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. Jennifer 8
    One of the most surprising things about Jennifer 8, a strikingly atmospheric film even when not an entirely convincing one, is a running time that is in excess of two hours. Losing 20 minutes would almost certainly have heightened the film's sense of purpose, which is sometimes in danger of drifting away.
  2. Intervista
    A magical mixture of recollection, parody, memoir, satire, self-examination and joyous fantasy.
  3. The Lover
    the film that Mr. Annaud and his producer, Claude Berri, have made is something of a triumph. It's tough, clear-eyed, utterly unsentimental, produced lavishly but with such discipline that the exotic locale never gets in the way of the minutely detailed drama at the center.
  4. Night and the City
    As directed by Irwin Winkler, Night and the City is colorfully acted and refreshingly free of all the moody cliches such a story might be expected to thrive on. But it is also saddled with overly busy direction that sometimes interferes with the dialogue, making Mr. Price's long, perversely elegant conversational riffs hard to hear.
  5. Dr. Giggles
    The screenplay is stitched together from variations on cliches used by or about the medical community.
  6. Candyman
    The film's spooky atmosphere is accentuated by Anthony B. Richmond's cinematography and Philip Glass's score. Ms. Madsen's performance is a lot more enterprising than what the material requires; the same can be said for Mr. Rose's direction.
  7. Consenting Adults
    Still, watching the plot unfold remains fun, if only for its "Can you top this?" brand of craziness.
  8. A River Runs Through It
    A River Runs Through It, Mr. Redford's beautiful and deeply felt new movie, puts him in an entirely new category as a film maker.
  9. Under Siege
    As wild as the premise is, Under Siege is almost guiltily enjoyable.
  10. 1492: Conquest of Paradise
    1492 is not a terrible film. Yet because it is without any guiding point of view, it is a lot less interesting than the elaborate physical production that has been given it. Only a very great writer could do justice to all the themes the Columbus story suggests. Ms. Bosch may be a very good researcher, but she's not a very great writer. She can't even squeeze in many relevant facts, much less define the relevance of those she does include.
  11. Romper Stomper
    While enticing you to hate the gang and take delight in everything bad that happens to its members, the film also gives you the vicarious thrill of being one of the gang.
  12. The Mighty Ducks
    As directed by Stephen Herek, The Mighty Ducks moves energetically but lacks the enjoyable quirkiness of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which Mr. Herek also directed.
  13. Of Mice and Men
    Yet for all its evident talent, Of Mice and Men is not very exciting. It could be that looking back at Lennie and George with the perspective of time robs them of their urgency. There's no surprise left.
  14. Hero
    Stephen Frears's film is always lively and often shrewd, but in the end Hero is at war with itself. The movie's Capraesque heart is locked in battle with its cynical, contemporary brain.
  15. Reservoir Dogs
    Though small in physical scope, Reservoir Dogs is immensely complicated in its structure, which for the most part works with breathtaking effect. [23 Oct 1992]
    • The New York Times
  16. Glengarry Glen Ross
    The reason the film prompts laughter, and finally elation, is not because it's jolly or has any feel-good words to live by. It's because of the utterly demonic skill with which these foulmouthed characters carve one another up in futile attempts to stave off disaster.
  17. The Last of the Mohicans
    Drawing upon the novel with merciful selectivity, and adding such a contemporary flavor that the film's woodsmen often have a laid-back air, Michael Mann has directed a sultrier and more pointedly responsible version of this story.
  18. Innocent Blood
    Innocent Blood, which could easily have been titled "A French Vampire in Pittsburgh" in homage to one of Mr. Landis's earlier triumphs, is even more dependent on gruesome special effects than "An American Werewolf in London" was, and is a lot less imaginative.
  19. School Ties
    David's habit of grabbing, berating or otherwise challenging anyone who insults him gives School Ties a muscular quality not usually found in films about this subject.
  20. Captain Ron
    The scenery is pretty but the movie never makes one wish to be in it. Mr. Russell, a good, reliable actor, prompts a few smiles as the raffish, impossibly self-assured sailor who is always half tight. Mr. Short and Ms. Place also are attractive in spite of the dim material.
  21. South Central
    South-Central plays more like an exploitative potboiler than a civics lesson. Only late in the film, thanks to a sobering of tone and Mr. Plummer's credible performance, does the story develop any real impact.
  22. Singles
    Mr. Crowe (who wrote "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and directed "Say Anything") has an exceptional ability to enjoy such characters without a trace of condescension
  23. Husbands and Wives
    It's also an ensemble piece acted to loopy perfection by a remarkable cast headed by Judy Davis, Sydney Pollack, Mia Farrow, Juliette Lewis, Liam Neeson and Mr. Allen, who's also the writer, director and ringmaster, as well as his own best friend.
  24. Wind
    Wind is not commonplace movie making. The sailing sequences, including one short, very funny race off Newport involving the kind of small boats you and I might sail, surpass anything I've ever seen on the screen. There are collisions at sea, wrecked spinnakers and freak accidents, like the one during a race when a sailor finds himself hanging upside down from the mast as the other boat gains. These things exhilarate as they threaten to stop the heart.
  25. Sneakers
    Sneakers is jokey without being funny, breathless without creating suspense, in part because of the feeble plot.
  26. Where the Day Takes You
    This is Rebel Without a Cause without the grown-ups and without boundaries, transposed to a world of hard drugs, petty crime, hand-to-mouth existence and hopes that somehow will not die.
  27. Brother's Keeper
    It's a rich slice of Americana that would seem to belong to an earlier, pre-television era, except that television comes to play a large part in Delbert's story. It's also about an aspect of life in rural America that's seldom seen by people who drive through it, and seldom if ever glimpsed in movies.
  28. Bob Roberts
    A very funny, sometimes prescient satire of American politics, and of the comparatively small, voting portion of the electorate that makes a Bob Roberts phenomenon possible.
  29. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
    It's not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be. Its 134 minutes induce a state of simulated brain death, an effect as easily attained in half the time by staring at the blinking lights on a Christmas tree.
  30. Pet Sematary II
    Mary Lambert, who directed the original Pet Sematary, has returned for the sequel, which, like its forerunner, is much better at special effects than at creating characters or telling a coherent story.
  31. Honeymoon in Vegas
    Honeymoon in Vegas is a virtually nonstop scream of benign delirium, pop entertainment as revivifying as anything you're likely to see this year. It's a romantic farce in which the explosion of the epically earnest and funny central situation creates shock waves that leave no person or thing untouched. Even the film's bit players and extras are funny.
  32. A Brief History of Time
    A Brief History of Time is a kind of adventure that seldom reaches the screen, and it's a tonic.
  33. The Living End
    Doing himself a great disservice, the writer and director Gregg Araki labels his work "an irresponsible movie" when in fact it has the power of honesty and originality, as well as the weight of legitimate frustration. Miraculously, it also has a buoyant, mischievous spirit that transcends any hint of gloom.
  34. Johnny Suede
    A comedy so lazily hip and so laid back that it often seems to be asleep.
  35. Single White Female
    Single White Female is Mr. Schroeder's bid to compete in the mass market, and there's no reason he shouldn't succeed. The film is smooth, entertaining and believably sophisticated. It has far more sound psychological underpinnings than other movies of its type.
  36. Stay Tuned
    A cleverly plotted movie that offers ample opportunity for spoofing anything and everything that can be found on television. Unfortunately, most of its takeoffs -- of a black-and-white gangster film, a spaghetti western and a period swashbuckler -- show no feel for genre and no genuine wit.
  37. Unforgiven
    Unforgiven... never quite fulfills the expectations it so carefully sets up. It doesn't exactly deny them, but the bloody confrontations that end the film appear to be purposely muted, more effective theoretically than dramatically.
  38. 3 Ninjas
    The film can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be a comedy, a fantasy or an adventure film. Mr. Kingsley's villain gnashes his teeth and snorts, I love being the bad guy. Those who displease him are threatened with the tearing out of a heart or liver. The character ends up being neither scary nor funny, while the boys are so busy demonstrating their superhuman skills that no personalities emerge.
  39. Raising Cain
    Risky as it sounds, Raising Cain is enjoyable precisely because it makes the most of its own lunacy and stays so far out on a limb. The fact that Raising Cain is beautifully made is, of course, another attraction.
  40. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a slight, good-humored film that's a lot more painless than might have been expected. Ms. Swanson's funny, deadpan delivery holds the story together reasonably well, as does the state-of-the-art Val-speak that constitutes most of Buffy's dialogue.
  41. Death Becomes Her
    Death Becomes Her dares to invent a world of spectacular self-interest and populate that world with two fabulous harridans (Ms. Streep and Goldie Hawn) giving wonderfully spirited performances. But in spite of that, it remains surprisingly tame. A lot of the problem arises from simple -- and inexplicable -- lapses in the screenplay.
  42. Enchanted April
    Miss Walker, who also plays a terrorist femme fatale in "Patriot Games," makes a mesmerizing impression as she holds her own against Miss Plowright without seeming remotely ruffled.
  43. Mistress
    Mistress abounds with sharp comic performances that never stray into caricature or sentimentality.
  44. Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
    If the new film doesn't exude quite as much fairy-tale magic as the original, it is still a thoroughly entertaining family romp.
  45. Cool World
    The plot of Michael Grais's and Mark Victor's screenplay is even more nonsensical than it needs to be. [11 Jul 1992]
  46. Universal Soldier
    Mr. Lundgren, who glowers his way all too convincingly through the role of a rabid bully, may well be the only man in the universe who can make Mr. Van Damme look like an actor.
  47. Gas Food Lodging
    There are subtly etched characters, effortlessly fine performances, and a moving story that is not easily forgotten.
  48. The Best Intentions
    For a time, The Best Intentions captures the elements of a profoundly difficult and credible love story, one plagued by essential differences that cannot be resolved.
  49. Prelude to a Kiss
    This "Prelude to a Kiss" is not only without charm and wit, but it's also clumsily set forth: many people seeing it may wonder what, in heaven's name, is going on.
  50. Boomerang
    The funniest parts of this uneven, ostentatiously upscale comedy are those that find Mr. Murphy's Marcus adopting the behavior of a sexually insecure woman.
  51. A League of Their Own
    Though big of budget, A League of Their Own is one of the year's most cheerful, most relaxed, most easily enjoyable comedies. It's a serious film that's lighter than air, a very funny movie that manages to score a few points for feminism in passing.
  52. Unlawful Entry
    Unlawful Entry manages to be more gripping than it is convincing, thanks to the story's inevitable movement toward a violent showdown.
  53. Batman Returns
    Mr. Burton's new Batman Returns is as sprightly as its predecessor was sluggish, and it succeeds in banishing much of the dourness and tedium that made the first film such an ordeal.
  54. HouseSitter
    Too much of the film seems unfinished. Almost every four scenes could be condensed into one. The comedy doesn't build to any climax. It just rolls on, with Ms. Hawn doggedly working to create some sense of oddball fun. The characters, as written, are as flimsy as Newton's dream house, which, even though based on a House Beautiful award-winning design, looks less habitable than a billboard. Even its brand-new furnishings are tacky.
  55. Class Act
    As directed by Randall Miller, the movie doesn't aspire to much more than cartoonish verve, but Kid 'n' Play easily hold it together. Their comic timing is right, and their humor manages to be both traditional and current.
  56. Sister Act
    Sister Act was screened on Wednesday night for an audience of 300 nuns who found a lot of it funny, especially a closing gag about the Pope. Secular audiences aren't likely to be so charitable.
  57. Alien 3
    Alien 3 belongs to that branch of fantasy comics, best exemplified by the "Road Warrior" movies, in which the iron and space ages meet for dizzy results.
  58. Encino Man
    When Stoney explains that Milk Duds belong to one of the four major food groups, the dairy group, that's about as funny as things get. For a film that prides itself on throwing around Pauly-isms like fully (meaning yes), and grindage (food), Encino Man is surprisingly not buff (cool).
  59. Europa
    Although the actual story of Zentropa is the stuff of an ordinary thriller, that plot is the only conventional aspect of a film that is an almost impudently flashy and knowing exercise in post-modern cinematic expressionism.
  60. Lethal Weapon 3
    Lethal Weapon 3 isn't that much worse than the two earlier films.
  61. One False Move
    Mr. Franklin delivers the kind of symmetry, surprise and detail that easily transcend the limits of the genre.
  62. Poison Ivy
    A B movie with a vengeance, one that offers a wickedly feminine (though hardly feminist) view of nominally happy family life and its failings.
  63. Split Second
    Within the genre of supernatural thrillers, Split Second is fairly dull. Mr. Hauer's Stone is an expressionless, unsympathetic lug who grunts his lines in a near monotone that sometimes becomes unintelligble in the movie's muffled soundtrack. The film is so desperate to create tingles that poor Miss Cattrall has to endure two protracted nude scenes -- one in a shower, the other in a bathtub -- in which she is menaced. Neither is especially spine-tingling.
  64. White Sands
    Roger Donaldson's White Sands is set entirely in the vast painterly landscapes of the American Southwest, but it means to be a suspense thriller reflecting the scaled-down undercover realities of the post-cold-war era. In fact, it's almost as difficult to follow as the politics of the federation that replaced the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and as difficult to remember as that federation's official name.
  65. Brain Donors
    Brain Donors is a short, reasonably snappy attempt at nothing less than a present-day Marx Brothers comedy,
  66. Boris and Natasha
    Fans of Rocky and Bullwinkle won't be disappointed.
  67. Deep Cover
    Deep Cover eventually degenerates into so much gratuitous violence that "kill" sounds like the most-used verb in the screenplay's last stages. The screenplay's frequent emphasis on homophobic insults is another unfortunate touch.
  68. Newsies
    Newsies is a long, halfhearted romp through what is made to seem a not terribly compelling chapter in New York City's history.
  69. Sleepwalkers
    The movie is filled with felines. It seems that the only things that Sleepwalkers fear are cats, which would like to tear them to pieces. That's why the Brady front yard teems with them. They are waiting for a denouement that, when it arrives, is anticlimactic.
  70. FernGully: The Last Rainforest
    Ferngully is more run-of-the-mill than its subject matter might indicate. The main characters are disappointingly ordinary, with the exotic Crysta sounding very much like someone who spends time at the mall.
  71. The Player
    So entertaining, so flip and so genially irreverent that it seems to announce the return of the great gregarious film maker whose "Nashville" remains one of the classics of the 1970's.
  72. Delicatessen
    Among the things that deserve mention in this lightweight but sometimes subversively stylish farce are its ingenious credit sequence, its lively editing by Herve Schneid, its use of code names like Artichoke Heart and Cordon Bleu in the guerrilla war that rages underground and its reference to a couple of odd inventions.
  73. Thunderheart
    A film this intent on authenticity might easily grow dull, but this one doesn't; Mr. Apted is a skillful storyteller. He gives Thunderheart" a brisk, fact-filled exposition and a dramatic structure that builds to a strong finale, one that effectively drives the film's message home.
  74. White Men Can't Jump
    The terrifically confident Mr. Snipes gives a funny, knowing performance with a lot of physical verve. And Mr. Harrelson (of Cheers) further perfects the art of appearing utterly without guile. Their comic timing together shapes the film's raucous wit, and their basketball playing looks creditable, too.
  75. The Power of One
    The film's facile treatment of racial issues may be enough to bring back the practice of throwing tomatoes at the screen.
  76. Ladybugs
    Even when the material is feeble, as it is here, Mr. Dangerfield can sometimes be funny, a gravelly-voiced comic confusion of emotional insecurities laced with aggressive tendencies.
  77. The Cutting Edge
    Although the movie follows the standard Hollywood formula of pictures dealing with athletic competition, it is snappily paced and unusually well acted.
  78. Basic Instinct
    Basic Instinct transfers Mr. Verhoeven's flair for action-oriented material to the realm of Hitchcockian intrigue, and the results are viscerally effective even when they don't make sense. Drawing powerfully on the seductiveness of his actors and the intensity of their situation, Mr. Verhoeven easily suspends all disbelief.
  79. Noises Off...
    There are a number of hefty laughs scattered throughout "Noises Off," Peter Bogdanovich's screen version of Michael Frayn's English stage farce. Yet there are nowhere near as many as the source material deserves and Mr. Bogdanovich's cast might otherwise have earned.
  80. Howards End
    Merchant, Ivory and Jhabvala triumph again with their entertaining, richly textured film. [13 March 1992]
    • The New York Times
  81. American Me
    But Mr. Olmos's direction, from a screenplay by Floyd Mutrux and Desmond Nakano, is dark, slow and solemn, so much so that it diverts energy from the film's fundamental frankness. Violent as it is, American Me is seldom dramatic enough to bring its material to life.
  82. My Cousin Vinny
    My Cousin Vinny is easily the most inventive and enjoyable American film farce in a long time, even during those extended patches when it seems to be marking time or when it continues with a running gag that can't stay the distance. The film has a secure and sophisticated sense of what makes farce so delicious.
  83. The Lawnmower Man
    The Lawn Mower Man depends mostly on a lot of colorful video-game-like special effects. They are very loud but, after a while, the noise and the lights induce a torpor that is quite soothing.
  84. Once Upon a Crime...
    The cast of Once Upon a Crime performs energetically, as if the material was funny, although most of the time it is not. As a general rule, films whose plots revolve around lost dogs are apt to be short on comic inspiration, and this one is no exception.
  85. Gladiator
    Only the film's resolution has any spirit or novelty, and even that goes all the way back to the Roman Colosseum. Quicker than you can say "Spartacus," two fighters figure out that their real enemy is outside the ring.
  86. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
    As directed by John Carpenter, Memoirs of an Invisible Man does much more with special effects than it does with character, and even the visual tricks begin to seem commonplace when they've been repeated too often. [28 Feb 1992, p.C17]
    • The New York Times
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Duelle (1976)
    The mortal defect of Jacques Rivette's Duelle is not its slow pace or mannered style or even its obscurities. It is its failure—deliberate, apparently—to cross over to its audience at any point or to inveigle its audience across to it.
  88. Falling from Grace
    In the end, "Falling From Grace" is more a series of separate reflections than a sustained story. But Mr. Mellencamp does bring out the naturalness of his actors, and he has assembled a large and believable cast.
  89. Wayne's World
    The film tends to be funny when confining itself to short sketches or dopey television-based humor, flat when pretending to be anything more.
  90. Medicine Man
    Medicine Man transports a lot of Hollywood-style hot air to the remote jungle outpost where Dr. Campbell has accidentally stumbled upon a cancer-reversing formula.
  91. Final Analysis
    Phil Joanou's Final Analysis is an entertaining exercise in psychological suspense up to a point. Then the ghost that has been pleasurably haunting it, that of Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," turns out to be an illusion, and the real villain is revealed as that implacably clear-eyed monster, demon logic.
  92. Mississippi Masala
    Mr. Washington and Ms. Choudhury, whose first film this is, work well together. He has a screen heft that gives the film its dramatic point. Her voluptuous presence defines the urgency of the love affair. In terms of wit and plain old good humor, they are each other's equals.
  93. Fried Green Tomatoes
    Based on a novel by Fannie Flagg, the comedian, and directed by Jon Avnet, Fried Green Tomatoes has some good performances and a measure of homespun appeal, some of which can be credited to Elizabeth McBride's gently evocative costumes and Barbara Ling's detailed production design.
  94. Juice
    The film winds up taking a clear anticrime stance, and Mr. Epps ably conveys Q's trepidation about his friends' behavior. But Juice also revels in the flash, irreverence and tough-guy posturing to which the film's violence can ultimately be traced.
  95. Rush
    Rush is often more successful at being clinical than at being clear.
  96. Freejack
    The film's frequently dark, grimy look and such digressions as a demonstration of how to eat river rat will appeal chiefly to those who like their science fiction on the squalid side.
  97. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
    Though Mr. Hanson ("Bad Influence," "The Bedroom Window") is a slick movie maker, he is not an especially persuasive one here.
  98. Guncrazy
    Taking Mr. Bright's excellent screenplay, Ms. Davis, whose background is in music videos, has made a remarkably rich melodrama with a strong narrative line and vivid characters. There's no waste space in this movie. Every second of its 97 minutes counts.
  99. Light Sleeper
    At its best, Light Sleeper is merely theoretical. Most of the time, though, it is artificial and laughably unbelievable. Even the dark, gritty Manhattan locations don't add authenticity.
  100. Porco Rosso
    Muting adult concerns — like the jackboots of fascism and the ubiquity of male violence — with marshmallow clouds and subtly shifting light, Mr. Miyazaki smooshes fantasy and history into a pastel-pretty yarn as irresistible as his feminism.
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