The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,269 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 20269
  2. Mixed: 8,428 out of 20269
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20269
20269 movie reviews
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  1. Ticket to Paradise
    Roberts and Clooney wear their stature like sweatpants, rousing themselves to do little more than spit insults like competitive siblings. They’re selling their own comfortable rapport, not their characters’ romantic tension.
  2. Aftersun
    It’s hard to find a critical language to account for the delicacy and intimacy of this movie. This is partly because Wells, with the unaffected precision of a lyric poet, is very nearly reinventing the language of film, unlocking the medium’s often dormant potential to disclose inner worlds of consciousness and feeling.
  3. Black Adam
    If, as the credits roll for Black Adam, you’re still stuck wondering what defines a bad hero or a good antihero, know that at least the film clarifies one thing: What makes a bad hero movie.
  4. Amsterdam
    Throughout, Russell keeps going and moving, moving and going, but the momentum never builds the way it should, and the big reveal lands flat partly because he never seems taken with the history he’s latched onto or comfortable with its heaviness. Or perhaps it’s the contemporary parallels that make him uneasy and why, again and again, he returns to the faces and filigree that he gets just right.
  5. The School for Good and Evil
    The film doesn’t have the space to expand all of its ideas and gracefully unfold its plot, which is full of so many narrative twists and reversals that The School for Good and Evil equates to a whole TV season untidily packed into a feature film.
  6. The Curse of Bridge Hollow
    Wadlow, a good horror director, seems hamstrung by the family-friendly context and struggles to develop tension in the absence of a plausible threat of violence.
  7. Decision to Leave
    From the very first destabilizing moments of this movie, Park dazzles you with the beauty of his images and the intoxicating bravura of his unfettered imagination. And then, just when you think you have found your bearings, he unmoors you yet once more, blowing minds and shattering hearts, yours included.
  8. Plan A
    Plan A never quite rises to the challenge posed by this remarkable chapter in history.
  9. Dark Glasses
    The best moments of the film involve Diana’s unsentimental alliance with Chin, the orphan who offers her more protection than she’s able to afford him. Their quirkily endearing relationship allows the horror legend to dabble in a genre that’s wholly new to him: the odd couple comedy.
  10. Rosaline
    The engine of this movie is snark, and Dever, overtaxed with carrying the comedy, brings a dauntlessness to the role, even during more daft moments.
  11. Till
    Chukwu revisits the past while doing something extremely difficult. She makes this grim American history insistently of the moment — and she does so by stripping the story down to its raw, harrowing emotional core.
  12. Halloween Ends
    Green has made a movie that’s less frantic and more intimate than its predecessor, one that unfolds with a mourning finality.
  13. The Same Storm
    It’s a well-intentioned gesture of solidarity that tries so desperately to be relatable, it feels alienating.
  14. Sepa: Nuestro Señor de los milagros
    It’s a provocative addition to the literature of incarceration.
  15. The Other Tom
    The film, directed by Laura Santullo and Rodrigo Plá, ultimately falls flat, with unconvincing dialogue and a strained delivery by the actors.
  16. Eternal Spring
    While the animation gives the documentary some distinction, the narrative can’t entirely shake the sense that this momentous but brief episode is scaled more for a short than a feature.
  17. Sell/Buy/Date
    Jones — who wrote, directed and stars in the film — doesn’t treat the tensions between exploitation and empowerment, personal agency and systemic cruelties, as binaries. Instead, they are riveting, confounding and, as exchanges between Jones and her mother attest, personal.
  18. Stars at Noon
    The results are sometimes wobbly, but this much remains stable: No living director better understands the politics of sensuality, the terrible power of light and shadow on skin.
  19. Battleground
    The documentary is a cookie-cutter presentation intent on showing viewers how leaders of the anti-abortion movement have managed to advance their goals and consolidate power by mobilizing an evangelical minority.
  20. Last Flight Home
    “Last Flight” is at once a memorial to Eli, the last of that generation of the family to die, and — almost incidentally — a philosophical argument about how death can be faced well.
  21. Pretty Problems
    An overlong, undercooked comedy of manners about how, yes, indeed the rich are different.
  22. The Visitor
    Filmed in and around New Orleans, “The Visitor” isn’t a terrible movie, just a tired one.
  23. Hinterland
    If only the story of Hinterland felt as engrossing and alive as its setting.
  24. Luckiest Girl Alive
    Kunis’s alpha female appears at once ferocious and like a conspicuous sham. (Imagine Sheryl Sandberg as a “Scooby-Doo” villain.) Her performance carries the film — a fortunate break for the director Mike Barker, who has the near-impossible challenge of shepherding the tone from snark to painful sincerity.
  25. Significant Other
    Significant Other does not reinvent the genre, but its narrative flourishes make for an exciting outing.
  26. The Swimmer
    Kalderon and the cinematographer Ofer Inov make Adonises out of the film’s athletes, but the film goes beyond mere marble-body ogling in its equal attention to the physical, psychological and emotional toll that training takes on Erez and Nevo.
  27. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
    The light provides wordless, and conveniently apolitical, explanation for why a person might endure nearly three decades (or in cinematic terms, nearly three hours) without action.
  28. Piggy
    Pereda, who also wrote the script, is not afraid of psychological and moral ambiguity: It’s obvious that she is on Sara’s side — the bullying scenes are much harder to watch than the bloody ones — but she also knows that shame, guilt and secrecy fester into messy situations and messy people.
  29. Hellraiser
    As an ambitious allegory for the chaos and torment of addiction, Hellraiser works mainly because of A’zion, who gives her scattered character a deeply human desperation.
  30. Mr. Harrigan's Phone
    There’s a bittersweetness to Craig and Harrigan’s friendship and good chemistry between the leads.
  31. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
    "Lyle” has a brisk, whimsical momentum that is utterly infectious in the early going. Then it stops dead.
  32. Triangle of Sadness
    This, in the end, is a very bad movie, executed with enough visual polish and surface cleverness to fool the Cannes jurors, something Ostlund has done twice. Shame on them! But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.
  33. TÁR
    To search the movie for a consistent argument is to miss the point and fall into a category error, misconstruing the extraordinary coup that Field and Blanchett have pulled off. We don’t care about Lydia Tár because she’s an artist; we care about her because she’s art.
  34. To Leslie
    The director, Michael Morris, knows from the start what movie he’s making: one that robs us of our easy assumptions about who Leslie is. She’s unbearably flawed, and the screenwriter Ryan Binaco explains why without forcing long beats of exposition upon the viewer.
  35. The Redeem Team
    The movie, directed by Jon Weinbach, offers several eye-opening mini-narratives on the way to a rematch with Argentina.
  36. My Best Friend's Exorcism
    The film repeatedly undercuts whatever tension is mustered with its frustrating tendency to crack goofy, juvenile jokes.
  37. Bros
    Bros is hyper-conscious that it’s a landmark built on a fault line. No matter how many ideas it crams into its quick-paced plot, it’s doomed to fall short of representing an entire group of people — and it knows it shouldn’t have to. As such, Eichner’s challenge makes for a conflicted Cupid.
  38. InHospitable
    InHospitable is a decent advocacy documentary that compellingly argues a couple of points that aren’t easy to make compelling onscreen.
  39. I Didn't See You There
    With his feature, Davenport stakes out his own vantage point on the world, one that leaves a viewer wishing to hear his thoughts elaborated even further.
  40. Ten Tricks
    Despite her strong effort, even Thompson can’t deliver the film’s attempt at a three-dimensional female protagonist. There is truly no magic here.
  41. From the Hood to the Holler
    Though Booker’s story and success are inspiring, the documentary falls flat, feeling more like a political tool than a commentary on the state of politics in Kentucky.
  42. The Good House
    The trouble with this cinematic Trojan horse is that the superficial blandness dominates the frame. It’s hard to feel the story’s stakes when the images are always indicating no danger ahead.
  43. Vesper
    A wistful beauty and a delicately imaginative sense of craft set Vesper apart from most post-apocalyptic stories.
  44. The Justice of Bunny King
    A grim social-realist drama from New Zealand that labors to twist its narrative into a redemptive arc, The Justice of Bunny King has an unsteady tone to match its ungainly title.
  45. What We Leave Behind
    What We Leave Behind insists upon power in stillness, and the poignancy in staying — and leaving.
  46. Sirens
    The ending, in which the reunited Sirens play before an enthusiastic crowd, is heart-tugging and rousing, even for non-metal heads.
  47. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
    The movie, more often than not, has the look and feel of an edgy music video, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it weren’t also oddly boring.
  48. Dead for A Dollar
    It’s solidly and proudly a B picture, as the Boetticher dedication makes clear. But in an age of blockbuster bloat and streaming cynicism, a solid B movie — efficiently shot (by Lloyd Ahern II) and effectively acted (by everyone) is something of a miracle. Hill had a job to do. He did it. That’s worth something.
  49. God's Creatures
    God’s Creatures is ultimately a movie about the collision between a mother’s fidelity and her moral conscience, and Watson is terrific at telegraphing how these instincts grind against each other to terrifying ends.
  50. Argentina, 1985
    Cinema prizes a good man making history, but this story’s heroes are manifold.
  51. Smile
    A relentlessly somber, precision-tooled picture whose frights only reinforce the wit of its premise, Smile turns our most recognizable sign of pleasure into a terrifying rictus of pain.
  52. Hocus Pocus 2
    While its new sequel, Hocus Pocus 2, may be a blatant attempt by Disney to continue propping up its streaming platform Disney+ (where the movie has its debut), it manages to capture the same hokey magic of the original while creatively updating its humor.
  53. Blonde
    If Dominik isn’t interested in or capable of understanding that Monroe was indeed more than a victim of the predations of men, it’s because, in this movie, he himself slipped into that wretched role.
  54. A Jazzman's Blues
    A Jazzman’s Blues is packed with outsize emotions, but also grand themes.
  55. Lou
    Methodically violent and more than a little silly, “Lou” delivers a kick in the head to ageism.
  56. The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales
    The centering of Abigail Disney’s voice — we also see her tweets calling out the outrageous salaries of Disney executives — makes the documentary a kind of personal reckoning and an attempt to get through to other wealthy individuals, though one wonders how a film that doubles as a “Capitalism for Dummies” video would make an impact. Instead, the documentary wants, above all, to make sure we know how one particular Disney feels.
  57. My Imaginary Country
    While this is a first-person documentary, with the director providing voice-over narration, it expresses a poignant humility and a patient willingness to listen.
  58. The Greatest Beer Run Ever
    Depth comes from Efron’s visible difficulty maintaining a smile as he comes to sense that he’s crossed the ocean only to discover a permanent gulf between him and his childhood friends. They’ve endured agonies he’ll never understand — and a barfly like him can’t deliver a cheers that will set things right.
  59. Athena
    Gavras’s filmmaking is technically impressive. He pulls the camera through complex, kinetic tableaus in long, breathless takes. Some of these sequences are thrilling, but after a while they become repetitive, and Athena feels more like a video game background than an actual place. There’s no modulation.
  60. Sidney
    The inescapable impression is of a picture buckling beneath the weight of its subject’s achievements. Yet there are moments when the focus shifts and the movie shrugs off its hagiographic shackles.
  61. Petrov's Flu
    Despite the grimness, the violence and the grotesque bleating of some hateful, prejudiced trolls, the movie never drags you down (though it might exhaust you) because it’s buoyed by Serebrennikov’s bravura, unfettered filmmaking.
  62. On the Come Up
    The predictable narrative arc, the happenstance lighting from scene-to-scene and Lathan’s minimalist take on the material all adds up to something you might watch once and promptly forget about.
  63. Invisible Demons
    Through a series of arresting images, the director Rahul Jain presents a city on the verge of apocalypse.
  64. Catherine Called Birdy
    Dunham prevails in convincing audiences that coming-of-age in a so-called simpler time was equally tumultuous, and crams the corners of her movie with images of other female characters discreetly seizing their own moments of satisfaction — glimpses of joys which realize that it’s in the margins of a medieval tale where the best stuff happens.
  65. Railway Children
    Decency prevails in a somewhat ludicrous finale involving an army of children and a train containing a high-ranking officer. It’s an ending so tidy as to undercut the effort to broach a shameful side to the American war effort.
  66. Carmen
    Writer and director Valerie Buhagiar makes the wise decision to orient her film toward what’s pleasurable rather than what’s logical. The Maltese countryside sparkles in the sunlight, and McElhone delights with a charming and slightly loopy performance as the irreverent spiritual leader.
  67. Nothing Compares
    Nothing Compares is a worthwhile appreciation of the artist.
  68. Don't Worry Darling
    Wilde does some fine work here, despite hammering the same notes early and often . . . But she isn’t a strong enough filmmaker at this point to navigate around the story’s weaknesses, much less transcend them. That’s especially tough on the actors.
  69. Escape from Kabul
    Escape From Kabul is a short-term recap. A more robust movie, following these witnesses over several years, is still waiting to be made.
  70. Meet Cute
    Of course, these logistical problems would be excusable if the romance at the center of the movie were remotely compelling or if the jokes were actually funny.
  71. Terra Femme
    Stephens’s ideas and presentation make for a dense, continually absorbing hour.
  72. Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance and Bravery in WW2
    “Four Winters” offers an enduring warning amid today’s global struggle with authoritarian forces: As one speaker explains, her neighbors were already antisemitic before the war, but with power, they became vicious.
  73. Do Revenge
    Do Revenge, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is a playful, sharp-fanged satire that feels like the ’90s teen comedy hammered into modern emojis: crown, knife, fire, winky face.
  74. Drifting Home
    Though Drifting Home delivers a great visual concept . . . it doesn’t deliver on the action. The pacing lags and the beats are predictable; the film’s go-to antic is having children repeatedly topple overboard.
  75. I Used to Be Famous
    It’s all pretty predictable . . . This has the effect of making the finale, which actually takes an exit ramp off triumphalist clichés, genuinely surprising.
  76. God's Country
    The movie works best when it doesn’t over-explain and instead lets the land and the characters, the wide open spaces and the performances — especially Newton’s meticulously controlled turn — speak for themselves.
  77. Moonage Daydream
    It’s less a biography than a séance.
  78. Pearl
    There is some sex and plenty of gore, but mostly an atmosphere of feverish, lurid melodrama leavened with winks of knowing humor and held together by Goth’s utterly earnest and wondrously bizarre performance.
  79. The Woman King
    The kinetic action adventure The Woman King is a sweeping entertainment, but it’s also a story of unwavering resistance in front of and behind the camera.
  80. The Silent Twins
    Whatever is or isn’t broken about the twins remains a secret, but June and Jennifer’s story is played by Wright and Lawrance with the thoughtful consideration these real-life women deserve.
  81. Heathers: The Musical
    Despite these flashes of timidity and an overlong running time, the musical is a fun romp with plenty of, ahem, killer tunes.
  82. The African Desperate
    Drawn from Syms’s own experiences as a visual artist, The African Desperate is less an art-school parody as it is a portrait of existential incongruity, where contempt mingles with deep affection.
  83. Casablanca Beats
    Hip-hop isn’t dead, the film energetically insists; it’s just been hiding in a Moroccan slum.
  84. Riotsville, U.S.A.
    This is not an objective film. It is a polemic, a work of activism, a challenge to the viewer.
  85. Goodnight Mommy
    Kyle Warren’s screenplay is potent enough to generate several moments of suspense, and Watts, an exceptional actor sidelined too often by poor choices, is not the problem here. That would be the decision to jettison the children’s most creative cruelties — and consequently much of the movie’s tension — and a director, Matt Sobel, who’s determined to steer the audience toward a specific interpretation of events.
  86. Confess, Fletch
    Getting peeved at Mottola and Hamm’s easygoing efforts would be like getting mad at a cat for sleeping too much.
  87. See How They Run
    With a sprightly wit and an all-star cast to bring it to life, the movie manages to be a loving parody of theater gossips, postwar London and Christie’s murder mysteries all at once.
  88. Gameboys: The Movie
    It leads with a teen soap tone, and despite billing itself as a film, feels structurally more like a string of episodes smashed together.
  89. A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff
    The movie feels shaggily shapeless, as if Rabins and Rose were unsure what, exactly, they were trying to say, or how to get to the mourning prayer that gives their movie its title — and does, eventually, provide an emotional coda.
  90. Dos Estaciones
    At once specific and expansive, Dos Estaciones can be described several ways: as a drama, a character study, a meditative exploration of the ravages of globalization. At the same time, part of the movie’s pleasure is how it avoids facile categorization.
  91. End of the Road
    Even when the movie wants for tension, it brims with playful style.
  92. About Fate
    It would all be pretty boilerplate, but Mann’s anchoring appeal — his lean into Griffin’s modesty and decency — saves the movie from a sorrier fate.
  93. House of Darkness
    Here is House of Darkness anyway, a talky, allegorical horror film that delivers plenty of LaBute’s typically sharp irony and observations but little raison d’être. It is sometimes insightful, just not about women, who outnumber the men three to one.
  94. Medieval
    On land and underwater, the verisimilitude of the violence is numbing.
  95. Speak No Evil
    Gliding inexorably from squirmy to sinister to full-on shocking, this icy satire of middle-class mores, confidently directed by Christian Tafdrup, is utterly fearless in its mission to unsettle.
  96. The Story of Film: A New Generation
    Cousins’s assessments offer plenty to argue with, but it’s possible to enjoy “A New Generation” without agreeing that “Booksmart” “extends the world of film comedy,” as he claims, or that a shot in “It Follows” merits comparison to the camerawork in Michael Snow’s landmark experimental film “La Région Centrale.”
  97. Hold Me Tight
    For all the intensity of Krieps’s performance and the power of the piano repertoire, Hold Me Tight proceeds through the mourning process with a strange detachment, using Clarisse’s agony as scaffolding for ideas about memory and storytelling that seem more imposed on life than pulled from it.
  98. The Anthrax Attacks
    Many documentaries have dealt with real-life ambiguity by making it part of their structure and argument. This one treats it as an afterthought.
  99. The Bengali
    Despite an intriguing premise, what Kaul actually wants to say here is in need of a lot more fleshing out.
  100. True Things
    What makes the film’s episodic approach flow is the pulse-sensitive camerawork. It’s worth singling out, because it is the kind that is often described as “intimate” but rarely pulled off with such Maysles-esque aplomb.
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