The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,269 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Short Cuts
Lowest review score: 0 Gummo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9,377 out of 20269
  2. Mixed: 8,428 out of 20269
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20269
20269 movie reviews
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  1. Chimes at Midnight
    A confusing patchwork of scenes and characters.
  2. Bringing Up Baby
    After the first five minutes of the Music Hall's new show - we needed those five to orient ourselves - we were content to play the game called "the cliche expert goes to the movies" and we are not at all proud to report that we scored 100 per cent against Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde and Howard Hawks, who wrote and produced the quiz. Of course, if you've never been to the movies, Bringing Up Baby will be all new to you - a zany-idden product of the goofy farce school. But who hasn't been to the movies?
  3. To Be or Not to Be
    In a spirit of levity, contused by frequent doses of shock, Mr. Lubitsch has set his actors to performing a spy-thriller of fantastic design amid the ruins and frightful oppressions of Nazi-in-vaded Warsaw. To say it is callous and macabre is understating the case.
  4. A Fish Called Wanda
    The dialogue reports funny things instead of showing them. The movie remains in a limbo halfway between the informed anarchy of Monty Python comedy stripped of all social and political satire, and the comparatively genteel comedy of "The Lavender Hill Mob." [15 July 1988, p.C8]
    • The New York Times
  5. Dallas Buyers Club
    There is warmth and intelligence here, and undeniable sincerity, but also a determination, in the face of much painful and fascinating history, to play it safe.
  6. The Tarnished Angels
    Mr. Faulkner's faded story does have some flavor of the old barnstorming tours of the early air-circus fliers, but there is precious little of it in this film, which was badly, cheaply written by George Zuckerman and is abominably played by a hand-picked cast.
  7. Possession
    It's a movie that contains a certain amount of unseemly gore and makes no sense whatsoever.
  8. The Raid: Redemption
    The mousetrap setup and tight fight spaces, the bad blood and cruel deaths - soon makes the movie grindingly monotonous, a blur of thudding body blows.
  9. Honey Boy
    One could watch Honey Boy musing that it must be nice to have someone finance a movie of your 12-step qualification. That assessment is actually too generous.
  10. My Name Is Pauli Murray
    Indeed, Murray’s story is a remarkable — and extensive — one that the filmmakers stuff into an hour and a half that feels like a dull and disorganized PowerPoint lecture.
  11. Let Them All Talk
    Despite the talented actors onscreen, Soderbergh’s mannered direction lacks charisma and the characters lack chemistry.
  12. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    The film uses the superficial markers of Asian culture and filmmaking without presenting anything unique in its Marvel take on that tradition.
  13. Nocturama
    Without a real-world correlative for the actions it depicts, Bertrand Bonello’s new film would merely be tedious and pretentious rather than repellent.
  14. Escape from Mogadishu
    With little interest in elucidating the conflict at hand, much less in distinguishing between the various Somali parties in play, “Escape” is a wildly inadequate history lesson — it’s a silly blockbuster after all. More offensive is the film’s eagerness to whittle one nation’s traumatic episode into a setting for confectionary escapades.
  15. The Score
    I don't know how much The Score cost, but it's pretty close to worthless.
  16. Greener Grass
    A deadpan take on suburban hell — I hesitate to call it a comedy, black or otherwise — the movie takes competitiveness to such excruciatingly surreal lengths that every would-be joke feels agonizingly strained.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Performance
    The film progresses by what I imagine a series of electro‐shocks to be like, but a shock treatment administered not by a therapist but by a misprogrammed computer.
  18. Cha Cha Real Smooth
    I didn’t believe a single second in Cha Cha Real Smooth, but the movie isn’t trying to convince you of anything. It just wants you to like it. It wants you to smile, nod in recognition, shed a tear or two and feel good about yourself for liking it. It’s an exemplar of American indie entertainment at its most canned and solipsistic.
  19. House of Wax
    The major causes for anxiety presented by this film are in the savagery of its conception and the intolerable artlessness of its sound. It is thrown and howled at the audience as though the only purpose was to overwhelm the naturally curious patron with an excess of brutal stimuli.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Last House on the Left
    The party who wrote this sickening tripe and also directed the inept actors is Wes Craven.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
    The movie's main theme, no surprise, is the struggle of The Times to survive in the age of the Internet. But it does little to illuminate that struggle, preferring instead a constant parade of people telling the camera how dreadful it would be if The Times did not survive. True, of course, but boring to the point of irritation after five or six repetitions.
  22. An Affair of Love
    Clearly, this is an affair to forget.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Boston Strangler
    THE BOSTON STRANGLER represents an incredible collapse of taste, judgment, decency, prose, insight, journalism and movie technique, and yet—through certain prurient options that it does not take—it is not quite the popular exploitation film that one might think. It is as though someone had gone out to do a serious piece of reporting and come up with 4,000 clippings from a sensationalist tabloid.
  24. Miller's Crossing
    Weightless. It is also, unfortunately, without much point at all... A movie of random effects and little accumulative impact.
  25. So Close
    With the exception of some of the battles, which have the angry desperation of Mr. Yuen's inspired martial-arts choreography, Close is a nominal effort.
  26. Talk Radio
    A mess of a movie that comes complete with a conventional beginning, middle and end, and long, spongy flashbacks...a nearly perfect example of how not to make a movie of a play.
  27. Minor Premise
    When a movie that feels this scientifically far-reaching lacks heart, the viewing experience is a dreary, soulless one.
  28. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants
    All of its head-spinning action has a stultifying effect. At all times, the film seems afraid that it’ll lose its audience’s attention, barraging us with the mindlessly zany to hold our engagement.
  29. Buried
    In the movie's cheapest, most exploitative gesture - just as it is about to run out of tricks - a snake slithers into the pine box in which Paul awakens bound and gagged, not knowing where he is. With that gimmick, the movie sacrifices its last shred of integrity.
  30. The Dead Girl
    Just when it seems as though the language of insult and humiliation couldn’t get any nastier, the movie escalates the barrage.
  31. The Picture of Dorian Gray
    The whole thing... makes little or no intelligible sense.
  32. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
    “Sponge on the Run” may take us back under the sea, but this sponge is all dried up.
  33. Seven
    Not even bags of body parts, a bitten-off tongue or a man forced to cut off a pound of his own flesh keep it from being dull.
  34. Agnes
    There is a clear through line of faithlessness in the script by Reece and John Selvidge, but it is otherwise so aimless and underdeveloped as to turn this 93-minute film into a plodding slog.
  35. Last Breath
    Last Breath is disappointingly shallow and fatally lethargic.
  36. Big Bad Wolves
    Is there a point? All the filmmakers seem interested in is the ugliness of the main Israeli characters.
  37. The Sixth Sense
    Because it unfolds like a garish hybrid of Simon Birch and What Dreams May Come, with some horror-movie touches thrown in to keep us from nodding off, "The Sixth Sense" appears to have been concocted at exactly the moment Hollywood was betting on supernatural schmaltz.
  38. Cloverfield
    Like too many big-studio productions, Cloverfield works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt. Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Naked Prey
    A poor and tasteless motion-picture entertainment, redeemed somewhat by its authentic African setting and its effective use of tribal drums and native music as the accompaniment for a primitive jungle chase.
  40. Conversation Piece
    Conversation Piece is a disaster, the kind that prompts giggles from victims in the audience who, willingly, sit through it all feeling as if they were drowning in three inches of water.
  41. The Professional
    Lacks the sexy elan of "La Femme Nikita" and suffers from infinitely worse culture shock. [18 Nov 1994, p.C18]
  42. Little Big Man
    The film tries to cover too much ground, even though Calder Willingham's script eliminates or telescopes events and characters from the Berger novel.
  43. They All Laughed
    It's aggressive in its ineptitude. It grates on the nerves like a 78 rpm record played at 33 rpm.
  44. Villains
    Despite some committed performances, particularly from a refreshingly natural Maika Monroe, Villains is a hackneyed farce rich in gimmicks and poor in substance.
  45. Triangle of Sadness
    This, in the end, is a very bad movie, executed with enough visual polish and surface cleverness to fool the Cannes jurors, something Ostlund has done twice. Shame on them! But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.
  46. The Last Suit
    An unfortunately contrived Holocaust drama that labors under the delusion that the subject matter lends itself to uplift.
  47. Shutter Island
    Something TERRIBLE is afoot. Sadly, that something turns out to be the movie itself.
  48. Brand: A Second Coming
    Brand: A Second Coming wants to tell the story of a man overcoming temptation and trading a shallow approach to life for something more sustaining and profound. It’s undone by its own shallowness, and by the limited appeal of its subject.
  49. Kon-Tiki
    There’s no denying the real Heyerdahl’s bravery, but if this movie is to be believed, his voyage was largely bereft of tension and interesting conversation.
  50. Abe
    This is a maudlin and predictable film, with oversimplified, kid-friendly takes on complex political issues. It’s also a surprisingly joyless production, lacking the stylistic and emotional flair to deliver even on the cheesy, feel-good promise of the setup.
  51. Set It Up
    The expectation that a female-written, female-directed effort would yield something refreshingly different is scotched within the first few minutes.
  52. Harold and Maude
    As performers, they both are so aggressive, so creepy and off‐putting, that Harold and Maude are obviously made for each other, a point the movie itself refuses to recognize with a twist ending that betrays, I think, its life‐affirming pre tensions.
  53. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
    The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, the writing-directing feature debut of Henry Dunham, strands seven actors in a warehouse to bark exposition at one another. Listening closely is necessary: The monotonously dark visuals barely function to carry the story on their own.
  54. The Ice Harvest
    There is very little fun in The Ice Harvest, which wouldn't pose a problem if the film had some fleshed-out ideas to go along with the booze, the booty and the recycled plot points.
  55. The Rental
    Featuring one of the most dissatisfying, anticlimactic endings in genre memory, this paranoid thriller (the directing debut of Dave Franco) turns an isolated seaside villa into a slaughterhouse.
  56. Le Pont du Nord
    It's another example of the ever-widening gap between the real world and the fantasies of a kind of artistic temperament more concerned with random self expression than with the expression of coherent feelings or ideas about love, alienation, outrage, politics or even of movie-making. It shrivels the imagination instead of enriching it. [7 Oct. 1981]
  57. Rosaline
    The engine of this movie is snark, and Dever, overtaxed with carrying the comedy, brings a dauntlessness to the role, even during more daft moments.
  58. The Polar Express
    A grave and disappointing failure, as much of imagination as of technology.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Vanishing Point
    A movie about which I can think of almost nothing good to say.
  60. Willard
    The worst flaw of Willard is a clunky tone-deaf screenplay based on Gilbert Ralston's original and updated by the director. Barely a line flies by that doesn't land with a wooden thud.
  61. Heart Eyes
    It’s hard to discern who the film is for when it feels as if it’s been passed around genre writing classes in search of an identity.
  62. El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
    Anyone looking for the lowdown on haute cuisine will be sorely disappointed: devoid of emotion, context or narrative, the baffling avant-garde techniques and extreme politesse of the lab become oppressively dull.
  63. The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales
    The centering of Abigail Disney’s voice — we also see her tweets calling out the outrageous salaries of Disney executives — makes the documentary a kind of personal reckoning and an attempt to get through to other wealthy individuals, though one wonders how a film that doubles as a “Capitalism for Dummies” video would make an impact. Instead, the documentary wants, above all, to make sure we know how one particular Disney feels.
  64. One
    The film's spareness and lack of words seem affected and ultimately unrealistic. At such moments, its refusal to put things into words and its crushing sense of gloom turn self-defeating.
  65. Godzilla, King of the Monsters!
    The whole thing is in the category of cheap cinematic horror-stuff.
  66. The Place of No Words
    It’s sweet, personal and tedious.
  67. Divinity
    A misbegotten blend of the futuristic and the antiquated, “Divinity” is an unintentionally comical sci-fi diatribe obsessed with beautiful bodies, bickering brothers and biblical symbolism.
  68. Saltburn
    Saltburn is the sort of embarrassment you’ll put up with for 75 minutes. But not for 127. It’s too desperate, too confused, too pleased with its petty shocks to rile anything you’d recognize as genuine excitement.
  69. Brain Damage
    Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter, this oozer specializes in unspecial effects and unspeakable acting. Strictly for the brain damaged.
  70. Bad Trip
    However effortful, the movie’s tricks are more likely to activate your gorge than your funny bone.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Watermelon Man
    Watermelon Man demands complete surrender and gives absolutely nothing in return except embarrassment.
  72. Like Me
    With little more than the superficial psychology of shallow characters to guide the movie’s squeamish images, Like Me irritates, but it proves unable to provoke more than mild gut reactions.
  73. Signs & Wonders
    Filled with voyeuristic shots as the camera peers through picket fences and windows and around corners; the film looks as if it were shot with a surveillance camera from a 7-Eleven
  74. Scream
    Throttled by a corrosive self-awareness, the latest Scream is a slasher movie with resting smug face, so enamored of its own mythology that its characters speak of little else.
  75. The American Meme
    The American Meme is a polemic as shallow and artificial as it thinks its subjects are.
  76. Under solen
    It has the melancholy mildew of both "Marty" and the 1940's weepie "The Enchanted Cottage."
  77. Tumbledown
    We’re meant to warm to Hannah and Andrew as they wear each other down with good-natured ribbing. But Ms. Hall and Mr. Sudeikis hardly warm up themselves, showing little chemistry and looking unsure how to play the film’s tone, or the would-be zingers.
  78. Dark Night
    Until its climax, which clearly seeks to be congratulated on its restraint, Dark Night is not much more than an arty bore.
  79. Treasure Planet
    The delicate magic of, for instance, Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," which Disney released earlier this fall, is absent from this brainless, mechanical picture.
  80. Killing Ground
    Certainly, the senselessness of bloodshed may be Mr. Power’s point. But with this setup, such a message is all but muted.
  81. Mom and Dad
    Mr. Taylor offers up nothing but glitchy editing and bad vibes.
  82. Lemon
    Reviewing Lemon feels like taking a sucker’s bet, treating the film with a reverence it never even asks for.
  83. Untamed Heart
    Untamed Heart is to the mind what freshly discarded chewing gum is to the sole of a shoe: an irritant that slows movement without any real danger of stopping it.
  84. The Boy Downstairs
    How, and in whose apartment, Diana and Ben will confess their emotions is the subject of Ms. Brooks’s pallid dramedy, which leaves its actors looking somewhat stranded, as if waiting for Neil Simon zingers that were never written.
  85. Silver Bullets
    Silver Bullets neither pleases the eye nor stimulates the mind.
  86. Pretty Problems
    An overlong, undercooked comedy of manners about how, yes, indeed the rich are different.
  87. Cocaine Cowboys
    Cocaine Cowboys is a tabloid headline, a movie as oppressive and inarticulate as the lives it represents.
  88. The Lovebirds
    Rae and Nanjiani do their best, but neither the dialogue nor the direction serves their talents adequately.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Finian's Rainbow
    The cast is full of children who act as artificially and insincerely as the whole enterprise, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, would suggest.
  90. Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi
    The picture is a bland procession of loosely framed close-ups, which serve only to underline the amateurish performances.
  91. Dawn of the Dead
    The eventual video game is bound to be a lot more fun -- and less slowed down by bad dialogue -- than this "Dead."
  92. Jurassic World
    There’s more flab than muscle packed on this galumphing franchise reboot, which, as it lumbers from scene to scene, reminds you of what a great action god Steven Spielberg is. Too bad he didn’t take the reins on this.
  93. The Last Dragon
    Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon is a multimedia movie of sorts, designed for those who can't bear the monotony of only one thought or sound or activity at a time.
  94. The Mack
    Even as action melodrama of a Shaft sort, the film is inept, so confused that occasionally it seems surreal.
  95. Enemy Mine
    A costly, awful-looking science-fiction epic with one of the weirdest story lines ever to hit the screen.
  96. Joker
    To be worth arguing about, a movie must first of all be interesting: it must have, if not a coherent point of view, at least a worked-out, thought-provoking set of themes, some kind of imaginative contact with the world as we know it. Joker, an empty, foggy exercise in second-hand style and second-rate philosophizing, has none of that.
  97. The Senior
    You can simply surrender yourself to the bland moral lessons of the movie, but even then, it’s hard not to feel like this was best left as a quirky human interest segment on a slow news day.
  98. The Little Mermaid
    The new, live-action The Little Mermaid is everything nobody should want in a movie: dutiful and defensive, yet desperate for approval. It reeks of obligation and noble intentions. Joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink — they’re missing.
  99. The Magician
    Spectacularly uninteresting...this dreary Antipodean curiosity is a yob-filled slog of hard-man posturing, all of it bathed in an oppressive testosterone funk. And I haven’t even mentioned the hairy buttocks.
  100. Wet Woman in the Wind
    Genre homage or not, trashy, assault-coddling sexism is a turn off — and worse. Perhaps the “roman porno” reboot project should have rebooted its sexual politics before calling “action!”
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