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. Perfect Stranger
    The director, as he showed in movies like "After Dark, My Sweet," and "Fear," specializes in conjuring conspiratorial atmospheres in which anxiety and sexual menace hang in the air like a heavy, bitter perfume. Long after you've dismissed the movie's ridiculous, convoluted story, traces of that scent may linger.
  2. Vacancy
    This banal horror retread involves a couple of critters flailing inside a sticky trap for what is, in effect, the big-screen equivalent of a roach motel.
  3. Delta Farce
    Perhaps the people most insulted are white Southerners, who presumably are expected to embrace one whopping brain-dead metaphor.
  4. The Salon
    A tiresome blend of overacting and underwriting, The Salon moves from one predictable conversation to another -- the lack of available black men, the wondrousness of Bill Clinton -- without originality or comic rhythm.
  5. Even Money
    A scare movie about gambling addiction, is as grim and lurid as any in the recent spate of films about the evils of crystal meth.
  6. I'm Reed Fish
    Sweetness and whimsy fill the screen to capacity in I'm Reed Fish, a rural coming-of-age tale that's so laid-back that its cast is almost horizontal.
  7. Hostel: Part II
    Mr. Roth, part of a new breed of horror directors affectionately labeled the "Splat Pack," is regarded by some as a savior of the genre, though it could be argued that he is more effectively a saboteur. He might have mastered the cheap sadism-as-entertainment gross-out, but he has yet to produce a single genuine, old-fashioned fright.
  8. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
    This existentially and aesthetically unnecessary sequel to the equally irrelevant if depressingly successful "Fantastic Four."
  9. Evening
    Doesn’t seem as if it would translate easily to the big screen. It hasn't.
  10. Who's Your Caddy?
    There’s probably more wit and pointed social commentary in the average four-minute OutKast song than in the entirety of Who’s Your Caddy?
  11. Bratz
    Arriving as inevitably as puberty, Bratz introduces the swollen-headed, fashion-addicted dolls of the title to a live-action movie.
  12. Hot Rod
    Hot Rod might be called the poor man’s “Eagle vs. Shark” if “Eagle vs. Shark” were not already the poor man’s “Napoleon Dynamite.” It certainly lacks the conceptual purity and aesthetic integrity of the “Jackass” movies. In any case poor certainly describes the quality of the filmmaking.
  13. Underdog
    Underdog may have been originally created to sell cereal for General Mills, but this latest incarnation couldn't sell Frisbees at a dog park.
    • 13 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Daddy Day Camp
    A recruiting poster for kids, insisting that there’s no domestic problem that military values can’t solve.
  15. Rush Hour 3
    The junky, clunky, grimly unfunny follow-up to the marginally better “Rush Hour 2” and the significantly finer “Rush Hour,” isn’t the worst movie of the summer. But it’s an enervating bummer nonetheless, largely because it shows so little respect for its two likable stars and its audience.
  16. Illegal Tender
    Luridly earnest and laughably immoral, Illegal Tender is an old genre movie with a new look. Call it Hispanixploitation.
  17. Balls of Fury
    Raunchier and somewhat more imaginative than “Hot Rod.”
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Brothers Solomon
    A deranged, sometimes desperate parody of an inspirational losers-make-good comedy. Three gags miss for every one that hits.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Inner Life of Martin Frost
    A late appearance by a supporting character -- a pushy plumber and aspiring writer named Jim Fortunato (Michael Imperioli), who offers his mentally damaged young ward (played by Mr. Auster’s own daughter, Sophie) as a servant and possible concubine -- pushes the movie from bland pretension into distastefulness.
  20. Good Luck Chuck
    The main audience for this dim little sex comedy has no particular interest in seeing Ms. Alba act. They want to see her in her underwear and also to confront one of the central cultural questions of our time: will she take her top off?
  21. The Girl Next Door
    Gregory M. Wilson, the film’s director, has made the kind of movie that makes you wish you could rinse your brain in bleach, to wash all traces of it from your memory.
  22. The Heartbreak Kid
    Lame, long, ugly joke of a movie.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    30 Days of Night
    The performers have little to do besides spill and drink blood in this tedious, inconsequential B picture. The sun doesn’t rise nearly fast enough.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Comebacks
    The movie’s low aspirations are depressing because its best gags are agreeably demented.
  25. Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour
    The film is sunk by a pervasive stasis, the byproduct not of mood but of the filmmakers’ amateurish abilities. If there’s one thing Nick and Disney know, it’s that youthful entertainment needs to keep moving.
  26. Sleuth
    The result is that what was once insignificant is now insufferable.
  27. Martian Child
    100 percent goo.
  28. Hitman
    Hitman exploits every action-flick cliché imaginable and still manages to be dull. It’s bang, boom, blah -- action movies for bored dummies.
  29. Awake
    The writer and director, Joby Harold, claims to have been inspired to write the film while suffering from a particularly painful kidney stone. Watching it may be for some a comparable experience.
  30. The Perfect Holiday
    Watching the movie is like reaching into a Christmas stocking and pulling out handfuls of cheap plastic toys that are broken.
  31. One Missed Call
    A poker-faced puzzle whose biggest shock is the absence of Sarah Michelle Gellar.
  32. Cloverfield
    Like too many big-studio productions, Cloverfield works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt. Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm.
  33. Jumper
    A barely coherent genre mishmash.
  34. Penelope
    A hopeless jumble of visual and linguistic styles.
  35. Never Back Down
    The movie speeds up and slows down as though controlled by a director in the grip of competing medications. For those who make it to the final beatdown, however, the only pill worth taking is the one that makes you forget.
  36. Superhero Movie
    No real mockery is intended by this harmless, mindless grab bag of slightly used gags, which lampoons some of the conventions of recent comic-book epics and adds the expected staples of juvenile humor: urine, vomit and intestinal gas.
  37. Leatherheads
    What is harder to comprehend is how Mr. Clooney turned out such a sloppy, haphazard and tonally incoherent piece of work. Leatherheads lurches hectically between Coen brothers-style pastiche and John Saylesian didacticism, while Mr. Clooney works his brow and his jaw and waits in vain for his charm to kick in and save the day.
  38. Meet Bill
    Harnessing mostly fine actors to a wholly asinine script, the directors, Melisa Wallack and Bernie Goldmann, have created a movie as spineless and dithering as its benighted namesake.
  39. Sex and Death 101
    The appealing Mr. Baker never manages to find the right tone for the material, partly because he’s been seriously miscast (he radiates too much decency and intelligence for the role), though more because Mr. Waters never establishes a coherent tone for either the character or his situation.
  40. 88 Minutes
    Although it's often laugh-out-loud laughably bad, 88 Minutes is mostly just a slog.
  41. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
    Expelled is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike.
  42. Deception
    A would-be erotic thriller with no heat and zero chills, Deception has the kind of glassy, glossy sheen and risible story that mean to suggest "Basic Instinct" but instead invoke lesser laughers like "Jade" and "Sliver."
  43. Speed Racer
    This movie sets out to honor and refresh a youthful enthusiasm from the past and winds up smothering the fun in self-conscious grandiosity.
  44. The Babysitters
    Shirley’s instant metamorphosis from insecure high school student to ruthless madam is ludicrous in spite of the best efforts of the talented Ms. Waterston to convince you otherwise. The Babysitters has the increasingly jerky momentum of a film that was butchered in the cutting room, sacrificing continuity and character development to whip the plot forward.
  45. War, Inc.
    War, Inc. is gonzo moviemaking with a bleeding heart. A satirical farce that wants to be "Dr. Strangelove" for the age of terrorism, it is a zany, nihilistic free-for-all that goes soft.
  46. Sex and the City
    I wish Ms. Parker had let that bee in her bonnet go silent, because the movie that she and Mr. King have come up with is the pits, a vulgar, shrill, deeply shallow -- and, at 2 hours and 22 turgid minutes, overlong -- addendum to a show that had, over the years, evolved and expanded in surprising ways.
  47. August
    The movie's amoral momentum is fatally slowed by an acronym-heavy script and flimsy characterizations that offer fine actors -- including Rip Torn as Tom's contemptuous father and Naomie Harris as his missed opportunity -- little to play.
  48. Death Defying Acts
    Ms. Zeta-Jones is too elegant for the lowlife she's supposed to be, Ms. Ronan isn't endearing enough to be a ragamuffin, and, under Gillian Armstrong's direction, never for a minute do you believe they're mother and daughter.
  49. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
    The kindest thing to be said for this frantic, cluttered mess of cheesy computer-generated action-adventure clichés is that at least you can see how the estimated $175 million budget was spent.
  50. Fly Me to the Moon 3D
    One of the most undermotivated plots in many a moon, the zero-wit, zero-gravity misadventures of Nat, I.Q. and Scooter are embarked on merely because they're bored on their garbage dump.
  51. Henry Poole Is Here
    The film's spiritual deck is stacked. In the mawkish tradition of movies like "Simon Birch," "Wide Awake," "August Rush" and "Hearts in Atlantis," Henry Poole Is Here is insufferable hokum that takes itself very, very seriously.
  52. College
    Strains to sell itself as one crazy ride (raging parties! hot lesbian sex! bare breasts!), and chances are it won't disappoint those looking solely for unadulterated raunch.
  53. Everybody Wants to Be Italian
    Features annoying characters navigating unbelievable situations.
  54. Bangkok Dangerous
    Of all the shoddy, insipid qualities of Bangkok Dangerous, the most egregious is the most fundamental: The film is simply dreadful to look at.
  55. Phoebe in Wonderland
    Soon after that the movie simply stops dead in its tracks, as though the money had run out and the project had been called off in the middle of a scene that makes no psychological or dramatic sense. It leaves you frustrated and annoyed.
  56. The Family That Preys
    The suds that cascade through Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys more than equal the cubic footage from nighttime soaps like "Dallas," "Dynasty" and their offspring.
  57. Filth and Wisdom
    Not that Madonna has gone in for originality, which isn't really her thing: rather, instead of repurposing a genre, she has riffled through the art-house catalog for inspiration, as evidenced by the film's intentionally grubby visual texture, jumpy editing, direct-address commentary, freeze frames and other tricks.
  58. Passengers
    A supernatural thriller so mechanically inept and lacking in suspense that it doesn't even pass muster as lowbrow Halloween-ready entertainment.
  59. My Name Is Bruce
    Filled with awful, recycled jokes.
  60. Bedtime Stories
    Soured by its enervated star and uninspired writing, the movie offers only tiny moments of joy, like a hailstorm of gumballs that's unexpectedly magical.
  61. The Unborn
    The film teeters so perilously and routinely at the edge of camp, both with some of its casting choices and some unfortunate dialogue (the repeated warning that "Jumby wants to be born now"), that it's hard to know if Mr. Goyer wants to make us howl with fear or laughter.
  62. New in Town
    Watching Ms. Zellweger’s joyless performance, you have to wonder what happened to this formerly charming actress who not so long ago seemed on the verge of becoming a softer, more vulnerable Shirley MacLaine.
  63. Bob Funk
    Looks like a comedy, acts like a comedy and sounds like a comedy, but it isn't funny. This is a problem in a movie that aims for laughs.
  64. 12 Rounds
    There are, as you may have guessed, 12 rounds of this arbitrary nonsense. Annoying as the conceit may be, it neatly functions as a means to gauge how much is left to endure.
  65. The Haunting in Connecticut
    Gives you the creeps, the giggles and the groans in almost equal measure.
  66. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
    A clumsy and confused adaptation of Michael Chabon's 1988 novel.
  67. New World Order
    An unrelentingly tedious documentary.
  68. What Goes Up
    Even when Mr. Coogan can't make his scenes work, his prickly presence keeps you watching, as does the eerie scenes of winter that Mr. Glatzer captures with the camera.
  69. Tennessee
    It isn't saying much, but at least her (Carey) work here is more substantial than in the catastrophic "Glitter."
  70. Blood: The Last Vampire
    Suffers from abusive close-ups, repetitive fight sequences and uninspired demon design.
  71. I Love You, Beth Cooper
    Drab and incoherent teen comedy.
  72. The Final Destination
    There used to be entertainment in the dodging and wit in the scripts; now there’s 3-D.
  73. Sorority Row
    An interminable mess of a film that juggles more characters and undeveloped subplots than it can handle and even manages to bungle the setup.
  74. The Burning Plain
    Like his scripts for “21 Grams” and “Babel,” this one makes heavy use of happenstance and temporal displacement, and like them, too, it depends on ideas about human behavior that can only be called preposterous.
  75. The Other Man
    Muddled little dud of a melodrama.
  76. Motherhood
    Has shockingly little to say.
  77. Gentlemen Broncos
    Timing, good jokes and characters you can laugh with and at are mostly missing from Gentlemen Broncos.
  78. Serious Moonlight
    A very shallow comedy. For the real thing, rent “The Ref,” in which Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis, with a boost from Glynis Johns, set the house on fire.
  79. Creation
    What we see on screen is a lumbering, flat-footed fancy-dress melodrama.
  80. Our Family Wedding
    Alternately rancid and ridiculous, strident and sickly sweet, Our Family Wedding”offers plenty that’s old, borrowed and blue; it’s the something new that’s missing.
  81. Remember Me
    It’s hard to know what the director Allen Coulter could have done to improve Will Fetters’s absurdly contrived, yakky script about love and loss, largely set in the summer of 2001. But Mr. Coulter doesn’t help matters by infusing the movie with grave self-importance.
  82. The Bounty Hunter
    For his sins poor Stewart is kidnapped, tortured and shot up with horse tranquilizer after his leg is broken. It’s disturbing, and somewhat baffling too, until you grasp that this hapless sucker is a surrogate for the audience.
  83. Analyze That
    Although there is the germ of a very sharp comedy in the intersection of real mobsters and make-believe thugs in a Hollywood mob comedy, Analyze That is far too lazy to do much with it.
  84. Cradle 2 the Grave
    The cinematographer-turned-director likes his MTV-style editing so much that in his drive for hyperkinetic overkill he sacrifices coherence to wallow in barely contained chaos.
  85. New Rose Hotel
    Affirms that soft-core porn is alive and well in cyberpunk.
  86. Company Man
    Little more than a loose- jointed succession of goofy "Saturday Night Live"-style sketches and sight gags inspired by an actual event that is nearly half a century behind us.
  87. Crazy as Hell
    Starts on a note of relative naturalism and under Mr. La Salle's nuanced direction gradually becomes more and more unhinged until it concludes in an altogether different genre.
  88. Stolen Summer
    Summer is like an episode of the religious children's series "Davey and Goliath," without the entertainment value of animation and a talking dog.
  89. Cotton Mary
    Forlorn melodrama, which is low on drama and high on mellow.
  90. Just Looking
    A candy-colored, unabashedly sentimental movie.
  91. Pavilion of Women
    It might have been a satisfying if not terribly original piece of historical melodrama, but its clumsiness turns it, against its best intentions, into half-baked operatic kitsch.
  92. Strange Fits of Passion
    Metamorphoses from a character study into a confusingly edited sampler of sexual possibilities that feels both programmatic and old-hat.
  93. Brooklyn Babylon
    The film dissolves into a series of diminishing anticlimaxes, ending on a note of portentous ambiguity. To the last, Mr. Levin maintains his uneasy balance of reportage and melodrama.
  94. BookWars
    The movie is like spending an idle afternoon browsing, and not buying.
  95. Big Momma's House
    Fitfully amusing.
  96. Three to Tango
    In trying to be both bold and nonthreatening, the movie ends up seeming tame and mildly offensive.
  97. Tales of Erotica
    The results, to judge from the examples here, have been stuffy and disappointing, an unholy alliance between Playboy Channel prurience and PBS cultural alibis.
  98. Blow Dry
    Seems both overplotted and underimagined, though there is at least some creativity and a dose of realism, evident in the hairstyles themselves.
  99. Isn't She Great
    If you're looking for laughs, give "Valley of the Dolls" another read instead.
  100. God's Army
    Eventually becomes preaching that is likely to tax the credibility of the unconverted.
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