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. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
    Instead, Mr. Carrey turns up in a sloppy second Ace Ventura film that's little more than an echo of the first. A two-minute trailer wouldn't miss many of its highlights.
  2. Mighty Aphrodite
    Dependably well made and not quite like any Allen film that came before. Nimble film making like this isn't necessarily geared to the magnum opus, but Mr. Allen can achieve fine, amusing results even while thinking small. [27 October 1995, P.C1]
  3. Home for the Holidays
    Ms. Foster and the screenwriter, W. D. Richter, have given this film some peculiar mood swings, so that it starts out zanily and winds down to a wistful note.
  4. Fair Game
    The only heat that rises from the movie is mechanical.
  5. Total Eclipse
    Unfortunately, the mad romanticism of Rimbaud's exploits has been made to look preposterous here, despite a cast that should have been magnetic in its own right. Total Eclipse clumsily exaggerates both these characters, from the moment when Rimbaud begins savoring experience in a laughably over-the-top poetic manner.
  6. Leaving Las Vegas
    Mr. Cage digs deep to find his character's inner demons while also capturing the riotous energy of his outward charm.
  7. Copycat
    The screenplay for Copycat, by Ann Biderman and Jay Presson Allen from a story by David Madsen, is otherwise so crackling good that character development threatens to eclipse the actual crimes.
  8. Vampire in Brooklyn
    Like so many Eddie Murphy misfires, Vampire in Brooklyn has no idea how to capitalize on the actor's immense appeal. The film was directed by the horror master Wes Craven and it turns out to be an Eddie Murphy-Wes Craven movie that is not funny or scary. Now that's a nightmare.
  9. The Doom Generation
    Sledgehammer direction, heavy irony and the easiest imaginable targets hardly show talent off to good advantage.
  10. Get Shorty
    The author's sardonic voice has been lost in most films based on his fiction, but this one nicely captures that unruffled Leonard authority. And since Get Shorty is about Hollywood, it invites the sneaky self-mockery that gives this film its comic punch.
  11. Mallrats
    Mallrats mixes clever bits and an appealing quirkiness (which goes a long way) with gross-out practical jokes, needless repetition and obvious padding, since it has no real plot.
  12. Now and Then
    In the end, Now and Then doesn't work well enough as nostalgia for adults or as a story that girls today might identify with. Yet its young ensemble makes it vibrant and enjoyable, even when it fails to surprise.
  13. Blue in the Face
    Good-humored, try-anything fun.
  14. Strange Days
    Only when it comes time to justify its excesses and deliver on a promise of wider revelation does the otherwise audacious screenplay by James Cameron and Jay Cocks look too specific and small.
  15. Jade
    Though the combination of Linda Fiorentino, Chazz Palminteri and David Caruso promised Jade some fire, it winds up with no more spark than a doused campfire.
  16. Kicking and Screaming
    The film succeeds in finding something sweetly romantic and visually fresh in Grover's flashback memories of Jane, along with allowing Grover plenty of room for wisecracks.
  17. Devil in a Blue Dress
    In the process of drawing audiences into the twists and turns of a knotty detective tale, Mr. Franklin and his cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto, open up an enticing and languorous lost world.
  18. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
    Easily the most inept episode of the Halloween series, The Curse of Michael Myers, which opened yesterday, is so busy cramming half-baked supernatural rigmarole into its formula that it has forgotten how to be suspenseful.
  19. To Die For
    An irresistible black comedy and a wicked delight. [27 Sept 1995]
  20. Showgirls
    The film makers had declared they were bravely exploring new levels of licentiousness, but the biggest risk they've taken here is making a nearly $40 million movie without anyone who can act. The absence of both drama and eroticism turns Showgirls into a bare-butted bore.
  21. Seven
    Not even bags of body parts, a bitten-off tongue or a man forced to cut off a pound of his own flesh keep it from being dull.
  22. Hackers
    A lot of attention has gone into the film's video games, computer imagery and costumes, to the point where simply watching these artifacts is half the fun...But eventually Hackers turns tedious, perhaps not realizing that an audience can get tired of the same old equations floating in cyberspace.
  23. Unstrung Heroes
    A warm, surprising, gently incandescent film that discreetly describes a family tragedy.
  24. Clockers
    Beyond its grit and nonchalance, this story has a resigned, reflective, hard-earned wisdom that's unusual in an American film about such familiarly lurid subject matter. It's even more unusual in a film by Spike Lee.
  25. To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
    Though he and his co-stars tackle their roles with mischievous humor, Beeban Kidron's direction stays flat even when the actors are funny.
  26. Nadja
    It is refreshing to see so much style and life in the old undead tale, and to watch this strong cast with its perfect deadpan attitudes.
  27. Kids
    Mr. Clark's vision of these characters is so bleak and legitimately shocking that it makes almost any other portrait of American adolescence look like the picture of Dorian Gray...Kids is far too serious to be tarred as exploitation, and its extremism is both artful and devastatingly effective. Think of this not as cinema verite but as a new strain of post-apocalyptic science fiction, using hyperbole to magnify a kernel of terrible, undeniable truth.
  28. The Prophecy
    Angels have proliferated in popular culture in such profusion lately that maybe they needed a comeuppance. A few more movies like The Prophecy should stop the whole celestial bandwagon right in its tracks.
  29. Desperado
    Like "The Quick and the Dead," Desperado wavers uneasily between myth making and parody, so that too many scenes drag on long after they've lost their punch.
  30. The Brothers McMullen
    This modest, enormously likable film, about love and temptation and ties that bind, is about brotherhood most of all. [9 August 1995, p.C9]
  31. Mortal Kombat
    The movie's extensive martial arts sequences, in which combatants bounce off each other doing triple handsprings, suggest a slightly more earthbound version of the aerial ballets in Hong Kong action-adventure films.
  32. Hyenas
    Even done so lightly, the film still carries a sting.
  33. The Baby-Sitters Club
    The movie The Baby-Sitters Club offers the same comfort factor as the books, but suffers from a definite lack of excitement.
  34. The Usual Suspects
    Goes straight to cult status without quite touching one important base: the audience's emotions. This movie finally isn't anything move than an intricate feat of gamesmanship, but it's still quite something to see.
  35. Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
    I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, a documentary about Mr. Wilson that ought to fascinate anyone who's ever turned on a car radio in America, does more than induce this legendary rock recluse to speak for himself. . . . This film also illuminates the music itself and makes interesting, accessible sense of Mr. Wilson's very real genius.
  36. Dangerous Minds
    False and condescending films in this genre are nothing new, but Dangerous Minds steamrollers its way over some real talent.
  37. A Walk in the Clouds
    Here, instead, is Keanu Reeves in one of his off roles, sleepwalking dutifully but seeming to share the audience's bewilderment over how he wound up in this awkward, slow-moving story.
  38. A Kid in King Arthur's Court
    Sluggish and low-energy.
  39. Babe
    The movie maintains a refreshingly light touch in spinning a fable about individualism and conformity.
  40. Virtuosity
    If all of Virtuosity were as tightly controlled as that, it would exert a greater fascination than it finally does.
  41. River of Grass
    It is wonderful at conveying a sense of suffocating ennui. Too wonderful, since the story is so sketchily told and the dialogue is so fragmentary that it doesn't quite cohere. The characters remain hazy ciphers in the torpid atmosphere of a place you'll never want to visit.
  42. Something to Talk About
    It's rambling and unfocused, but still fresh enough to break the usual Hollywood mold.
  43. Waterworld
    It lacks the coherent fantasy of truly enveloping science fiction, preferring to concentrate on flashy, isolated stunts that say more about expense than expertise. [28 July 1995]
  44. The Net
    This paranoid fantasy is so resonant that it makes The Net an enjoyably creepy thriller, even though Irwin Winkler belongs to the nothing-is-too-obvious school of directing.
  45. Operation Dumbo Drop
    Operation Dumbo Drop is painlessly good-humored by any lights, but the viewers most likely to enjoy all this are those most easily driven to giggles by the idea of elephant poop.
  46. Living in Oblivion
    Wonderfully funny behind-the-scenes look at the perils of film making, no-budget style.
  47. Clueless
    Even if Clueless runs out of gas before it's over, most of it is as eye-catching and cheery as its star. [19 July 1995]
  48. The Indian in the Cupboard
    With its long silences washed over by banal, overused music, The Indian in the Cupboard is best watched for its ingenious tricks of scale and for an invitingly peaceful look. [14 July 1995, p.C3]
    • The New York Times
  49. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
    Although Under Siege 2 isn't credible for a single moment, its director, Geoff Murphy, has done a smoothly efficient job of coordinating the action sequences.
  50. Nine Months
    Nine Months is slick, phony and uneven, but it's often raucously funny too. And Mr. Grant displays enough intelligence and sportsmanship to emerge from this ordeal as a major Hollywood star.
  51. Species
    The director, Roger Donaldson, best known for the Kevin Costner thriller No Way Out, keeps the film moving. But there is only so much suspense he can generate from this stock story and familiar-looking special effects. Species may work best for viewers who don't like to be too scared by horror movies; it's reassuringly familiar.
  52. Apollo 13
    You can know every glitch that made this such a dangerous mission, and Apollo 13 will still have you by the throat.
  53. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
    Noisy and meant for children only. A bored grown-up's only consolation is that the Rangers' popularity has probably peaked, and the next kiddie phenomenon must be on the way.
  54. Pocahontas
    Gloriously colorful, cleverly conceived and set in motion with the usual Disney vigor, Pocahontas is one more landmark feat of animation.
  55. Safe
    Brilliantly as it begins, Safe eventually succumbs to its own modern malady, as the film maker insists on a chilly ambiguity that breeds more detachment than interest.
  56. Batman Forever
    As for the actual movie, it's the empty-calorie equivalent of a Happy Meal (another Batman tie-in), so clearly a product that the question of its cinematic merit is strictly an afterthought.
  57. Il Postino: The Postman
    A rueful, warmly affecting film featuring a wonderful performance by Mr. Troisi, The Postman would be attention-getting even without the sadness that overshadows it. [14 June 1995, p. C15]
  58. Smoke
    An inviting but evanescent film that does have casualness, curiosity value and a lot of talent on its side.
  59. Congo
    This glib, overheated film about vicious primates delivers little suspense, nor are there signs of the 65 cited volumes and articles that turned Mr. Crichton's book into such a learning experience.
  60. Party Girl
    Party Girl aspires to be a mid-90's answer to the Susan Seidelman movies "Smithereens" and "Desperately Seeking Susan." Although it has some of the same frothy energy, it has no real story to tell.
  61. The Bridges of Madison County
    Limited by the vapidity of this material while he trims its excesses with the requisite machete, Mr. Eastwood locates a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill.
  62. Pushing Hands (1991)
    Pushing Hands, which was made before "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman," is a smaller film than its successors, but it has much the same emphasis on everyday kindness and respect, along with discreetly traditional values.
  63. Fluke
    Though it is meant to be whimsical and touching, the film's style is leaden, and its story has more danger than excitement.
  64. Casper
    Casper is not the kind of smartly written movie that works on children's and adult levels at once. But with its lively pace, smashing visual tricks and one of the cutest heroes on screen, it is an engaging fantasy for very small children.
  65. Johnny Mnemonic
    Johnny Mnemonic looks and feels like a shabby imitation of Blade Runner and Total Recall. It is a disaster in every way.
  66. Braveheart
    One of the most spectacular entertainments in years.
  67. A Little Princess
    Shaking off the solemnity that smothers many a well-meaning, high-minded family film, this one revels in an exuberant sense of play, drawing its audience into the wittily heightened reality of a fairy tale. The material, like the title, is a tad precious, but the finished film is much too spirited and pretty for that to matter.
  68. Die Hard: With a Vengeance
    The movie turns two hours of bombings, subway crashes, car chases and helicopter pursuits into the ultimate roller-coaster ride.
  69. Little Odessa
    Little Odessa might have been a great film. Instead, it is an exceptionally good one, the kind that suggests the start of a powerful career.
  70. Crimson Tide
    Crimson Tide is better watched for its toy appeal and high-priced talent than for any real suspense over where Hunter's mutinous instincts will lead the story.
  71. Wild Reeds
    [A] delicate, lovingly photographed, strongly acted coming-of-age story.
  72. French Kiss
    French Kiss may have a more putatively foolproof formula, but everyone here has done vastly more interesting work. Too much gets lost in translation.
  73. Crumb
    It succeeds at showing how one man's psychic wounds contributed to an art that transmutes personal pain into garish visual satire.
  74. The Underneath
    The Underneath is too chaotic to work as a thriller. The suspense kicks in too late and blends uneasily with the rest of the film. But the movie has other sorts of appeal. At heart, it is not a lurid, noir story but a study of characters caught in an emotional disaster.
  75. Village of the Damned
    Mr. Carpenter gives this formerly black and white story a handsome color retelling and a lot of new punch. And he avidly exploits the fears that are at its heart. Now add a new one. With its baleful little villains, Village of the Damned is even creepier to watch as a parent than it was to see as a child.
  76. Friday
    Friday may touch its young target audience. For everyone else, it is more intriguing as a social problem than a movie.
  77. While You Were Sleeping
    This is a formula film, but it has the kind of good cheer and fine tuning that occasionally give slickness a good name.
  78. The Basketball Diaries
    The star shines, but the movie is hard to watch.
  79. Swimming with Sharks
    In his six years working for various movie executives, Mr. Huang filed away trenchant observations about great big egos and helpless little assistants. Now he gleefully brings those observations to the screen. His witty, score-settling Swimming With Sharks is the perfect revenge for anyone who has ever been showered with paper clips, compared unfavorably with a bath mat or ordered to place an urgent phone call to somebody who's out white-water rafting with Tom Cruise -- right now! No excuses!
  80. Kiss of Death
    It's a sleek, muscular thriller played by a terrific ensemble cast, directed by Barbet Schroeder with the somber acuity he has brought to subjects as diverse as Claus von Bulow ("Reversal of Fortune") and Gen. Idi Amin Dada.
  81. Stuart Saves His Family
    Little more than a set of intermittently funny skits strung together by a sketchy nonplot about Stuart's relatives. As directed by Harold Ramis, it's seldom better than just amiable.
  82. Bad Boys
    Would have been better if it had been sleeker and shorter. After all, this film isn't aiming for high-toned drama, just high-energy entertainment, which is what it delivers.
  83. Don Juan DeMarco
    It benefits not only from Mr. Brando's peculiar presence, but also from Johnny Depp, who again proves himself a brilliantly intuitive young actor with strong ties to the Brando legacy. The movie is cheesy, but its stars certainly are not.
  84. Rob Roy
    Rob Roy is best watched for local color and for its hearty, hot-blooded stars.
  85. A Goofy Movie
    A Goofy Movie is engaging in its mild-mannered way, but the story is too rambling and emotionally diffuse for the title character to come fully alive.
  86. Jefferson in Paris
    Overshadowed by its own ambition and not-quite-ironic pageantry, Jefferson in Paris doesn't quite come to life.
  87. Tommy Boy
    Their best moments are some throwaway routines; they weep in the car as they sing along to the Carpenters' "Superstar." More often, the movie goes for stale, obvious sight gags like Tommy's slow destruction of Richard's precious car. As mismatched-buddy teams go, Felix and Oscar have nothing to worry about here.
  88. Tank Girl
    Since this is thoroughly tongue in cheek, Tank Girl has a likable brashness, even when breathless, pointless plotting threatens to eclipse the movie's charms. Chief among its strong points is Lori Petty, a buzz-cut fashion plate in a Prozac necklace, who brings the necessary gusto to Tank Girl's flippancy.
  89. Dolores Claiborne
    Written as a book-length harangue from its heroine's point of view, and directed efficiently by Taylor Hackford, Dolores Claiborne has become a vivid film that revolves around Ms. Bates's powerhouse of a performance.
  90. Major Payne
    Major Payne takes about an hour and 10 minutes before it wallows in sappiness. That's not a bad record for a formula family comedy in which the ending is clear from the start.
  91. Exotica
    Exotica may not be as perfectly formed as some of Mr. Egoyan's earlier work. Because Thomas's subplot is not as intriguing as the scenes in the club, the stories take too long to merge. But the flaws are minor. Mr. Egoyan continues to build an important, uncompromising career.
  92. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh
    Fortunately, Candyman isn't powerful enough to do much harm. The credits are more intriguing than the film.
  93. Circle of Friends
    Another nice thing about Circle of Friends is that it escapes a happily-ever-after scenario to provide more bite and toughness than it first promises.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The World of Jacques Demy
    [Varda's] film slides in and out of [Demy's] career and personal life with a French sensibility that puts no great stock in exact chronological order or clearly announced shifts from one film to the next. At times this is annoying, but it pays to keep up, or if necessary back up a bit, to get the measure of an elegantly romantic filmmaker with a strong feel for nostalgia and chance. [09 Dec 2003, p.E1]
    • The New York Times
  95. Muriel's Wedding
    Muriel's Wedding runs into trouble when it looks for poignancy too openly, working better at giddy moments than in its occasional sad ones. Most of the time, Mr. Hogan keeps his story light and surprising.
  96. Outbreak
    The effort to turn Outbreak into an action picture insures that little of it will be believable, regardless of how much scientific data has been woven into the story. The film's shallowness also contributes to the impression that no problem is too thorny to be solved by movie heroics.
  97. The Mangler
    It is not a compliment to suggest that a demonically possessed piece of machinery embarked on a bloodthirsty rampage has more personality than most of the flesh-and-blood characters in The Mangler, a horror movie based on a Stephen King story.
  98. Once Were Warriors
    A brutally effective family drama. Rough around the edges and crudely obvious at times, it still presents a raw, disturbing story of domestic strife.
  99. The Brady Bunch Movie
    The movie manages to be painless and pointless in equal measure.
  100. Heavyweights
    Heavyweights is really two movies in one, and they don't mesh.
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