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. Wah Do Dem
    Horizons are expanded and exoticism explored in Wah Do Dem, a shaggy road movie about relinquishing your comforts to find your bliss.
  2. 45365
    Remarkable patchwork of unremarkable lives.
  3. Stonewall Uprising
    Methodically ticks off the forms of oppression visited on gays and lesbians in the days before the gay rights movement.
  4. The Nature of Existence
    His film is no more profound than its forerunners, but it’s quicker, funnier and less pretentious.
  5. The Girlfriends
    What makes Le Amiche so bracing -- so sad and, sometimes, so funny -- is that its heroines are fallible, flawed, vain and powerful, each in her own way. They often make one another miserable, but their company is always a pleasure.
  6. The Karate Kid
    Is this Karate Kid as good as the original? No, although it is better than the sequels. But why bother with nostalgia? It’s probably good enough.
  7. The A-Team
    The obstacle that the director Joe Carnahan and his colleagues failed to clear was finding the right self-mocking tone for a movie that was, by the looks of it, too expensive to risk real laughs.
  8. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
    This convulsively funny movie takes an up-close and sometimes queasy-personal approach to its motormouth subject, who, when she's not making you howl with laughter (or freeze up in horror), brandishes her deeply held hurts, fears, prejudices, poor judgment and bad taste as if they were stigmata.
  9. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
    Never regains that initial blast of energy and the final scenes wobble toward a wishy-washy ending.
  10. Winter's Bone
    The film's realism is a point of entry rather than the whole point of the exercise. Its setting is finally subordinate to the main character, as memorable and vivid a heroine as you are likely to see on screen this season.
  11. Reel Injun
    Absorbing and amusing for as long as it looks back at those Hollywood westerns, recounting their sins against American Indians.
  12. The Lottery
    Ignoring critical issues like financial transparency, Ms. Sackler sells her viewpoint with four admirable, striving families, each of whose tots could charm the fleas off a junkyard dog.
  13. Ondine
    Mr. Farrell and Mr. Doyle continue to hold your gaze, even as Mr. Jordan's screenplay sets your mind to wandering. There is, as noted, a wisp of a tale tucked into this film, one that, as the story wears on, becomes ponderously weighed down with melodramatic filler and even some halfhearted genre action.
  14. Splice
    Mr. Natali, whose earlier films include “Cube,” hasn’t reinvented the horror genre. But with Splice he has done the next best thing with an intelligent movie that, in between its small boos and an occasional hair-raising jolt, explores chewy issues like bioethics, abortion, corporate-sponsored science, commitment problems between lovers and even Freudian-worthy family dynamics.
  15. Get Him to the Greek
    Get Him to the Greek displays the bawdy-sweet mixture that is the signature of the Judd Apatow school of screen comedy.
  16. Killers
    Unless you’re trapped on an airplane or enjoying movie night at the penitentiary, you have no excuse for watching Killers. A brain-deadening collision of high concept and low standards.
  17. Marmaduke
    These cinematic feats are accomplished with meat-cleaver editing and awkward, jittery computer-generated imagery. The well-cast voices for the expressionless animals are at least good for a few smirks.
  18. Cropsey
    Its straggling, true-crime narrative, leaping hither and yon like a dog chasing butterflies, is not what holds the film together; the real glue is the emergence of a parallel between location and suspect, between literal dumping ground and figurative. This is so effective that there was no need for the directors to conduct a handheld, "Blair Witch"-y foray into the nighttime woods -- their film is creepy enough in broad daylight.
  19. Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
    The extent of the need around the world is so enormous and overwhelming that the efforts of the doctors in this sobering film seem both vitally necessary and woefully inadequate.
  20. Finding Bliss
    Except for the usual double entendres in which titles of mainstream Hollywood hits are twisted into salacious puns, Finding Bliss (Bliss is the name of the company's resident star) isn't especially funny. Nor is it sexy, despite flashes of nudity and fleeting glimpses of Grind's works in progress.
  21. Raajneeti
    Raajneeti, with its large cast of characters and wealth of subplots, is often a mess, but an interesting one.
  22. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
    A toothless satire whose targets include vampire mania, low-rent theater, indie romantic comedies, Scorsese, Shakespeare and “Law & Order,” it plays like a Web series expanded to feature length, or an adaptation of one of the Naked Angels’ staged serial soap operas.
  23. Whiz Kids
    Tom Shepard's quietly observant documentary tracks its stressed-out subjects through an array of personal and scholarly challenges.
  24. Burzynski
    Clogged with court transcripts, medical records and repetitive (if moving) patient testimony, Burzynski tickles the mind only at the cost of trampling the eyes.
  25. Double Take
    Although it is composed mainly of archival footage and touches on a great many actual events, Double Take, as you may already have gathered, is not quite a documentary. It is, instead, a meditation on a series of loosely related themes drawn together, somewhat tenuously, by the familiar yet elusive sensibility that Hitchcock brought to Hollywood and then to American television.
  26. Convention
    Some of this is awfully pedestrian, but there are moments of both high comedy and high drama.
  27. Mademoiselle Chambon
    This small, nearly perfect film is a reminder that personal upheavals are as consequential in people's lives as shattering world events.
  28. Micmacs
    There is no question that the heart of Micmacs is in the right place, but the movie is also a little thin.
  29. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
    For the most part this is perfectly painless mush. The movie is irrepressibly silly -- what were you expecting? -- but a few hours of Mr. Gyllenhaal jumping around in leather and fluttering his long lashes has its dumb-fun appeal.
  30. Survival of the Dead
    Placidly photographed and lacking in urgency, "Survival" shows us the living flailing at fate and the dead just flailing.
  31. Father of My Children
    A tale of cinema, a story about the agonies of trying to work outside the cinematic mainstream (even in France!). Yet what makes the movie so affecting is that it’s also a love story about a family.
  32. Agora
    A bit of a puzzle. This is a good thing, since most movies plop down in easily recognizable categories and stay there, troubling neither their own intellectual inertia nor that of the audience.
  33. The Juche Idea
    The Juche Idea is meant to be a comedy, one that cuts two ways: mocking the strictures placed on moviemakers in both Communist and capitalist systems. Viewers who don’t share the radical-nostalgist sensibility of Mr. Finn, who teaches at Emerson College in Boston, may find the humor both too rarefied and too obvious.
  34. Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies
    What holds the film together, more or less, is the steady stream of mostly slapstick clips from early cinema.
  35. Sex and the City 2
    The ugly smell of unexamined privilege hangs over this film like the smoke from cheap incense.
  36. Shrek Forever After
    What fortifies Shrek Forever After are its brilliantly realized principal characters, who nearly a decade after the first “Shrek” film remain as vital and engaging fusions of image, personality and voice as any characters in the history of animation.
  37. MacGruber
    The law of diminishing returns is enforced so stringently that the movie succeeds not only in negating its own comedy, but its very being.
  38. After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United
    Never forgetting the rush of the game, the directors regularly serve up fleet footage of the team’s highs and lows, allowing the rhythms of the field to set the film’s volatile beat.
  39. Holy Rollers
    Mr. Eisenberg and particularly Mr. Bartha give appropriately twitchy, live-wire performances, and the film tells its basically bleak story lucidly and with touches of dark humor.
  40. John Rabe
    John Rabe, has its visceral moments. But it is also burdened by manipulative clichés of a screenplay in which exposition outweighs character development. Inspired by Rabe’s diaries, from which short excerpts are read, it tells the story almost exclusively from a Western point of view.
  41. Kites
    The result is a lovers-on-the-lam blast of pure pulp escapism, so devoted to diversion that you probably won’t even notice the corn.
  42. Perrier's Bounty
    A poor man’s “In Bruges” that frantically chases itself in circles.
  43. Racing Dreams
    One of the rare documentaries you leave wishing it was a little bit longer.
  44. Solitary Man
    A sharp, small-scale comedy of male misbehavior that turns out to be one of this dreary spring’s pleasant cinematic surprises.
  45. Two in the Wave
    Two in the Wave honors that collaboration by carefully recounting its details and arguing for its significance. The films of Truffaut and Mr. Godard stand or fall by themselves, but together they made history.
  46. Robin Hood
    If only the story were leaner and more nimble -- but then again this is a Ridley Scott film, so you go in expecting bombast and bloat in the service of leaden themes.
  47. Daddy Longlegs
    He (Lenny) is completely appalling, and also completely himself, a kind of mad, disturbing integrity that is both matched and mitigated by the honesty of this lovely, hair-raising film.
  48. Letters to Juliet
    Letters to Juliet represents an interesting paradox: it is a movie that is very nearly perfect without being especially good.
  49. Just Wright
    A formulaic sports romance with the texture of a strawberry smoothie.
  50. The Living Wake
    Audiences will be either captivated or irritated, depending on their tolerance for high-concept whimsy and high-energy theatrics. By the end of the wake itself, they may be wishing Binew’s illness were running ahead of schedule.
  51. Barking Water
    The quiet humanity of the performances infuses the movie with a truthfulness that outweighs its flaws.
  52. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
    The diverting Beetle Queen, like “Lost in Translation” or Takashi Murakami’s art, says less about Japan than it does about America’s continuing fascination with modern Japanese culture.
  53. Touching Home
    Suffused with a glow of apple-cheeked nostalgia that often clings to baseball movies. The movie may be set in the present, but its likable clean-cut twins exude more than a whiff of gee-whiz 1950s innocence.
  54. Princess Kaiulani
    Over all, though, Princess Kaiulani plays like an old-fashioned, stiff but plushly upholstered costume drama, swaddled in gauzy cinematography and swelling strings.
  55. Looking for Eric
    Mr. Loach’s touch is a bit lighter here. “Sweet Sixteen” is a coming-of-age story shot through the lens of social tragedy, while “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” is an epic of historical disaster. Looking for Eric is, by comparison, gentle and sweet and often very funny.
  56. Metropia
    Technically innovative but narratively moribund, Metropia is all stasis and shadows. Perhaps Mr. Saleh could have listened to a lighter voice.
  57. Iron Man 2
    You’re left wanting more, but not quite the “more” Iron Man 2 works so hard to supply.
  58. Casino Jack and the United States of Money
    A liability of Casino Jack is the relative absence of its subject.
  59. Happiness Runs
    This strident exposé may gladden the hearts of some anti-’60s conservatives, but it is a shapeless mess steeped in prurience. Its grain of truthfulness, however, is just enough to leave you unsettled in the pit of your stomach.
  60. Mother and Child
    You may not quite trust Mother and Child -- its soft spots and fuzzy edges give it away -- but you can believe just about everyone in it.
  61. Multiple Sarcasms
    Woody Allen proved long ago that the self-pitying introvert is a fit subject for a movie, but only if the film has a strong enough sense of humor to make us laugh at ourselves. But Brooks Branch, who directed Multiple Sarcasms and wrote the screenplay with Linda Morris, was either too lazy to come up with the absurdist aphorisms that might give Multiple Sarcasms a lift, or he labored under the delusion that Gabriel’s metaphysical malaise is such a fresh idea that it deserves microscopic inspection.
  62. The Oath
    It has staying power. In place of large revelations, you’ll find yourself remembering scenes like the one in which Abu Jandal sits absorbed by a news report of a bombing in Kabul, until his son requests a change of channel. It’s time for “Tom and Jerry.”
  63. OSS 117 - Lost in Rio
    Mr. Dujardin, a skilled comedian, deftly embodies the spy's combination of cluelessness and condescension, but it's an act that eventually wears thin.
  64. Babies
    But Babies just might restore your faith in our perplexing, peculiar and stubbornly lovable species.
  65. Trash Humpers
    Idolized in some quarters and reviled in others, Mr. Korine, now 37, may be a bit long in the tooth for the enfant terrible act.
  66. The Infidel
    The director, Josh Appignanesi, has a nice sense of comic timing, slipping in some of the best jokes when you least expect them.
  67. Road, Movie
    Rambles along amiably and predictably enough, stopping now and again to glory in the “magic of cinema.” But the film falters at dramatic moments.
  68. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
    Its flashes of style are sometimes lively but more often seem, like the slavish period décor, to be desperate attempts to overcome the built-in inertia of the genre.
  69. The Trotsky
    The Trotsky runs 20 minutes too long and several rungs above the head of its target audience. And though Mr. Baruchel can be very funny in small doses -- a slacker sidekick in “Knocked Up,” a gung-ho kid in “Tropic Thunder” -- here he swiftly becomes insufferable, a neurotic nudnik in funeral director attire and John Turturro hairdo.
  70. A Nightmare on Elm Street
    It’s moderately entertaining and instantly forgettable. Poor Freddy. I can’t help thinking he deserves better.
  71. Furry Vengeance
    Furry Vengeance is unbearable.
  72. The Good Heart
    No amount of splenetic ranting by Brian Cox, a wonderful actor, when given the right role, can salvage The Good Heart from terminal mawkishness.
  73. Harry Brown
    Mr. Caine is one of the few reasons to sit through Harry Brown, an exercise in art-house exploitation directed by Daniel Barber and tarted up with self-importance and a generally striking visual design.
  74. Mercy
    Had John Cassavetes directed “Love Story,” it might have turned out looking and sounding something like Mercy, a portrait of a sub-Mailer-like literary pugilist and the woman (named Mercy) who wins his heart. Odd as that juxtaposition may seem, it’s not a bad mix.
  75. Please Give
    Few American filmmakers create female characters as realistically funny, attractively imperfect and flat-out annoying as does Ms. Holofcener, whose features include “Friends With Money” and “Lovely & Amazing.”
  76. Anton Chekhov's The Duel
    Once again, Mr. Kosashvili mixes moments of bitterness and laughter with strong dramatic passages, creating a social milieu in The Duel that is believably inhabited, consistently surprising and true-feeling in detail and sweep.
  77. Ghost Bird
    Generally speaking, bird-watching is a pastime that is extremely interesting to a few people and not at all interesting to anyone else. But Scott Crocker has turned a bird-watching tale into a multilayered story that will fascinate practically everybody in Ghost Bird, a witty, wistful documentary.
  78. The Back-up Plan
    A not very good and yet painless waste of time.
  79. The Losers
    About the only thing that distinguishes this iteration from those of yore is that the violence is more explicit, the edits are faster, and no one has a stogie stuck in his kisser.
  80. Behind the Burly Q
    A charming, uncritical, often entertaining jumble, the documentary was written and directed by Leslie Zemeckis.
  81. The Good, the Bad, the Weird
    The ever reliable, rubber-faced Song Kang-ho plays Tae-goo, the train robber, and gives the film what little comic spark it has.
  82. Paper Man
    Written and directed by the husband-wife team of Kieran and Michele Mulroney, Paper Man is so unsure of itself that its symbolic edifice feels like a desperately erected defense system.
  83. Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
    Packed with illuminating interviews and lyrical movement, Breath Made Visible portrays a woman with angels in her feet and innovation in her blood. Long may she rock.
  84. Ramchand Pakistani
    For all the trials its characters endure, you might almost describe Ramchand Pakistani as a happy movie: too happy to be entirely believed.
  85. Oceans
    The filmmakers work tirelessly to parallel their undersea world with the larger universe, offering genteel reminders of our mutual dependence.
  86. Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D
    His fans will undoubtedly be satisfied: the film packs 23 songs into less than 100 minutes and spotlights the full Chesney, with his tight jeans, faded tank top, worn cowboy hat.
  87. Death at a Funeral
    Think of Death at a Funeral as a comic quickie. As it presses buttons, a few laughs come out, but that’s all there is to it.
  88. Kick-Ass
    Ms. Moretz is by far the best thing about the film: she holds the screen as gracefully as she executes a running back flip.
  89. The Joneses
    As the shills reveal their souls, the movie turns into an exercise in the very phoniness it initially set out to expose. And since you’ve already paid for the ticket, you might end up feeling cheated.
  90. The Cartel
    Purports to be a documentary about the American public school system. In reality, however, it’s a bludgeoning rant against a single state — New Jersey — which it presents as a closed loop of Mercedes-owning administrators, obstructive teachers’ unions and corrupt school boards.
  91. The City of Your Final Destination
    Besides Ms. Linney’s excellent performance and Mr. Hopkins’s good one, the best things about the movie are its sensuous cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe (“Talk to Her,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) and a gorgeous soundtrack.
  92. Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Exit could be a new subgenre: the prankumentary. Audiences, however, would be advised simply to enjoy the film on its face -- even if that face is a carefully contrived mask.
  93. Handsome Harry
    A powerfully acted but strident road movie.
  94. No One Knows About Persian Cats
    The film is careful to avoid explicit political statement, but its reticence makes its critique of the Iranian regime all the more devastating.
  95. The Perfect Game
    So overwhelmed by its own based-on-actual-events tale that it can’t find the tone to tell it effectively.
  96. The Secret in Their Eyes
    An attractive, messy drama riddled with violence and edged with comedy that comes with a hint of Grand Guignol, a suggestion of politics and three resonant, deeply appealing performances.
  97. From Selma to Soweto
    Even at the level of average-to-mediocre television, though, “Have You Heard” tells an amazing story. If you don’t know it, or you want reminding, the clumsy storytelling can be endured.
  98. Nobody's Perfect
    Rare enough to make NoBody’s Perfect an exemplar of fresh-air filmmaking that addresses the devastating legacy of the drug thalidomide with acidic wit and grumpy honesty.
  99. Pornography
    Puzzles more than it pleases.
  100. Date Night
    Date Night, like so many other films of its type, too often relies on words, catchphrases and inflections that signify a generally accepted notion of funniness rather than being, you know, actually funny.
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