The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,280 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: 9,381 out of 20280
  2. Mixed: 8,435 out of 20280
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20280
20280 movie reviews
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  1. The Year of Living Dangerously
    Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously is a good, romantic melodrama that suffers more than most good, romantic melodramas in not being much better than it is.
  2. Girl 6
    Mr. Lee isn't as successful at shaping a story around Girl 6, but enjoying her company is all his slender, sunny film really tries to do.
  3. Friday
    Friday may touch its young target audience. For everyone else, it is more intriguing as a social problem than a movie.
  4. The Man with Two Brains
    This is Mr. Martin's movie, and he brings to it the ingeniously dopey presence that's become his trademark; he easily carries even the most dubious moments in the rather jumbled screenplay, which was written by Mr. Martin, Mr. Reiner and George Gipe. [03 Jun 1983]
    • The New York Times
  5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a slight, good-humored film that's a lot more painless than might have been expected. Ms. Swanson's funny, deadpan delivery holds the story together reasonably well, as does the state-of-the-art Val-speak that constitutes most of Buffy's dialogue.
  6. Risky Business
    Risky Business improves as it goes along.
  7. Last Action Hero
    Last Action Hero is something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one. It tries to be too many things to too many different kinds of audiences, the result being that it will probably confuse, and perhaps even alienate, the hard-core action fans.
  8. Class Action
    Class Action won't put you to sleep. Yet it vanishes from the memory as fast as anything dreamed in the conventional manner.
  9. Lethal Weapon 3
    Lethal Weapon 3 isn't that much worse than the two earlier films.
  10. JFK
    The movie, which is simultaneously arrogant and timorous, has been unable to separate the important material from the merely colorful.
  11. Awakenings
    Awakenings both sentimentalizes its story and oversimplifies it beyond recognition. At no point does the film express more than one idea at a time. And the idea expressed, more often than not, is as banal as the reality was bizarre.
  12. Renaissance Man
    Inherently condescending, and finally awash in warm-bath sentimentality, this setup never goes out of style.
  13. Traveller
    Traveller is just a hot little sleeper with strong characters and a story to tell.
  14. Metroland
    Its strongest assets, aside from a performance by Ms. Watson that pierces through the nonsense, are Mark Knopfler's fine, expressive score and the attractiveness of its star.
  15. Spaceballs
    Mr. Brooks's vision of ''Star Wars'' and its underlying silliness cannot help but wear thin. But Spaceballs has none of the aggressively unfunny humor that has marred some of Mr. Brooks's other recent efforts, and its spirits remain consistently high.
  16. The Loss of Sexual Innocence
    Much of the film is a nearly wordless tone poem that sustains an intense emotional gravity and sexual tension through its mixture of music, beautiful outdoor cinematography and somber, silent acting.
  17. Red Heat
    Red Heat is a topically entertaining variation on the sort of action-adventure nonsense that plays best on television. Mr. Hill's touch is heavy when he takes himself seriously. However, he has a real gift for instantly disposable fantasy.
  18. Shallow Grave
    A sky-high level of misanthropy overwhelms his film in ways that prove more sour than droll, despite the presence of skillful actors and a bizarrely enveloping plot.
  19. Johnny Suede
    A comedy so lazily hip and so laid back that it often seems to be asleep.
  20. I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
    I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is a lively but uncertain mixture of nostalgia, silliness and genuinely unpredictable humor.
  21. Popeye
    Miss Duvall is superb - genteely ladylike one minute, a woman of volcanic passions the next.
  22. A Christmas Story
    Though Mr. Billingsley, Mr. Gavin, Miss Dillon and the actress who plays Ralphie's school teacher are all very able, they are less funny than actors in a television situation comedy that one has chosen to watch with the sound turned off.
  23. Annie
    It's big, colorful, slightly vulgar, occasionally boring and full of talent not always used to its limits.
  24. Virtuosity
    If all of Virtuosity were as tightly controlled as that, it would exert a greater fascination than it finally does.
  25. After Hours
    After Hours is not, ultimately, a satisfying film, but it's often vigorously unsettling.
  26. Inception
    Though there is a lot to see in Inception, there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan’s idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness -- the risk of real confusion, of delirium, of ineffable ambiguity -- that this subject requires.
  27. Micmacs
    There is no question that the heart of Micmacs is in the right place, but the movie is also a little thin.
  28. Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop
    By and large Mr. Hoch's portrayals are as harsh and authentic as a police photograph, but an occasional touch of sentimentality creeps in.
  29. B-52
    It is intermittently engrossing, though a little overextended for the deadpan approach that Mr. Bitomsky uses.
  30. Leela
    Veers between the light naturalism of American television and the pulsing melodrama of Bollywood entertainment.
  31. Twilight: Los Angeles
    The resulting compromise does not produce a perfect film, but it is a fine record of a classic production and an important reminder of an event that has not stopped echoing in American culture.
  32. Soft Fruit
    The general talent and dedication of the ensemble mitigate the script's occasional lapses into sentimentality and noisy confrontation.
  33. Astoria
    In retelling this timeworn story of conflict between young men in the New World and their stubborn Old World fathers, Mr. Efteriades may not have generated many sparks, but with his affection for Astoria and its people he has given his tale a warm glow.
  34. Attitude
    Typical Nilsson mix of the audacious and the cringe-inducing.
  35. Some Fish Can Fly
    Given genuine life by the dimpled enchantress Nancy St. Alban, Nora makes palpable the bittersweet love at the honest heart of Some Fish Can Fly.
  36. Justifiable Homicide
    The filmmakers build an argument that is both intellectual and emotional, concentrating as much on the forensic evidence as on Ms. Rosario's passionate commitment to finding justice for her son.
  37. Cuba: Island of Music
    The material isn't organized in any formal way but works as a mosaic that has the feel of a jam session.
  38. The Blonds
    It is not so much a documentary as a fictional film about the making of a documentary, or perhaps a documentary about the making of a fictional film about the making of a documentary. If this sounds a bit maddening, it is, though the confusion that The Blonds induces is clearly part of its intention.
  39. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    A good piece of work more often than not, and this is one of the few times an actor turned director has chosen to subvert the feel-good genre for his maiden voyage.
  40. Rhinoceros Eyes
    For all its visual zaniness and its aura of psychic imbalance, the movie, which won the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, stays on the surface and never locates its own heart of darkness.
  41. Karmen Gei
    Enormously likable, partly because it is aware of its own grasp of the absurd.
  42. I'll Sing for You
    Informal, pleasant film that ably captures Mr. Traoré's spirit.
  43. Firedancer
    It is a sincere, thoughtful work, though not a very accomplished one.
  44. Better Housekeeping
    As broad and cartoonish as the screenplay is, there is an accuracy of observation in the work of the director, Frank Novak, that keeps the film grounded in an undeniable social realism.
  45. Flavors
    Bright, good-spirited and blissfully short.
  46. Clockstoppers
    A competent, unpretentious entertainment destined to fill the after-school slot at shopping mall theaters across the country.
  47. It's Easier for a Camel...
    The kind of exercise in semi-autobiographical reflection that is almost impossible to carry off without its seeming self-absorbed.
  48. Los Angeles Plays Itself
    Los Angeles Plays Itself, in spite of its length, is rarely tedious, an achievement it owes mainly to the movies it prodigiously excerpts.
  49. The Cloud of Unknowing
    It takes skill to drain a perfectly good story like that of all intrigue and momentum, but Richard Sylvarnes, a photographer who directed the movie, manages to pull it off.
  50. The Child I Never Was
    The film is airless and mirthless, but it's hardly worthless; in fact in many ways it's more purposeful than the snuff-film scenes of an average "CSI" episode.
  51. Arna's Children
    Has the makings of a great documentary, but a subject as complex as this demands greater rigor, deeper intelligence and a sense of dialectics.
  52. Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
    The skills on display in Freestyle are too varied and idiosyncratic for one movie to contain, but this one at least offers a heady, rousing education in an art form that is too often misunderstood.
  53. Alila
    The movie...tries to juggle too many characters at once (its title means "story plot" in Hebrew), and in several cases their connections aren't adequately explained.
  54. Muhammad: The Last Prophet
    In its way, a triumph of globalization, a polished, Western-style entertainment about a distinctly non-Western subject. Its message, like the Abyssinian king's, is finally one of reconciliation: we're not as different as we seem.
  55. Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land
    This one-sided account brings some lesser-known offenses to light and advances a scenario that is bold and detailed. But it is hardly dispassionate.
  56. Daybreak
    If Daybreak weren't so powerfully acted, its accumulating anguish would be too much to bear. As it is, all three couples, especially Knut and Mona, verge on caricature.
  57. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating
    A slight, amusing documentary.
  58. Sheriff
    Sheriff may have a point to make about the impact of family, roots and religion on the changing face of rural America, but the film, while admirably restrained and competently made, is too polite to clarify that.
  59. Santa Santita
    Magdalena relies on the magical-realism aspects of religious devotion, even though it began as a story more firmly, and admirably, rooted in a gritty reality.
  60. After the Apocalypse
    Despite its spasms of brutality and a swerve into the macabre, After the Apocalypse is, by comparison with more recent films of this type (the "Mad Max" series), gentle at heart and terribly sincere.
  61. Eros
    Lovely though it is to look at, it does not reveal very much. Sampling the works of three prominent directors in one sitting may be what gives anthology films like this one their appeal, but the experience is often more frustrating than fulfilling.
  62. Winning Girls Through Psychic Mind Control
    Dan Harnden's screenplay keeps things relatively interesting, despite the very thin plot.
  63. Up for Grabs
    Mr. Wranovics sometimes goes too far in setting up cute situations for filming witnesses' comments.
  64. Doing Time, Doing Vipassana
    As inspiring as it is, Doing Time, Doing Vipassana is too sweet for its own good; it plays like a spiritual infomercial.
  65. Return to the Land of Wonders
    An on-the-fly diary of events and impressions that offers insight into the challenges of extracting democracy from chaos.
  66. Yau doh lung fu bong
    Throwdown milks its emotion from a soap-opera score and the appealingly decadent performances of Mr. Koo and Ms. Ying.
  67. Yat luk che
    Like Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso," Just One Look is a tribute to the formative power of cinema, a coming-of-age film that nimbly interweaves the adolescent hero's struggles with clips from the movies that shape his romanticized notions of life.
  68. Young Rebels
    Though it could do with fewer talking-head interviews and more extended clips from these impassioned live performances, Young Rebels is essential viewing for anyone interested in rap music, free speech issues or the youth culture of contemporary Cuba.
  69. Hotel de Love
    Hotel de Love, the directing and screenwriting debut of Craig Rosenberg, is like a Valentine's Day box of heart-shaped chocolates that all have the same too-sweet cherry fillings.
  70. Mind Game
    A sometimes enthralling, sometimes exhausting tour de force.
  71. Usher
    But if Usher is stilted, it is also quite touching, and if Mr. Harrington's acting is less than natural, it's completely in line with the standards of the genre. Vincent Price was no Olivier either.
  72. Chain
    For all its bleakness, the movie, filmed in nearly a dozen states and in half a dozen countries, is not without a certain beauty. There is comfort to be found in blandness and homogeneity.
  73. Life, Translated
    Stuffed with plummy English accents and the most inauthentic classroom scenes since those of "Billy Madison," Life, Translated has a childlike innocence that seems targeted toward a preteenage audience.
  74. Derailroaded
    Larry (Wild Man) Fischer, the psychotic songwriter and performer (found to be both paranoid-schizophrenic and bipolar) is sympathetically profiled in Josh Rubin's documentary.
  75. Exist
    Properly speaking, Exist is not a protest film but a protest video - the grass-roots medium of choice - and Ms. Bell makes good use of the technology. Mock interviews reinforce a strong documentary impulse, while digital blurs and layering further distance the material from status quo moviemaking.
  76. Moonlight
    Though rife with topics and images American audiences may find offensive, Moonlight addresses them fearlessly and with some artistry.
  77. The Grace Lee Project
    Although The Grace Lee Project is ostensibly about a name, it's really about cultural assimilation and a stereotype of virtue and subservience that has deep roots on both sides of the Pacific. As oppressive as her name may be, Ms. Lee also knows full well that there are worse fates than being a 16-year-old Harvard freshman.
  78. I Am Taraneh, I Am Fifteen Years Old
    Neither approves of nor condemns the choices made by its headstrong protagonist; rather, it quietly observes her transformation from naïve schoolgirl to wary but proud single mother.
  79. Trudell
    No one in the film has a bad word to say about Mr. Trudell, despite his 17,000-page F.B.I. dossier; and by the time Robert Redford assures us that meeting him is not dissimilar to meeting the Dalai Lama, you may feel that all this worship does not do justice to an unusually stormy and complicated life.
  80. Al otro lado
    This infectious little movie enriches understanding of the immigrant experience insofar as it translates one of its main forms of expression. Where the movie goes wrong, albeit down a forgivable path, is in the attempt to personalize its subject by means of biographical focus on an aspiring corrido composer.
  81. Havana Suite
    An elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem.
  82. How I Killed a Saint
    Successfully conveys the pervasive anxiety of a country on the brink of civil war.
  83. Fanaa
    The epic Bollywood extravaganza Fanaa goes so far over the top that it reinvents itself halfway and launches on a brand new trajectory of the absurd.
  84. Slow Jam King
    Mallorca tries hard and sometimes manages to make up for what is lacking in the technical department with spirited characters and high levels of comic energy.
  85. Satellite
    Satellite is not a profound film, but it touches a chord. It captures the wistful underside of the rampant materialism embraced by the young professional class.
  86. Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
    Best approached as an admiring portrait of a likable, creative powerhouse at midcareer. No disapproving voices interrupt the stream of praise for his politics and his art. Mr. Kushner’s place in the history of American theater and in American culture, in general, is left unexamined. These are subjects well worth exploring in another, deeper film.
  87. Romántico
    This modest, unassuming documentary about an illegal Mexican immigrant living in San Francisco is a case study of a life defined by poverty.
  88. En soap
    So sensitively acted you can almost buy its premise that love (in this case, neighborly affection and dependence) might rewire sexuality.
  89. Deeper Than Y
    For $600, it turns out, you can make a short documentary about aging recreational swimmers that has just enough winning moments in it to let viewers forgive that it's little more than a glorified home video.
  90. Automatons
    Automatons is driven less by its hints of suicide bombers than by its rigorous adherence to a time when robots were played by inverted dustbins and battles were represented by dots converging on a crackling screen. This lack of sophistication is enormously endearing, leaving us with the comforting notion that the end of the world will look a lot like the beginning of television.
  91. Rittenhouse Square
    There are certainly more unpleasant ways to spend an hour and a half, but it's unlikely that Rittenhouse Square will generate much interest outside Philadelphia.
  92. Urbanscapes
    As indicated by the title, this documentary tends toward the general, abstract and vague, though some detail and much charm are achieved by the choice of commentators.
  93. Masai: The Rain Warriors
    Not as morose as it sounds, the film also features playful humor and steady promises of hope. And the boys, like the film, come off as very human: flawed, frequently awkward, but full of goodness at the core.
  94. Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams
    Throughout Grbavica the desire to forget and the need to remember are at loggerheads. At Sara’s school the psychological wounds of the war are being handed down to her generation through the separation of heroes and nonheroes. Fathers pass their weapons down to their sons. Even as you leave a war behind, you bring it with you.
  95. Eklavya: The Royal Guard
    The main tribute in Guard, however, is to Mr. Bachchan, an aging Bollywood monument (and father of the rising actor Abhishek Bachchan), whose sunken, heavy-lidded eyes, grizzled countenance and noble bearing indisputably convey the presence of a seasoned star.
  96. Cocaine Angel
    Harnessing the twin virtues of drollness and economy, Mr. Tully keeps scenes brief and melodrama on the margins.
  97. Summer in Berlin
    The low-key realism is so meticulously maintained that Summer in Berlin feels somewhat trivial. There is nothing larger here than meets the eye. It is "Sex and the City" on a stringent budget with fewer characters.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Modern Man
    If you go to movies expecting certain familiar elements -- plot, dialogue, relationships and so forth -- you'll want to throw popcorn at the screen. But if you tune into this film's rhythms, you'll leave the theater seeing the world with fresh eyes.
  99. Hollywood Dreams
    Knowing but never jaded, Hollywood Dreams is driven by Ms. Frederick's no-boundaries commitment to her broken character, a performance that's as startling as it is touching. In Mr. Jaglom's maverick hands, the appeal of illusion over reality is both fatal and irresistible.
  100. Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox
    Mixes method and madness to chart the evolution of a counterculture phenomenon.
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