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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    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Jungle Book
    Based loosely on Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories, this glowing little picture should be grand fun for all ages.
  2. The Legend of Tarzan
    The Legend of Tarzan has a whole lot of fun, big-screen things going for it — adventure, romance, natural landscapes, digital animals and oceans of rippling handsome man-muscle. Its sweep and easy pleasures come from its old-fashioned escapades — it’s one long dash through the jungle by foot, train, boat and swinging vine — but what makes it more enjoyable than other recycled stories of this type is that the filmmakers have given Tarzan a thoughtful, imperfect makeover.
  3. The Standbys
    Ms. Riggs gives each actor a story arc of sorts, and all three are personable guides to this backstage world, explaining the process and terminology and talking openly about their lives and jobs.
  4. Monster Trucks
    It’s an eco-fable devoid of didactic overkill, delivered with energy, winking mischief, unobtrusive effects and a skilled cast.
  5. The Final Member
    This wonderfully weird documentary pinpoints the desire to preserve fleeting glories.
  6. The Conjuring 2
    The Conjuring 2 does everything you want a sequel to do. It’s as well made as the original, but the location and the story are different enough that it’s not just the same thing all over again.
  7. Honey
    Honey, the impressive debut feature by Ms. Golino, sustains a contemplative mood with undersaturated cinematography that evokes the world as perceived through a light mist.
  8. Guilty of Romance
    Most disturbing and fascinating is the mixture of Izumi’s liberation with her degradation in this film, which plays like a more horrific version of David Lynch’s “Mullholland Drive.”
  9. Himizu
    Mr. Sono uses sound, a low, grumbling noise like an earthquake, to convey this chaos. He also gives the film a harrowing cacophony and a sense of trauma with sound effects, including subtle echoes.
  10. Fort Tilden
    Rarely has a movie so humorously illustrated the meaning of “frenemy.”
  11. Just a Sigh
    The movie is beautifully acted, and the chemistry between Ms. Devos, who is 49 (her character is 43), and Mr. Byrne, 63, is heated in a sadder-but-wiser, grown-up way.
  12. A Brief History of Time
    A Brief History of Time is a kind of adventure that seldom reaches the screen, and it's a tonic.
  13. Words and Pictures
    Words and Pictures has a host of flaws, but the performances by Mr. Owen and Ms. Binoche have a crackling vitality, and the screenplay’s strongest moments set off the kind of trains of thought that dedicated teachers hope to spur in their students.
  14. Watermark
    Always arresting and sometimes troubling, Watermark — aside from the odd comment here and there — neither lectures nor argues.
  15. Being Ginger
    Sweet, funny and ultimately rather touching.
  16. Fed Up
    A whirlwind of talking heads, found footage, scary statistics and cartoonish graphics, the movie is a fast, coolly incensed investigation into why people are getting fatter.
  17. The King and the Mockingbird
    In its humor, its fairy tale origins and the characters’ rounded features, it plays more like a vintage Disney work, only nimbler and freer.
  18. Magic Mike XXL
    Magic Mike XXL boldly flouts pop-cultural conventional wisdom. It’s often said that an explanation of a joke can’t be funny, and that the analysis of pornography is never sexy. But here is a coherent and rigorous theory of pleasure that is also an absolute blast.
  19. Gabrielle
    If the title role of Gabrielle weren’t so fully embodied by its star, Gabrielle Marion-Rivard, this French Canadian movie about love among the disabled would fall on the condescendingly mushy side of the line between heartwarming and saccharine.
  20. Sol LeWitt
    The on-camera absence of its subject and its overall indifference to matters of biography make Sol LeWitt a welcome departure from most documentaries about artists, as well as a fitting and serious tribute to his art.
  21. The Discoverers
    Mr. Schwarz falters with his ending, which feels overly tidy. Still, it’s not the destination; it’s the journey.
  22. The Grand Seduction
    It’s adorable.
  23. Hanna Ranch
    Like many tragic visionaries, Kirk Hanna lives on through his ideas long after his death.
  24. Wolf
    The movie’s grittiness — the director, Jim Taihuttu (“Rabat”), shoots Wolf in black and white — its intrigues, its graphic violence and Mr. Kenzari’s performance make for a worthy addition to the annals of gangster films, Interpol edition.
  25. The Wonders
    Ms. Rohrwacher’s strengths here are the tender intimacy of the performances, particularly those of the older child actors, and her gentle meandering, both narrative and cinematographic.
  26. Saint Laurent
    The film is a compulsively detailed swirl of moods and impressions, intent on capturing the contradictions of the man and his times. Observations of Saint Laurent at work and in love give way to panoramic, intricate surveys of the world of commerce and culture in which he suffered and flourished.
  27. Leviathan
    The director, Andrey Zvyagintsev, has a heavenly eye but a leaden hand, and his movie is as heavy as it is transporting, filled with stirring shots of the natural world and deep dives into a human realm flooded with tears and vodka.
  28. Coming Home
    There is terrible pain here, and the main interest of the film is in how the characters respond to it and what their response says about China’s understanding of its recent history.
  29. Elena
    With its free-floating imagery, Elena unfolds like a cinematic dream whose central image is water, which symbolizes the washing away of grief. But more than that, it represents the stream of life, with beautiful images of women floating through time.
  30. Small Small Thing
    There is no gore here, and no on-screen violence, but this is in every way a horror movie. With a devastating ending.
  31. A League of Their Own
    Though big of budget, A League of Their Own is one of the year's most cheerful, most relaxed, most easily enjoyable comedies. It's a serious film that's lighter than air, a very funny movie that manages to score a few points for feminism in passing.
  32. Jealousy
    Mr. Garrel’s method goes beyond realism to achieve a kind of psychological intimacy that is rare and, in its low-key, meandering way, tremendously exciting.
  33. Believe Me
    The film’s congeniality, however, in no way dulls its humor or the sharpness of its observations.
  34. Northern Light
    There’s a stillness to the filmmaking, coupled with Saunder Jurriaans and David Bensi’s truly lovely original score, that lends specific shots... a near-heartbreaking melancholy.
  35. The Good Lie
    For all its softening, The Good Lie, like “Monsieur Lazhar,” has a core of decency, humanity and good will that feels authentic. You won’t curse yourself for occasionally tearing up.
  36. Selma
    Even if you think you know what’s coming, Selma hums with suspense and surprise. Packed with incident and overflowing with fascinating characters, it is a triumph of efficient, emphatic cinematic storytelling. And much more than that, of course.
  37. Beyond the Edge
    This absorbing account of the first recorded summit of the world’s highest mountain is a rare documentary for which re-enactments make complete sense.
  38. Siddharth
    Its portrayal of impoverished, careworn people barking at one another and protecting their territory in a daily struggle is bracingly hardheaded.
  39. The Empty Hours
    Working with grace and patience, Mr. Fernández makes the mundane captivating.
  40. Closed Curtain
    On one level, the film (or nonfilm; it was shot on digital video and partly with smartphone cameras) is a mischievous, Pirandellian entertainment. It is also an allegory, dark but not despairing, of the creative spirit under political pressure, and of the ways the imagination can be both a refuge and a place of confinement.
  41. As It Is in Heaven
    This low-budget debut by Joshua Overbay cooks a surprising amount of tension from the barest minimum of ingredients.
  42. The Dog
    The Dog is, as its title suggests, a documentary portrait, but it’s also an exploration of that sometimes messy thing called identity.
  43. The Martian
    Mr. Damon’s Everyman quality (he’s our Jimmy Stewart) helps scale the story down, but what makes this epic personal is Mr. Scott’s filmmaking, in which every soaring aerial shot of the red planet is answered by the intimate landscape of a face.
  44. Level Five
    Its themes are a bit nostalgic and some of its technology looks dated, but there is nothing else in theaters now that feels quite as new.
  45. Cheatin'
    Mr. Plympton rewrites the laws of physics at will, but within a rigorous and coherent logic. He conjures a world of absolute improbability that, somehow, makes perfect sense.
  46. Red Hollywood
    Insistently cinematic and dialectical, Red Hollywood has another virtue: It doesn’t toss everyone into a single leftist lump. Differences are articulated and illustrated, as individual voices rise and fall, fade and endure.
  47. Kink
    A fascinating profile of the online pornography provider Kink.com.
  48. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
    Exquisitely drawn with both watercolor delicacy and a brisk sense of line, the film finds a peculiarly moving undertow of feeling in a venerable Japanese folk tale.
  49. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People
    At times, Mr. Harris’s voice-over narration veers into academic abstraction or lyrical emotionalism in ways that undercut the eloquence of the images, but over all he is a wise and passionate guide to an inexhaustibly fascinating subject.
  50. Memphis
    A soulful cinematic tone poem.
  51. Patema Inverted
    The music is lovely, and the animation is soft and imaginatively detailed. Patema and Age may not know what’s upside down or right-way up, but their director is never in any doubt.
  52. All That Jazz
    An uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and, especially, ego.
  53. Born to Fly
    A singularly focused and avant-garde talent, Ms. Streb bends the messy rush of risk to her indomitable will.
  54. The Duke of Burgundy
    In the end there is nothing especially campy about “The Duke of Burgundy,” which neither mocks its heroines nor the breathless, naughty screen tradition to which they belong. It’s a love story, and also a perversely sincere (and sincerely perverse) labor of love.
  55. Goodnight Mommy
    Unspooling with virtually no music and a seriously unsettling sound design, Goodnight Mommy gains significant traction from small moments.
  56. Phoenix
    Never less than intriguing, coolly intelligent and flawlessly paced, Phoenix often feels trapped in the logic of its conceit.
  57. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
    If fun does not really fit into Roy Andersson’s frame of reference, there is ample pleasure to be gleaned from his formal discipline and his downbeat wit.
  58. The Riot Club
    Lone Scherfig (“An Education”), the Danish filmmaker who directed the movie from a screenplay by Ms. Wade, has coaxed wonderfully nasty performances from a young cast.
  59. While We're Young
    This film, Mr. Baumbach’s movie, mostly brings a light touch and a forgiving gloss to its own self-consciousness. It is not afraid to be implicated in the confusion — in the self-involvement, the anxiety, the pettiness — it depicts. But there are also areas where it feels soft and compromised, where the subtlety and clarity of Mr. Baumbach’s vision seem to desert him.
  60. Stop the Pounding Heart
    Its scenes, quiet and undramatic, are nonetheless suffused with an almost lyrical intensity, and its sympathy is as limitless as its curiosity.
  61. 21 Years: Richard Linklater
    The luminaries in “21” pay deserving tribute to Mr. Linklater. Soon, perhaps, so will the Academy
  62. Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border
    This vivid and haunting essay steps away from the debate about illegal immigration.
  63. Alien 3
    Alien 3 belongs to that branch of fantasy comics, best exemplified by the "Road Warrior" movies, in which the iron and space ages meet for dizzy results.
  64. Copenhagen
    Mark Raso’s first feature, Copenhagen, takes on a taboo — great for high-stakes storytelling, if it’s not used to generate empty shock. Worry not: His absorbing film has a delicate nuance that will linger after the popcorn’s gone.
  65. Haider
    Though the political backdrop often overwhelms or distorts the family drama, Mr. Bhardwaj provides the occasional sharp reminder of how cinematically he can construct Shakespearean moments.
  66. The Way He Looks
    This winning movie — directed by Daniel Ribeiro, making his feature debut — dexterously weaves the social challenges of adolescence into a story of broader self-discovery.
  67. You're Not You
    Despite holes in the storytelling, Ms. Swank and Ms. Rossum keep it real.
  68. Diplomacy
    The value of Diplomacy is that it produces at least as much unsettlement as relief, compelling the viewer to remain haunted by nightmarish thoughts of what might have happened.
  69. Sleeping Beauty
    A crisply stylized fairyland, where the colors are rich, the sounds are luscious and magic sparkles spurt charmingly from wands.
  70. Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me
    The film is a rare combination of instructive and poignant.
  71. Pelican Dreams
    Judy Irving injects just enough of herself into her Pelican Dreams to distinguish this sweet film from an episode of the PBS series “Nature.”
  72. Happy Valley
    Happy Valley, even as it revisits past events, has a chilling timeliness.
  73. Logan
    Logan is a strong argument for bringing the comic-book movie down to earth. It solidly hits its marks as it moves the franchise furniture around, and features striking special-effects scenes in which the world shudders to a near standstill.
  74. Wonder Woman
    Its earnest insouciance recalls the “Superman” movies of the ’70s and ’80s more than the mock-Wagnerian spectacles of our own day, and like those predigital Man of Steel adventures, it gestures knowingly but reverently back to the jaunty, truth-and-justice spirit of an even older Hollywood tradition.
  75. Braddock America
    A blue collar poem threaded with old-timer memories and present-day pain, Braddock America pays bittersweet tribute to a once-thriving Pennsylvania steel town and those who stuck around to bear witness to its decline.
  76. Plot for Peace
    A fascinating account of off-the-books diplomacy in the 1980s, “Plot for Peace” is that rare documentary that both augments the historical record and is paced like a thriller.
  77. Hail, Caesar!
    It’s a typically sly, off-center comedy, once again set against the machinery of the motion-picture business. And, as usual with the Coens, it has more going on than there might seem, including in its wrangling over God and ideology, art and entertainment.
  78. Love Hunter
    In its feel for nocturnal light, this is one of the most refreshing New York independent features since Ramin Bahrani’s “Man Push Cart.” Both acoustically and dramatically, Mr. Mumin is a winning performer.
  79. What We Do in the Shadows
    This weird and witty spoof filters the routines of the living through the lens of the long dead.
  80. Stones in the Sun
    Ms. Benoit’s screenplay is unapologetically schematic in its depiction of a cross-section of Haitian exiles, but each story forcefully registers.
  81. Ballet 422
    Ballet 422 elegantly conveys the complex collaborations behind even a relatively modest production, and the toil and discipline that somehow deliver, for the patrons on opening night, a seamless spectacle of grace.
  82. Little Feet
    Rising above a minuscule budget with ladles of charm and a tender poignancy, Little Feet is a quixotic poem to youthful resourcefulness.
  83. Song of the Sea
    Song of the Sea moves delicately but purposefully from pain to contentment and from anger to love. On land and underwater, the siblings’ adventures unfold in hand-drawn, painterly frames of misty pastels, sometimes encircled by cobwebby borders that give them the look of pictures in a locket.
  84. The Cruise
    As much as Mr. Levitch's voice grates, you can't help but admire the zest for life of this heroically independent but impossibly self-centered crank.
  85. Time Out of Mind
    Mr. Gere is fascinating to observe in this role, partly because he refuses to solicit sympathy, or even attention. Time Out of Mind is an intimate portrait of a man caught between the desire to be left alone and a need for human connection.
  86. The Revenant
    Mr. Iñárritu isn’t content to merely seduce you with ecstatic beauty and annihilating terror; he wants to blow your mind, to amp up your art-house experience with blockbusterlike awesomeness.
  87. Appropriate Behavior
    For all its disorganization and lack of an ending or even a sense of direction, Appropriate Behavior is alive. The screenplay is packed with smart remarks, clever and unpredictable turns of phrase that knock you off balance.
  88. Li'l Quinquin
    The physical beauty of Li’l Quinquin tells me that beneath what could be interpreted as contemptuous misanthropy is a bedrock of stern compassion.
  89. Medeas
    Capturing the poetry of bodies at rest and a landscape frozen in time (filming was done primarily in the Santa Clarita area of California), Chayse Irvin’s exquisite 35-millimeter photography is dreamy and sometimes devastating.
  90. Involuntary
    The bitterly funny, multistrand Involuntary, from 2008, is a step forward in the director’s ambition.
  91. Mille soleils (A Thousand Suns)
    Heartbreaking and thought-provoking, Mille Soleils traces connections between Senegal’s past and present, and reflects on a cinematic legacy that remains insufficiently appreciated, in the West and perhaps also in Africa.
  92. Queen and Country
    Queen and Country doesn’t quite have the bittersweet intensity of its precursor. The terrible magic of the war is missing, and so is the heightened, wide-eyed perceptiveness of the child protagonist.
  93. Nasty Baby
    Mr. Silva’s accomplishment is not just in pulling off a jarring plot twist, but in handling a change of tone that turns the movie — and the audience’s assumptions about it — upside down.
  94. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    The experiment’s methodologies and meanings have been analyzed endlessly over the years, and the film doesn’t delve deeply into these interpretations and critiques. It doesn’t need to; this stark and riveting version of events speaks for itself.
  95. Digging for Fire
    The film has an appealing honesty and an enjoyably low-key comic style.
  96. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
    Mr. Morgen was given access to Cobain’s archives — “art, music, journals, Super 8 films and audio montages” — and his exhilarating, exhausting, two-hour-plus film, both an artful mosaic and a hammering barrage, reflects years of rummaging through that trove.
  97. Last Days in the Desert
    Whether or not you accept the tenets of Christianity, Last Days in the Desert, Rodrigo García’s austere depiction of the temptations of Christ, offers a quietly compelling portrait of the human side of Jesus.
  98. Slow West
    The glorious cinematography, by Robbie Ryan, sharply illustrates the disparity between the rugged majesty of the landscape and the savagery of its outlaws and adventurers, who resemble vermin scuttling through the underbrush of a perilous no man’s land.
  99. Ten Thousand Saints
    If you are one of those people who romanticize the East Village in New York when it was at its grungiest, Ten Thousand Saints might be the movie of your dreams. Even if you’re not, it’s still a very fine film, full of quietly impressive performances and young characters who register as authentic.
  100. The Wolfpack
    Documentary has a tradition of trafficking in the misery of other people’s lives, so it’s a relief that “The Wolfpack” doesn’t drag you down or offer packaged uplift, but instead tells a strange tale with heart and generosity.
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