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. From Other Worlds
    There are a few funny jokes scattered throughout, but the halfhearted direction and clunky script are underscored by performances that feel like they belong in community theater.
  2. Salt of This Sea
    Both written and played in broad strokes, each character quickly devolves into the most simplistic of symbols. The results comes across more as an agenda than art.
  3. Bottled Up
    The second film from Enid Zentelis (“Evergreen”) comes across as a heavy-handed message movie. And its presence in theaters can only be explained by the participation of Oscar-winning lead Melissa Leo.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering
    It's riveting stuff, but Merola might have strengthened his argument with a little journalistic balance.
  5. The Wolfman
    If you're going to pick the werewolf as your favorite monster, there's a lot to appreciate in the shaggy, imperfect but still fun new version of The Wolf Man.
  6. Dear John
    If you're just hoping for a little easy escapism, bring your tissues and leave your high standards at home.
  7. Youth Without Youth
    Whatever it was in Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade's novella Youth Without Youth that drew Francis Coppola out of a 10-year retirement to make a movie, the result is the year's most bizarre novelty item.
  8. The Lady
    Any story about Suu Kyi's extraordinary life is worth seeing, simply to learn more about her. Even so, such a rare individual deserves a film that treats her not as a saint, but the remarkable, complex human being she actually is.
  9. Women in Trouble
    Writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez seems to think his characters are oh-so-edgy, and maybe they would be -- if it were 1982.
  10. 360
    The reason director Fernando Meirelles' intimate drama 360 succeeds where other adaptations of Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 sexual circle-back play "La Ronde" haven't is, ironically, because it puts less emphasis on body heat and more on intellectual coolness.
  11. Freedomland
    Moore is as gutsy an actress as there is today, and I'm not sure I've seen a star as dressed down for a psychological unpeeling since Jessica Lange in "Frances," in 1982, or farther back, Olivia de Havilland in 1948's "The Snake Pit." It's strong stuff.
  12. Final Destination 3
    After a fiendish start, filmmakers James Wong and Glen Morgan approach their task with all the subtlety of a hammer to the head (or a knife to the gut, or an ax to the back). They do, at least, find a mordant humor in the formula.
  13. Home Room
    Too often crosses the line between good melodrama and rank cliché.
  14. MVP: Most Valuable Primate
    Neither chimps nor children should be subjected to such shabby mediocrity.
  15. Meet Dave
    The "Star Trek" gibes feel especially lazy, since the movie ought to be "Men in Black" kicky, not sketch-comedy dusty.
  16. Malevolence
    The acting and dialogue is as silly as the potato sack the killer wears on his head.
  17. Violet & Daisy
    Gandolfini scoops up another chance to show off the gentleness he left at home during six seasons of “The Sopranos.”
  18. Love in the Time of Cholera
    "Love" would be intolerably boring were it not for the frequent injections of humor, thanks largely to Hector Elizondo as Florentino's uncle, and for Bardem's ultimately winning performance.
  19. Cleopatra's Second Husband
    Since there's no suspense whatsoever, we're simply stuck with awful people doing awful things to each other.
  20. For Love of the Game
    It could do without any kind of love story, let alone the one it got.
  21. The Young Unknowns
    Jelski's dialogue is razor sharp and she got a terrific performance from the relatively inexperienced Gummersall, who runs a gamut of emotions and holds the screen like a seasoned star.
  22. 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.
  23. Twentynine Palms
    Slams us with an absurdly repugnant ending, for absolutely no reason other than to shock viewers and generate cheap controversy.
  24. Frozen
    Frozen is good for five minutes of "What would you do if?" games. Then it's just stiff as a board.
  25. The Uninvited
    Yeah, this is pretty much your classic been-there, done-that scenario: evil stepmother, clueless father, imperiled teen.
  26. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
    While "Twilight" will make more money and get more attention, the darkly comic Cirque du Freak boasts the shaggy charm of the natural underdog.
  27. Stephen King’s A Good Marriage
    This one has a screenplay by Stephen King, adapting his own short story. Unfortunately, that can’t save this low-budget thriller.
  28. Unaccompanied Minors
    A Christmas headache looking for an audience.
  29. Steal Me
    The teen actors grin twitchily as if tickled by sudden growth spurts, but apparently nothing can hurt their chances with the females in this libidinous zip code.
  30. The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
    The time-traveling is a little awkward, and a mawkish turn of events feels forced and unnecessary.
  31. Wonderland
    It's hard to care what really happened on Wonderland Ave. when the audience hates the neighborhood.
  32. Good Deeds
    This film - like all the Madea-free dramas - could use more humor. Still, every Perry movie has its highs and lows. This time, the highs are a little higher, and the lows not quite so low. There is no faith-based message, but the moral is obvious: persistence pays off.
  33. Death Race
    Well, you've got to say this for Death Race: It knows what it is and doesn't apologize for it. What it is, incidentally, is junk.
  34. Machine Gun Preacher
    The result is far too high-and-mighty to truly be moving.
  35. Hey, Happy!
    With its amateurish performances and sloppy script, Hey, Happy! has the homemade feel of a cult movie, but very little of the charm.
  36. Segunda piel
    So sudsy it should have been rinsed off before being allowed into theaters.
  37. The Forgotten
    The last act, when the movie falls apart like a cheap toy, is both a deus ex machina and an anticlimax.
  38. This Ain't No Heartland
    This is as cheesy and irrelevant as political documentaries get. Horvath, who is openly critical of the invasion of Iraq, makes game of a handful of Iowans and Nebraskans who are either too dumb, too drunk or too uninterested to have an informed opinion about it.
  39. Eternal
    It's impossible to overstate the silliness of all this, but it would still be a decent Halloween trick - if it were Halloween.
  40. The Romantics
    It's a shame, but perhaps no surprise, that Niederhoffer was unable to transfer her astute vision to the big screen.
  41. Miss Meadows
    When writer and director are one and the same, there’s always a risk that the project will suffer from a lack of perspective. Indeed, in helming her blackly comic indie Miss Meadows, Karen Leigh Hopkins fails to fulfill the potential of her own script.
  42. Trust the Man
    Offers a passably entertaining bridge between empty-headed summer fare and fall awards hunting.
  43. Monte Carlo
    If you are a 12-year-old girl, you are the perfect audience for Monte Carlo.
  44. Spread
    Although Kutcher deserves some ­credit for trying to spread his professional wings, it quickly becomes clear that he's in over his head.
  45. A Dog's Purpose
    The film is both heartwarming and soul-shattering. Its theme of an unbreakable bond between man and his best friend is reminiscent of "My Dog Skip," "Homeward Bound" and "Old Yeller."
  46. Miss Congeniality
    Miss Congeniality would not be out of place as a TV series, so it makes sense that Candice Bergen and William Shatner appear as pageant co-hosts.
  47. The Grace Card
    Faith-based audiences may find comfort here, but the film's heavy-handedness is a burden it can't overcome.
  48. Nitro Circus: The Movie
    Even if you appreciate the sight of grown men acting like idiots, the film's repetitive pacing and self-congratulatory air start to feel exhausting.
  49. Brooklyn's Finest
    Hawke - continuing an evolution toward stronger, more intense acting than anyone might've predicted from him 20 years ago - drives the movie. He makes Sal a jangled, edgy presence, his conscience torn several ways.
  50. The Circle
    Director James Ponsoldt — who did the very good "The Spectacular Now" and "Smashed" — is great at visuals, peppering the screen with glowing tweets and comments. He overplays the comedy, though, and underplays the mystery — there's never a feeling that Mae is in real danger.
  51. Backtrack
    Backtrack eventually moves beyond its shamelessly borrowed set-up to create a few chills of its own.
  52. Recess: School's Out
    Seems to have been made entirely for people who were kids during the Johnson administration.
  53. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
    Competent in the extreme, the talented Jolie would make a great Jane Bond. But mired in this joyless orgy of preposterousness, her biggest challenge is simply keeping a straight face.
  54. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
    Although all the key players are back - including, fans will be glad to hear, Heather Matarazzo as cynical sidekick Lilly Moscovitz - the freshness of the first is long gone.
  55. The Final Cut
    Can't cope with its own weirdness.
  56. Exhuming Mr. Rice
    The film is admirably honest about death, so it may be helpful if you're looking for a way to talk to kids about a difficult subject. Otherwise, stand aside and let it pass.
  57. Dealin' with Idiots
    There simply isn’t enough here to sustain an entire movie.
  58. Cruising
    Creepy in 1980, Cruising is almost macabre now, knowing that most of the young men involved in rough, unprotected sex then began dying of AIDS shortly afterwards.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    D.E.B.S.
    Cute, campy and as proudly insubstantial as its heroines' micro-miniskirts, D.E.B.S. deftly fulfills its Jane Bond fantasies without so much as breaking a nail.
  60. Office Christmas Party
    For a movie that was advertised as the wildest bash of the year, Office Christmas Party has a few too many plotlines and not enough actual debauchery.
  61. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
    Unfortunately, its present-day tale, involving a career woman seeking to mend her 20-year bond with a girlfriend injured in an accident, is lax and clunky, and its story-within-a-story - a tale of two laotong, or soul sisters, in oppressive mid-1800s China - is gorgeous but simplistic.
  62. The Lovely Bones
    Peter Jackson siphoned out all the soulfulness that made the author's combination thriller/afterlife fantasy a best-seller. In its place is a gumball-colored potboiler that's more squalid than truly mournful.
  63. G
    It's an ugly affair overall, but at least you can say you've never seen such beautiful shirts.
  64. Bones
    A ghetto horror movie that sets up some decent scares before becoming so amused with itself, it's a wonder we don't hear the crew laughing.
  65. The Time Machine
    Wells' vision of the distant future is cartoonishly simplistic without the subtext of British class consciousness that informed the novel.
  66. The Family Man
    Cage is a wonderful light comedian; were someone to remake "It's a Wonderful Life," he'd be on the short list for the role of George Bailey. And Leoni is Donna Reed, reborn.
  67. Drive Me Crazy
    Isn't a movie as much as it is a feature-length screen test.
  68. Wet Hot American Summer
    The frantic proceedings are more likely to have you wishing this summer would just come to an end.
  69. The Big Bounce
    A sexy crime story. The double-crossing complications don't make much sense, but it's fun to watch Wilson turn the hard-boiled dialogue into a series of ironic one-liners under the hot Oahu sun.
  70. Joe Somebody
    An unimaginative schoolyard-bully comedy.
    • New York Daily News
  71. Swerve
    Despite the revved-up start and a suitably dusty setting, the movie stalls almost immediately. The story is uninspired, Lyons looks lost, and Booth makes for a bland femme fatale. Clarke tries to inject some energy into the action, but even he seems to realize this ride’s going nowhere.
  72. The Divergent Series: Insurgent
    Every scene is entwined in clunkiness.
  73. Sanctum
    If you're able to think of characters as just air bubbles to get past, then dive in, the excitement's fine.
  74. Home of the Brave
    While Mark Friedman's script is as unsubtle as Winkler's direction, their sincerity and the subject's sharp immediacy lend the film a certain power.
  75. Won't Back Down
    I am neither anti-charter schools nor anti-union. I am, however, firmly against heavy-handed lectures disguised as art.
  76. Love the Hard Way
    Brody does have a mesmerizing presence and is the only reason to see a film that likely would have gone straight to video if he hadn't won that Oscar for "The Pianist."
  77. Daredevil
    The film is at its worst, however, when Daredevil takes over. That's partly because Affleck, a handsome fellow with possibly the most inert film presence of any actor since Sonny Tufts, looks ridiculous in Daredevil's red leather pantsuit and horned mask.
  78. Transcendence
    A movie that’s of two minds. It’s well-grounded, but also over the top. It’s a man-vs.-machine epic and also an intimate drama. It’s quirky-smart yet sci-fi silly. And it winds up being half as good as it could be.
  79. Trade
    The story of the victims on the road is harrowing, but the tale of the kind cop and the teenager with an attitude is a string of big brother clichés.
    • New York Daily News
  80. The Internship
    Who let an unfunny, irritatingly acted two-hour commercial for Google onto multiplex screens?
  81. Gun Shy
    Blakeney's script contains more hackneyed dialogue and misfired jokes per minute than would seem possible, and the result embarrasses every actor in it.
  82. The Intended
    The Intended is well-intended, but it is also the dreariest, most uninvolving movie I've seen this year.
  83. Pizza
    At the end of her spontaneous date, she says it's been the best night of her life. It will not be one of yours.
  84. Willets Point
    As for that unpolished screenplay, the less said the better.
  85. Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of
    True, the Boys are thoughtful and eloquent, and the whole package is engaging enough to hold even a newcomer’s attention, but the end result is an incomplete story of a forgotten band hoping to celebrate — or should I say sell-abrate — an anniversary no one else remembered.
  86. Inferno
    It's fair to say that Inferno won't be for everyone, but those who have stuck through Howard and Hanks' previous Dan Brown adaptations should find enough thrills to keep them interested in solving the mystery.
  87. Superstar
    What's funny for 5 minutes doesn't make for a full-length movie.
  88. The 13th Warrior
    Silly supernatural Viking epic.
  89. Psycho Beach Party
    Smart, fun and mildly subversive, but it rides the wave of its joke a little too long.
  90. Two Weeks Notice
    Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant are distilled to the very essence of their annoying tics and quirks.
  91. Let It Snow
    Despite a subpar script and performances, this minor indie entry does possess a rather touching belief in its own charm.
  92. Jackass: The Movie
    This is the biggest lowdown, rotten, disgusting, depraved sideshow in the megaplex. Check your brains, your taste and your self-respect right over there with the bearded ticket taker.
  93. Jurassic Park III
    Anything, Steven, anything would be better than making us watch the same movie again.
  94. Parker
    If you go in knowing what you're getting, you should come out relatively satisfied. Our hero vigorously beats up a parade of bad guys. Lots of bullets fly. There are a couple of decently plotted thefts. And to tell the truth, Statham's Southern accent is nearly worth the price of admission itself.
  95. The Taqwacores
    The actual Taqwacore movement is distilled in blatantly simplistic fashion, but Zahra does capture the novel's adolescent excitement, in which a new generation rediscovers rebellion all over again.
  96. Daddy's Home
    The world needs great Will Ferrell comedies. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them.
  97. Mighty Fine
    Boasting perhaps the most bored-sounding voice-over ever, this unexceptional drama imagines itself - much as its young heroine does - to be far more noteworthy than it actually is.
  98. The Affair of the Necklace
    This sob story is a tough sell.
  99. Bicentennial Man
    A fragmented, episodic feel and a conclusion that seems both remote and remote-controlled.
  100. 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.
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