The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,312 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: 9,400 out of 20312
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20312
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20312
20312 movie reviews
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  1. Save Me
    Never quite shakes off its aura of second-rate made-for-TV movie, Save Me has a lot of heart but little nerve and no surprise.
  2. Christmas on Mars
    Forget plot. It’s all about textures.
  3. Battle in Seattle
    A drama is only as convincing as its characters. The people awkwardly forced together in Battle in Seattle are rhetorical mouthpieces tied to the sketchy plotlines of a so-so Hollywood ensemble movie.
  4. Lakeview Terrace
    A passable piece of hackwork, with some adequately suspenseful passages and a few mild shocks near the end. But the psychological dimensions of the story are so risible, and its supposed insights into race and class so wrongheaded and ugly, that irritation trumps enjoyment.
  5. My Best Friend's Girl
    A date not entirely to be skipped. It's a movie tailor-made for those who think it's a turn-on to passionately kiss someone to whom they've just said, "I hate you."
  6. Miracle at St. Anna
    It is in the fragile bonds that form between the black soldiers and the Italian villagers that Miracle at St. Anna breaks free of its own grandiosity and tells a grounded, moving, human story. Not a miracle by any means, but an earthy inquiry into death, duty, friendship and honor. What we’ve always wanted from war movies.
  7. The Elephant King
    Tells a colorful if conventional tale of dysfunctional Americans abroad. The misadventures of Jake and Oliver play off against the conflicted sympathies of the locals, who simultaneously resent, enjoy, prosper from and exploit the tourist scene.
  8. The Secret Life of Bees
    The film insists so strenuously on its themes of redemption, tolerance, love and healing that it winds up defeating itself, and robbing Ms. Kidd’s already maudlin tale of its melodramatic heat.
  9. Sex Drive
    The sweetheart leads, Josh Zuckerman and Amanda Crew, are easy to spend time with, and Seth Green as an Amish hipster and Clark Duke as an unlikely lady-killer hit every sweet-and-sardonic note with panache.
  10. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
    As multimillion-dollar frivolities about the pets of the ruling class go, Chihuahua is reasonably diverting. As one that happens to be opening in the middle of an economic meltdown, its mere existence feels utterly insane.
  11. Blindness
    Not a great film, mainly because it can't transcend -- and, indeed, lays bare -- the intellectual flimsiness of its source. But it is, nonetheless, full of examples of what good filmmaking looks like. For all its chin-rubbing, brow-furrowing attitudes, it does not, in the end, give you much to think about. But there is, nonetheless, a lot here to see.
  12. Flash of Genius
    It has the tone and texture of a well-made but forgettable television movie.
  13. RocknRolla
    Like the filmmaking itself, the violence has no passion, no oomph, no sense of real or even feigned purpose.
  14. Body of Lies
    As it is, the movie is a hodgepodge of borrowings and half-cooked ideas, flung together into a feverishly edited jet-setting exercise in purposeless intensity.
  15. Breakfast with Scot
    For its courage to address a ticklish subject with warmhearted humor, Breakfast With Scot, adapted from a novel by Michael Downing, deserves a light round of applause.
  16. City of Ember
    At only 95 minutes, the movie feels as though it had been shredded in the editing room. In Hollywood-speak, it has a weak second act.
  17. Frontrunners
    Polite, detached documentary in which there are no highs or lows. Politically and emotionally, the movie's thermostat remains at medium cool.
  18. Changeling
    The truth about the case of Christine Collins is so shocking and dramatic that embellishment must have seemed pointless, but in sticking so close to the historical record, Mr. Straczynski and Mr. Eastwood have produced a distended, awkward narrative whose strongest themes are lost in the murky pomp of period detail.
  19. Pride and Glory
    Not especially good, but there is enough rough artistry in Mr. O’Connor’s direction to make you wish the film were better.
  20. The Haunting of Molly Hartley
    Tame and inoffensive, The Haunting of Molly Hartley is no more than a big-screen lasso for the "Gossip Girl" and "Supernatural" demographic.
  21. Splinter
    A diverting if not terribly original on-the-cheap horror film.
  22. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    In spite of its sometimes tiresome, sometimes amusing lewdness, follows a gee-whiz romantic-comedy formula that would not be out of place on the Disney Channel.
  23. JCVD
    Some of this is affecting, some of it tedious, and the film's inconsistencies of tone are made more glaring by its peculiar look.
  24. The Alphabet Killer
    Relies less on the novelty of its premise than on the positioning of solid actors in minor roles (including Melissa Leo and Martin Donovan as the tortured parents of a murdered child) and the intelligence of its star.
  25. Gardens of the Night
    Recovery time is recommended after seeing Gardens of the Night, a harrowing, obliquely told story of kidnapping and forced child prostitution that conjures a world entirely populated by predators and prey.
  26. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
    Good enough in patches to make its distracting star turns, storybook clichés and stereotypes harder to take than they would be in a less enjoyable movie.
  27. We Are Wizards
    Amusing if unfocused documentary peek at some of the more engaged fans (and opportunists) circulating in the Harry Potter world.
  28. Special
    Either way, it doesn’t quite go far enough as psychological study or cultural commentary.
  29. Doubt
    Mainstream moviemaking, with its commercial directives and slavish attachment to narrative codes isn't particularly hospitable to ambiguity...which may help explain why Mr. Shanley's film feels caught between two mediums and why Ms. Streep appears to be in a Gothic horror thriller while everyone else looks and sounds closer to life or at least dramatic realism.
  30. Nothing Like the Holidays
    The only distinguishing characteristic of this mildly agreeable variation of a worn-out formula is that the boisterous family under examination is Puerto Rican, and the screenplay includes a smattering of Spanish.
  31. Where God Left His Shoes
    Although Mr. Leguizamo wisely underplays a role that is just short of saintly, the character is still a filmmaker's bogus, bleeding-heart contrivance in a movie that is much less truthful than it pretends to be.
  32. While She Was Out
    Embracing outraged victimhood the way Angelina Jolie embraces a close-up, Ms. Basinger, doing double duty here as an executive producer, appears oblivious to the script's idiocies.
  33. Nothing But the Truth
    Nothing but the Truth has nothing much at all to do with the historical record, which wouldn't be bad if it offered something persuasive and worthwhile in return, like a reckoning of journalism and its abuses.
  34. Valkyrie
    If Mr. Cruise doesn't work in Valkyrie, it's partly because he's too modern, too American and way too Tom Cruise to make sense in the role, but also because what passes for movie realism keeps changing, sometimes faster than even a star can change his brand.
  35. Defiance
    Defiance presents itself as an explicit correction of the cultural record, a counterpoint to all those lachrymose World War II tales of helplessness and victimhood. This is a perfectly honorable intention, but the problem is that, in setting out to overturn historical stereotypes of Jewish passivity, Mr. Zwick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Clayton Frohman) ends up affirming them.
  36. Not Easily Broken
    Mr. Duke’s filmmaking is functional at best, and the extreme shifts in emotional tone -- especially a late and disastrous swerve into tragedy -- are handled clumsily in Brian Bird’s script. Yet Not Easily Broken is not easily dismissed. For one thing, the cast is excellent, and for another, its intentions are serious and generous.
  37. Yonkers Joe
    For all its attention to detail, Yonkers Joe isn't half as tough as it pretends to be. The real story of these bottom-feeders and the sad young man they exploit is a lot uglier than the movie even begins to let on.
  38. Cherry Blossoms
    While Ms. Dörrie’s film is exquisitely shot, its themes and metaphors are obvious rather than subtle, and its emotional rhythms -- rueful laughter punctuating the pathos -- would not be out of place in a television drama.
  39. Hotel for Dogs
    Although you wouldn't want an entire movie devoted to such shenanigans, Hotel for Dogs isn't half as zany as it might have been.
  40. Donkey Punch
    Until it plunges into gore, the movie remains above the typical splatter 'n' scream fest. These careless hedonists are convincing, and the ensemble acting feels believable; the orgy looks very real. But the realism turns to caricature once the panicked party monsters begin viciously turning on one another.
  41. The Uninvited
    The main problem with The Uninvited lies in its refusal to decide just what movie it wants to be a commercial for. It certainly doesn’t have much in common with "A Tale of Two Sisters," the creepy Korean horror film of which it is supposedly a remake.
  42. Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
    Documents courage, but steers clear of character.
  43. The Pink Panther 2
    Although the stunts come thick and fast in The Pink Panther 2, they are jammed together in a way that gives most of them barely enough time to register.
  44. Fanboys
    There are enough good jokes in Fanboys, a road comedy about geeks on a "Star Wars"-related quest, to satisfy hard-core fans of that George Lucas franchise. But the film doesn't have the boosters, or thrusters, or whatever, to elevate it to more ambitious heights; it's weighed down by tired conventions and a general sense of having missed its moment.
  45. Angels & Demons
    This movie, without being particularly good, is nonetheless far less hysterical than "Da Vinci."
  46. Madea Goes to Jail
    There is something both satisfying and frustrating about Madea Goes to Jail. Mr. Perry dutifully gives his audience what it wants, but you can't help feeling that he might also have more to offer: more coherent narratives, smoother direction, better movies.
  47. Eleven Minutes
    Might be described as a low-rent answer to Douglas Keeve's documentary about Isaac Mizrahi, "Unzipped," a movie that also revealed the fundamental silliness of fashion, though it had some glamour attached.
  48. Fired Up!
    A kind of dumb but also kind of smart-about-being-dumb comedy.
  49. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
    Isn't a movie so much as a devotional object, a kind of secular fetish designed to induce rapture.
  50. Race to Witch Mountain
    Modest and diverting, rough and bland, with some good (if not quite Bette Davis caliber) actors and so-so special effects.
  51. Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America
    Though there's no doubt that Mr. Stone is as serious as a heart attack when it comes to creating an air of authenticity -- hence the sloppily butchered chickens and authorial defecation -- he never settles on a coherent tone for the movie.
  52. Monsters vs Aliens
    The movie is curiously unmemorable, partly because nearly all of its humor depends on your having seen something like it before, even if you haven't.
  53. Alien Trespass
    A charmingly sentimental but ultimately pointless hommage to the sci-fi classics of yesteryear, Alien Trespass proves only that while styles and technology have moved on, the affection for corn is everlasting.
  54. Fast & Furious
    Inoffensive if uninspired.
  55. Gigantic
    With its off-center dialogue and upscale industrial settings, Gigantic strains to be original. But beneath its indie affectations it is really another contemplation of generational misunderstanding.
  56. 17 Again
    The director, Burr Steers, whose other credits include “Igby Goes Down” and stints directing TV shows, keeps people and things moving fast enough so that you don’t have time to worry about the details, like the inanity of the story.
  57. American Violet
    The movie's staunchly liberal point of view extends to the 2000 presidential election, which is shown unfolding in the background. Al Gore's concession speech is used to suggest that the systemic racism in Melody is a symptom of a broader climate of injustice.
  58. Is Anybody There?
    What balances the movie is Mr. Caine's exceptional portrayal of old age as the accumulation of a lifetime's experience. In his performance the child, the youthful rogue and the forgetful codger all live at once.
  59. Valentino: The Last Emperor
    Watching the movie is a little like gorging on chocolate and Champagne until that queasy moment arrives when you realize you’ve consumed far too much.
  60. Treeless Mountain
    The problem is that while the children are lovely because they are children, there is nothing inherently interesting about them or their lives.
  61. A Wink and a Smile
    It's all good clean fun; the movie is well intentioned to a blandly feminist fault. Just as burlesque loses most of its oomph when put on video -- no art is more dependent on the intimacy of live performance -- self-esteem trips are less compelling to hear about than to experience firsthand.
  62. Battle for Terra
    The movie's messages are delivered with a heavy hand, but some of the scenes are eye-popping, especially -- sorry, peace-loving Terrians -- the battle sequences.
  63. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
    Despite excellent stunt work and a too-brief appearance by Orlando Jones as an unflappable cop, the movie -- unlike Mr. Douglas’s hairdo -- never rises above mediocrity.
  64. Little Ashes
    A painfully sincere study in creative passion, sexual ardor and political zeal that embalms a mad and exuberant historical moment within the talky, balky conventions of period-costumed highbrow soap opera.
  65. Outrage
    Mr. Dick, whose previous documentaries have examined sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, the inner workings of the movie ratings system and the life and work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, is a cerebral muckraker. While his techniques are not as nakedly tendentious as Michael Moore’s (and his movies, as a consequence, are not as much fun), he hardly pretends to be a detached or unbiased observer.
  66. Not Forgotten
    A lurid yet plodding thriller, bobs to the surface in theaters, most likely to the chagrin of the now very hot Simon Baker.
  67. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
    Shallow and harmlessly diverting picture.
  68. My Life in Ruins
    Not likely to spur much tourism to Greece. The sights, though impressive, are not photographed interestingly, and the citizens of the host country are less than welcoming.
  69. Pontypool
    A small Canadian horror film that makes the most of its minuscule budget.
  70. Chéri
    There's something poignant about the image of this actress (Pfeiffer) sitting in a pool of sunlight without a smile or trace of visible makeup. But she's trying to reach a character that her director seems intent to keep from her grasp.
  71. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
    Couldn't the creative minds at the 20th Century Fox animation studios, hoping to wring a few hundred million dollars more out of their prized family-animation franchise, have come up with something more original?
  72. The Girl from Monaco
    If in the end the film is neither a cogent psychological thriller nor an effervescent sex comedy, it does at least have an interesting sense of place.
  73. G-Force
    Manages to be fairly entertaining in that exhausting, rackety, late-summer-kiddie-movie way.
  74. The Answer Man
    Never shows enough passion to be interestingly bad.
  75. Shrink
    These characters are mostly too sketchy and their connections too contrived for Shrink to jell as an incisive ensemble piece.
  76. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
    A comedy without a shred of obvious filmmaking and an endless stream of good, bad, sometimes terrible, often absurd jokes.
  77. Paper Heart
    Your enjoyment of Paper Heart will hinge almost entirely on your receptiveness to Ms. Yi and the extreme iteration of social awkwardness she represents.
  78. Post Grad
    Ms. Bledel works her “Gilmore Girls” charm to the hilt, but no amount of cerulean-eyed sparkle can transcend this level of thudding mediocrity.
  79. Shorts
    Soon becomes tiresome, but it’s emblematic of a film that is dancing as fast as it can to entertain.
  80. Earth Days
    A sedate chronicle of the highs and lows of the environmental movement, Earth Days is less a rousing call to action than a bittersweet stroll down memory lane.
  81. Spread
    More skin is shown in Spread than in most Hollywood movies. But despite twitches of insight into its characters and their world, Spread refuses go more than skin deep.
  82. Five Minutes of Heaven
    A feature-length talkathon built on a sketchy premise, some unpersuasive psychology, a pinch of politics and strong star turns from Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, the appeal of all those words runs out long before the director Oliver Hirschbiegel turns off the spigot.
  83. Rashevski's Tango
    In the end, though, Mr. Garbarski makes no judgments, which leaves this film feeling sweet but light: we already knew that Judaism, like most other religions, is an ever-evolving collage.
  84. Walt & El Grupo
    What’s really missing here is a story of artistic regeneration: by the time we encounter a dazzling excerpt from the studio’s post-trip film, “Aquarela do Brasil,” we are only reminded of what might have been.
  85. Donne-moi la main
    Some viewers may enjoy Give Me Your Hand simply as an excuse to gaze at the Carril brothers.
  86. Fame
    While the movie suffers from a surfeit of flash, it nonetheless offers the undeniable power of young performers pursuing art at peak dexterity.
  87. Blind Date
    The self-consciousness of the premise and the playlike structure of Blind Date clash with the naturalism of Mr. Tucci and Ms. Clarkson’s acting styles, and the film never lifts itself above its origin as a well-meaning, underdeveloped exercise.
  88. The Stepfather
    A clumsy remake of the 1987 cult thriller.
  89. Ong Bak 2
    It’s really all about the fighting, carried out in a variety of Asian styles, including one Mr. Jaa invented for the film. Aficionados may find this thrilling. The rest of us will sink lower in our seats.
  90. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
    Although the film, with its home movies and family reminiscences, portrays him as a heroic crusader for justice, it is by no means a hagiography of a man who earned widespread contempt late in his career for defending pariahs.
  91. Fix
    Propelled by an eccentric cast of characters and increasingly seamy locations, Fix dashes headlong through Los Angeles with a little charm and a lot of verve.
  92. Case 39
    Radiating a distinctly retro vibe, this throwaway thriller from the German director Christian Alvart tosses a bone to Renée Zellweger, who chews it to a nub as Emily Jenkins, a harried social worker.
  93. The Slammin' Salmon
    Has its share of funny moments. But it also has its share of tired ones, like the subplot involving the inadvertent swallowing of a ring.
  94. 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.
  95. Red Riding Trilogy
    The Red Riding trilogy looks fine blown up on the big screen, though it’s easier to watch at home, where the remote offers fast relief from a grim fiction that, with its murky palette and unyielding cruelty, serves up a nihilistic vision that is unyielding, hermetic, unpersuasive and finally self-indulgent.
  96. The Crazies
    Mr. Romero is executive producer of the new film. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have his style or sense of humor.
  97. The Exploding Girl
    The Exploding Girl can also make you feel bad about wishing that she were just a little more interesting.
  98. Brooklyn's Finest
    Like Tango, Sal and Eddie, Mr. Fuqua and Mr. Martin dig themselves into a pulpy predicament, and then find themselves unable to do anything but shoot their way out. The movie is wounded, but it’s also too tough to kill.
  99. Repo Men
    It may have been a shrewd business decision by the film’s director, Miguel Sapochnik, to treat the story as a nasty, comic thriller. But when, after a certain point, Repo Men subsumes its satire to strenuous action sequences, it loses its edge and turns into a chase movie of no special distinction.
  100. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    Though Ms. Rapace is a fine professional scowler, with cheekbones that thrust like knives and a pout that’s mostly pucker, she tends to register as an intriguing idea instead of a thoroughly realized character. She more or less looks the part that the filmmakers don’t let her fully play.
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