The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,311 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: 9,399 out of 20311
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20311
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20311
20311 movie reviews
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  1. Roadie
    One problem is Jimmy and his mother's dialogue, which continues in the same clichéd vein as the opening scenes of him alone yelling and yammering into his cell.
  2. Dzi Croquettes
    If the film doesn't measure up as a piece of historical scholarship, it does manage to be a rather touching exploration of the troupe's life cycle: achieving notoriety, then being torn apart by fame, then being destroyed by forces beyond its control.
  3. House of Pleasures
    Throughout the film there is an abundance of sumptuously photographed flesh on view. But House of Pleasures is not an erotic stimulant so much as a slow-moving, increasingly tragic and claustrophobic operatic pageant set almost entirely in the brothel.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The First Rasta
    The movement defies definition and thus invites it. And yeah, the music is pretty good.
  5. The Big Fix
    The film's most upsetting scenes are its interviews with residents whose livelihood has been decimated and whose health has been compromised.
  6. Under Control
    Somehow the happy screams of children whirling above a neutered reactor sound a lot less comforting than they should.
  7. Lads & Jockeys
    Lads & Jockeys conveys first-race terrors and last-place humiliation with indulgent thoroughness.
  8. London River
    Rachid Bouchareb's tidy little two-character film, London River, demonstrates how great acting can infuse a banal, politically correct drama with dollops of emotional truth.
  9. Fanny, Annie & Danny
    Characters this nicely etched deserve a more complete conclusion.
  10. Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu
    The happy surprise of Ek Main aur Ekk Tu a Bollywood romcom that bears a vague resemblance to "What Happens in Vegas," is that it's not crude, sniggering or vindictive. Instead it's rather sweet and sometimes even a little unexpected.
  11. Evil Dead
    Doesn’t have the original’s wooden performances, puffy clothes and hairdos or its amusingly crude special effects, but it does share its blood lust.
  12. Sleepless Nights Stories
    Mr. Mekas makes little attempt to smooth out his transitions between takes or scenes, which only reinforces the intensely personal, even handmade nature of the work.
  13. Detachment
    The shriller its didacticism, the more unhinged it becomes. But even at its most ludicrous - when it is shouting into your ear - its sheer audacity grabs your attention.
  14. Paranormal Activity 4
    Paranormal Activity 4 will please the fans, and that should sustain this low-budget, highly profitable franchise.
  15. 4:44 Last Day on Earth
    Your last day - or, as it happens, the whole planet's last day - will be just like every other one. Mr. Ferrara makes this point with ingenuity and characteristic thrift by using found news footage to provide images of apocalypse.
  16. Robinson in Ruins
    An exaltation of life counters the intimations of extinction, trumping the polemical despair.
  17. Toll Booth
    Though speckled here and there with uneasy comedy, Toll Booth is a psychological pressure cooker that could blow its lid at any moment.
  18. ATM
    Mr. Brooks capitalizes on antiseptic, fluorescent interiors, while the score, by David Buckley, nicely accents stress points.
  19. The Front Line
    A movie that reserves its final sickening wallop for a grueling half-hour that leaves you as emotionally battered as the soldiers are forced to return to hell for one last senseless round.
  20. All's Well Ends Well
    No one is winning points for creativity here, but nice reflections on class and culture are in the mix, and the strong, playful acting knows this genre, even when flirting with broadness.
  21. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
    Despite foodie-baiting close-ups of nigiri sushi brushed with soy sauce, and montages of skillful food prep, the film falls short as a satisfying exploration of craft. Like many other such portraits, it wastes valuable time declaring its subject's excellence that could be spent fleshing out demonstrations, explanations, context.
  22. Kinyarwanda
    Dry but thoughtful drama.
  23. Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission
    The most expensive home movie ever made, is one man's genial account of his trip into outer space.
  24. Escape Plan
    The script never gives them the kind of memorable exchange that makes fans howl with delight. But all in all, Escape Plan does what it sets out to do.
  25. Bullhead
    Part character study, part crime thriller, Bullhead is the impressive but deeply flawed first feature written and directed by Michael R. Roskam.
  26. Your Sister's Sister
    The film's late swerves into melodrama and the neighboring region of farce feel panicky and pandering. The subtlety of the performances - Ms. DeWitt's in particular - is sacrificed for easy laughs, shallow tears and a coy trick ending. Just when it was starting to get interesting.
  27. Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away
    While the bodies of the performers do amazing things, the hectic editing and frequent use of slow motion distract from their physical artistry rather than enhance it. The 3-D, on the other hand, gives some sense of the scale of a Cirque du Soleil performance, and even if the film is no substitute for the real thing, it is at least an effective advertisement.
  28. Identity Thief
    As is the case with other unsatisfactory diversions, it is entirely possible to ignore the worst parts of this movie, to drift along during the lulls, slide over the half-baked jokes and just wait for Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Bateman to do their things.
  29. Post Mortem
    The sweep and energy of historical drama are notably missing from this grim, intense, mordantly comic little film.
  30. The Intouchables
    It is possible to summarize the experience of watching The Intouchables in nine words: You will laugh; you will cry; you will cringe.
  31. Rowdy Rathore
    Ridiculous and undeniable, it's a punchy cartoon, rightly confident of its power to entertain. Why resist?
  32. Downtown Express
    Little more than a showcase for Mr. Quint - whose acting is almost as toneless as his playing is sublime - this trite, sunny drama pins lengthy musical interludes onto the flimsiest of narratives and hopes for the best.
  33. Kid-Thing
    The film is, if nothing else, an interesting meditation on how a child who grows up without guidance might react to a situation that requires judgment.
  34. RoboCop
    A nicely cast, respectable remake.
  35. The Words
    A clever, entertaining yarn that doesn't bear close scrutiny.
  36. Come on Eileen
    Ms. Howe is frequently riveting: a scene in which she repeatedly, and with waxing abuse, drunk-calls her former husband (an excellent Keith Allen) may make more than a few viewers squirm in recognition.
  37. People Like Us
    If its tone is considerably tougher than that of movies adapted from Nicholas Sparks novels, it is still a grown-up soap opera. And as the overly determined plot progresses, it feels increasingly Sparks-like, although there are no dewy young lovebirds to swoon over.
  38. MIS Human Secret Weapon
    The execution is a bit clumsy, but the documentary MIS: Human Secret Weapon shines a light on an interesting bit of World War II history.
  39. Katy Perry: Part of Me
    There are several reasons that Katy Perry: Part of Me is more interesting than similar movies about Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Most simply, she just has more talent than any of them, and her songs have a wider emotional range.
  40. Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story
    Serves up its material with an excess of treacly music and an overabundance of glowing reminiscences. This has the odd effect of making his story less powerful than it actually is.
  41. How to Grow a Band
    Ego struggles and innovator's laments (nobody gets us!) are a refrain in many band documentaries. How to Grow a Band adds a modest but effective entry to the genre's back catalog.
  42. Maleficent
    Consciously or not, coherently or not, Maleficent tells a new kind of story about how we live now, not once upon another time. And it does so by suggesting, among other things, that budding girls and older women are not natural foes, even if that’s what fairy tales, Hollywood and the world like to tell us.
  43. Murder Capital of the World
    Heartbreaking stories of families who have lost loved ones alternate with the voices of experts from academia, law enforcement and politics who give their views on the causes of the crisis.
  44. 96 Minutes
    The talented Mr. Ross makes Dre's panic and adrenaline-fueled behavior all too believable. You watch as he sees his horizons dim. What could be sadder?
  45. Red Hook Summer
    Spike Lee's messy, meandering, bluntly polemical Red Hook Summer has one crucial ingredient: a raw vitality.
  46. 42
    It is blunt, simple and sentimental, using time-tested methods to teach a clear and rousing lesson.
  47. The LEGO Movie
    The visual environment created by the filmmakers (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller of “21 Jump Street” wrote and directed; the animation is by Animal Logic) hums with wit and imagination... The story is a busy, slapdash contraption designed above all to satisfy the imperatives of big-budget family entertainment.
  48. This Is the End
    The film, at its phoned-in worst and also at its riotous best, has a terminal feeling. It suggests that a comic subgenre based on the immaturity, sexual panic and self-mocking tendencies of men who should be old enough to know better has reached its expiration date.
  49. Robot and Frank
    Frank Langella plays so many variations on cute and crotchety and with such suppleness - he's by turns a charming codger, a silver fox and a wise graybeard - that his performance comes close to a saving grace.
  50. White House Down
    As demented and entertaining as promised, and a little less idiotic than feared.
  51. You Are Here
    Moments of insight flare like fireflies and disappear, whether from underfinancing or overambition is unclear. Either way, this maddening mind game is likely to be more enthusiastically received in philosophy classrooms than in the multiplex.
  52. The Color Wheel
    A singularly unpleasant movie: full of obnoxious characters in scenes that seem overwritten and under-rehearsed, oblivious to the most basic standards of tonal consistency, narrative coherence or visual decorum. But it is also sly, daring, genuinely original and at times perversely brilliant.
  53. For Greater Glory
    Even at 143 minutes, For Greater Glory cannot satisfyingly fill out the stories of a half-dozen secondary characters, and there are frustrating gaps in the biographies of Gorostieta and José. The jamming together of so much history and melodrama makes for a handsome movie that is only rarely gripping.
  54. Mahler on the Couch
    The scenes with Karl Markovics, as Freud, are the lingering appeal of this artfully composed film.
  55. The Woman in the Septic Tank
    His (Rivera) movie hits its targets, but softly, more in amusement than in anger.
  56. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
    The results are likable, unsurprising and principally a showcase for the pretty young cast, notably Mr. Miller, who brings texture to his witty if sensitive gay quipster.
  57. The Babymakers
    Delivered with sloppy, gleeful confidence, the movie is smarter than most gross-out comedies but isn't afraid to inspire an "Ewww."
  58. U.N. Me
    Not much here is new, but condensing it all into one zippy documentary makes for an ugly portrait.
  59. Pink Ribbons, Inc.
    Though leaving us with many more questions than answers, this well-intentioned blur of accusations, advertising clips and pink-washed events nevertheless deserves to be seen.
  60. Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
    Like many other recent documentaries about artists, it is more celebratory than analytical, a kind of slick, extended promotional video for its subject.
  61. Union Square
    Union Square has the busy, hemmed-in talkiness of a theater piece, with too much forced to happen in too short a time. But it also has a lively, nervous energy and an expansive sympathy for the mismatched women at its heart.
  62. Branded
    This fantastical fable takes aim at marketing itself with an intriguing if tendentious narrative.
  63. The Pact
    In the end, like a lot of genre movies, this one pulls from different inspirations, and so weighs in, by turns, as overly predictable and satisfyingly recognizable (part of genre cinema's one-two punch).
  64. Cloud Atlas
    This is by no means the best movie of the year, but it may be the most movie you can get for the price of a single ticket.
  65. The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best
    Inner child? Open road? No, this film is actually about Mr. O'Nan and his wan, scruffy innocence.
  66. Hello I Must Be Going
    This is ultimately a tale of affirmation, self-acceptance and second chances, and its lessons, while not unwelcome, are a bit too forced and neatly packaged to make it fully satisfying.
  67. Unforgivable
    Unforgivable isn't one of Mr. Téchiné's greatest achievements, but it's engrossing even when its increasingly populated story falters, tripped up by unpersuasive actions, connections and details.
  68. You've Been Trumped
    Mr. Trump comes across as an insensitive, lying bully who will do whatever it takes to realize his dream of creating what he promises will be the world's greatest golf resort.
  69. Last Ride
    Mr. Ivin doesn't have a strong narrative line to play with or become distracted by, but he takes off on some lovely detours, whether he's narrowing in on Chook or going wide to take in the world that waits beyond.
  70. Invisible
    The insensitivity of the news media and law enforcement is an implicit acknowledgment of the gap between men and women on the issue; in the film's view men just don't get it. And the submerged rage that wells up in Nira and Lily is boiling hot. The film is less successful in depicting their personal lives.
  71. It's the Earth Not the Moon
    The film's leisurely pace seems to capture the rhythms of island life. Though often random in its organization - Mr. Tocha slides from contemplative seascapes and misty meadows to a slaughterhouse and the Corvo landfill - this portrait is still much more than a snapshot.
  72. Need For Speed
    An energetic, unpretentious B movie — the kind best seen at a drive-in like the one in an early scene — it is devoted, above all, to the delivery of visceral, kinetic excitement.
  73. Solomon Kane
    Mr. Basset is too enamored of the usual action film clichés, down to some Hollywood-gangsta gun play. But he has a graphic visual style that suits the simplistic material and he keeps you watching even as the wet, sucking sounds of skewered flesh grow tedious.
  74. The Man with the Iron Fists
    As erratically enjoyable as it is consistently ridiculous, the martial arts pastiche The Man With the Iron Fists is the latest evidence that the vogue for neo-exploitation cinema shows no sign of flagging.
  75. Stoker
    The final act of Stoker walks a fine line between the sensational and the silly. Mr. Park is less interested in narrative suspense than in carefully orchestrated shocks and camouflaged motives.
  76. Jayne Mansfield's Car
    Behind the clunky machinery is a lyrical meditation on life, death, heroism, regret and forgiveness written in a florid style that might be described as Tennessee Williams on testosterone.
  77. Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
    Documenting the vigorous strategies employed by the Dole Food Company to block the release of his 2009 film "Bananas!" - about a lawsuit brought by Nicaraguan workers who suspected the company's use of dangerous pesticides - the Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten gains traction by taking the high road.
  78. Burning Man
    Burning Man benefits from the highly watchable Mr. Goode and able players like Rachel Griffiths and Kerry Fox.
  79. Sushi: The Global Catch
    As storytelling, "The Global Catch" often falls short. It has too much to cover to be comprehensive and can seem a bit random. As a consciousness raiser, the film fares much better.
  80. The Lion of Judah
    It's not bad enough to be offensive, and the movie's act of affirmation - for all its self-absorption and high levels of pretrip ignorance - addresses an unimpeachable, moving subject and is undertaken with decency.
  81. Almayer's Folly
    Almayer's Folly is not friendly terrain to traverse; like some sinister version of Proust, it is a prolonged fever dream that ultimately yields madness.
  82. The Equalizer
    Mr. Fuqua, while not the world’s most subtle filmmaker, directs the action sequences with bluntness and clarity and effectively uses his star as an oasis of calm in a jumpy, nasty universe.
  83. Death by China
    It is also unabashedly one-sided and is short on solutions, other than the usual "Call your Congressional representatives." But its message, despite the hyperbole, certainly warrants examination and discussion.
  84. Avengers: Age of Ultron
    For a Marvel agnostic like me, the single most interesting thing about Age of Ultron is that you can sense that Mr. Whedon, having helped build a universal earnings machine with the first “Avengers,” has now struggled mightily, touchingly, to invest this behemoth with some life.
  85. The Other Dream Team
    Augmented by a trove of archival footage reaching back to the 1930s, Jesse Feldman's buoyant cinematography merges political history and sports mania into a triumphant timeline.
  86. 10 Years
    An unpretentious, well-acted ensemble piece that doesn't aspire to be a portentous generational time capsule like "The Big Chill," "American Graffiti" or "Diner." But it has enough markers - a grown-up, married white rapper who break dances; a karaoke bar - to suggest an approximate date.
  87. LUV
    It does not entirely succeed, but at its best Luv shows the kind of heart and intelligence that is always welcome - and often missing - in American movies.
  88. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
    This bloody wallow in sweat, guns and fisticuffs - for those who swing that way - delivers.
  89. The Eye of the Storm
    Whether she's lying in bed, her gray hair spilling out around her head, or exalting in existence itself during one of several flashbacks, Elizabeth draws you in, which works for the story and simultaneously unbalances it.
  90. Girl Model
    That stink, like iffy contracts and child labor laws, remains unexplored. Filled with blind eyes and unspoken agreements, Girl Model opens a can of worms, then disdains to follow their slimy trails.
  91. Hollywood to Dollywood
    The optimism and good humor of John Lavin's crude, endearing documentary Hollywood to Dollywood are so unquenchable that its disturbing underlying theme - growing up gay in the South is no picnic - is partly obscured by its openheartedness.
  92. Stand Up Guys
    Most of the modest pleasures are in the ways the men expertly play off one another and invest their shallow characters with more depth than any filmmaker could reasonably expect.
  93. The Other Son
    Ms. Lévy is rescued from her maudlin, preachy tendencies by the skill and sensitivity of the actors, who turn a wobbly parable of tolerance into a graceful and touching story of real people in a surreal situation.
  94. Snowman's Land
    Despite on-point performances (especially from the hilarious Mr. Wodianka), the story (by Tomasz Thomson, who also directs) is too pitted with holes and loose ends to permit the film a bump from meh to marvelous.
  95. Trolls
    Exuberant, busy and sometimes funny, DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls is determined to amuse.
  96. Pain & Gain
    It all leaves you pondering whether you have just seen a monumentally stupid movie or a brilliant movie about the nature and consequences of stupidity.
  97. Hitchcock
    The movie has its diversions, including Scarlett Johansson's bodacious Janet Leigh and Michael Stuhlbarg's wheedling Lew Wasserman. It's fluff. But while its dim fantasies about Hitchcock and the association of genius with psychosis can be written off as silly, they also smack of spiteful jealousy.
  98. In Our Nature
    Is the movie psychologically accurate? Yes. But that doesn't keep it from being a little dull.
  99. Headshot
    A dreamy, elliptical neo-noir about a cop turned killer turned something else altogether.
  100. Electoral Dysfunction
    It's pleasant. It treats Democrats and Republicans respectfully, and its humor, with the comic Mo Rocca as guide, is closer to Garrison Keillor than to Michael Moore.
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