The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,280 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: 9,381 out of 20280
  2. Mixed: 8,435 out of 20280
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20280
20280 movie reviews
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  1. The Agronomist
    It seems almost unthinkable that such a charismatic, generous and lively man could be gone. It also makes you understand what it means for a country like Haiti to lose a citizen like Jean Dominique.
  2. MC5*: A True Testimonial
    The proto-punk warriors known as the MC5 left a dent that outlasts their mostly negligible record sales, and the director's curiosity is piqued by the group's sociological impact.
  3. Close Your Eyes
    With such plodding dialogue, there's little the actors can do to surmount the falsity, although Ms. Shaw, in her brief appearances, almost succeeds.
  4. Man on Fire
    This is a time-tested movie con, but rarely has it been deployed so contemptibly.
  5. The Twilight Samurai
    Mr. Yamada is confident that by taking his time and relishing the leathery arrogance that is the perquisite of a director in his 70's, his audience will follow his whims.
  6. 13 Going on 30
    The performances give the movie more flavor and life than the situation does; it often feels like prechewed Bubble Yum.
  7. Rhinoceros Eyes
    For all its visual zaniness and its aura of psychic imbalance, the movie, which won the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, stays on the surface and never locates its own heart of darkness.
  8. Sacred Planet
    What the movie lacks is contrast. The sped-up ribbons of traffic in a city look as pretty as the interior of a redwood grove. As for the perils of logging, one brief shot of a clear-cut forest flashes by so quickly it is almost subliminal.
  9. This So-Called Disaster: Sam Shepard Directs the Late Henry Moss
    Fascinating. Anyone interested in the challenges and techniques of acting -- which is really to say, anyone interested in human behavior -- should turn off E! and head down to Mr. Almereyda's film.
  10. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    The most voluptuous comic-book movie ever made.
  11. The Punisher
    Its lack of subtlety is clearly a point of pride, and Mr. Hensleigh's flat-footed, hard-punching style has a blunt ferocity that makes "Kill Bill" look like "In the Bedroom."
  12. Gypsy 83
    This is a tiny, vulnerable, rather treacly film at heart, one that would probably float away were it not for Ms. Rue's generous presence.
  13. Connie and Carla
    As a female vocal duo, their performances are passable, if a little dull and lacking in any sense of camp exaggeration.
  14. Young Adam
    The narrative scheme, the brooding period atmosphere, the understated score (by David Byrne) and the precision of the acting also make the story seem more interesting than it is.
  15. A Thousand Peace Clouds Encircle the Sky
    A bleak, static mood piece about adolescent emptiness. There's little dialogue, and what there is offers the scantest information about Gerardo, who, as played by Mr. Ortuño, conveys an impenetrable blank-faced melancholy.
  16. The Middle of the World
    Wants to be both a realistic family drama and a mythical odyssey but lacks the substance to be much more than a vignette.
  17. Showboy
    The lesson of Showboy is how disturbingly easy it is for an audience to trust what it sees when confronted with a film posing as factual documentary.
  18. Twentynine Palms
    The sustained force of Mr. Dumont's vision of existence as a swirl of brute instincts may not be easy to absorb, but it marks him as a major filmmaker.
  19. The Girl Next Door
    Offers a view of pornography that is nonjudgmental, even celebratory, but at the same time its premise -- that Danielle must be rescued from the shame and degradation of her old job -- suggests a more traditional, disapproving point of view. Instead of addressing this contradiction, the movie is happy to wallow in it, which would be fine if it had any real pleasure to offer.
  20. The Whole Ten Yards
    At least it isn't a remake -- though given how slovenly and forced this movie is, maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea.
  21. I'm Not Scared
    Although the movie takes on many of the characteristics of a conventional thriller, it refuses to go for cheap, vicious shocks, and the adults are seen through the curtain of Michele's trust.
  22. The Alamo
    Thornton's performance is lost in a film that is more of a schematic success than a dramatic one.
  23. Ella Enchanted
    The messages blend seamlessly into the fantasy and comedy in what is surely one of the best films for older children in quite some time.
  24. Johnson Family Vacation
    Feels more like a grueling road trip in search of a family comedy.
  25. The Blonds
    It is not so much a documentary as a fictional film about the making of a documentary, or perhaps a documentary about the making of a fictional film about the making of a documentary. If this sounds a bit maddening, it is, though the confusion that The Blonds induces is clearly part of its intention.
  26. Okraina
    A strange, disturbing and yet occasionally quite funny cultural artifact from the new Russia.
  27. Walking Tall
    Walking Tall has no more fat on it than the Rock himself, a hulking yet curiously ingratiating presence who seems the most likely candidate to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as America's favorite living comic book character.
  28. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
    An exquisitely simple movie. Mr. Kim manages to isolate something essential about human nature and at the same time, even more astonishingly, to comprehend the scope of human experience.
  29. The Prince and Me
    A cream puff with a melted marshmallow inside it. As the temperature rises, the whole gooey thing starts to melt.
  30. Adored
    He's (Marco Filiberti) his own best audience, and Adored is best left to his own enjoyment.
  31. Hellboy
    Mr. del Toro lets loose with an all-American, vaudevillian rambunctiousness that makes the movie daffy, loose and lovable.
  32. Home on the Range
    The best cartoons are built on the contradictory pursuit of meticulously arranged anarchy. But they never seem needy, or desperate for laughs, as Home on the Range does. The film seems hungrier for a pat on the head than a chuckle.
  33. Son frère
    Stringent, clinical and almost unbearably moving.
  34. The United States of Leland
    The real question raised by The United States of Leland is not why, but how. How, that is, did so many talented actors find their way to this dreary and derivative study in suburban dysfunction?
  35. Marathon
    The beauty of Mr. Naderi's filmmaking lies in his combination of acute social observation (with the subway population providing its habitual cross section of New York classes and cultures) and pure, almost mathematical formalism.
  36. Two Men Went to War
    It mocks the absurdity of war, but between the chuckles, and especially near the end, it plucks the heartstrings.
  37. Mayor of the Sunset Strip
    Keeps its claws carefully retracted. That's probably for the best, since the documentary still leaves a bitter aftertaste.
  38. Never Die Alone
    Primarily a riveting genre film that neatly exhibits the director's growing assurance -- Donald Goines would be proud.
  39. Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
    Looks like a Saturday morning cartoon (the characters all wear color-coded costumes) and unfortunately feels like one, too, with its thin characterizations, largely arbitrary action and feeble jokes.
  40. The Ladykillers
    Unquestionably minor, perhaps deliberately so, but it is nonetheless intermittently delightful.
  41. Jersey Girl
    Sadly, Mr. Smith has made a movie so false and blatantly icky that it's the film equivalent of making goo-goo noises and chucking a baby under the chin for 103 minutes. At the end, all you're left with is drool and a mountain of baby powder.
  42. Ned Kelly
    The storytelling is choppy and abrupt, and the filmmakers rely heavily on voice-over narration to announce themes that are never brought to dramatic life on screen. Mr. Ledger, his heartthrob charisma camouflaged behind a heavy beard, gives a stiff, hesitant performance.
  43. Dogville
    While you watch the movie, it can seem ridiculously long-winded. But once it's over, its characters' miserable faces remain etched in your memory, and its cynical message lingers.
  44. Raja
    What distinguishes Raja from every other movie to contemplate the treacherous intersection of passion, avarice and power is its unsettling emotional honesty. The two central performances are so spontaneous and mercurial that the reckless flirtation seems to be unfolding before your eyes.
  45. The Gatekeeper
    Though the film is far from polished, the force of its significance to Mr. Frey, as well as the urgency of its political message, give it some genuine impact.
  46. Bon voyage
    Blurs the line between comedy and epic drama so adroitly that the two styles fuse into something quite original: a lyrical farce that pays homage to its period in any number of ways.
  47. Taking Lives
    From a technical standpoint, Taking Lives is competent and sometimes even impressive. It is cleanly edited and nicely shot -- at times as cool and rich as a York Peppermint Pattie. Beyond that, there is not much to say.
  48. Intermission
    Altogether compelling.
  49. Dawn of the Dead
    The eventual video game is bound to be a lot more fun -- and less slowed down by bad dialogue -- than this "Dead."
  50. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    This angular and intelligent romantic comedy isn't entirely consistent. Even as you laugh, it's a movie you admire more than love.
  51. Divan
    If Divan is often fascinating, it is sometimes frustrating.
  52. Noi the Albino
    After a while the movie spins its wheels, unable to find much emotional traction in the icy bleakness.
  53. Maestro
    A passionate but messy, often inarticulate home movie.
  54. Spartan
    A vigorous and engrossing genre exercise that manages the difficult trick of being both logically meticulous and genuinely surprising. Its elaborately implausible story gestures now and then toward an idea, but the movie's main concern is technique.
  55. Knafayim Shvurot
    The movie's sense of emotional claustrophobia is underscored by a complete lack of interest in Middle Eastern politics, or in anything outside the troubled family unit.
  56. Secret Window
    This movie is a suspense thriller whose only suspense comes from an audience wondering if the picture will hit its promised 97-minute running time.
  57. Distant
    Such an accurate depiction of cramped spirits, small-mindedness and men unable to make changes in their lives takes its toll. Distant feels as if it's going nowhere in no particular hurry, and finally leaves us distant from its characters.
  58. Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
    Mr. Allen's work is compromised by an apparent inability to match his shots in a spatially coherent fashion. It's never easy to tell who is chasing whom and in which direction, a needless confusion that dampens many of the thrills and scuttles quite a few gags.
  59. NASCAR: The IMAX Experience
    Those seeking a serious sociological examination of the role of stock car racing in late capitalist America will probably want to search elsewhere, but audiences looking for a kick will find one -- almost literally -- in Mr. Wincer's work.
  60. Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
    Like its humor, the film's sentiment sneaks up on you, and so does the dramatic reversal that makes it something more than a collection of wry anecdotes.
  61. This Ain't No Heartland
    In the filmmaker's nightmarish view, the heartland is a decaying citadel of ignorance, boorishness and xenophobia, smugly rotting away in the twilight of the American empire.
  62. Ghost River
    Expressive touches are finally inadequate. Ms. Huppert's hard work notwithstanding, they don't take the place of psychological texture and narrative weight.
  63. Hidalgo
    The much too long, primitively plotted family action adventure Hidalgo, directed by Joe Johnston, has a handful of well-handled sequences but, given the young audience the film is intended for, the picture may be like having to finish an entire pot of broccoli to get a couple of jelly beans for dessert.
  64. Starsky & Hutch
    The movie's advertising tagline ("Starsky & Hutch — they're the Man") needs to be amended. The film belongs, completely and utterly, to Snoop Dogg.
  65. The Reckoning
    Trudges along the well-trod path of high-minded, schematic storytelling.
  66. James' Journey to Jerusalem
    As social criticism -- not only of Israel, but of other affluent countries as well -- James' Journey is both potent and a little didactic.
  67. WTC the First 24 Hours
    A meditation on the scale of a catastrophe so enormous that all the assembled resources seem paltry and inadequate.
  68. Collateral Damages
    The most moving aspect of Collateral Damages is the firefighters' sense of brotherhood and duty to their jobs. It is expressed matter-of-factly, without a shred of smugness or superiority, almost with embarrassment.
  69. Club Dread
    Mr. Chandrasekhar's direction is casual to the point of carelessness, but he does give the movie a friendly, convivial atmosphere that contradicts and sometimes overcomes its frequently cruel humor. In short, this is another film that looks as if it was more fun to make than it is to sit through.
  70. Greendale
    There is really no other way to categorize this splendid, crotchety artifact.
  71. Twisted
    Laborious and nonsensical psychological thriller, a mediocre piece of studio hackwork unredeemed by a first-rate director.
  72. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
    It's one of the rare films for which a blooper reel would be redundant.
  73. Goodbye Lenin!
    Much too long. It starts to feel like a flabby, dramatic version of the first "Austin Powers" movie, another exercise in living anachronism as a storytelling device. By the time the picture's final note about German reunification is struck, "Lenin!" has raised a wall of indifference for the audience.
  74. Risk/Reward
    The moderately arresting Risk/Reward suffers from a lack of resources and is writ small, suggesting that it may play better on television.
  75. Confessions of a Burning Man
    Too lazy and too loosely structured to accomplish much besides conveying some vivid physical impressions. There is no narrator, and the structure that exists is clouded by the new-age mumbo-jumbo of eight principal commentators.
  76. Alila
    The movie...tries to juggle too many characters at once (its title means "story plot" in Hebrew), and in several cases their connections aren't adequately explained.
  77. The Passion of the Christ
    On its own, apart from whatever beliefs a viewer might bring to it, The Passion of the Christ never provides a clear sense of what all of this bloodshed was for, an inconclusiveness that is Mr. Gibson's most serious artistic failure.
  78. Our Father
    Poignant though it is, the movie is the opposite of depressing. There is too much life in it.
  79. Teknolust
    A minor addition to the tiny genre of feminist science fiction films
  80. Big Animal
    Mr. Stuhr, an actor who worked frequently with Kieslowski and who plays the main character in this film, honors his old friend's memory, producing a minor but nonetheless charming footnote to his oeuvre.
  81. Against the Ropes
    Some of the performances show flashes of idiosyncrasy and flair that are nearly snuffed out by the pedestrian script.
  82. Clifford's Really Big Movie
    Will provide preschoolers with comfort and amusement, though not rapture or enchantment.
  83. EuroTrip
    The mildly xenophobic humor includes one of the few inventive mime insults seen in a movie; Eurotrip may be stupid, but it's not dumb.
  84. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
    Modest, mildly engaging film.
  85. Kitchen Stories
    His painstakingly coordinated scenes and exquisitely timed takes are the filmmaking equivalent of wringing every single use from a paper towel and then folding it before disposal.
  86. Welcome to Mooseport
    A terminally mild attempt to revive the populist political comedy pioneered by Frank Capra in the 1930's.
  87. Crying Ladies
    Its most winning attribute is a kind of sloppy, unassuming friendliness, a likability aptly reflected in its characters.
  88. Lost Boys of Sudan
    Getting an audience so caught up is no small feat; it is a tribute to the directors' storytelling.
  89. After the Life
    Mr. Belvaux's sensitive, generous way with actors suggests that, with more discipline and less gimmickry, he might have made a single masterwork, and After the Life provides the best support for this assessment.
  90. Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin
    Very much a writer's film: Mr. Schickel's elegant, occasionally knotty prose, read by Sidney Pollack, offers a clear, nuanced interpretation of the artist's work in relation to his life.
  91. The Code
    Probably should have stayed on a shelf back in Paris.
  92. The Seagull's Laughter
    Mr. Gudmundsson has created a sleek, light and entertaining work, with a few contrasting pockets of darkness and mystery.
  93. Love Object
    The modestly assembled Love Object... is only periodically derailed by its tone; Mr. Parigi sometimes overplays the humor in the midst of all the deadpan.
  94. 50 First Dates
    The unlikely sweetness of the story carries the day. What is most astonishing is the confidence with which the filmmakers push their premise to its logical conclusion, turning an ending that could have been either laughable or appalling into something so effortlessly heartfelt as to be nearly sublime.
  95. Robot Stories
    The most startling aspect of Robot Stories is not the mix that the director built from spare parts left on the curb but the evolving dramatic acumen of its maker; he's a talent with a future.
  96. An Amazing Couple
    Some of the scenes are like mislaid puzzle pieces, and they snap into place only when all three movies have been seen and absorbed. This makes watching any one of the episodes both more interesting and more frustrating than it might otherwise be, since a portion of dramatic satisfaction is always withheld.
  97. Osama
    Osama's unvarnished vulnerability, along with the director's combination of tough-mindedness and lyricism, prevents the movie from becoming at all sentimental; instead, it is beautiful, thoughtful and almost unbearably sad.
  98. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
    The question remains: why work so hard to make something deliberately bad, when the world is hardly running a shortage of mediocre movies?
  99. Miracle
    Does a yeoman's job of recycling the day-old dough that passes for its story.
  100. Barbershop 2: Back in Business
    Given the stature and the presence that the entrepreneurial rappers-turned-film-moguls Ice Cube and Queen Latifah possess, the fizzle of their scenes is doubly disappointing.
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