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. Stop and Go
    Everton and Call are charming enough, and Everton is a particularly magnetic physical performer, but their high jinks . . . are hit-and-miss. But mostly miss.
  2. The Guilty
    Essentially a one-man show, The Guilty necessarily vibrates to the rhythms of its lead.
  3. Titane
    For all its reckless style and velocity, Titane doesn’t seem to know where it wants to go.
  4. No Time to Die
    The overall vibe — a look that is both opulent and generic; a tone that mixes brisk professionalism with maundering self-pity; an aggressive, exhausting fusion of grandiosity and fun — is more superhero saga than espionage caper.
  5. No One Gets Out Alive
    The movie has not bothered to connect its ideas.
  6. Birds of Paradise
    Structured around a countdown to the ultimate prize, the story is a soapy slog of sabotage and betrayal. Sex and drugs are as prevalent as pliés, the absence of a likable character as irksome as the constant conniving.
  7. Dear Evan Hansen
    Treacly and manipulative, Dear Evan Hansen turns villain into victim and grief into an exploitable vulnerability. It made me cringe.
  8. Intrusion
    It’s an exercise in watching someone have the world’s slowest revelation.
  9. The Village Detective: a song cycle
    Morrison, who is the producer, director and editor of this strangely intoxicating film, is a cinematic investigator of the first stripe.
  10. The Starling
    Blatant product placement, unconvincing bird effects and awful soundtrack selections all undermine a potentially wrenching, difficult premise with utter bogusness.
  11. East of the Mountains
    In a star’s turn, Skerritt reveals the tiniest fissures of vulnerability in his unfaltering portrayal of a cardiologist who is ailing and grieving — and fed up with both.
  12. My Little Pony: A New Generation
    However generic (just this year, “Raya and the Last Dragon” depicted a similar treasure hunt geared toward bringing together diverse groups), the film’s messaging about unity and the need for a new generation to band together against misinformation and rabble rousing isn’t the worst thing.
  13. I'm Your Man
    Edging now and then into the surreal, this unusual and tender little movie gingerly interrogates the gulf between digital and biological wiring.
  14. El Planeta
    This is a dry comedy that elicits amused recognition rather than belly laughs, and Ulman, as a first-time feature director, makes canny decisions to set a wry tone.
  15. The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
    Andresen’s determination to rise above misfortune, and his hopes for himself, make this movie less than a total tragedy. But it’s an often shudder-inducing cautionary tale.
  16. Everybody's Talking About Jamie
    Jonathan Butterell’s film, now streaming on Amazon, is a charmer, every bit as sunny, confident and ultimately compelling as Jamie himself.
  17. In Balanchine's Classroom
    There is a beautiful act of translation that this documentary observes, as Balanchine’s former students — now wizened teachers themselves — attempt to render his movements into speech.
  18. Los Últimos Frikis
    The film’s enduring hook is the spectacle of a self-proclaimed revolutionary government that can’t abide the rebellion of rock without bureaucratic oversight.
  19. Saint-Narcisse
    For the most part, LaBruce tries to maintain fidelity to the idea that camp is best performed straight. If keeping up the pretense of unwinking entertainment causes the pace to drag at times, at least this movie never fails to follow through on its scandalous promise.
  20. I Am Not Alone
    The talking heads, who discuss events in the past tense, sap the protest material’s momentum, and a score by Serj Tankian (who appears as a commentator) is unnecessarily manipulative.
  21. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    The Bakkers were many things to many people: appalling, inspiring, laughable, sad. This movie succeeds in making them dull.
  22. The Nowhere Inn
    Formally lively, The Nowhere Inn is a true meta exercise in the sense that the more derivative and self-conscious its conceptual gambits seem (stick around: The reflexivity continues after the end credits), the more it proves its ostensible point.
  23. The Mad Women's Ball
    Laurent has made an elegant if overheated melodrama that amplifies the villainy of Charcot and his colleagues (one proves particularly appalling) to underscore how male-centered the medical establishment was — and is.
  24. Blue Bayou
    Beautifully relaxed family scenes help us forgive the ponderous direction.
  25. Wife of a Spy
    Wife of a Spy is something like linear narrative perfection, with every scene perfectly calibrated.
  26. Prisoners of the Ghostland
    Sono’s visuals, sizzlingly realized by the cinematographer Sohei Tanikawa, lack neither brio nor imagination. But the ludicrousness of the plot severs any emotional connection to a story whose apocalyptic stylings (the Ghostland of the title is a nuclear wasteland) gesture toward Japan and America’s painful history.
  27. Cry Macho
    This one is something different — a deep cut for the die-hards, a hangout movie with nothing much to prove and just enough to say, with a pleasing score (by Mark Mancina) and some lovely desert scenery (shot by Ben Davis). If the old man’s driving, my advice is to get in and enjoy the ride.
  28. Little Girl
    [A] disarmingly sensitive documentary.
  29. My Name Is Pauli Murray
    Indeed, Murray’s story is a remarkable — and extensive — one that the filmmakers stuff into an hour and a half that feels like a dull and disorganized PowerPoint lecture.
  30. Nightbooks
    Its devotion to frights makes it memorable.
  31. Azor
    Written and directed by Andreas Fontana, making a formally precise, tonally perfect feature debut, Azor is a low-key shocker.
  32. Malignant
    None of this is especially scary, but, if you’re patient, Wan delivers the kind of hilariously sick climax that only a sadist would spoil. Or envisage.
  33. Come from Away
    This amiable production’s temperature never rises above lukewarm: good sentiments are, unfortunately, difficult to dramatize, an issue compounded by a score that can feel like aural wallpaper.
  34. Fauci
    Fauci is at its best when it draws parallels between the pandemics that define Dr. Fauci’s career. It vexes when it leans on straightforward biography
  35. The Card Counter
    The solitary man returns in The Card Counter, a haunting, moving story of spirit and flesh, sin and redemption, love and death about another lonely soul, William Tell, who, with pen to paper, grapples with his present and his unspeakable past.
  36. No Responders Left Behind
    While pragmatic in bent, the documentary repeatedly underlines the toxic manner in which this country treats many who have sacrificed body and mind in service to others.
  37. Fire Music
    This concise but cogent documentary directed by Tom Surgal is crammed with exhilarating sounds, moving reminiscences and stimulating arguments that it is not just music, but vital music.
  38. Language Lessons
    The twists in the story are meant to raise the emotional stakes, but they have the opposite effect, undermining the credibility of the premise. The harder the movie leans into its own cleverness, the more it exposes itself as a diverting but ultimately unconvincing exercise.
  39. Dogs
    One can imagine how the particularities of the Romanian bush might yield novel dynamics. Instead, Dogs underplays these elements and commits to the beats of the slow burn thriller in mostly generic form.
  40. Queenpins
    Queenpins might have been a snappy little comedy had it lost 20 minutes and found a point beyond glorifying grand larceny. Erasing the lead character’s smug-perky narration wouldn’t have hurt, either.
  41. Dating & New York
    A winning cast helps sell that familiar premise — not just Reale and Young-White, who have definite chemistry and an easy-flowing banter, but also the brassy, scene-stealing Catherine Cohen.
  42. The Capote Tapes
    There’s some fascinating and provocative material in The Capote Tapes that is diluted by the director Ebs Burnough’s insistence on teasing a question that, arguably, has a self-evident answer.
  43. The Alpinist
    The movie could stand to demystify how some of its most terrifying early shots were filmed. (Later on, we’re told Leclerc agreed to carry a small camera himself to shoot part of a conquest in Patagonia.) But it does capture its subject’s philosophy.
  44. Kate
    The movie presents an eye-catching fantasy of a candy-colored Japanese underworld. But the exoticism feels as cheap as a whiff of a green tea and musk cologne called Tokyo wafting over a department store counter. Even Winstead, stoic in her fashionably boyish haircut, looks bored.
  45. Small Engine Repair
    The film, which Pollono also directs, provides more depth than the original but still flounders in the translation from stage to screen.
  46. Cinderella
    Among the countless iterations the story has weathered through the ages, this Cinderella (streaming on Amazon), starring Camila Cabello as the orphaned maiden, is forgettable. It is oddly transfixing, though, as a study in the semiotics of the modernized fairy tale.
  47. The Big Scary 'S' Word
    Hope is not a policy, as the saying goes, so Bridge gamely tries to provide both, fleshing out ideals with examples.
  48. Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles
    Despite the modern technology, the setting and the sound draws attention to what is retro about this young star’s style, the influences from bossa nova, jazz, and traditional choral music that pop up in her chart-topping records.
  49. Who You Think I Am
    Because much of the rest of the story is so underdeveloped — notably Claire’s intimate life with her frustratingly generic children — the character overwhelms everything, including the fragile realism.
  50. Anne at 13,000 ft
    The title character is one of those difficult women that the movies just can’t quit and rarely prove as interesting as filmmakers seem to think. Anne obviously has issues — psychological, behavioral, familial — but the movie isn’t big on specifics. It’s a pretty, uninvolving blur.
  51. Faya Dayi
    Unifying this elliptical canvas is the sense of a contemplative search, which can also mean an escape from an altered homeland, perhaps to dull what feels lost.
  52. Memory House
    Trapped in a hopelessly alienating world, Cristovam would rather buck than surrender; a fatal end would seem inevitable, but wisely, Miranda Maria pulls back the reins with a glimpse of empathy that teases a potential way forward.
  53. We Need to Do Something
    Despite some nifty freak-outs, the movie’s buildup can lack a certain snap.
  54. Yakuza Princess
    The cynical pro forma luridness Yakuza Princess grinds out suggests that sensationalist cinema, or at least its most ostensibly mainstream iteration, is currently depleted of resources.
  55. Mogul Mowgli
    With the director of photography (Annika Summerson) and the sound designer (Paul Davies), Tariq stitches domestic drama, satire and magical realism into a tissue of moods and meanings, held together by the shattering credibility of Ahmed’s performance.
  56. Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James
    The movie wants the viewer to believe that James didn’t have it easy — and he didn’t. But it can’t skate over the aberrant actions that led to his imprisonment. “Bitchin’” is fascinating and troubling viewing.
  57. The Year of the Everlasting Storm
    The omnibus film The Year of the Everlasting Storm assembles pandemic-made shorts from around the globe. But with just two decent segments out of seven, this anthology uncannily replicates the sensation of feeling trapped.
  58. Wild Indian
    The ensuing violence and its aftermath are chilling, woeful and utterly consistent with the tragedy that began long before a fateful afternoon in the woods.
  59. Worth
    For all the ways in which it might give short shrift to the politics or policy of the fund, Worth is uncommonly moving by the standards of biopics and certainly by the standards of movies that risk addressing 9/11 so overtly.
  60. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    The film uses the superficial markers of Asian culture and filmmaking without presenting anything unique in its Marvel take on that tradition.
  61. Vacation Friends
    Clay Tarver, a veteran of the TV series “Silicon Valley” (and a founder of the postpunk band Chavez) directs with an eye and ear that’s a cut above what one usually gets with this sort of fare.
  62. He's All That
    Hot people pretending to be homely is par for the course in makeover movies; the real thrill lies in watching opposites attract. But the catfights, confessions, and dance-offs in He’s All That lack the sting of real romantic conflict, and there’s nary a spark between Rae and Buchanan.
  63. Kipchoge: The Last Milestone
    The athleticism, physics and what one person calls the “bit of ballet” of the event are all stirring to witness.
  64. Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed
    The melancholy result is that the painter with the spectacularly lulling voice, the hallmark ’fro and the liberating kindness remains a mystery; not the brand that’s made millions but the guy who touched millions.
  65. No Man of God
    For anyone who has heard audio of Bundy, Kirby’s impersonation will sound chillingly close to the real killer’s deadened, yet at times disturbingly raffish, cadence. Wood is persuasive, too, although Kit Lesser’s script writes the character as a cliché.
  66. Mosquito State
    Borne along on the whine of insects and a lead performance of surpassing strangeness, “Mosquito State” is a disquieting merger of body horror and social commentary.
  67. The Colony
    Though it centers on one woman, anything we might stand to learn about her own developing values is quickly swallowed by overcomplicated narratives about secondary characters, corrupt colonizers and family secrets.
  68. Together
    That it’s bearable at all is entirely because of the superlative acting skills of James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan as an unnamed couple forced to endure an extended London lockdown.
  69. Isabella
    While the pieces more or less fall into place, trying to solve the mysteries of Isabella may be missing the point.
  70. American Sausage Standoff
    What ensues when Edward and the town’s reactionaries clash cannot be properly called hilarity, and the end product of this dismal film is mostly befuddlement.
  71. Lily Topples the World
    No arguments, frustrations or consequential disappointments mar the film’s unvaryingly upbeat tone. This leaves us with a movie that feels more like a marketing tool for her self-designed brand of dominoes than a nuanced portrait of an unusual talent.
  72. Candyman
    It’s easy to shock viewers with splatter but the old gut-and-run gets awfully boring awfully fast. Far better is the slow creep, the horror that teases and then threatens. The dread inexorably builds in Candyman, which snaps into focus after Anthony learns of the boogeyman.
  73. Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac
    The new movie is less cohesive than “Biggie and Tupac,” and Broomfield is not suited to documentaries with willing subjects.
  74. Sweet Girl
    For this action film, the director Brian Andrew Mendoza favors a utilitarian style. His color palette leans toward grays, blues and browns. His fight scenes are not flashy, or even particularly memorable, but they are clear, effectively conveying the necessary information about whose fist has connected with whose face.
  75. The Smartest Kids in the World
    The Smartest Kids in the World aspires to offer a study of teaching methods worldwide, but the documentary (on Discovery+) contains little rigor. It’s a dippy lecture in motion.
  76. The Protégé
    Kudos to Q, though, for a performance anchored in classy disdain for the baloney around her.
  77. On Broadway
    On Broadway sure knows how to work a theater-lover’s heart.
  78. Wildland
    So committed to maintaining an enigmatically sinister atmosphere, the film fails to build out the many compelling issues it raises about toxic masculinity and familial gaslighting. Nevertheless, some inspired confrontations, and a commanding performance by Sidse Babett Knudsen, who plays the hot-and-cold matriarch, Bodil, makes “Wildland” an absorbing and highly watchable psychodrama.
  79. Demonic
    Flat acting, risible dialogue, a witless story — sometimes when a movie hits this trifecta so completely, it engenders a feeling of disreputable pleasure. It’s bad, and you know it, and maybe the filmmakers know it too.
  80. The Outsider
    What’s especially peculiar about the focus on Shulan is that, in other respects, The Outsider is an ensemble piece, distributing screen time among a half a dozen people planning for the museum’s opening.
  81. Flag Day
    Penn gives him a vivid, wheedling desperation that’s weirdly moving, and the younger Penn has clearly inherited the emotional expressiveness of her mother, Robin Wright. Maybe that’s why Flag Day feels as much a love letter from Penn to his own daughter as the story of someone else’s.
  82. Reminiscence
    Highfalutin, lightly enjoyable mush, Reminiscence is one of those speculative fictions that are at once undernourished and overcooked. It makes no sense (despite all the explaining), but it draws you in with genre beats, pretty people and the professional polish of its machined parts.
  83. Under the Volcano
    Almost 40 years later, it’s hilarious to see Stewart Copeland speak of Sting with still-fresh feelings of exasperation, irritation and admiration. Fans of Elton John will find the manic work ethic he applied to the album “Too Low for Zero” fascinating.
  84. PAW Patrol: The Movie
    Yes, the computer-generated colors, overseen by the director Cal Brunker, are bright, the pups have soulful eyes . . . and the story line . . . is, um, a story line.
  85. The Night House
    As the screenplay teases natural explanations for these sinister goings-on — Extreme grief? Nightmares? Mental illness? — Bruckner maintains a death grip on the film’s mood while his cinematographer, Elisha Christian, turns the home’s reflective surfaces into shape-shifting puzzle pieces.
  86. Cryptozoo
    Cryptozoo stands out as an aesthetically ambitious undertaking, seducing viewers with its hypnotizing hand-drawn animation and John Carroll Kirby’s pulsing electronic score.
  87. In the Same Breath
    If In the Same Breath — the title becomes more resonant with each new scene and shock — were simply about China and its handling (mishandling) of the pandemic, it would be exemplary. But the story that she tells is larger and deeper than any one country because this is a story that envelops all of us, and it is devastating.
  88. Beckett
    Washington is a likable actor and easy on the eyes, but the character is unproductively one-dimensional and so is the performance, which remains reactive and opaque. Here, at least, he can’t turn an underconceptualized character into one whom you either care about or want to watch gasping and grimacing for several hours.
  89. Usedom: A Clear View of the Sea
    Shaping personal and geographical history into sun-drenched dollops, the director Heinz Brinkmann fashions a charmingly quirky guide to his island home.
  90. Respect
    Respect succeeds in doing exactly what is expected of it. You may argue with this or that filmmaking choice and regret its overly smooth edges, but it does give you a sense of Franklin as a historical figure, a crossover success story and a full-throttle, fur-draped diva.
  91. Don't Breathe 2
    Don’t Breathe 2 is plenty lively, full of violence and action, but a rancid narrative (and some seriously terrible dialogue) overpowers the script.
  92. Materna
    As it stands, the glue uniting these women of different ethnicities and backgrounds reads like a failed attempt to carve a more ambitious meaning out of individual stories already brimming with possibility.
  93. Homeroom
    Like a diploma, it’s easy to imagine how the rewards of this carefully observed documentary could accrue with a little time.
  94. The Lost Leonardo
    It’s a dizzying tale. And whether or not you believe “Salvator Mundi” to be a real Leonardo, it’s ultimately a disgusting one.
  95. Days
    Tsai’s motives for stretching his shots become clear after a while, and the film builds an uncanny mood.
  96. Ema
    Whether a melodramatic comment on art and anarchy, or a wild experiment in toxic maternalism, the film feels like a fever that just won’t break.
  97. The East
    The details may be novel — even eye-opening for some — but this story of white guilt and brutality feels mighty old.
  98. The Meaning of Hitler
    The Meaning of Hitler takes a multifaceted, often counterintuitive approach to examining the underpinnings of fascism.
  99. Not Going Quietly
    It is a warm and generous portrait, but the film lacks its central organizer’s propulsive shrewdness.
  100. Searching for Mr. Rugoff
    As someone who grew up going to some of the theaters Rugoff once ran — which included Cinema I and II and the Beekman, among others — I got the warm-and-fuzzies from seeing the love here for moviegoing and exhibition, which he goosed with gonzo showmanship.
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