott’s story is inspiring, as is the way everyone pitches in, from the police to the San Francisco Giants to Hollywood special effects geniuses to President Obama. But as a movie, this is like watching an expanded local news segment.
  97. 7 Minutes
    Well, that was the longest seven minutes of my life. An uninspired tale of a small-town robbery gone wrong, 7 Minutes abounds in clichés.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Ted 2
    Ted 2 is the equivalent of a middle school bully. It's not as funny as it thinks it is. Its penchant for casual cruelty masks a hollow soul. And it will be totally forgotten once we move onto bigger and better things.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Burying the Ex
    How did the guy who made “Gremlins” and “The Howling” direct this cheap-looking, sophomoric, unfunny dreck?
  100. Gabriel
    Rory Culkin’s turn in the deeply felt and haunting Gabriel is so powerful you can’t look away.
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