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. Hard Target
    Mr. Woo's obvious gusto and his taste for myth making are readily apparent. But so is his fondness for the slow, lingering death scene coupled with sickening sound effects. Presenting Mr. Van Damme as reverentially as Sergio Leone did the young Clint Eastwood, Mr. Woo displays a real aptitude for malignant mischief, which is this story's stock in trade.
  2. Manhattan Murder Mystery
    Although Manhattan Murder Mystery struggles with its own contrivances, it achieves a gentle, nostalgic grace and a hint of un-self-conscious wisdom. Those who appreciate the long, daring continuum of Mr. Allen's work will be glad to find him simply carrying on.
  3. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
    A largely incoherent movie that generates little suspense and relies for the majority of its thrills on close-up gore.
  4. The Secret Garden
    Ms. Holland's film of The Secret Garden is elegantly expressive, a discreet and lovely rendering of the children's classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
  5. Sex and Zen
    For those who accept the absurd simulations as realistic, Sex and Zen will have soft-core pornographic appeal. For others, its appeal should be as a cheeky if predictable sendup of erotic obsession and its unhappy consequences.
  6. Heart and Souls
    When the film announces, halfway through, that it will be devoting the rest of its running time to tying up these loose ends, the audience may as well give up the ghost.
  7. Searching for Bobby Fischer
    Even though this film may do for chess what "The Red Shoes" did for ballet, it works movingly and most effectively as a family drama.
  8. Body Bags
    The plots are fairly basic, but the direction by John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper is droll, the effects are all a fan could ask for, and the playing is appropriately agitated. [06 Aug 1993, p.D15]
    • The New York Times
  9. The Fugitive
    Turns out to be a smashing success, a juggernaut of an action-adventure saga that owes noithing to the past. To put it simply, thi is a home run.
  10. The Wedding Banquet
    It is the unusual film comedy in which the humor springs as much from character as from situation.
  11. Rising Sun
    The film's mysteriousness is not profound. Anybody who hasn't guessed the killer's identity after 30 minutes should be forced to watch Rising Sun three times a day until Christmas.
  12. So I Married an Axe Murderer
    It comes as a welcome surprise that "So I Married an Axe Murderer," which might have been nothing more than a by-the-numbers star vehicle, surrounds Mr. Myers with amusing cameos and gives him a chance to do more than just coast.
  13. Robin Hood: Men in Tights
    It hits a couple of ecstatically funny high points, only to plummet into a bog of second-rate gags, emerging a long time later to engage the audience by the sheer, unstoppable force of the Brooks chutzpah.
  14. Poetic Justice
    Although its aspirations are high, the film works only fitfully when Mr. Singleton exercises his gift for vernacular speech, for finding the comic undertow in otherwise tragic situations, and even for parody.
  15. Coneheads
    Coneheads falls flat about as often as it turns funny, and displays more amiability than style.
  16. Another Stakeout
    Another Stakeout is made for the kind of person whom television drives out of the house to the movies but who doesn't want surprises when he arrives at the theater. It's big-screen television fare.
  17. Chantilly Lace
    It is a quirky, ambitious, praiseworthy project that somehow becomes a victim of all the cliches it was invented to avoid.
  18. Free Willy
    How each frees the other is the stuff of Free Willy, which is as engaging as such films can be without offering rude surprises.
  19. Hocus Pocus
    Apparently too much eye of newt got into the formula for Hocus Pocus, transforming a potentially wicked Bette Midler vehicle into an unholy mess. That's too bad, since Ms. Midler's appearance in a role like the one she has here could have been pure witchcraft.
  20. In the Line of Fire
    It's movie making of the high, smooth, commercial order that Hollywood prides itself on but achieves with singular infrequency.
  21. Weekend at Bernie's II
    A much more high-pitched movie than its forerunner. [10 July 1993, p.15]
    • The New York Times
  22. Rookie of the Year
    Rookie of the Year, which was directed by Daniel Stern from a script by Sam Harper, has an appealing central performance by Mr. Nicholas, who manages to be cocky without seeming obnoxious. As a summer diversion, the film has about as much substance as cotton candy.
  23. Much Ado About Nothing
    He has taken a Shakespearean romantic comedy, the sort of thing that usually turns to mush on the screen, and made a movie that is triumphantly romantic, comic and, most surprising of all, emotionally alive.
  24. The Firm
    The movie is extremely long (two hours and 34 minutes) and so slow that by the end you feel as if you've been standing up even if you've been sitting down.
  25. Sleepless in Seattle
    Not since "Love Story" has there been a movie that so shrewdly and predictably manipulated the emotions for such entertaining effect.
  26. What's Love Got to Do with It
    The brilliant, mercurial portrayal of Ike Turner by Laurence Fishburne, formerly known as Larry, is what elevates What's Love Got to Do With It beyond the realm of run-of-the-mill biography.
  27. Dennis the Menace
    Mason Gamble, the 7-year-old who plays the title role, won't be any competition for Macaulay Culkin of "Home Alone." He's a handsome boy, but he displays none of the spontaneity that initially made Mr. Culkin so refreshing. He seems to follow direction well, if in a somewhat robotic way.
  28. Last Action Hero
    Last Action Hero is something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one. It tries to be too many things to too many different kinds of audiences, the result being that it will probably confuse, and perhaps even alienate, the hard-core action fans.
  29. Hard Boiled
    Mr. Woo does, in fact, seem to be a very brisk, talented director with a gift for the flashy effect and the bizarre confrontation.
  30. Jurassic Park
    It becomes less crisp on screen than it was on the page, with much of the enjoyable jargon either mumbled confusingly or otherwise thrown away.
  31. Orlando
    This ravishing and witty spectacle invades the mind through eyes that are dazzled without ever being anesthetized
  32. Life with Mikey
    This film's not-so-secret weapon is Michael J. Fox, who works tirelessly to keep the comedy afloat even when its sentimental side begins to show.
  33. Cliffhanger
    All of the performers are upstaged by the film's breathtaking backdrop, and by the fast and furious way Renny Harlin, the director, approaches action sequences.
  34. The Long Day Closes
    A deeply personal film, and at times a touching one, it is a collection of fragments and memories artfully pieced into a quirky, captivating book of dreams.
  35. Like Water for Chocolate
    Food and passion create a sublime alchemy in Like Water for Chocolate, a Mexican film whose characters experience life so intensely that they sometimes literally smolder.
  36. Super Mario Bros.
    This bizarre, special effects-filled movie doesn't have the jaunty hop-and-zap spirit of the Nintendo video game from which it takes -- ahem -- its inspiration. What it has instead are a weird, jokey science-fiction story, "Batman"-caliber violence and enough computer-generated dinosaurs to get the jump on "Jurassic Park."
  37. Sankofa
    [Mr. Gerima's] film is ambitious in its depiction of slavery and accomplished in its visual command.
  38. Made in America
    Seeming warmer and more comfortable in this antic comedy than she has before, Ms. Goldberg is helped not only by the right co-star but also by the right role.
  39. Menace II Society
    More acutely than any movie before, it gives cinematic expression to the hot-tempered, defiantly nihilistic ethos that ignites gangster rap.
  40. Sliver
    Nobody could shine in the listless atmosphere created by Phillip Noyce's perfunctory direction. And nobody could do much with a line like "Zeke, I want to have a real relationship." Or "Listen, do you work out?"
  41. Hot Shots! Part Deux
    Deliciously silly.
  42. Map of the Human Heart
    Far more memorable for the spectacular wildness of its Arctic and Dresden scenes (as photographed by Eduardo Serra) than for its uneven efforts to bind such images together.
  43. Posse
    Mr. Van Peebles and his screenwriters, Sy Richardson and Dario Scardapane, care most about making their points emphatically, even if that sometimes leaves Posse riding heavy in the saddle. Luckily, most of their film is fast-paced and star-studded enough to avoid an overly preachy tone.
  44. Dave
    In spite of this sogginess, and despite a self-congratulatory, do-gooder streak that the film discovers within Dave, this comedy remains bright and buoyant much of the way through.
  45. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
    An enjoyably hokey, big-budget theatrical film with a lot of kicks and the soul of a television movie. It's exactly what it announces itself to be and won't offend (or surprise) anyone...Although "Dragon" has few surprises, it is an entertainingly predictable enterprise.
  46. Blood In, Blood Out
    Bound by Honor looks and sounds authentic but, like many community wall paintings, it has the manner less of one artist's vision than of a community endeavor. This may explain its singular shortcomings and its redeeming sincerity.
  47. Tokyo Decadence
    Tokyo Decadence is much better at evoking a creepy urban sophistication than at revealing character or telling a story.
  48. The Night We Never Met
    The Night We Never Met is never lifelike enough to evoke the madly romantic New York atmosphere it seems to be after. The actors try hard, but they are hamstrung by too many broad strokes and silly inconsistencies.
  49. The Dark Half
    The Dark Half is an exceptionally entertaining film of its kind. Only Stanley Kubrick has ever adapted a King novel (The Shining) in such a way that the ending remains as satisfyingly spooky as the beginning.
  50. Benny & Joon
    Benny and Joon is a dangerously fanciful story of cute eccentrics, characters whose quirks are the very essence of their appeal. Some of us experience a form of red alert at the very notion of adorable oddballs on screen, but Benny and Joon turns out to be remarkably benign in that regard.
  51. Indian Summer
    A decently acted, extremely mild romantic comedy that you may think you've seen before, although you haven't.
  52. Boiling Point
    Boiling Point is a barely tepid police story co-starring Wesley Snipes and Dennis Hopper, cast respectively as a hard-boiled detective and a wily con man. Since the material (written and directed by James B. Harris, from a novel by Gerald Petievich) offers not one shred of surprise, it's understandable that neither actor seems to believe anything he has to say.
  53. This Boy's Life
    The film recreates Toby and Caroline's aimlessness, but without appearing to understand it enough to make it as moving and important as it ought to be.
  54. Indecent Proposal
    Mr. Lyne's films may not cast any new light on the human condition, but they do keep you glued to the screen.
  55. The Sandlot
    Nothing about his modest coming-of-age comedy demands anything like this awestruck approach.
  56. The Crush
    Never succeeds in becoming either torrid or scary. It does generate a few chuckles in its depiction of what are supposedly the workings of a chic and hard-hitting magazine...The Crush is for the most part grindingly predictable and mechanically played.
  57. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
    This Ninja Turtles tale is less violent and more scenic than its predecessors, since it gets the title characters out of the sewer and transports them back to feudal Japan.
  58. Point of No Return
    Once the story settles down to wondering whether Maggie/Claudia can find happiness in romantic love, it becomes noticeably less interesting. Ms. Fonda sometimes verges on the mechanical in mouthing her character's nobler sentiments (the film also relies heavily on Nina Simone records to express its heroine's feelings), but that is to be expected. At heart, this woman is little more than a laboratory specimen with great legs, so it's miraculous to find an actress breathing life into her at all.
  59. Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
    Just Another Girl on the IRT means to be instructive about teen-age pregnancies, but what it's saying is none too coherent.
  60. CB4
    Made in the shadow of Wayne's World, CB4 is another Saturday Night Live-related music parody, this time skewering rap instead of heavy metal. Desperately uneven, it works best as a string of sketches about the title band, three guys who were born Albert (Chris Rock), Otis (Deezer D) and Euripides (Allen Payne) until they realized it might be more profitable to rename themselves MC Gusto, Stab Master Arson and Dead Mike.
  61. Fire in the Sky
    Fire in the Sky treats the story with cautious, unimaginative, quite boring politeness.
  62. Mad Dog and Glory
    The great satisfaction of Mad Dog and Glory is watching Mr. De Niro and Mr. Murray play against type with such invigorating ease. Each is the other's straight man, a relationship that is hilariously set up in the initial encounter of the cop and the hoodlum.
  63. Swing Kids
    Swing Kids looks good and moves quickly at first; later on, mired in familiar-feeling moments, it flounders
  64. Amos & Andrew
    Mr. Frye's initial conceits are good ones, but the film's humor somehow gets sopped up by the spongy writing and direction. The characters are fuzzily realized. The dialogue is lame and the continuity so shaky that one entire subplot sinks in confusion.
  65. El mariachi
    Mythic pulp has its allure, and it also has its limitations. El Mariachi displays no real emotion except a profound appreciation for the genre film making that has inspired it, and a delight in manipulating the elements of such stories.
  66. Falling Down
    Falling Down is the most interesting, all-out commercial American film of the year to date, and one that will function much like a Rorschach test to expose the secrets of those who watch it.
  67. Army of Darkness
    Taken on its own terms, "Army of Darkness" displays some ambition and wit, though not nearly enough to lend it broad appeal.
  68. Groundhog Day
    That glimmer of recognition is what makes Groundhog Day a particularly witty and resonant comedy, even when its jokes are more apt to prompt gentle giggles than rolling in the aisles.
  69. Dead Alive
    Because all of this looks blatantly unreal, and because the timing of the shock effects is so haphazard, Dead Alive isn't especially scary or repulsive. Nor is it very funny. Long before it's over, the half-hour-plus bloodbath that is the climax of the film has become an interminable bore. [12 Feb 1993, p.C16]
    • The New York Times
  70. Strictly Ballroom
    Baz Luhrmann's Australian film Strictly Ballroom is, in short, pure corn. But it's corn that has been overlaid with a buoyant veneer of spangles and marabou, and with a tireless sense of fun.
  71. Untamed Heart
    Untamed Heart is to the mind what freshly discarded chewing gum is to the sole of a shoe: an irritant that slows movement without any real danger of stopping it.
  72. The Vanishing
    The new film is twice as busy as its quiet predecessor, and perhaps half as interesting (which still places it several notches above run-of-the-mill studio fare).
  73. Loaded Weapon 1
    Watching Loaded Weapon 1 is like playing Trivial Pursuit with experts. It's exhausting.
  74. Sommersby
    Though there is a near vaccuum at the center of the film, "Sommersby" is never boring, largely because of Ms. Foster's beautifully self-possessed presence.
  75. Sniper
    As written, directed and played, Miller is as much of a nonentity as Beckett. Their initial enmity and subsequent reconciliation have no more dramatic impact than the battle scenes, which look as if they were planned by amateurs. The two central characters remain as vague as their targets, who are briefly seen at a distance through gun sights.
  76. Aspen Extreme
    Patrick Hasburgh, who makes his feature-film debut as the writer and director of Aspen Extreme, is a ski enthusiast and former instructor who still knows more about skiing than about movies. Even though it runs close to two hours, "Aspen Extreme" remains sort of stretched out and dramatically undeveloped.
  77. Damage
    Not even a film maker of Mr. Malle's intelligence and taste can make this stilted story add up. The only ingredient that can make sense of "Damage" is the obvious one: outright eroticism, of the sort that presumably got the film its original NC-17 rating.
  78. The Oak
    Though Nela's is a spiritual journey, Mr. Pintilie dramatizes it in the bitter ways of social satire. The movie has the tempo of cabaret theater. It is wildly grotesque, shocking and sometimes very funny. The details are vivid.
  79. Body of Evidence
    Body of Evidence ranks with the Edsel. It's not going anywhere. As a movie, it looks as if it wanted to be Basic Instinct, though it winds up more like Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.
  80. Man Bites Dog
    A grisly sick joke of a film that some will find funny, others simply appalling. On one level, it is an in-joke about movie making, since one reason given for Ben's rampage is the need to steal enough money to make the documentary. On another level, the film satirizes real-life television shows that purport to take viewers into the thick of the action. It suggests how profoundly the presence of the camera affects events, and thumbs its nose at the very notion of documentary objectivity.
  81. Alive
    Alive remains remarkably colorless, despite its difficult subject and the harrowing adventure it describes.
  82. Nowhere to Run
    Though Mr. Van Damme's collaborators have become more upscale and mainstream, Nowhere to Run remains your basic exercise in kick-him-in-the-groin, stab-him-with-a-pitchfork cinema politics.
  83. Leprechaun
    The title character in the new horror film titled Leprechaun is supposed to be fiendish but, though the movie's body count is respectable, he seems to be no more than dangerously cranky. That may be because the setting is rural North Dakota, which doesn't suit leprechauns, or because the screenplay and direction are amateurish, which doesn't suit films of any kind. [09 Jan 1993, p.17]
    • The New York Times
  84. Lorenzo's Oil
    As directed by George Miller, this film has an appealingly brisk, unsentimental style and a rare ability to compress and convey detailed medical data. It also displays tremendous compassion for all three Odones and what they have been through.
  85. Hoffa
    Hoffa is an original work of fiction, based on fact, conceived with imagination and a consistent point of view.
  86. Trespass
    With the exception of a running gag about the gangsters' use of cellular telephones, the film is singularly humorless. Though full of the kind of simulated violence achieved by special-effects artists, it's not too heavy on suspense. Everything in the screenplay seems arbitrary, including the firefighting jobs assigned to the two would-be treasure-seekers.
  87. Scent of a Woman
    The good thing is that the principals and film makers make the absolute most of a conventional opportunity.
  88. Toys
    The film has no consistent vision. Even worse, it's not very funny.
  89. A Few Good Men
    A big commercial entertainment of unusually satisfying order. [11 Dec 1992]
    • The New York Times
  90. The Muppet Christmas Carol
    There's no great show of wit or tunefulness here, and the ingenious cross-generational touches are fairly rare. But there is a lively kiddie version of the Dickens tale, one that very young viewers ought to understand.
  91. The Distinguished Gentleman
    The Distinguished Gentleman is an easy, breezy romp of a movie, a low comedy of highly entertaining order.
  92. The Crying Game
    Mr. Jordan's screenplay... is both efficient and ingenious. The physical production is as lush as the film's romantic longings. [26 Sept 1992]
  93. The Bodyguard
    Deep inside the vague, unfocused excesses of The Bodyguard, the tale of a buttoned-down security agent hired to protect a glamorous pop star, there lurks the potential for a compelling film noir.
  94. Aladdin
    The fundamentals here go beyond first-rate: animation both gorgeous and thoughtful, several wonderful songs and a wealth of funny minor figures on the sidelines, practicing foolproof Disney tricks. Only when it comes to the basics of the story line does Aladdin encounter any difficulties.
  95. Bad Lieutenant
    Mr. Ferrara has his saving graces, too, the chief one being raw talent, which he continues to display while telling even the most far-fetched story.
  96. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
    A film bursting with enthusiasm for a fresh, appealing fantasy has been replaced by one most eager to maintain the status quo.
  97. Malcolm X
    Mr. Lee means for Malcolm X to be an epic, and it is in its concerns and its physical scope. In Denzel Washington it also has a fine actor who does for Malcolm X what Ben Kingsley did for “Gandhi.” [18 November 1992]
    • The New York Times
  98. Bram Stoker's Dracula
    Dracula has the nervy enthusiasm of the work of a precocious film student who has magically acquired a master's command of his craft. It's surprising, entertaining and always just a little too much.
  99. Love Potion #9
    Given the premise, which is said to be inspired by the song by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, virtually everything that happens can be predicted from the opening frame.
  100. Passenger 57
    There are lots of oohs and ahs in this nasty shoot-'em-up story of a psychopathic terrorist who hijacks a jumbo jet. But beneath the thrill-by-numbers surface of the film, nothing makes much sense.
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