The New York Times' Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Gagarine
    Gagarine is more interesting conceptually than it is in execution, but at least the filmmakers know to exalt the setting’s spectral qualities, adding dreamy, hypnotic touches to their phantom portrait of a place that is no longer of this world.
  2. Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful
    A gossipy portrait of a charmingly naughty boy whose genius is perhaps best appreciated on a second viewing with the sound off and the eyes wide open.
  3. The Hater
    The movie is most effective in detailing how disinformation campaigns work.
  4. Little Big League
    The scenes on the ballfield have a credibility that is unusual in a baseball film. Adding to the realism are the appearances of a number of major league players as the Twins' opponents. The glow and cleancut innocence of these scenes evokes the magic of the game as seen through the eyes of a youthful fan.
  5. Work It
    Work It is no “Step Up,” but its best sequences involve Jake and Quinn, who share a chemistry in motion that, for a beat or two, conjures the genre’s magic.
  6. The Grand Unified Theory of Howard Bloom
    Directed by Charlie Hoxie, "The Grand Unified Theory" is a moderately engaging documentary that credibly portrays Bloom’s indefatigability.
  7. Something to Talk About
    It's rambling and unfocused, but still fresh enough to break the usual Hollywood mold.
  8. City Dreamers
    The documentarian Joseph Hillel tells their stories in somewhat formulaic fashion, creating a perfectly pleasant, educational movie that is not as riveting as it should be.
  9. Nose to Tail
    The cliché of the volatile chef riding roughshod over his subordinates receives a thorough airing in Nose to Tail, a resolute but finally punishing wallow in self-destructiveness and obnoxious male behavior.
  10. They Live by Night
    They Live by Night has the failing of waxing sentimental over crime, but it manages to generate interest with its crisp dramatic movement and clear-cut types.
  11. South Central
    South-Central plays more like an exploitative potboiler than a civics lesson. Only late in the film, thanks to a sobering of tone and Mr. Plummer's credible performance, does the story develop any real impact.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Holy Mountain
    Mr. Jodorowsky’s movie is a dazzling, rambling, often incoherent satire on consumerism, militarism and the exploitation of third world cultures by the West. It unfurls like a hallucinogenic daydream.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Death of a Gunfighter
    The general tone, and point — festering hatred — is simply not enough to make the picture matter, although Mr. Widmark almost single-handedly does. Tough, laconic, squinty-eyed and moving around deceptively like a tired, middle-aged panther, he gives this characterization a scorching vibrancy.
  14. Represent
    The film deduces that these women need meaningful support, but doesn’t fully explore what that might look like — whether it would come in the form of campaign teams, money, endorsements or all of the above.
  15. Pinocchio
    This new cinematic imagining of Carlo Collodi’s classic fantasy tale is alternately enchanting and befuddling.
  16. Love, Guaranteed
    Love, Guaranteed, simmering at a low boil, is a short and mostly sweet affair. Its successes are due in large part to Cook who, donning a vast array of snug fall coats, is endearing as a willful working woman with a new crush.
  17. Desert One
    Though comprehensive and often stirring, the accounts lack new insight or analytical heft.
  18. Butterfield 8
    The dialogue is rough. Let's say O'Harrowing. And the ending is absurd. But so is most of it for that matter. It's the living it up that gets you in this film.
  19. 12 Hour Shift
    It’s hard to argue with Bettis’s frazzled underplaying or Farnworth’s stellar airhead routine, an impressively sustained study in quick-witted dimwittedness.
  20. The Wind and the Lion
    An elaborate, expensive‐looking, ludicrously jingoistic historical‐adventure that comes out so firmly in favor of Teddy Roosevelt's “Big Stick” policy, 70 years later, that it could also be a put‐on.
  21. Made in Bangladesh
    As Shimu’s efforts ramp up and appear increasingly futile, Made in Bangladesh acquires a quiet power.
  22. Clara's Heart
    Directed by Robert Mulligan in an unapologetically sentimental style, Clara's Heart succeeds in tugging the heartstrings only when Clara herself is on screen.
  23. Space Dogs
    Space Dogs commits to its art-house pretensions. The result isn’t pleasant, but it does effectively provoke.
  24. Paper Spiders
    In absence of a bold visual style, the performers are tasked with providing the movie with its energy.
  25. Yellow Rose
    Above all, the music has the greatest staying power — it is the film’s saving grace, just like it is Rose’s during her darkest days.
  26. Rifkin's Festival
    It’s a relief to report that Rifkin’s Festival is, to the ravenous captive, like finding an unexpected stash of dessert: not substantial and not nutritious, but sweet enough to remind you in passing of the good times you once had, despite all that’s happened in the interim.
  27. Suspensión
    Uribe directs for sensory effect rather than context, which is minimal and parceled out as needed, and deals with the politics of the construction project glancingly, an approach that registers as alternately poetic and coy.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    No Man of Her Own
    Well acted and clearly photographed little drama of musical hall life in Paris.
  29. New Order
    Franco practically dares the viewer to call his conclusion far-fetched. And for better or worse, the director’s dynamic filmmaking makes some of his projections stick.
  30. Wolfwalkers
    As much a joy as this movie . . . is to behold, its scenario is more than a little overbaked and overdrawn.
  31. The Duke
    It is a pity that Richard Bean and Clive Coleman’s script mires Bunton in a soggy family drama about an unresolved death; an elder son (Jack Bandeira) who flirts with crime; and a wife, Dorothy (Helen Mirren, so sheepish as to be near invisible), who is humiliated that her husband prefers prison to a stable home.
  32. Never Gonna Snow Again
    Utgoff is irresistibly compelling, instilling in his character a silent yet singular presence worthy of the “superhero” status that he ultimately acquires.
  33. The Christmas Chronicles 2
    As Kate and Jack’s adventures turn to lessons in love and courage, the movie starts to feel mechanical, like the Village’s churning candy cane mill. But its output is always as sweet.
  34. Billie
    If Billie gives short shrift to its subject’s artistry while underscoring her life’s squalor, it still offers pockets of valuable insight.
  35. Beau Geste
    Mr. Wellman's film seems dominated by the tremendous shadow of its predecessor.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Black Windmill
    Michael Caine's exasperating cool robs this very well‐made movie of some of its potential excitement.
  37. Fear of a Black Hat
    Flattering the daylights out of Rob Reiner and his Spinal Tap crew, Rusty Cundieff turns Fear of a Black Hat into an unapologetic Spinal Tap imitation. And there's no point in faulting Mr. Cundieff for such derivativeness, because Fear of a Black Hat is too savvy and cheerful to warrant complaints.
  38. A Call to Spy
    One wishes the movie had been imagined as a limited series, which would give viewers an opportunity to spend more time with these women whose lives were so clearly rich and textured — not to mention, courageous.
  39. Midnight in Paris
    A week is too short a time frame. A longer view might have left a deeper impression.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Marnie
    At once a fascinating study of a sexual relationship and the master's most disappointing film in years.
  41. Blackpink: Light Up the Sky
    While its salute to the artists flicks at the cynical side of their industry, it is less a probing profile than a backstage pass for fans of the band (a.k.a. Blinks) old and new.
  42. Rabid
    It took (Cronenberg) several films to come into his own as a filmmaker, but even his earliest work reflects his obsessive interest in the human body as raw material that can be transformed -- for better or for worse -- by strong emotions. [08 Jun 2004, p.E3]
    • The New York Times
  43. The Donut King
    Too sentimental in its final act, “The Donut King” doesn’t quite manage to connect the dots between Ngoy’s financial troubles and the voracious capitalism that enabled his rise. The result is a cheery portrait of immigrant entrepreneurship that lacks political punch.
  44. White Noise
    Close observation can illuminate contradictions, and Lombroso, semi-edifyingly, catches his subjects in moments of opportunism or hypocrisy, even if those aren’t much of a trade for spending 90 minutes in this company.
  45. Demons
    All the people and places in Demons seem imported. The dialogue is spoken in colloquial American and matches the lip movements, but it sounds dubbed. Nonetheless, there are some apt observations.
  46. Radium Girls
    The script, by Mohler and Brittany Shaw, tends to be overtly formulaic, but the emotional resonance of the two leads carries this movie.
  47. Baby Doll
    Mr. Kazan keeps the courtship bouncing between the emotional and the ludicrous. The nonchalance of the pursuer is its most entertaining grace.
  48. The Thing Called Love
    Mildly engaging, formulaic.
  49. Embattled
    When it’s showing its sensitive side, the film, scripted by David McKenna (“American History X”) and directed by Nick Sarkisov, unexpectedly shines.
  50. Ainu Mosir
    Rather than relying on dialogue, Fukunaga allows emotion to shine through musical performances — a school anthem, folk songs, drunken karaoke. These scenes speak for themselves, and they build upon the story with quiet power.
  51. Holiday Affair
    An amiable little romance in which a boy meets a girl at Christmas-time, and the sentiments are quite as artificial and conveniently sprinkled as the snow is provided—for those who like such things—in RKO's Holiday Affair.
  52. The Little Things
    Thanks to Hancock’s craft and the discipline of the actors, it’s more than watchable, but you are unlikely to be haunted, disturbed or even surprised. You haven’t exactly seen this before. It just feels that way.
  53. The Capote Tapes
    There’s some fascinating and provocative material in The Capote Tapes that is diluted by the director Ebs Burnough’s insistence on teasing a question that, arguably, has a self-evident answer.
  54. The Last Blockbuster
    As this pleasant but ultimately inconsequential movie’s narrative thins out, it emphasizes again and again that there is, as of now, only one operating Blockbuster store in the world. Luckily its proprietor is the warm and ingratiating Sandi Harding.
  55. Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry
    “Blurry” isn’t triumphant, strictly speaking. Instead, it relies on the accretive power of the mundane. It moves forward without narration, and sometimes without narrative rhythm — often it feels almost observational, like a nature film.
  56. Nasrin
    This extraordinary woman, seemingly incapable of despair through roughly two decades of struggle, remains elusive. There’s something daunting about this degree of implacable selflessness, and it has a curiously flattening effect on a movie that feels less emotionally complex — less enraged — than it ought to.
  57. The Reason I Jump
    The portraits are moving and informative. . . . As an aesthetic endeavor, though, The Reason I Jump is questionable, regardless of how much sensitivity the filmmakers took in their approach.
  58. The Three Musketeers
    Mr. Lester's interpretation of The Three Musketeers looks like an evening in a bump-o-car arena, with magnificently costumed people in place of cars. The adventures are less swashbuckle than slapstick.
  59. Effigy: Poison and the City
    Wordy and stilted (it was derived from a stage play), this low-budget debut nevertheless benefits from a mesmerizing central performance by Suzan Anbeh.
  60. Cleopatra Jones
    The movie seems to want to be a James Bond sort of adventure in black drag, but it's more reminiscent of Batman.
  61. The Iceman Cometh
    From the opening frames of John Frankenheimer's film version of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, you get the feeling that you're being taken on a guided tour of one of the greatest American plays ever written, instead of seeing a screen adaptation with a life of its own.
  62. The Escape Artist
    The Escape Artist represents a lot more talent than is ever demonstrated on the screen.
  63. The Color Purple
    For the first two hours, it’s absorbing: big song-and-dance numbers and emotional set pieces, dynamic performances from everyone, and a feeling of reverence for the story and what it’s meant for 40 years give it gravitas and heart. . . Yet by the end it’s clear that the story remains slippery to would-be adapters.
  64. Happy Face
    Happy Face dares to be distinctive, and that’s something, even if the behavior — particularly Stan’s — isn’t always convincing.
  65. My Rembrandt
    While My Rembrandt poses heady questions about the difference between acquisitiveness and appreciation, it mostly plays like a straight art-world documentary that itself would have benefited from a more vertiginous, obsessive approach.
  66. The Element of Crime
    A film noir that's murky without being terribly mysterious.
  67. The Program
    A routine Joe College movie.
  68. Striking Distance
    If Striking Distance were a book, it could be called a good read. Instead, it's a painless watch.
  69. Passenger 57
    There are lots of oohs and ahs in this nasty shoot-'em-up story of a psychopathic terrorist who hijacks a jumbo jet. But beneath the thrill-by-numbers surface of the film, nothing makes much sense.
  70. Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
    “Barb and Star” offers a mixed bag of laughs, often feeling like a Frankenstein assembly of various sketches. Still, I can’t help but admire its commitment to the act, and its gloriously unhinged absurdity.
  71. Rush
    Rush is often more successful at being clinical than at being clear.
  72. Don't Look Up
    McKay has made “Don’t Look Up,” a very angry, deeply anguished comedy freak out about how we are blowing it, hurtling toward oblivion. He’s sweetened the bummer setup with plenty of yuks — good, bad, indifferent — but if you weep, it may not be from laughing.
  73. Stone Cold
    Once the movie gets down to business, the muscle and pyrotechnics take over. The action -- especially the motorcycle chases through the marble government halls -- pack a fairly good visceral charge.
  74. Mortal Thoughts
    Mortal Thoughts has a good cast and a lot to recommend it, but what it doesn't have is the kind of dramatic payoff that makes so much extended buildup and explanation seem worthwhile.
  75. Oscar
    Mr. Stallone displays an unexpected gameness, even a flair, for the kind of broadly durable comedy that is the television sitcom's specialty. It works a lot better than might have been expected. Mr. Stallone may not be a comic genius, but he's definitely a sport.
  76. Point of No Return
    Once the story settles down to wondering whether Maggie/Claudia can find happiness in romantic love, it becomes noticeably less interesting. Ms. Fonda sometimes verges on the mechanical in mouthing her character's nobler sentiments (the film also relies heavily on Nina Simone records to express its heroine's feelings), but that is to be expected. At heart, this woman is little more than a laboratory specimen with great legs, so it's miraculous to find an actress breathing life into her at all.
  77. True Mothers
    Only a mountain couldn’t be moved by True Mothers — but like Asato’s parentage, the sources of that effect are complex. From one angle, True Mothers is sensitive and layered. From another, the tricks it plays with perspective constitute an all-too-calculated ploy for tears.
  78. Boogie
    It’s a competent movie, but it doesn’t quite make it to the big leagues.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Phase IV
    In making his feature directorial debut after a succession of distinguished film titles, graphics and short subjects, Saul Bass, with the aid of special insect photography by Ken Middleham (Hellstrom Chronicle), has fashioned a pictorially persuasive adventure.
  80. Class Act
    As directed by Randall Miller, the movie doesn't aspire to much more than cartoonish verve, but Kid 'n' Play easily hold it together. Their comic timing is right, and their humor manages to be both traditional and current.
  81. The Dry
    The many red herrings and the dark-secret finale recall the reliable, compulsive appeal of a page-turner, although the tensions don’t always feel fully translated to the rhythms and demands of a film.
  82. What Happened Was...
    In performance, as in the rest of this film, Mr. Noonan only haltingly captures what he seeks.
  83. Mirror (1975)
    Mr. Tarkovsky appears so absorbed in grappling with his own demons that universality suffers. [17 Aug 1983, p.C14]
    • The New York Times
  84. In the Earth
    If the bigger picture of In the Earth doesn’t appear fully realized — this is a movie not just of the moment, but perhaps rushed to meet it — it would be difficult, this year, for at least some of its atmosphere of isolation-induced madness not to inspire a chill.
  85. John and the Hole
    Chilly, enigmatic and more than a little spooky, John and the Hole patrols the porous border between child and adult with more style than depth.
  86. Misha and the Wolves
    Misha and the Wolves plays best on first viewing, with its surprises intact.
  87. Manhattan Murder Mystery
    Although Manhattan Murder Mystery struggles with its own contrivances, it achieves a gentle, nostalgic grace and a hint of un-self-conscious wisdom. Those who appreciate the long, daring continuum of Mr. Allen's work will be glad to find him simply carrying on.
  88. Freaked
    Freaked, which was directed by Mr. Winter and Tom Stern from a screenplay they wrote with Tim Burns, has the candy-colored glow of a goofy psychedelic comic book and the irreverent sensibility of Mad Magazine.
  89. Weekend at Bernie's II
    A much more high-pitched movie than its forerunner. [10 July 1993, p.15]
    • The New York Times
  90. Texasville
    There are times when Texasville, like the Larry McMurtry novel on which it is based, seems top heavy with eccentrics. Everybody is tirelessly and (worse) lovably oddball. The snappy dialogue occasionally exhausts. Yet also like the book, the movie becomes seriously involving, a cockeyed acknowledgment of an especially American kind of inarticulate despair.
  91. Ruth: Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words
    Though filled with valuable details, the documentary has the misfortune of arriving after countless other appraisals.
  92. Out of Bounds
    Richard Tuggle's new film wants to be a realistic thriller, but it merely acts out kids' fantasies of heroism and adventure, with drugs and rock music thrown in for a contemporary twist.
  93. Mafia Inc
    For better or worse, Grou has a knack for staging brutality, and for having his movie rock out to a Joy Division track or two.
  94. McLintock!
    If the film doesn't quite come off, it is not for lack of effort. Mr. Wayne is in there swinging all the way, as a reactionary old cattle baron coping with encroaching homesteaders, discontented Indians, a marriageable daughter and a rebellious wife.
  95. The Violent Heart
    Some of these central relationships are inappropriate, even dangerous, but the subtlety of Sanga’s filmmaking allows for big twists to come as a genuine surprise. It makes for a successful manipulation of his audience’s expectations, even if the overall effect is a movie that feels slightly detached.
  96. Pelé
    I did yearn to see more of his talents in action; his header goal in that year’s Italy final feels cosmically liberating. But however conventional as a whole, the movie feels troubled by the traumas of Pelé’s heyday.
  97. My Darling Supermarket
    Better late than never, the film’s spiritual thrust becomes clear by the third act. The stark symmetry of the shelved merchandise and the eerily dissonant score assumes an otherworldly, ritualistic power when our subjects begin musing on faith and the nature of existence.
  98. Life with Mikey
    This film's not-so-secret weapon is Michael J. Fox, who works tirelessly to keep the comedy afloat even when its sentimental side begins to show.
  99. Werewolves Within
    Werewolves Within darts between sharp visual gags, intricately choreographed scenes and a few standout performances, but its climax lands with a thud.
  100. Rose Plays Julie
    Amid the lush greenery of the setting, the atmosphere is perpetually bone-chilling — complete with an ominously high-pitched score — making the film seem distant and difficult to fully embrace
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »