The New York Times' Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Adorenarin doraibu
    Mr. Yaguchi's film is so brazenly cheerful and charmingly engineered that even the sourballs in the cast are sucked in.
  2. Air Force One
    A meat-and-potatoes American thriller that means business all around the world.
  3. Chopper
    Mr. Bana's Chopper is so scarily convincing that he makes you feel the eruptive force of each mood swing and the way his character's paranoia, egomania and conscience- stricken apologies are part of a volatile emotional cycle.
  4. Bandits
    Its winning cast, spirited music and mordant view of establishment figures, from the police to cocaine-sniffing record industry executives, make Bandits a stylish, buoyant entertainment.
  5. Horns and Halos
    Here is a rich tale of our times, very well told with an appropriate minimum of means.
  6. Psycho Beach Party
    It is surprisingly timely.
  7. Austin Powers in Goldmember
    Like a giant balloon painted with Day-Glo colors, however, the whole gaudy mess wouldn't inflate without the force of Mr. Myers's comic genius. It's his baby, baby. And after three editions, it's still flying high.
  8. Hard Eight
    The role of Jimmy is one of Mr. Jackson's scarier characters, and this brilliant actor inhabits all four corners of his jittery, avaricious personality. When he and Sydney finally clash, the movie makes its darkest, cleverest turn into film-noir nightmare.
  9. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown
    Queen Victoria is played with splendid regal grace by Judi Dench.
  10. Human Resources
    The movie's dramatic climax is a father-son confrontation of stunning cruelty. Although the movie stops short of outright tragedy, it is suffused with a grief born of rifts that may never be mended.
  11. Hotel
    Though finally overwhelmed by a preening lassitude, Hotel is never less than fascinating.
  12. Sweet and Lowdown
    This is one very tuneful labor of love.
  13. Small Time Crooks
    In this sweet, funny wisp of a movie, Mr. Allen shucks off his fabled angst and returns in spirit to those wide-eyed days of yesteryear, before Chekhov, Kafka and Ingmar Bergman invaded his creative imagination.
  14. Punch-Drunk Love
    Poetry is perhaps the best way to think about Mr. Anderson's suave, exuberant balance of free-form inspiration and formal control.
  15. Virgil Bliss
    It is enough of an act of optimism just to raise the specter of heroic nobility, something that Virgil Bliss accomplishes with subtlety and poignancy.
  16. He Got Game
    Basketball, bold urban landscapes, larger-than-life characters and red-hot visual pyrotechnics are the strong points of Mr. Lee's biggest three-ring circus, not to mention the central presence of Denzel Washington.
  17. Star Trek: Insurrection
    Insurrection is breezily paced, and Michael Piller's screenplay has enough good-natured humor to keep things from bogging down into sentimental pomposity.
  18. Man on the Train
    Mr. Leconte gives this meeting of opposites in Claude Klotz's script a lovely, sportive élan, instead of making it register as lumpy, obvious polemics.
  19. The Widow of Saint-Pierre
    Mr. Leconte seems at last to have anchored his cinematic gifts to a story worth caring about.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Full Monty
    Inevitably, the film has echoes of "Brassed Off," another recent British export. The Full Monty is less sentimental and arguably funnier.
  21. Cuban Rafters
    It remains a documentary at heart, full of astonishing glimpses of human resiliency that have nothing to do with artfulness and everything to do with patience, persistence and sympathy.
  22. Knafayim Shvurot
    The movie's sense of emotional claustrophobia is underscored by a complete lack of interest in Middle Eastern politics, or in anything outside the troubled family unit.
  23. Greendale
    There is really no other way to categorize this splendid, crotchety artifact.
  24. The Business of Strangers
    With an intensity that few movies have mustered, The Business of Strangers makes you feel the acute loneliness of it all.
  25. In This World
    If there is heartbreak in this movie, there is also a sense of energy that makes it almost exhilarating.
  26. The Anniversary Party
    Despite its shortcomings, this smart, caustic movie is easily the most incisive and realistic comedy of manners to emerge from Hollywood in quite a while, and that's saying a lot.
  27. Audition
    The picture is about victims -- but it's also a great, sick rush with a kicker on the level of "The Vanishing."
  28. The Safety of Objects
    With the help of an ensemble that is nearly flawless, she (Troche) assembles the damaged human elements of Ms. Homes's world with patience and precision, and more often than not chooses dry understatement over easy satire or obvious sentiment.
  29. In & Out
    Deliver laughs and skewer a few stereotypes, thanks to extremely sly wit and a fine cast.
  30. Unbreakable
    Mr. Shyamalan may be the only mainstream director hankering for success with a need to understate; he is like Shaq without the tattoos. The result is a mastery of craft that may leave some hungry for more.
  31. Apocalypse Now
    Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now lives up to its grand title, disclosing not only the various faces of war but also the contradictions between excitement and boredom, terror and pity, brutality and beauty. Its epiphanies would do credit to Federico Fellini, who is indirectly quoted at one point.
  32. MC5*: A True Testimonial
    The proto-punk warriors known as the MC5 left a dent that outlasts their mostly negligible record sales, and the director's curiosity is piqued by the group's sociological impact.
  33. High Art
    To their credit, the actors immerse themselves deeply in the film's self-conscious aura. Ms. Sheedy reinvents herself as a tough, fascinating presence, while Ms. Mitchell's earnest bewilderment also serves the story well.
  34. Secretary
    A wholesome self-help fable about the unlocking of shame and its magical transformation into pleasure and personal liberation.
  35. Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
    The man who emerges is a likable, unpretentious musical enthusiast and roll-up-your-sleeves problem-solver who apparently led a charmed life.
  36. Practical Magic
    Based on Alice Hoffman's fanciful novel and directed with go-for-broke prettiness by Griffin Dunne, Practical Magic is nothing but a guilty pleasure.
  37. Trainspotting
    The stylish irreverence of Trainspotting mimics that drug high and delivers its own potent kick.
  38. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
    For all its eccentricities and technical quirks, Dracula is a compelling expressionistic work.
  39. Bus 174
    So wrenching and absorbing that you can easily lose sight of the sophistication of its techniques.
  40. Some Kind of Wonderful
    It has a light touch, a disarming cast, a well-developed sense of humor and a lot of charm. [27 Feb 1987, p.C17]
    • The New York Times
  41. Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands
    There is also something rather splendid about this extended-play peep show, as if Mr. Maddin had stumbled across a hitherto lost archive of cinema's less-than-innocent past. What makes all this nostalgia for a movie history that never happened is that, as is always the case with Mr. Maddin's work, it's executed with more love than irony and not a whit of derision.
  42. The Dancer Upstairs
    Echoes its director's own deportment as a performer, alternating silky smoothness with burlap coarseness. Though Mr. Malkovich stays entirely behind the scenes, he creates a languorous but gripping story of people fighting to stay a step ahead of hopelessness.
  43. My First Mister
    Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, especially Mr. Brooks, deliver outstanding performances in the first feature film to be directed by Ms. Lahti.
  44. Enemy of the State
    It has a hurtling pace, nonstop intensity and a stylish, appealing performance by Will Smith in his first real starring role.
  45. The Princess Bride
    Mr. Reiner seems to understand exactly what Mr. Goldman loves about stories of this kind, and he conveys it with clarity and affection.
  46. Iron Monkey
    Saving the big number for the climax, like any good musical director, Mr. Yuen finishes up with a spectacular variation on the traditional kung fu pole fight.
  47. Twister
    Hurtling pace, by-the-numbers character development and exotic science. Tornado-chasing suddenly takes on a sex appeal not usually associated with horrendous storms.
  48. Shallow Hal
    The most shocking thing about it may be its unabashed sincerity.
  49. Salaam Bombay!
    Bombay is a place of noise, restless movement and no privacy whatsover. It is squalor accepted as the natural order of things, and thus accommodated. Miss Nair does not share this fatalism, but in ''Salaam Bombay!'' she allows us to examine it without panic, and without patronizing it. She is a new film maker to watch.
  50. Cabin Fever
    Sustains such a palpable mood of foreboding until the end.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jesus' Son
    One of the pleasures of Jesus' Son is watching a filmmaker take risks and discover new resources of style.
  52. Buffalo '66
    Cool, stark compositions and the occasional audacious visual trick give Buffalo '66 a memorable look even when its narrative enters the occasional uneventful stretch.
  53. Quills
    Occasionally becomes pretentious and shrill -- sometimes Mr. Wright isn't aware that his material is so good that he doesn't need to comment on his characters.
  54. The Magdalene Sisters
    The Magdalene Sisters would be too painful to watch if it didn't have a silver lining. Suffice it to say that it is possible to fly over this religious cuckoo's nest and remain free. All it takes is courage and the timely kindness of strangers.
  55. Go
    He (Liman) creates a film that lives up to the momentum of its title and doesn't really need much more.
  56. Bon voyage
    Blurs the line between comedy and epic drama so adroitly that the two styles fuse into something quite original: a lyrical farce that pays homage to its period in any number of ways.
  57. It Runs in the Family
    Jesse Wigutow's screenplay is one of those marvels of economy, idiomatic facility and well-chosen detail that knows exactly when to cut away from a scene without grinding it into your face.
  58. Journey to the Sun
    An incisive drama about a waking nightmare.
  59. Carandiru
    Exudes a throbbing flesh-and-blood intensity so compelling that it's impossible to avert your eyes.
  60. What Alice Found
    A small, finely wrought drama.
  61. The Sweet Hereafter
    The filmmaker creates schematic, intuitive images that hauntingly crystallize the characters' situations.
  62. American Splendor
    There's as much at stake in the hilarious, moody and cantankerous film adaptation of "Splendor" as there was in this summer's other movies of comic-book antiheroes like "The Hulk" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."
  63. Guinevere
    Affectionately told ...beguiling.
  64. The Winslow Boy
    Mamet's handsome, stately adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy does not embellish upon its source material. Instead it skillfully pares the play down to its essentials, arriving at a faithful but tighter version of this drama.
  65. Blue Car
    Mr. Strathairn's complex, exquisitely nuanced portrayal of a man who goes over the line allows his character to be both hero and villain, sometimes at once.
  66. The Good Thief
    The ultimate caper, a work of brazen ebullience.
  67. The Mask of Zorro
    This is hot-weather escapism so earnestly retrograde that it seems new.
  68. Twin Falls Idaho
    An eerily effective film...Twin Falls Idaho has style, gravity and originality to spare.
  69. Run Lola Run
    Tykwer deliberately blows away all traces of the mundane and the familiar, so that not even the closing credit crawl moves in the expected way.
  70. He liu
    Whether or not The River is, as some critics have claimed, Mr. Tsai's masterpiece, it is an excellent introduction to his oblique narrative style, his favored themes and his careful, lyrical visual sensibility.
  71. Zelary
    It has a familiar, lived-in feel, and if its observations of rural life at a time of political turmoil don't feel terribly original, they are nonetheless absorbing and sometimes powerful.
  72. Morvern Callar
    This minimalist film is slightly hobbled by its minimal plot; it's the crucial difference between a movie with moments of greatness and a great movie.
  73. La grande strada azzurra
    A political movie that, partly through the powerful lead performance of its star, the relatively young Yves Montand, transcends its own politics.
  74. Central Station
    There's plenty of room for sentimentality here, but the wonder of Salles' film is all in the telling.
  75. Pecker
    Finding hilarity in John Waters's latest movie title is the basic pre requisite for enjoying the goofy ingenuity of his new film.
  76. Lilo & Stitch
    Hardly a work of state-of-the-art virtuosity, but rather an example of quiet, confident craftsmanship that tells a sweet, charming tale of intergalactic friendship.
  77. The Five Obstructions
    Watching The Five Obstructions is at once like witnessing two chess masters playing dominoes and like spying on a series of therapy sessions. Mr. von Trier clearly sees himself as a maniacal psychoanalyst.
  78. Aberdeen
    Skarsgard and Headey deliver perfectly meshed lead performances in a small, beautifully acted film that will make you squirm.
  79. The Devil's Backbone
    Mr. del Toro provokes your screams and shudders, but he also earns your tears.
  80. Tuck Everlasting
    An effective, well-made film that will certainly please its target audience of preteen girls.
  81. Private Parts
    Thanks to sharp editing and surprisingly strong comic timing, the film puts less emphasis on the Stern raunchiness than on how his wilder routines make listeners drive off the road.
  82. Vodka Lemon
    The thicket of relationships that the director, Hiner Saleem, has created and weaves his cast and camera through is so invitingly hotblooded and crowded with hilariously melodramatic incident that the snowbanks are not nearly as forbidding as they initially seem.
  83. The Animal
    Transcendently dumb but very funny comedy.
  84. Arlington Road
    While this film's conception of a terrorist threat is apparent early on, its strength lies in a string of ingenious little surprises.
  85. Entrapment
    Combine two stars of this wattage with a lot of techno-talk and elaborate heist plotting and you get plenty of good reasons to pay attention.
  86. The Golden Bowl
    If this handsome, faithful, intelligent screen adaptation of the novel doesn't leave you devastated, its ominous sense of a rarefied moral and aesthetic world bending before the accelerating streetcar of history will leave you with a mournful sense of loss.
  87. Shrek
    A giggly cocktail, though it's more foam than drink.
  88. To Be and to Have
    The interest of To Be and to Have, though, is not sociological: it is not really about the French educational system, rural life or even the way children learn. It is, rather, the portrait of an artist, a man whose work combines discipline and inspiration and unfolds mysteriously and imperceptibly.
  89. Das Boot
    Das Boot is yet another moving testament to the wastefulness of battle.
  90. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
    It's up to snuff. It sustains the gee-whiz spirit of the series.
  91. Bright Young Things
    Waugh's dialogue, effortlessly catching the lockjaw intonations and facetious mannerisms of the British aristocracy between the world wars, is a gift to screenwriters and performers alike. The actors Mr. Fry has assembled receive the gift with gusto and grace.
  92. Dirty Dancing
    The dancing itself, especially the dirty dancing, choreographed by Kenny Ortega, looks very contemporary, or, at least, as contemporary as "Saturday Night Fever," but it has a drive and a pulse that give the filim real excitement. [21 Aug 1987, p.C3]
    • The New York Times
  93. House of Sand and Fog
    The nearly flawless execution of a deeply flawed premise.
  94. Spider
    Brilliantly realized but bone-chillingly bleak.
  95. Your Friends & Neighbors
    The web of lies, failures and brutal revelations here is strong stuff, and it's the work of an original filmmaker who takes no prisoners.
  96. Shall We Dance?
    And the dancing, as in ''Strictly Ballroom,'' is filmed with a wishful Fred-and-Ginger sweetness that gives the film a studiously effervescent mood.
  97. Sunshine
    Leaves you with a sense of quiet, chastened grace.
  98. Faat Kiné
    Sembène is a far more adroit and elegant storyteller than many may be accustomed to seeing.
  99. Election
    Election is a deft dark comedy with a resemblance to "Rushmore." It's smart no matter what.
  100. Fleeing by Night
    The kind of old-fashioned, grown-up weepie in which the hearts of men and women are cracked, and the shards flutter through the story. Its directness is the movie equivalent of hot, fresh popcorn.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »