The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,278 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: 9,380 out of 20278
  2. Mixed: 8,434 out of 20278
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20278
20278 movie reviews
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  1. Alien Outpost
    The writing is so poor and the visual embellishments so few that some of the violence, like the frequent attacks on the base by local villagers, make little sense.
  2. Dark Summer
    Despite Mr. Stormare’s valiant efforts, “Dark Summer” (directed by Paul Solet) feels listlessly plotted and insipidly performed.
  3. The Mountain Between Us
    Caught between the harsh demands of a survival story and the emotional beats of a romantic drama, the director, Hany Abu-Assad, grabs hold of neither.
  4. Against the Sun
    Against the Sun is a groaningly tedious survival story that will at least leave you with a renewed commitment to wearing sunscreen.
  5. The Devil's Violinist
    A shallow commentary on how an artist’s talent can be subsumed by the desire for fame and fortune. Or maybe just by the need to make a movie.
  6. Supremacy
    Feeding over-the-top language to underdeveloped characters, Deon Taylor’s Supremacy dramatizes racism with an unvarying intensity that quickly becomes wearing.
  7. Out of the Dark
    Ornamenting its flimsy back story with assaultive sound effects and asinine behavior, Out of the Dark strains to shock.
  8. Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of
    It is insight-free and cliché-heavy, with the five sharing obvious reminiscences about the thrill of superstardom, visiting haunts from their youth, shooting baskets and occasionally rehearsing.
  9. Misery Loves Comedy
    Misery Loves Comedy, Kevin Pollak’s survey of the opinions of a bunch of professionally funny people, is an evident labor of love and also a work of grating amateurism.
  10. Lovesick
    This soulless, sterile romantic comedy has slipped under the wire to give audiences a headache and Matt LeBlanc’s reputation a relapse.
  11. Home Sweet Hell
    While the oafish men come off poorly, the treatment of women as nothing more than schemers and monstrous Martha Stewart clones seems woefully past its expiration date.
  12. The Lovers
    [An] inert, exasperatingly proportioned phantasmagoria from Roland Joffé.
  13. Every Thing Will Be Fine
    Something is off with Every Thing Will Be Fine. Even for a movie about a writer detached from his emotions, it’s ponderous, like a lucid dream gone bad.
  14. Hot Pursuit
    While a movie that fails to catch fire is disappointing, there is something even more dispiriting about a movie that doesn’t even bother to try, that tosses its stars a soggy book of matches and expects them to generate a spark.
  15. Broken Horses
    A deeply silly drama of corrupted innocence.
  16. Marfa Girl
    The scandal of Mr. Clark’s more recent movies, including “Wassup Rockers” and “Ken Park” and this new one, resides more in its tedium and lack of insight than its strenuously provocative content.
  17. Secret in Their Eyes
    Sad to say: There is far more crackle in an average episode of “Law & Order.”
  18. The Forger
    Preposterousness is not necessarily a vice, and plausibility is a weak virtue. Just ask Alfred Hitchcock. So to say that the conceits of The Forger (directed by Philip Martin) are ridiculous isn’t really saying much. It’s also dull, incoherent and drab to look at.
  19. American Renegades
    Part of the thrill of heist movies is in watching a caper take shape before its execution. But the director, Steven Quale, rushes through the planning stages; there’s no obstacle that can’t be overcome with a quick line of exposition.
  20. Laugh Killer Laugh
    Laugh Killer Laugh is a tired parody that seems to have been constructed from received notions of noir and mob movies. Even the jazzy score sounds like an affectation.
  21. Keeping Up with the Joneses
    The absence of laughs can’t be blamed on a lack of talent.
  22. Zoolander 2
    Zoolander 2 has enough plots for several movies. They are so jammed together that they more or less cancel each other out.
  23. Survivor
    The movie makes halfhearted efforts to give Kate and others back stories, but mostly it’s content to follow her as she runs around in subway tunnels, down a staircase and through city streets.
  24. Brand: A Second Coming
    Brand: A Second Coming wants to tell the story of a man overcoming temptation and trading a shallow approach to life for something more sustaining and profound. It’s undone by its own shallowness, and by the limited appeal of its subject.
  25. Bravetown
    Bravetown, directed by Daniel Duran from a screenplay by Oscar Orlando Torres, can sometimes drown in its own tears.
  26. The Adderall Diaries
    Spouting stiltedly clichéd dialogue...the actors struggle to sell their characters. Only Mr. Harris eventually succeeds, conveying, in a single speech, what it must be like to be the parent of an addict.
  27. The Accountant
    The movie, directed by Gavin O’Connor (“Tumbleweeds”), makes little sense. The screenplay, by Bill Dubuque, is so determined to hide its cards that when the big reveal finally arrives, it feels as underwhelming as it is preposterous.
  28. The Sea of Trees
    Mr. Van Sant has always had a sentimental streak — reaching some kind of apogee with “Restless,” in 2011 — but a better script might have replaced literalness with the emotional intelligence that the film badly needs.
  29. Unfreedom
    Unspooling with an angry intensity and without a single sympathetic character, “Unfreedom” (originally titled “Blemished Light”) is a hard-line thriller derailed by messy editing and narrative silliness.
  30. Tumbledown
    We’re meant to warm to Hannah and Andrew as they wear each other down with good-natured ribbing. But Ms. Hall and Mr. Sudeikis hardly warm up themselves, showing little chemistry and looking unsure how to play the film’s tone, or the would-be zingers.
  31. The Runner
    All of the characters here are underwritten, and Mr. Cage and most of the other actors don’t seem to be putting much effort into them.
  32. Dragon Blade
    Dragon Blade is the kind of nutsy maximalist entertainment that isn’t content merely to tap a handful of influences. Instead, it stuffs an entire encyclopedia of dicey ideas (visual, narrative, political) into a blender to create a wacky, eyeball-popping and -glazing extravaganza.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Jellyfish Eyes
    It is poorly shot and afflicted by tedious sound (lots of screaming and saccharine music) and inept special effects. It moves with either incomprehensible abruptness or tedious slowness, especially at supposedly suspenseful moments.
  34. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
    The movie is a pummeling slog — 45 minutes of setup and an eternity of relentless combat.
  35. Unsullied
    The actors, including Erin Boyes as another captive, try to infuse their characters with depth, and the cinematographer, Scott Winig, lends the proceedings a professional gloss, especially in nighttime scenes. But their efforts cannot lift the story beyond its thin, lurid premise.
  36. Jenny's Wedding
    A movie so hopelessly late to the coming-out party that you want to haul everyone connected with it into the 21st century.
  37. SlingShot
    Although independently funded, it was directed by a longtime collaborator of Mr. Kamen’s with the clear purpose of getting the word out about the product.
  38. Northern Limit Line
    Striving to dramatize a real-life battle that occurred in 2002 near Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, the writer and director, Kim Hak-soon, stirs corn and cliché into a paean to patriotism.
  39. Demolition
    Mr. Gyllenhaal’s strong performance still doesn’t add enough substance to a film that is hollow at the center. It’s mostly the fault of Mr. Sipe, who seems to believe that saying nothing is saying something.
  40. Addicted to Fresno
    You can get away with this sort of thing if your humor is sharp, but here it’s mostly sophomoric and rarely surprising.
  41. Frank the Bastard
    The indecipherable motivations and half-baked subtexts present formidable challenges to the cast and the audience.
  42. Freeheld
    It’s a bummer to see Ms. Page and especially Ms. Moore — who at this point in her career can usually act her way out of any cliché — so badly stranded by a generic script, credited to Ron Nyswaner, and by a director, Peter Sollett, who can’t figure out how to lift his actors and the material above the bad writing.
  43. Some Kind of Hate
    It fails to deliver a thrill — not even a shiver, except of revulsion — rendering all that slasher gore downright anemic.
  44. After Words
    Ms. Harden is fine in a role that requires little, but her character is a lazy stereotype that ought to make real librarians wince.
  45. Scoob!
    The overall vibe is scarily close to what happened when “The Itchy & Scratchy Show” on “The Simpsons” added Poochie, except this time the pandering is not a joke.
  46. Chloe and Theo
    Chloe & Theo is surprisingly amateurish in concept and execution. There’s a line between a narrative that’s deliberately simple and one that’s painfully childish, and it’s not all that fine. But it’s one Chloe & Theo crosses repeatedly.
  47. Phantom
    The hapless secret agent heroes of Kabir Khan’s revenge thriller Phantom, could have used some pointers before being sent into the field.
  48. The 5th Wave
    It’s depressing to see Ms. Moretz — so spirited in “Clouds of Sils Maria” and the “Kick-Ass” movies — reduced to constant mooning at Mr. Roe.
  49. Pay the Ghost
    Dan Kay’s filament-thin story, accessorized with flapping vultures and disturbing graffiti, relies entirely on Mr. Cage’s desperate-dad energy.
  50. Reversion
    The sci-fi premise that drives the thriller Reversion is probably close enough to being a reality that the movie should raise goose bumps. Instead it’s uninvolving, thanks to uninspired acting and a script that doesn’t take the central idea very far.
  51. Bare
    The Sarah character isn’t developed well enough to make her journey enlightening or involving.
  52. Risen
    If you drink every time you’re reminded of Monty Python’s 1979 Judean jaunt, “Life of Brian,” you might just make it through to the end.
  53. Shelter
    The movie never bothers to show you life inside a shelter dormitory or tries to convey a broader vision of the city’s street culture. It is too busy showcasing its star Jennifer Connelly (Mr. Bettany’s wife) in degrading situations.
  54. Jason and Shirley
    Flashbacks and fantasy sequences undercut the claustrophobic atmosphere. What’s left is amateurish play acting — pointless for anyone who hasn’t seen “Portrait of Jason” and redundant for those who have.
  55. Prescription Thugs
    Even before a “do as I say, not as I do” twist costs it all credibility, Prescription Thugs is a not very good documentary about a very important subject.
  56. The Death and Life of John F. Donovan
    Struggling to connect the filaments of past and present, youth and maturity, Dolan seems lost, his signature vivaciousness and sense of fun almost entirely muted. Instead, what lingers is a feeling of being lectured to — which isn’t much fun at all.
  57. Moonwalkers
    Though Mr. Grint and Mr. Perlman both come off credibly, the movie is practically laugh-free.
  58. Tamasha
    The biggest offender is the director, Imtiaz Ali, who, also again collaborating with Mr. Kapoor, actually celebrates two love affairs: Ved and Tara’s, and (given Ved’s universal adulation) Mr. Ali’s with his own self-aggrandizing vision of his calling.
  59. Exposed
    In certain mutilated pictures, you can detect the lineaments of greatness: Consider Orson Welles’s “The Magnificent Ambersons.” Here, that’s not the case.
  60. Synchronicity
    The combustible Mr. Ironside vaulted into movie immortality as the antagonist in “Scanners,” David Cronenberg’s down-and-dirty, exploding-head anti-classic. Synchronicity, a low-budget misfire about time and love, could use some exploding heads, dialogue and ideas.
  61. Yoga Hosers
    Some of Mr. Smith’s prior work made me laugh so hard that I cried; Yoga Hosers made me want to cry for different reasons.
  62. Unlucky Plaza
    The multicultural milieu lends an initial boost as Mr. Kwek’s jokes and plot entanglements take potshots at life in Singapore, but all the air seeps out of this attempt at zippy, tabloid-nutty storytelling.
  63. Solace
    Staggeringly silly and visually disordered.
  64. Colonia
    It somehow manages to feel more like a Hallmark Channel romance than like a serious film.
  65. Lazer Team
    Lazer Team ends by setting itself up for a sequel, but that’s mighty wishful thinking. There’s not a big demand for laugh-free comedies.
  66. Desierto
    The movie isn’t interested in fully developed characters, just carnage.
  67. Dark Night
    Until its climax, which clearly seeks to be congratulated on its restraint, Dark Night is not much more than an arty bore.
  68. Road Games
    The cast doesn’t quite succeed in keeping the suspense fresh throughout the story’s left turns.
  69. The Preppie Connection
    This film fails even to evoke the ’80s in costumes, soundtrack or other atmospherics.
  70. Sacrifice
    Dowling’s direction, while competent, also trots out every cliché that a 90-minute movie can contain.
  71. A Strange Course of Events
    Mr. Nadjari, who wrote the screenplay with Geoffroy Grison, may have been intending a minimalist character study, but even so, he has abdicated his responsibility: Too much of this family drama is left to the audience to fill in.
  72. The Cloverfield Paradox
    The actual movie is strangely plain, eyesore-overlit and uselessly frantic.
  73. Rio, I Love You
    Tourism is what it has to sell.
  74. Nina
    Ms. Mort’s writing lacks psychological texture, and her direction generates little intensity, or even continuity.
  75. An Eye for Beauty
    A low point in the director’s career, this sleek chilly film isn’t acted so much as posed.
  76. Ktown Cowboys
    The film doesn’t have the focus, pacing or plotting of the best of such bromance tales.
  77. Special Correspondents
    There’s nothing wrong with the type of movie Special Correspondents wants to be. The problem is that Mr. Gervais doesn’t appear capable of making a good version of it.
  78. The Girl in the Photographs
    This sad slasher is as lacking in scares as in ideas.
  79. Mothers and Daughters
    Mothers and Daughters is full of recognizable stars and heartfelt conversations. Unfortunately, it’s largely devoid of the kind of character development that can give such conversations real impact.
  80. Manhattan Night
    Unlike the juicy, overripe prose in the novel from which it was adapted, Mr. DeCubellis’s screenplay is utterly lacking in style. Mr. Brody captures his character’s attitude, but the colorless screenplay robs the character of literary imagination.
  81. The Neon Demon
    The Neon Demon is hot garbage that dares you to call it offensive. In addition, it’s offensive.
  82. CHIPS
    Borderline incoherent and unrepentantly lewd, this buddy-cop comedy (based on the 1977-83 television series of the same name) substitutes cars, ’copters and motorcycles for actual characters
  83. ma ma
    Penélope Cruz is an Oscar-winning actress we don’t see often enough in prominent leading roles. So how disappointing to find her having to carry Julio Medem’s florid Ma Ma, a melodrama only glancing at profundity.
  84. Cell
    Dated, despondent and pretty much a disaster, Cell plays like a series of nods to other science fiction-horror hybrids, notably “The Matrix” (1999) and Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
  85. Baaghi
    Because the filmmakers have given their characters labels (rebel, guru, villain) instead of personalities, the movie’s bid for epic resonance feels particularly hollow.
  86. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
    The film, directed by Mario Van Peebles, brays the story in broad strokes and clichés as if the horror of it didn’t speak for itself, which it most certainly does.
  87. From the Land of the Moon
    Ms. Cotillard can be magnetic even when playing an unplayable character, but when Gabrielle falls for a veteran (Louis Garrel, who has perfected the facial expression of someone looking for another conversation), the chasm between her abilities and her co-star’s is mountainous.
  88. The Meg
    Unlike “Sharknado,” The Meg doesn’t seem to know how dumb it is.
  89. Septembers of Shiraz
    It’s a movie whose good heart is outweighed by its heavy hand.
  90. Fight Valley
    Disappointing plot twists ensue in a climactic brawl starved for snappier choreography and editing.
  91. War on Everyone
    Mr. McDonagh’s palette and spleen remain mostly intact, but here he’s neglected to include a story or point.
  92. The Foreigner
    Mr. Chan is in his early 60s, and he doesn’t deliver the action pizazz here that he used to. Nor, frankly, does he summon enough gravitas to be persuasive in the role of a grief-maddened father. For what it’s worth, Mr. Brosnan, as Quon’s nemesis, sells the angry-all-the-time requirement for his character.
  93. Tomb Raider
    There are many ways for a movie to go wrong, and Tomb Raider goes wrong in many of the most obvious: It has a generic story, bad writing, a miscast lead, the wrong director and no fun.
  94. Table 19
    Table 19 is so awkwardly structured and tonally off-kilter that its moments of catharsis feel wholly unearned.
  95. The 9th Life of Louis Drax
    It’s not clear whether The 9th Life of Louis Drax is deliberately inconsistent or merely an example of confused filmmaking. One thing is certain, however: It sure leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.
  96. Skiptrace
    Skiptrace settles for a warmed-over plot, tedious fight sequences and humor that’s heavy on crotch jokes and pratfalls.
  97. For a Few Bullets
    Even with the tongue-in-cheek tone, it’s impossible to overlook the exhausting series of contrivances, coincidences and sloppy filmmaking.
  98. Rupture
    Dreary, derivative and flat-out dopey, this dragged-out torture tale will disappoint even those whose hearts race whenever they see a female character strapped to a bed.
  99. Level Up
    Unlovely and uninvolving, Level Up is a running-man cocktail of brutality spiked with low-level humor.
  100. The Brooklyn Banker
    Acting chops are occasionally on view — Mr. Sorvino and Mr. Proval play well together — but the plot is weak, the subplots tacked on.
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