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. The Last Shot
    But there's no affection in this mean-spirited sendup of "the business" and nothing to mitigate its sour taste.
  2. Backstage
    While their often-unclothed bodies are visible, their faces are replaced with digital "buttons" saying things like "Your ad here."
  3. Holly
    Half drama, half social tract, Guy Moshe's feature debut is meant to illustrate the horrors of child prostitution in Southeast Asia. The intentions, unfortunately, are more notable than the execution.
  4. The Yellow Handkerchief
    If it were just Hurt's show, it'd be a helluva trip.
  5. Guys and Balls
    There are moments of genuine emotion between the wacky tryouts and the nail-biter finale, and it seems churlish to complain. But there's little room for laziness around superior players like "Shaolin Soccer" and "Bend It Like Beckham."
  6. Rank
    That final night of competition is exciting stuff, capped by a heroic victory ride, but this is otherwise a plodding feature about decent young people in a rough-and-tumble sport that makes you wonder how many IQ points they have being bucked around inside their heads.
  7. Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
    After a smart start, it sinks into sentimental goo that traps even the aggressively snarky Spade.
  8. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    Even while trying to access my inner giggly, dreamy adolescent, I found the movie as irritating as a chigger under the skin. The cast is pretty and inoffensive, with America Ferrera, using charisma and fierce emotions to stand out from the pack.
  9. A Rumor of Angels
    With its mystical mumbo jumbo and even a helpful beam of celestial light in one scene, A Rumor of Angels is a kind of cinematic comfort food for an undemanding audience.
  10. The Truth About Charlie
    The meltingly beautiful Newton gives a solid performance, but she and Wahlberg do not glide like Astaire and Rogers, to put it delicately.
  11. Pride
    Yeah, the story is corny and tired. But when you aren't rolling your eyes, you'll probably be wiping them dry.
  12. The Adventures of Felix
    Perhaps simply discovering a film so dedicated to a different perspective is adventure enough.
  13. Terror's Advocate
    While I understand Vergès' oft-repeated claim that he wants to use these sensational cases to point out that the French were no better than the Nazis in their treatment of colonial subjects, it's impossible to overlook his glib dismissal of his clients' crimes and the smug righteousness that rests in the smirk constantly on his face.
  14. Not Another Teen Movie
    Occasionally funny but ultimately desperate comedy.
  15. The Next Big Thing
    Posner paints in pretty broad strokes. The movie is studded with convenient coincidences and obvious observations. But he has also put together a nicely polished production that shines with an almost earnest charm.
    • New York Daily News
  16. Lucky Numbers
    The characters she (Ephron) invents are not very interesting, and aside from the always reliable Travolta, the performances are uniformly aligned.
  17. Accepted
    Like its underachieving protagonist, Steve Pink's teen comedy Accepted flashes just enough charm to get by but is too lazy to really make anything of itself.
  18. The Shape of Things
    Besides repeating his premise that only fools fall in love and deserve whatever circle of hell they enter for it, he seems to really believe that morality has no place in art. Certainly, he's keeping it out of his.
  19. Let It Snow
    Despite a subpar script and performances, this minor indie entry does possess a rather touching belief in its own charm.
  20. Step Up 2: The Streets
    Unabashedly earnest, completely predictable and packed with enough high-voltage dance scenes to make any audience applaud.
  21. Cold Creek Manor
    The jolts are mild and too easily anticipated.
  22. Star Maps
    With destitute and disillusioned Mexican laborers much in the news lately, Star Maps is timely, and Spain is effective and affecting in the lead role. The movie's efforts at realism, however, are undermined by a cast of scenery chewers starved for attention. [23 July 1997, p.45]
    • New York Daily News
  23. Titan A.E.
    The real star of the movie is the background work.
  24. Oyster Farmer
    The realistic scenes of oyster farming and the beauty of the Hawkesbury River lend this movie a degree of fascination that its taciturn, beer-swilling characters can't provide.
  25. Frida
    Mostly, though, Hayek's problem is one of physical miscasting. She's so tiny next to the tall, rotund Molina that she looks like child in their scenes together. And despite a fake caterpillar brow, she's just not believable as a woman bemoaning her disfigurements.
  26. Bug
    A tale of love, desperation and conspiratorial madness, comes off on the big screen as a wacky psychological snow job.
  27. Metroland
    Bale fails to make Chris a character compelling enough to stand out from that heavy dose of '70s clothes and hair.
    • New York Daily News
  28. Feel the Noise
    The plot is contrived, the performances are all over the board, and Chomski's camera ogles his actresses just a little too much.
  29. Man in the Chair
    We'll overlook the clichéd predictability of their partnership and note that Plummer, and M. Emmet Walsh as his lonely friend, are a pleasure to watch.
  30. The Blind Side
    It's fair to say that Bullock's appealing portrait of a strong-willed Tennessee belle ranks among the best work of her career. It's just too bad the movie around her comes up short.
  31. The Reception
    Well-acted but otherwise lackluster drama.
  32. Go for Zucker
    A tiresomely madcap story with extremely faint political (and politically incorrect) overtones.
  33. The Exterminating Angels
    Soft porn for people who like to watch - and want to be punished for it.
  34. A Housekeeper
    No one makes something out of nothing like the French, and in this wispy tale about a jilted middle-age man and the very young housekeeper who briefly lights up his life, writer-director Claude Berri's got plenty of nothing.
  35. Phone Booth
    Farrell, adding to the case for his impending stardom, locks into his role with the laser precision of the sniper's rifle scope.
  36. Little Fockers
    Fortunately, the sheer amount of talent involved makes for a cheerfully forgettable experience, rather than a memorably miserable one.
  37. I Heart Huckabees
    The cinematic equivalent of the mad-scientist experiment gone awry. It seems to be grooving on its own strangeness, at the expense of its connection with a paying audience.
  38. Madagascar
    Looks stunning, but it's an ill-conceived mess that plays like two movies awkwardly spliced together. In one movie, parents are asked to stand by while the kids are entertained with cute animal tricks and slapstick pratfalls. In the other, the kids will be hushed while the parents are treated to inside jokes.
  39. The Orphanage
    A combination ghost and shaggy dog story that is so well-made and acted you can nearly overlook its murky, unsatisfying ending.
  40. Raising Helen
    Watching Garry Marshall's Raising Helen is like eating a box of Forrest Gump's chocolates. You may not know exactly what you're going to get, but you can count on a high sugar content.
  41. The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
    It is not a great ad-vain-cha, and it's a lousy movie. But it underscores Irwin's kitschy popularity as a sideshow entertainer on the Animal Planet channel, where he cheerfully wrestles or rescues all manner of Aussie wildlife while telling the camera what great danger he is in.
    • New York Daily News
  42. Sweet Home Alabama
    Trying to resist Reese is like trying to resist Reese's Pieces: They're always the same but you can't help yourself.
  43. Hacia la oscuridad
    The Colombian tourist board won't be too happy about Antonio Negret's intermittently compelling thriller, which presents his native country as a cesspool of corruption and violence.
  44. Goyangileul butaghae
    Viewers of first-time director Jeong Jae-eun's sober dissection of dismal day-to-day rituals may want to throw themselves into the brackish water long before the movie is over.
  45. American Wedding
    There are a couple of surprises in the I-can't-believe-they're-doing-this vein, but mostly, "Pie 3" is an aimless charade of doggy poo, latex breasts and really, really bad language.
  46. Venus and Mars
    The ideal movie for people too lazy to read a Harlequin romance, this by-the-numbers love story doesn't offer a single surprise.
  47. Japan
    Tough going for most audiences and should be considered more of a rough draft full of lofty ideas unevenly executed.
  48. Margot at the Wedding
    For Kidman, it is a one-note performance dictated by the script. Leigh had more dimension to work with and gives the film's most honest performance. Meanwhile, Black, whose job is mostly to deliver comic relief, is completely lost - that is to say, not funny - in the material.
  49. Up and Down
    The screenplay is chock-full of political and social observation tarnished by uneven ­acting and editing. The clumsy humor doesn't translate well.
  50. Saint Ralph
    The real miracle here is that the hard-working cast manages to turn McGowan's script into an intermittently touching tale.
  51. A Time for Drunken Horses
    In Bahman Ghobadi's heart-tugger about Kurdish orphans, those wide eyes are too often used as a manipulative device.
  52. The Eyes of My Mother
    In some ways, Pesce's film is often more disturbing for what it doesn't show than what it does, with the last act probably the hardest to watch.
  53. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    Paying homage to Sergio Leone, "Mexico" aims too high and, in the process, becomes more like every generic, overplotted drug-cartel-and-revenge flick out there.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sphere
    A choppy, incoherent science-fiction thriller that does no credit to its expensive cast. [13 February 1998, p. 57]
    • New York Daily News
  55. Alpha Dog
    Who would have thought that a real-life tale of sex, drugs and murder could be so instantly forgettable?
  56. An American Rhapsody
    Heartfelt but often plodding and awkward, the movie feels like a somewhat subpar Sunday night TV movie.
  57. Kedma
    Has the stilted, slightly surreal feel of a stage piece. Sometimes it works, but too often it doesn't.
  58. The Lost City
    When an intensely emotional scene calls for the voice to break, call in Andy Garcia. He does the best voice-breaking, half-choked sob of anguish in the business, and he does it a lot in Lost City, his well-meaning directorial debut.
  59. The Oh in Ohio
    Posey is as over-the-top as a drunk in a game of charades, while DeVito wears the sunny, slavering grin of an old coot hoping to get lucky at Jack Nicholson's pool party. If it still sounds like fun, good luck. Don't blame me if you leave frustrated.
  60. Azumi
    It's a bad idea to get too fond of any character, no matter how worthy he (or she) may appear.
  61. The Event
    Other than the terribly miscast Posey, the cast is solid, with Dukakis wrenching the heart as a mother tested to the max by her son's request. But the movie didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
  62. Reindeer Games
    The material here, written by Ehren Kruger, is beneath banal, and the three leads are so miscast that it's like watching a dress charade.
  63. Baywatch
    After a sharp, satiric opening, though, Baywatch slowly sinks. The scenery is pretty, including the actors, but Johnson and Efron are better at making fun of themselves than landing zingers.
  64. Astoria
    Fels like an awkward student film.
  65. Vatel
    Too much chaos, not enough heart. Bad for the digestion.
  66. Clay Pigeons
    Cold-blooded comedy.
    • New York Daily News
  67. Anesthesia
    Anesthesia is sincere but numbing.
  68. 21
    The early scenes are flashy fun, and Sturgess (handsome Jude in "Across the Universe") makes a convincing math geek. But the requisite romance and Hollywood-style ending feel as fake as the air allegedly pumped into casinos to revive flagging players
  69. Monster's Ball
    This movie hyperventilates with pessimism to the point of perversity.
  70. Ordinary Sinner
    Novice filmmaker John Henry Davis deserves credit for tackling big issues, but he forgot one of the most important credos of his craft. No matter how vital your message, a good story beats a sermon any day.
  71. Perfect Stranger
    Think you'd be happy watching Berry do little more than look beautiful? Perfect Stranger gives you plenty of opportunity to find out.
  72. John Q
    It's not honest, and it's certainly no solution.
  73. Laurel Canyon
    An underdevelopment of a bad idea that is entertaining, so far as it is, because of McDormand's totally unselfconscious performance. This wonderful actress is never less than interesting, and even as a caricature of a stereotype, she's fun to watch.
  74. Madame Satã
    The movie covers only the early years of his (Joao Francisco dos Santos) rise to fame and apparently enduring legend, but the camera never pulls back to provide a social or historical context.
  75. Eight Legged Freaks
    Neither particularly funny nor especially scary. But it's so cheerfully silly, you may just have fun with it anyway.
  76. The Quiet American
    The movie adds nothing to the political dialogue, and the love story is mood-killingly sad. The lure of the exotic can be deceptive, it says. The moody, murky atmosphere leaves nothing clear except that mixed intentions will always yield mixed results.
  77. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
    I've laughed harder during a single "Road Runner" cartoon than I did throughout Back in Action.
  78. Crazy in Alabama
    Mismatch of tone and material.
  79. The Black Dahlia
    In writer Josh Friedman and director Brian de Palma's attempts to condense the book's convulsively odd final chapters, they've created an even loonier melodrama.
  80. Confusion of Genders
    Despite a plethora of "naughty bits," it's a yawn.
  81. The Human Stain
    The mordant humor and far-reaching observations of the book don't come across in Robert Benton's "Masterpiece Theatre"-style direction.
  82. Made-Up
    Like picking out a family at random and walking into their house during dinnertime. Sure, their conversations are fascinating to them. But to you, it's just boring, meaningless chatter.
  83. EuroTrip
    A string of sketches. Some are better than others -- or, at least, less bad -- but they exist as extended, stand-alone jokes within an enveloping framework.
  84. The Ring Two
    An uneven story undermines this horror franchise, despite high-quality performances by Naomi Watts and David Dorfman.
  85. Tristan and Isolde
    It's that rare movie that had me wishing I was at the opera.
  86. Ghost Rider
    What sticks is a colorful, mesmerizing, at times breathtaking mess - it's like watching a bonfire on acid - and what slides to the floor is, well, you probably don't want to know.
  87. The Ladykillers
    You have to look at the earlier film to understand where the Coen brothers went wrong - terribly, noisily, annoyingly wrong. They've made a broad comedy out of a black comedy and completely lost its charm in the process.
  88. New York Minute
    A bit of a slog for anyone not thoroughly Olsenized.
  89. Face
    Good acting and dull dialogue.
  90. Constellation
    Writer-director Jordan Walker-Pearlman can't adequately handle either of his tasks: The script is as sappy as the direction is awkward. Fortunately, he was smart enough to enlist a cast of pros who can ably sidestep the project's many potholes.
  91. Girl, Interrupted
    Unusual in that it spotlights a common but largely unsung variety of teenage female angst.
  92. The Simian Line
    The acting runs the gamut, with Daly and Redgrave at the top and a few characters looking as if they wandered onto the wrong movie set.
  93. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    You don't have to be a Muslim, or a humorless person of any persuasion, to find Brooks' performance excruciating.
  94. Fast Food Nation
    Dispiriting, unsubtle and unpleasant.
  95. Deja Vu
    It takes chutzpah to title this movie Déjà Vu; every scene in it rings a bell. Certainly, I had just seen the same affable-righteous performance from Washington in Spike Lee's "Inside Man."
  96. Josie and the Pussycats
    One long camp joke, with vamped scenes strung together.
  97. Noise
    Noise ultimately becomes a slice of city life instead of a great satire.
  98. Incident at Loch Ness
    Herzog, who deadpans his way through the high jinks, is the best thing about the movie, but even he gets wearisome before Nessie has sunk the boat.
  99. Appleseed
    Only real fans, however, will be willing to slog through the heaping helpings of incomprehensible exposition.
  100. The Weight of Water
    The book has been altered in mostly reasonable ways to suit the needs of the screen, but what it loses in the translation is invaluable in comprehending what led someone to pick up an ax and wipe out two-thirds of an island's population.
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