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. Transsiberian
    Until it fizzles in an anticlimactic train crash, it is extremely entertaining.
  2. Before I Forget
    An unblinking portrait of a complicated, solitary gay man who has outlived his working years.
  3. The Doorman
    The Doorman, is simply too distracted to hit the comedic bull's-eye. Whatever the case, his movie gets a chuckle or two but mostly will tickle insiders.
  4. Mad Detective
    If the insanely inventive and entertaining Mad Detective weren't so weird -- and in Cantonese -- hordes of action geeks would be lining the block to see it.
  5. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
    The whole affair is pulpy, jokey, sometimes touching and frequently nonsensical: a big mess and, mostly, a lot of fun.
  6. Journey to the Center of the Earth
    If this movie is not a ride, then what is it? One thing it may not be, quite, is a movie.
  7. Meet Dave
    Though mildly amusing, Murphy's two characters in Meet Dave -- a wee captain and a humanoid spaceship -- neither tax nor stretch him.
  8. A Man Named Pearl
    Assembled without frills or fuss, A Man Named Pearl is as much a portrait of a small Southern town as of an unassuming black folk artist.
  9. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
    Its one-week theatrical run will make it eligible for Academy Award consideration, though given that organization's often pitiful record when it comes to nonfiction film, it seems unlikely that a movie this subtly intelligent would make its short list.
  10. August
    The movie's amoral momentum is fatally slowed by an acronym-heavy script and flimsy characterizations that offer fine actors -- including Rip Torn as Tom's contemptuous father and Naomie Harris as his missed opportunity -- little to play.
  11. Das wilde Leben
    Like most flower-power nostalgia trips, Eight Miles High has the irksome effect of reminding the audience -- whether too young or too square -- that it missed out on the grooviest moment in history, man. But as these things go, this one goes with flair.
  12. Garden Party
    Whatever else it may accomplish, Garden Party, which is clumsily structured but well acted, with pungently realistic dialogue, puts you in a world without a center in which you can't tell upside down from right-side up.
  13. Death Defying Acts
    Ms. Zeta-Jones is too elegant for the lowlife she's supposed to be, Ms. Ronan isn't endearing enough to be a ragamuffin, and, under Gillian Armstrong's direction, never for a minute do you believe they're mother and daughter.
  14. Giorni e nuvole
    A brave film simply for daring to portray a nightmare lurking in the minds of middle-aged workers, people who might fear a film that addresses their insecurities this bluntly.
  15. The Stone Angel
    This multigenerational family history has enough gripping moments to hold your attention, but ultimately it leaves you frustrated by its failure to braid subplots and characters into a gripping narrative.
  16. Harold
    Harold is the type of one-note dead zone ideally suited for a bathroom break while sitting home on a Saturday night, alone and semidrunk, in front of the television. At feature length it's enough to make you tear your hair out.
  17. Full Battle Rattle
    Gives a remarkably thorough and detailed account of the difficult conditions facing American soldiers in Iraq.
  18. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    It is to Mr. Gibney’s great credit that while he pays due attention to the outsize, cartoonish celebrity persona Thompson fell back on when his literary powers began to wane, this film concentrates on the bold, innovative journalism that secured Thompson’s reputation and assures his immortality.
  19. Holding Trevor
    This portrait of 20-something gay men and their straight friends is a joyless exploration of middle-class deadbeats (with the exception of Ephram) lost in a torpid funk of low self-regard. Because they’'e not rich, there is no sleazy zing of "Less Than Zero"-worthy glamor.
  20. Kabluey
    The film's distance from factual reality oddly enhances its bleak underlying vision. It portrays a demoralized American work force fearfully going through the motions of life while waiting without much hope for things to get better.
  21. Diminished Capacity
    Touches earnestly on heart-heavy issues of loss: loss of memory, of love and, perhaps because of the local angle, of (or rather by) the Chicago Cubs. But Mr. Kinney, a founder of the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago and a familiar face from film and television, never gives his movie a sustained pulse.
  22. The Wackness
    The movie he (Josh Peck) is in, The Wackness, written and directed by Jonathan Levine, makes a good-faith effort to steer clear of such clichés, and succeeds and fails in roughly equal measure.
    • The New York Times
  23. Tell No One
    Beautifully written and acted, Tell No One is a labyrinth in which to get deliriously lost.
  24. Hancock
    Hancock makes for one unexpectedly satisfying and kinky addition to Hollywood's superhero chronicles. Touching and odd, laden with genuine twists and grounded by three appealing lead performances.
  25. Finding Amanda
    If the title "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" didn’' already belong to Hunter S. Thompson, it would perfectly fit Peter Tolan's viciously funny satire, Finding Amanda.
  26. WALL-E
    The first 40 minutes or so of Wall-E -- in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen -- is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in.
  27. Wanted
    Things happen in Wanted, but no one cares. You could call that nihilism, but even nihilism requires commitment of a kind and this, by contrast, is a movie built on indifference.
  28. Gunnin' for That #1 Spot
    As guileless and eager as the most avid fan, Gunnin’ is neither cautionary nor analytical, allowing its insights to occur organically and without fancy camera moves.
  29. Trumbo
    Today few would dispute Trumbo's assessment of that very dark period: "The blacklist was a time of evil, and no one who survived it on either side came through untouched by evil."
  30. Elsa y Fred
    Best enjoyed as a sampling of Ms. Zorrilla's combustible energy and still dazzling screen presence.
  31. The Last Mistress
    What’s explicit here is ravenous passion and the depiction of desire as a creating, destroying force that invades the very flesh. It's terribly French.
  32. Red Roses and Petrol
    All in all, this is a movie best enjoyed with a snoot full and a morbid disposition.
  33. Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
    Has a buoyancy and optimism that trump the predictability of its story.
  34. Full Grown Men
    This candy-colored movie, whose soft hues match the colored cereal loops that Alby devours at his mother's house, is a post-Freudian fable that wants to be a kind of anti-"Wizard of Oz" for a culture inundated with toys and toons.
  35. Get Smart
    It flounders whenever it tries to weave the real world into its fantasia, partly because it isn't really about anything other than making money, partly because the spy-versus-spy battle doesn't entertain the way it once did.
  36. The Love Guru
    The Love Guru is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.
  37. Brick Lane
    Certainly touching, even heart-rending at times, and it mostly steers clear of the didacticism and sentimentality its subject matter often invites. But it never takes the full measure of its modest heroine, and makes her world a bit too small.
  38. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
    In Kit’s world the absent father (a familiar theme from girls' novels including "Little Women" and "A Little Princess") is an epidemic, and the picture makes this the impetus for children's resourcefulness and emotional development.
  39. Medicine for Melancholy
    There are no simple answers or obvious conclusions to be gleaned from this movie, which, like its soundtrack, is both sad and vibrant, meandering and formally sure-footed. It is an exciting debut, and a film that, without exaggeration or false modesty, finds interest and feeling in the world just as it is.
  40. Expired
    It's possible that two actors other than Samantha Morton and Jason Patric might do justice to Cecilia Miniucchi's story about two badly matched Santa Monica, Calif., parking enforcement officers who stumble and grope into a relationship. But it's hard to think of a better match for the stubborn idiosyncrasies of Ms. Miniucchi's visual style and worldview than these two.
  41. The Happening
    A divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg.
  42. The Incredible Hulk
    A middling superhero movie! I wish I could say that was incredible.
  43. Chris & Don. A Love Story
    The elegantly structured documentary weaves extensive footage of Mr. Bachardy rummaging through their house and reminiscing with readings from Isherwood's diaries by Michael York, old interviews with Isherwood, home movies of their travels and glamorous social life, and commentary by friends, including Leslie Caron and the British filmmaker John Boorman.
  44. My Winnipeg
    Maddin's real point -- and, for admirers of this brilliant and idiosyncratic artist, the true source of the movie’s interest -- is that Winnipeg explains him.
  45. Quid Pro Quo
    After spinning out metaphors of paralysis and eroticism in its characters' feverish imaginations, Quid Pro Quo decides at the last minute that it has to explain everything. The moment it pulls away from the fantastic, it lands with a thud.
  46. Beauty in Trouble
    A movie of stark contrasts and zigzagging motives, Beauty in Trouble moves from the golden serenity of a Tuscan villa to the powdery chaos of a Czech garage without sacrificing thematic confidence or nuanced performances.
  47. To the Limit
    This disorienting, dippy documentary makes one thing abundantly clear: for the Hubers, the toughest climb may be into their own heads.
  48. Encounters at the End of the World
    Like many of Mr. Herzog's movies, fiction and nonfiction, Encounters at the End of the World itself has the quality of a dream: it's at once vivid and vague, easy to grasp and somehow beyond reach.
  49. Kung Fu Panda
    At once fuzzy-wuzzy and industrial strength, the tacky-sounding Kung Fu Panda is high concept with a heart.
  50. You Don't Mess with the Zohan
    Brazenly self-confident in its refusal to pander to the imagined sensitivity of its audience. In this it differs notably from Albert Brooks's "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," which approached some of the same topics with misplaced thoughtfulness and tact.
  51. The Go-Getter
    Mr. Hynes, who wrote the screenplay, seems well aware of the challenge of breathing fresh life into a familiar formula. Much of the dialogue is so quirky it sounds overheard instead of scripted. The performances are correspondingly spontaneous.
  52. Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan
    Mongol -- or, as I prefer to think of it, "Genghis Khan: The Early Years" -- is a big, ponderous epic, its beautifully composed landscape shots punctuated by thundering hooves and bloody, slow-motion battle sequences.
  53. Mother of Tears
    The Mother of Tears is silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime.
  54. The Promotion
    As this sweet, ineffectual comedy follows two sad sacks competing for the job of manager at a new branch of a Chicago grocery chain, it pointedly avoids the raucous bad-boy clowning of the typical Everyguy farce. Think of it as a polite, tightly muzzled "Clerks."
  55. Take Out
    Take Out is the season’s freshest, most sympathetic movie about making your way in modern-day Manhattan with a little help from your friends.
  56. Dreams with Sharp Teeth
    Directed by Erik Nelson, Dreams recalls the career of a runty young geek who evolved into a world-famous artist -- and ladies' man.
  57. Operation Filmmaker
    Although Ms. Davenport pushes the analogy between this modest rescue operation with America’s invasion of Iraq a bit too forcefully, she nonetheless makes her point with persuasive, touching candor.
  58. Bigger Stronger Faster*
    Bigger, Stronger, Faster* left me convinced that the steroid scandals will abate as the drugs are reluctantly accepted as inevitable products of a continuing revolution in biotechnology. Replaceable body parts, plastic surgery, anti-depressants, Viagra and steroids are just a few of the technological advancements in a never-ending drive to make the species superhuman.
  59. The Foot Fist Way
    An itsy-bitsy, ultra-indie, super-silly comedy packing huge laughs and unexpected heart.
  60. Savage Grace
    Proust might have known what to do with the Baekelands, but Mr. Kalin and Mr. Rodman don't make much more of them than the mess they apparently already were.
  61. Sex and the City
    I wish Ms. Parker had let that bee in her bonnet go silent, because the movie that she and Mr. King have come up with is the pits, a vulgar, shrill, deeply shallow -- and, at 2 hours and 22 turgid minutes, overlong -- addendum to a show that had, over the years, evolved and expanded in surprising ways.
  62. The Strangers
    This is no splatter movie: spare, suspenseful and brilliantly invested in silence, Bryan Bertino's debut feature unfolds in a slow crescendo of intimidation.
  63. The Unknown Woman
    Ms. Rappoport’s sturdy performance helps keep this outlandish melodrama from collapsing into unintended comedy.
  64. Stuck
    Stuck, while not strictly a horror film, is steeped in gore and carries a seam of mocking gallows humor as relentless as that of "Sweeney Todd."
  65. The Children of Huang Shi
    Roger Spottiswoode directs with old-fashioned style, avoiding the saccharine with realistic depictions of a war-ravaged China (where he filmed) and a cast well versed in stiff-upper-lip.
  66. War, Inc.
    War, Inc. is gonzo moviemaking with a bleeding heart. A satirical farce that wants to be "Dr. Strangelove" for the age of terrorism, it is a zany, nihilistic free-for-all that goes soft.
  67. Postal
    Infantile, irreverent and boorish to the max, Postal explodes with bad attitude and lousy filmmaking.
  68. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    There's plenty of frantic energy here, lots of noise and money too, but what's absent is any sense of rediscovery, the kind that's necessary whenever a filmmaker dusts off an old formula or a genre standard.
  69. The Edge of Heaven
    By the end you know the characters in it so well that you can't believe you've seen the movie only once, yet on a second viewing it seems completely new. And that may be because the world they inhabit is immediately recognizable -- until we get to heaven, it's where we live -- and like no place you've been before.
  70. A Jihad for Love
    Mr. Sharma's film emphasizes testimony over context to such a degree that it feels at first of little use to anyone except gay Muslims who might take comfort in knowing they're not alone. But the documentary gains depth of feeling as it goes and even develops something of a nail-biting narrative.
  71. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
    Quite a bit darker than "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," both in look and in mood. It is also in some ways more satisfying.
  72. Reprise
    An exuberant, exhilaratingly playful testament to being young and hungry -- for life and meaning and immortality, and for other young and restless bodies -- Reprise is a blast of unadulterated movie pleasure.
  73. Sangre De Mi Sangre
    Although it exhibits a heartfelt connection with the city's half-invisible population of illegal immigrants, its myriad inconsistencies and strained plotting are increasingly frustrating.
  74. Lion's Den
    Although it is not a comedy, Lion’s Den is suffused with sense of life lived in the present. Even the grimmest moments are not exploited to instill fear and loathing.
  75. Speed Racer
    This movie sets out to honor and refresh a youthful enthusiasm from the past and winds up smothering the fun in self-conscious grandiosity.
  76. The Babysitters
    Shirley’s instant metamorphosis from insecure high school student to ruthless madam is ludicrous in spite of the best efforts of the talented Ms. Waterston to convince you otherwise. The Babysitters has the increasingly jerky momentum of a film that was butchered in the cutting room, sacrificing continuity and character development to whip the plot forward.
  77. The Fall
    A genuine labor of love -- and a real bore.
  78. Frontier(s)
    Although at times Mr. Gens veers dangerously close to the unpardonable, with images that evoke the Holocaust too strongly, Frontier(s) finally works because its shivers are as plausible as they are outrageous.
  79. Noise
    The movie, whose cacophonous soundtrack, when turned up, conjures your worst nightmare of sirens, car alarms, jackhammers and sundry aural assaults, is a one-trick film that rapidly wears out its welcome.
  80. OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
    Not that Cairo, Nest of Spies is meant to be a thriller, but even as a self-consciously anachronistic knockabout farce it rarely rises to the level of wit, either verbal or physical.
  81. Surfwise
    Doug Pray’s wonderfully engaging look at love and family and the relentless pursuit of happiness, personal meaning and perfect waves.
  82. Turn the River
    Until it transforms into an improbable thriller, Turn the River is a finely observed portrait of a desperate working-class woman who refuses to play by ordinary rules.
  83. What Happens in Vegas
    Because its director, Tom Vaughan, brings nothing of interest to the movie, including filmmaking, there isn't anything to say other than to note its insulting ugliness and ineptitude.
  84. Before the Rains
    Fatal culture clash, imperialist entitlement, forbidden passion between master and servant: the ingredients of the Indian director Santosh Sivan’s period piece Before the Rains may be awfully familiar, but the film lends them the force of tragedy.
  85. A Previous Engagement
    More tired than the fantasy it promotes, A Previous Engagement aims at middle-aged women with the subtlety of a pitch for bladder-control medication.
  86. The Tracey Fragments
    In the hands of a more literal-minded filmmaker The Tracey Fragments might well have been dreary and unbearable, a chronicle of florid self-pity justified by arbitrary cruelty. Instead it is fierce, enigmatic and affecting.
  87. Unsettled
    Adam Hootnick’s Unsettled makes the political personal, drawing a scattershot yet intimate picture of a nation divided.
  88. Vice
    Raul Sanchez Inglis directed, but Mr. Tarantino's influence prevails, in the cinematography by Andrzej Sekula of "Dogs"; in the abundant epithets and expletives; and in the climactic "Dogs"-style standoff. The film is also dedicated to Chris Penn, Sean's brother, who was in "Dogs" and died in 2006. But missing, regrettably, is that movie's inventiveness, clarity and wit.
  89. Battle for Haditha
    Mr. Broomfield maintains a level of cool detachment throughout. That's to the good of the movie, which, though technically exemplary, falters dramatically on occasion, becoming dangerously close to overheated whenever the characters speak for any length.
  90. Iron Man
    Has the advantage of being an unusually good superhero picture. Or at least -- since it certainly has its problems -- a superhero movie that's good in unusual ways.
  91. Fugitive Pieces
    For a tale spiked with so much torment, Fugitive Pieces feels remarkably soothing.
  92. Made of Honor
    Made of Honor retains enough sweetness to satisfy the cotton-candy addicts. For true believers in fairy tales, no romantic fantasy is too extravagant if the heroine is a sweetheart. The rest of us can sit there and roll our eyes.
  93. Mister Lonely
    Mister Lonely, self-enclosed though it may be, nonetheless demonstrates that Mr. Korine, who showed his ability to shock and repel in earlier films, also has the power to touch, to unsettle and to charm. This is undoubtedly a small movie, but it's also more than that: it's a small, imperfect world.
  94. Redbelt
    A satisfying, unexpectedly involving B-movie that owes as much to old Hollywood as to Greek tragedy.
  95. Son of Rambow
    A likable, lightly sticky valentine to childhood, the 1980s and the dawning of movie love, Son of Rambow was written and directed by Garth Jennings and produced by Nick Goldsmith, the duo behind the underappreciated fantasy "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
  96. XXY
    If XXY is imagistically too programmatic (a scene of carrots being sliced is typical of its Freudian heavy-handedness) and devoid of humor, it never seems pruriently exploitative. It sustains an unsettling mood of ambiguity that lingers long after the final credits.
  97. The Favor
    A dreary, interminable drama written and directed by Eva Aridjis, is exactly one-third of a good movie. That third is Frank Wood's beautifully modulated and modest central performance.
  98. Viva
    While desperation and a critique lurk under all these garish surfaces, neither emerges because Ms. Biller, finally, adores this milieu too much to tear it apart.
  99. Baby Mama
    The film never comes fully to term, as it were: the visual style is sitcom functional, and even the zippiest jokes fall flat because of poor timing. But, much like the prickly, talented Ms. Fey, it pulls you in with a provocative and, at least in current American movies, unusual mix of female intelligence, awkwardness and chilled-to-the-bone mean.
  100. Deception
    A would-be erotic thriller with no heat and zero chills, Deception has the kind of glassy, glossy sheen and risible story that mean to suggest "Basic Instinct" but instead invoke lesser laughers like "Jade" and "Sliver."
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