The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,271 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: 9,377 out of 20271
  2. Mixed: 8,430 out of 20271
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20271
20271 movie reviews
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  1. A Life Less Ordinary
    Mr. Boyle's brand of heaven-sent love story comes with a strange and whimsical mean streak. Tender thoughts and ha-ha shootings don't automatically mix.
  2. I Know What You Did Last Summer
    Though it flies in the face of credibility and becomes downright silly by its end, I Know What You Did Last Summer knows its way around the rules of the popular horror-film genre.
  3. The Devil's Advocate
    The film uses morphing and Rick Baker's monster effects strikingly, but it also keeps its gimmicks well tethered to reality.
  4. Gummo
    October is early, but not too early to acknowledge Harmony Korine's Gummo as the worst film of the year. No conceivable competition will match the sourness, cynicism and pretension of Mr. Korine's debut feature.
  5. Telling Lies in America
    The movie is loaded with heart and the feel for local color and period detail that can only come out of a personal reminiscence.
  6. Boogie Nights
    The movie's special gift happens to be Mark Wahlberg, who gives a terrifically appealing performance in this tricky role.
  7. The House of Yes
    The House of Yes was adapted from a play by Wendy MacLeod. And the movie, with its brittle, outrageous dialogue has a shrill stagy feel. That would be fine, if the dialogue sustained the stylish crackle of a drawing-room comedy gone berserk, but there are many gaping holes between the funny moments.
  8. Lilies
    Lilies, an extravagantly mannered revenge fantasy by the Canadian filmmaker John Greyson, raises the level of protest at religious prohibitions against homosexuality into a piercing operatic cry.
  9. Seven Years in Tibet
    Beyond his struggles with an unwieldy accent and the screenplay's hokum, Mr. Pitt gives a sincere if labored performance enhanced by a sense of genuine struggle.
  10. Gang Related
    Gang Related is a preposterously overplotted tale of two police detectives with moral compasses so defective that they have buried their brains and consciences along with 10 of their murder victims long before the film even begins.
  11. Kiss the Girls
    Mr. Freeman projects a kindness, patience and canny intelligence that cut against the movie's fast pace and pumped-up shock effects. His performance is so measured it makes you want to believe in the movie much more than its gimmicky jerry-built plot ever permits.
  12. U Turn
    However simply he approaches this familiar milieu, Mr. Stone winds up treating his story's sin-soaked connivers the way Francis Ford Coppola treated vampires. Neither of them is really capable of anything plain.
  13. The Ice Storm
    Elegant and deeply disquieting drama.
  14. The Peacemaker
    Culminates in a show-stopping action sequence set in midtown Manhattan, directed by Ms. Leder with crisp economy and furious energy.
  15. Soul Food
    This new menu movie has a soapy plot, appealing stars, family values, down-home atmosphere and a conviction that there's rarely a problem fried chicken can't cure.
  16. The Edge
    There's no need to worry that Mamet is on foreign territory with this action premise. The Edge succeeds ably in blending his famously acerbic dialogue with nerve-racking adventure scenes.
  17. L.A. Confidential
    A tough, gorgeous, vastly entertaining throwback to the Hollywood that did things right. As such, it enthusiastically breaks most rules of studio filmmaking today.
  18. In & Out
    Deliver laughs and skewer a few stereotypes, thanks to extremely sly wit and a fine cast.
  19. Nenette and Boni
    If the film's easygoing, catch-it-while-you-can approach yields some unexpected nuggets, it also makes for lopsided storytelling. But when Nenette et Boni is studying the faces and following the moods of its likable if terribly confused title characters, it captures the stubborn spirit of youth itself.
  20. Going All the Way
    In "Going All the Way," a flashy movie adaptation of Dan Wakefield's popular 1970 novel about growing up in the heartland in the repressed 1950s, Mark Pellington, a director from the world of music video, has inflated a realistic memoir into a garish, hyperkinetic social satire.
  21. The Myth of Fingerprints
    Has some good performances (Ms. Moore's ongoing snit is a terrifically sustained bit of glowering), but it only barely begins to knit its self-pitying characters into a credible family unit. They are oddballs with attitude.
  22. My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument
    Both Paul and the film would seem maddening if they weren't so passionately sincere, and if Paul did not gaze at the film's many beautiful young actresses with such an amazed, seductive gleam in his eye.
  23. The Game
    Mr. Douglas, who delivers a new shade of cruel elegance each time he plays another urbane monster, is the ideal star for this vigorously contrived thriller.
  24. A Self-Made Hero
    But this miracle of self-invention has more virtue in the abstract than it does on screen.
  25. Fire Down Below
    A superior Seagal film, a smooth blend of action, character and noble environmental message. Credit is owed to the screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Philip Morton, which provides strong supporting roles; the photography, directed by Tom Houghton, which brings out the beauty of the landscape violated by the villains, and the lively country music, which is attributed to Nick Glennie-Smith. [6 Sept 1997, p.18]
    • The New York Times
  26. Excess Baggage
    Ms. Silverstone's pouty all-American brashness counts for little in a film whose flat screenplay doesn't give her a single funny line.
  27. She's So Lovely
    The beat-up poetry, soused look and bad habits of She's So Lovely are often dated. The showy bravado is not.
  28. Hoodlum
    And while Mr. Duke's direction has visual panache, the movie is unevenly paced.
  29. G.I. Jane
    Mr. Scott's affinity for the visceral and strenuous, from ''Alien'' to ''Blade Runner'' to ''White Squall,'' is much more central here than the renegade feminism of his ''Thelma and Louise.'' With punishing intensity, he plunges his audience into the maelstrom of the training program.
  30. Mimic
    Ghoulish interest is a prerequisite for watching Mira Sorvino (as a bold and athletic entomologist) act against performers who have mandibles, or for appreciating the care with which nymph, juvenile and adult insect villains have been devised.
  31. Fire
    Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, this glossy melodrama, mixing references to Indian mysticism and the epic poetry of the "Ramayana" with late-20th-century feminism, teeters unsteadily between sociology and soap opera.
  32. Leave It to Beaver
    Leave It to Beaver is the sort of movie that could be described as good clean fun if it happened to be good or fun.
  33. Cop Land
    Everywhere the camera turns in this tense and volatile drama, it finds enough interest for a truckload of conventional Hollywood fare. Whatever its limitations, Cop Land has talent to burn.
  34. Event Horizon
    This unwieldy amalgam of science fiction and horror, directed by Paul Anderson, douses almost every scene with glitzy special effects in a futile attempt to cover up a paucity of thought.
  35. The Delta
    A film that's alternatingly intriguing and frustrating and that leaves too many loose ends dangling.
  36. Steel
    A tepid vat of cinematic sludge...O'Neal will doubtless survive this latest misadventure, as he did last year's outing as a genie in "Kazaam," but only the most devoted of his admirers will want to watch him lumber through "Steel."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Full Monty
    Inevitably, the film has echoes of "Brassed Off," another recent British export. The Full Monty is less sentimental and arguably funnier.
  38. Conspiracy Theory
    The only sneaky scheme at work here is the one that inflates a hollow plot to fill 2 1/4 hours while banishing skepticism with endless close-ups of big, beautiful movie-star eyes.
  39. Career Girls
    There is the sense that Mr. Leigh, whose unusual collaborative method with actors is an essential facet of his writing and direction, is too willing to confuse tics with truth. Indeed, this time the actors' solipsism is more apparent.
  40. In the Company of Men
    It exaggerates real, recognizable attitudes in a manner that intends to be disturbing.
  41. Picture Perfect
    The film bounces busily among these players until it has to slow down and pretend to be sincere.
  42. Spawn
    But after 15 minutes, this yellow-orange vision of spiraling circles of hell, snorting devils and demonic shapes continually morphing out of one another, begins to seem redundant and conceptually impoverished.
  43. One Eight Seven
    Genuinely disturbing in its vision of fearless students and powerless teachers locked in struggle.
  44. Air Force One
    A meat-and-potatoes American thriller that means business all around the world.
  45. Good Burger
    When Mr. Mitchell says it, it's hysterically funny. And he's immensely likable.
  46. Star Maps
    Though Star Maps lacks a strong ending or a Ratso Rizzo to play off Spain's ingenuous hustler, it introduces Arteta as a filmmaker with a credible style and a flair for caustic storytelling. And his film takes the interesting tack of sharing Carlos' matter-of-fact outlook.
  47. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown
    Queen Victoria is played with splendid regal grace by Judi Dench.
  48. Kiss Me, Guido
    Manages to have playful comic ingenuity of its own.
  49. George of the Jungle
    The kind of silly summer fun that gives family entertainment a good name.
  50. Contact
    The movie, adapted from a novel by Carl Sagan, presents one long chain of teasingly open-ended questions about reason versus faith and technology versus religion, and ends up tentatively embracing mysticism over rationality.
  51. 4 Little Girls
    Mr. Lee, whose lean, straightforward documentary style loses none of his usual clarity and fire (the film has been exceptionally well shot by Ellen Kuras), summons a powerful sense of Birmingham's past and a galvanizing sense of how this bombing would change its future.
  52. Men in Black
    Dryly clever.
  53. Out to Sea
    Frankly geriatric, and made without a single gunfight or explosion, the weak but genial romp Out to Sea supplies touristy scenery, familiar players and enough rumba scenes for 10 weddings. Everything about the film is as intentionally dated as its gag about Normandy.
  54. Face/Off
    Before we go numb from such prefab excitement, here comes a mega-movie that actually delivers what mega-movies promise: strong characters, smart plotting, breathless action and a gimmick that hasn't been seen before.
  55. Hercules
    On any level, earthly or otherwise, the ingenious new animated Hercules is pretty divine. With inspired intuition, Hercules brings together ancient lore, gospel singing, girl-group choreography and lots of free-floating mischief into a jubilant pastiche of classical references.
  56. My Best Friend's Wedding
    Obtuse, prettily decorative comedy. Characters burst gaily into song when, as often happens, they don't have anything better to do.
  57. Batman & Robin
    Joel Schumacher, director and ringmaster, piles on the flashy showmanship and keeps the film as big, bold, noisy and mindlessly overwhelming as possible.
  58. Underground
    Feverish, whimsical allegory elevated by moments of brilliant clarity.
  59. Speed 2: Cruise Control
    Despite huge resources at Mr. De Bont's disposal and the fact that both he and Ms. Bullock have achieved stellar status since ''Speed'' screeched onto movie screens, the sequel is still a B-movie at heart.
  60. Ulee's Gold
    Beautiful and heartfelt, an oasis of humanity in a season of furious hyperbole.
  61. Con Air
    The colorfully written Con Air is a solid chip off "The Rock," pumped up and very well cast, with the prettiness and polish of advertising art.
  62. The Pillow Book
    The film is best watched as a richly sensual stylistic exercise filled with audaciously beautiful imagery, captivating symmetries and brilliantly facile tricks.
  63. Addicted to Love
    Ms. Ryan's lean, eagle-eyed golden girl is enough to curdle milk.
  64. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
    Where the original film was a cut-and-dried Pop-Art-flavored allegory pitting scientific hubris against the unpredictable, ungovernable forces of nature, the sequel is an all-stops-pulled, edge-of-your-seat adventure film whose messages are not so neatly packaged.
  65. Brassed Off
    Brassed Off is shamelessly manipulative and sentimental, but in an agreeably familiar way.
  66. Love! Valour! Compassion!
    One reason the film version of Terrence McNally's play Love! Valour! Compassion! is so moving is that this complicated group portrait never loses its slippery emotional footing.
  67. Night Falls on Manhattan
    But Night Falls on Manhattan is also oddly listless. It doesn't often live up to the doomy eloquence of its title.
  68. La Promesse (The Promise)
    The integrity of the film, whose directorial team has collaborated on numerous Belgian documentaries, extends to its sad final moments, in which nothing is left neat and tidy.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Brave
    The movie isn’t terrible, exactly — it’s not good — but it does raise the question: Why?
  70. The Fifth Element
    As a yammering, swishy talk show host, Chris Tucker is flat-out incomprehensible, while Mr. Oldman preens evilly enough to leave tooth marks on the scenery.
  71. Fathers' Day
    Not surprisingly, there are some slow patches and formulaic touches, but that's a fair trade for the fun of watching Mr. Williams and Mr. Crystal make an irresistible comic team.
  72. Nowhere
    If it weren't so overpopulated and desperate to shock, Nowhere might have succeeded as a maliciously cheery satire of Hollywood brats overdosing on the very concept of Hollywood. But the movie is so hectically paced that it doesn't have time to develop its characters or to flesh out the tales it sets in motion. Even comic books are better at telling stories.
  73. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
    As goofy and throwaway as the "Brady Bunch" movies, but it has the same winking appreciation of vintage kitsch.
  74. Breakdown
    His Breakdown is a tough, vigorous exercise in pure action, shot with throwback expertise and, most refreshingly, without special effects.
  75. Children of the Revolution
    This comedy has less to do with narrative than with sheer chutzpah and a first-rate cast. It manages to be irreverently funny despite a subject that is no laughing matter.
  76. Irma Vep
    A minor but witty entry on the exceptionally strong slate of French films at the New York Film Festival this year.
  77. Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
    Cheerful, giddy fun.
  78. Volcano
    In Volcano, the thrills are so well wrought that they eventually lose their novelty and become numbing.
  79. 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag
    The heads may be dead, but at least they have a comical look.
  80. Murder at 1600
    Directed by Dwight Little of "Free Willy 2," and written by onetime high school classmates, Wayne Beach and David Hodgin (Mr. Hodgin died in 1995), Murder at 1600 eagerly invokes other films and stock images without showing much style of its own.
  81. Traveller
    Traveller is just a hot little sleeper with strong characters and a story to tell.
  82. McHale's Navy
    Leaky PT boat of a comedy, descended from the television series.
  83. Grosse Pointe Blank
    Enough wild-card energy to keep it bright and surprising.
  84. Anaconda
    A trashily entertaining reptilian version of ''Jaws'' set in the steaming heart of the Amazon rain forest.
  85. Shall We Dance?
    And the dancing, as in ''Strictly Ballroom,'' is filmed with a wishful Fred-and-Ginger sweetness that gives the film a studiously effervescent mood.
  86. Paradise Road
    In trying to keep track of everybody while providing enough melodrama to sustain an atmosphere of controlled terror, Paradise Road stumbles all over itself and never really finds its center.
  87. Schizopolis
    It winds up illustrating the very emptiness it mocks.
  88. Inventing the Abbotts
    Best watched as a showcase for radiant young talent.
  89. Chasing Amy
    Smith's knowing humor and unruffled style make a good antidote to gender chaos. Music by David Pirner contributes to the film's loose, inviting mood.
  90. The Saint
    Loud, frantic, ridiculously overproduced and featuring a preening performance by Val Kilmer as a supposedly brilliant master of disguise, The Saint is sheer overkill.
  91. Double Team
    Rodman, awkward but definitely lively, is the occasion for har-har hair jokes ("Who does your hair, Siegfried or Roy?") and gives the film some much-needed comic relief. Rourke, as a villain named Stavros, is scary. And for once, he's supposed to be.
  92. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
    Five-year-olds who have read their Shakespeare will recognize that Turbo is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
  93. The Devil's Own
    Mr. Pitt moves through this unexpectedly solid thriller with dazzling confidence, showing off all the star power that he usually works overtime to hide.
  94. Cats Don't Dance
    While the animated characters, bright colors and an appealing Randy Newman score may keep the children content, Cats Don't Dance is no saccharine fantasy. Its Hollywood references and dark satire constitute its real strengths.
  95. Selena
    On its own good-natured terms, Selena' is both pleasant to watch and instructive in familiarizing a movie audience with the Texan-Mexican borderland music known as Tejano.
  96. Liar Liar
    Two little words: Jim Carrey. That's all it takes to transform Liar Liar from a formulaic Hollywood comedy into an uproarious one-man free-for-all.
  97. Crash
    The Crash characters sleepwalk through this story in a state of futuristic numbness, seeking extreme forms of sensation because familiar feelings have long since failed them. It's a chilling, ghastly possibility that manages to exert a grim fascination.
  98. Maborosi
    A pictorial tone poem of astonishing visual intensity and emotional depth.
  99. Gray's Anatomy
    This direction is more ambitious than apt, since it calls attention to the artifice that Mr. Gray otherwise conceals so well. Cuts and scene changes become distractingly blunt, as do the star's efforts to suggest spontaneous enthusiasm.
  100. The Substance of Fire
    The film, to its credit, never tries to pluck your heartstrings. As it follows the Geldharts around New York, they are figures in a meditative dialogue on human values that reaches no easy conclusions.
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