The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,271 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 20271
  2. Mixed: 8,430 out of 20271
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20271
20271 movie reviews
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  1. The Cakemaker
    Sad and sweet, and with a rare lyricism, The Cakemaker believes in a love that neither nationality, sexual orientation nor religious belief can deter.
  2. This Is Congo
    There is much to admire here, but the sheer scope of the subject matter might be even better served by the capaciousness of a mini-series.
  3. Love, Cecil
    The quirks of Beaton’s personality — his cultivation of enemies and frustrated romanticism, among them — are finally not as interesting as his work.
  4. Woman Walks Ahead
    It’s all ridiculously romanticized and self-serving. But the performances are so good (Mr. Greyeyes, in particular, is a miracle of intelligence and dignity) and Michael Eley’s vistas, shimmeringly shot in New Mexico, are so stunning, it feels churlish to resist.
  5. Hover
    Hover is reasonably resourceful for its first hour, during which it appears to have turned budget restrictions into an asset, keeping the focus on ideas instead of effects. The last act, though, is a total whiff — too rushed, too riddled with plot holes and too incongruously hopeful to take seriously.
  6. Ideal Home
    Ideal Home is genuinely funny, and the poignant and pithy script is aided by the chemistry between its stars, who are equally adept with comedic punch lines as they are with dramatic gut punches.
  7. Uncle Drew
    It’s not every day that you can say, “Shaquille O’Neal was the best actor in that movie.” And yet that may well be true in the case of Uncle Drew, a genuinely unusual exercise in screen comedy.
  8. Leave No Trace
    In its best moments, Leave No Trace invites you to simply be with its characters, to see and experience the world as they do. Empathy, the movie reminds you, is something that is too little asked of you either in life or in art. Both Mr. Foster’s and Ms. Harcourt McKenzie’s sensitive, tightly checked performances are critical in this regard.
  9. Three Identical Strangers
    Mr. Wardle relates that story smoothly and persuasively, but his telling sometimes provokes more questions than it answers.
  10. Custody
    Mr. Legrand is skilled in the techniques of dread and suspense, and without sensationalizing or cheapening the story, he gives this closely observed drama the tension and urgency of a thriller.
  11. Rock Rubber 45s
    Bobbito Garcia, the author, basketball maven, sneaker obsessive, D.J. and all-around culture entrepreneur, is one of the most personable documentary subjects I’ve encountered in quite some time.
  12. Winter Brothers
    Mr. Palmason’s showy technique, magnetic on its own, ultimately seems like a way of adding mystery to a story that, like Emil, is content with having no place to go.
  13. Sicario: Day of the Soldado
    Dumber, less inventive and not as pretentious as “Sicario” (released in 2015, directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Mr. Sheridan), it both advances and retreats, expanding on the original and narrowing its scope.
  14. The King
    Wildly ambitious, thoroughly entertaining and embellished with some snaky moves, Eugene Jarecki’s documentary The King is a lot like its nominal subject, Elvis Presley.
  15. Boundaries
    Self-satisfied and too slick by half, Boundaries projects a sheen of artifice that deflects any genuine engagement with the story.
  16. Damsel
    Damsel may feel 20 minutes too long, but it fills them with attitude and cheek. Here, the frontier is not just a crucible of reinvention, but a wilderness that can make you more than a little crazy.
  17. Spiral
    Spiral is best in smaller-bore moments, showing how everyday lives are affected by prejudice.
  18. Araby
    Thanks to Mr. de Sousa’s superb performance, the movie often convincingly portrays not just the exploited condition of laborers such as Cristiano, but the nagging sadness of life itself.
  19. The Catcher Was a Spy
    Paul Rudd plays Berg with the droll, boyish charm he’s brought to dozens of other roles, but he adds a protective coating. This movie, directed by Ben Lewin from a Robert Rodat script (one adapted from Nicholas Dawidoff’s fascinating 1994 biography of Berg), relishes Berg’s compulsion to remain an enigma even to those closest to him
  20. Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town
    Watching Izzy’s frenzied pratfalls often feels like watching a documentary of Ms. Davis — always great — running a hamster wheel that powers uninspired comic material.
  21. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
    Working with the cinematographer Yunus Pasolang, Ms. Surya gives “Marlina” a stark, steady, captivating look that keeps you largely engaged even when the story and your attention drift.
  22. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
    “Fallen Kingdom,” directed by J. A. Bayona, is in most respects a dumber, less ambitious movie than its immediate predecessor, and also, for just that reason, a little bit more fun. Some of its high jinks have a hokey, silly, old-fashioned mad-scientist feeling to them, especially when the dinosaurs are chasing people or vice versa. Which is reasonably often.
  23. Gotti
    That the long-gestating crime drama Gotti is a dismal mess comes as no surprise. What does shock is just how multifaceted a dismal mess it is.
  24. Catching Feelings
    It is notable both for its considerable comedic flair and its detailed depiction of Johannesburg.
  25. I Am Not an Easy Man
    As it happens, this movie is an expansion of Ms. Pourriat’s 2010 short film, “Oppressed Majority,” which was a punchier, and not particularly comedic, allegory of sexual assault. That picture can be found on YouTube; I don’t think it’s good either, but it’s more genuinely thought-provoking than its expansion.
  26. Set It Up
    The expectation that a female-written, female-directed effort would yield something refreshingly different is scotched within the first few minutes.
  27. Gabriel and the Mountain
    More than a simple tribute or a fond remembrance, it is a remarkable and full-throated elegy, a work of art that is full of life.
  28. Eating Animals
    This upsetting documentary offers plenty to chew on.
  29. Straight Into a Storm
    What fascinated me most about the movie was its likely inadvertent depiction of the comfortable bubble the band and its fandom seem to have created for each other.
  30. The Yellow Birds
    Capped by a truly lovely final shot, The Yellow Birds (the title comes from a particularly cruel Army cadence) is about unseen wounds and wasted lives. The closer we get to these young men, the closer we are to wondering how many more of these stories we can bear to hear.
  31. The Year of Spectacular Men
    It is the movie’s saving grace that its family acting troupe faces the gobbledygook with openhearted silliness and sincerity.
  32. Tag
    Tag, unlike too many of its recent ilk, at least bothers to be a movie, rather than a television sketch distended to feature length. The performers don’t seem to have been shoved in front of the camera and instructed to be funny. They have to work for their laughs, and to find coherence as an ensemble.
  33. Incredibles 2
    The family that fights together remains the steadily throbbing, unbreakable heart of Incredibles 2, even when Bob and Helen swap traditional roles.
  34. Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
    "Five Seasons” is least dull when capturing the artist at his most spontaneous, showing his joy, for instance, at seeing Texas wildflowers. But the director Thomas Piper, whose credits include another documentary that deals with the High Line and a film about the artist Sol LeWitt, never finds a way to convey the excitement of his subject’s innovations.
  35. SuperFly
    The roomier scenario of this remake has the potential to yield a decent thriller, but Superfly too often prioritizes showy sequences for dubious reasons.
  36. Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist
    There are many words that you can use to describe Ms. Westwood (born 1941), an early punk rock tastemaker and merchandizer turned global couture brand. Boring certainly is not one of them. And as the movie jumps from past to present, from street to palace, from the Sex Pistols to Queen Elizabeth II, Ms. Westwood’s claim sounds increasingly strange and borderline ridiculous.
  37. Hereditary
    The film, Mr. Aster’s debut feature, is engaging, unsettling and unpredictable, generating a mood of anxious fascination punctuated by frequent shocks and occasional nervous giggles. But I also found it a bit disappointing.
  38. Half the Picture
    The stories that Ms. Adrion elicits may be infuriatingly recognizable to women who work in many fields. But if there is a missing element in her analysis, it is the effect that sexism has on these women’s artistry, not only their livelihoods.
  39. The Workers Cup
    While it would have been easy for Mr. Sobel to unleash an angrier screed against the inequalities shown, some well-placed images tell us all we need to know about the haves and have-nots here.
  40. Hearts Beat Loud
    With its oversimplified emotions and dumbed-down depiction of the creative process, this inoffensive time-filler dissolves in the mouth like vanilla pudding.
  41. Nancy
    What’s left is a strange, sour tale that’s neither origin mystery nor journey of self-discovery, but a vexing gesture toward damage and delusion that never permits us to peek under its broken heroine’s hood.
  42. The Quest of Alain Ducasse
    The movie depicts Mr. Ducasse’s sweeping streak — he prepares food for the homeless in Brazil and concocts a deluxe restaurant at Versailles — competently if not brilliantly. A screening of the film accompanied by a tasting menu afterward, though — that would be something.
  43. En el Séptimo Día (On the Seventh Day)
    “En el Séptimo Día” pulls off the tricky feat of feeling utterly natural as it ratchets with the mechanics of drama and suspense.
  44. The Valley
    As an awareness tool, The Valley feels simple-minded. As a drama, it feels exploitative.
  45. Bernard and Huey
    Devoted Feifferites, not to mention fans of Mr. Rash and Mr. Koechner, who get to flex their muscles nicely here, will be well sated.
  46. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
    It is that emphasis — the earnest, critical attention to the public Mister Rogers and his legacy — that makes Won’t You Be My Neighbor? feel like such a gift.
  47. Hotel Artemis
    Mr. Pearce is also well-versed in staging and shooting decent action scenes, and building suspense enough to keep Hotel Artemis diverting in its overstuffed ambition. Add to that Ms. Foster’s welcome return to big-screen acting after a five-year layoff and you’ve got a movie almost worth seeing.
  48. Ocean's 8
    Its cast aside, the movie sounds and narratively unwinds like the previous installments, but without the same easy snap or visual allure.
  49. Action Point
    True, Johnny Knoxville gets power-hosed down a slide and catapulted into a barn for our amusement, but the inventive, stake-raising, borderline surrealist gags of the old “Jackass” are gone.
  50. The Kissing Booth
    As cinema either theatrical or televisual is concerned, The Kissing Booth is negligible. It is fascinating, though, as a study in the semiotics of the high school movie, especially in the ways it’s been recodified since “young adult” became a real genre.
  51. Dude
    The movie becomes more involving as it finds its focus.... Ms. Hale does an excellent job portraying a popular overachiever understandably resisting the inevitable.
  52. Ibiza
    The most interesting thing about Ibiza, not to get too highfalutin, is its positive treatment of female desire.
  53. The Tale
    Its distinctive structural style, with narration that weaves in and out of flashback, is intriguing, and strong performances, especially from Ms. Debicki and Ms. Nélisse, bolster moments of overly pat dialogue. This is a good movie, but part of me wishes I hadn’t seen it.
  54. The Doctor from India
    To seek proof is distinctly human, and, in this case, a dose of skepticism is surely healthy.
  55. Social Animals
    The lack of chemistry between the two leads is less damaging than Ms. Bennett’s inability to commit to a tone.
  56. Nossa Chape
    The movie the directors have made doesn’t have the passion that its subjects do.
  57. A Kid Like Jake
    Directed by Silas Howard from a screenplay by Daniel Pearle, who adapted his own stage play, A Kid Like Jake is humane, compassionate and strangely detached, almost to the point of inconsequentiality.
  58. Breath
    Mr. Baker does nice work with the actors — his open-faced young leads are sincere, appealing, believable — and there’s a lot to like about Breath, including its attention to natural beauty and to how surfing can become a bridge to that splendor.
  59. Upgrade
    Upgrade is an energetic, superficially slick, latter-day B-movie of the “but dumb” category. That is, it’s kind of like “RoboCop,” but dumb, and also like “Ex Machina,” but dumb.
  60. Rodin
    Signs of life are few. A desaturated palette makes Rodin as monotonous to look at as it is to endure.
  61. Adrift
    The chronological back-and-forth diffuses the dread and suspense — the feeling of desperate uncertainty implied by the title — that might have made for a more intense, more memorable yarn.
  62. American Animals
    The film, written and directed by Bart Layton, can’t quite decide what it wants to be: a slick, speedy caper; a goofball comedy; or a commentary on the state of the American soul. It’s none of those — a tame and toothless creature that is neither fish nor fowl.
  63. Future World
    Future World is a miserable, idiotic sci-fi trifle, threadbare in both the imaginative and production value categories.
  64. Mary Shelley
    This account is plausible and moving, at once a defense of genre fiction and of female creativity. But at times the differences between male and female writers can seem a bit schematic, in a way that undermines Mary’s intellectual autonomy.
  65. Feral
    Methodical and efficient, the script (by Mr. Young and Adam Frazier) gets some mileage from its generic setting and zombie-infection theme, even if the croaking order is easily predicted.
  66. How to Talk to Girls at Parties
    How to Talk to Girls at Parties is a kitschy, spaced-out oddity. The energy peaks and droops, pogoes and flatlines, with Sandy Powell’s kooky costumes doing much of the visual heavy lifting.
  67. The Misandrists
    With The Misandrists, Mr. LaBruce announces, here is queer cinema: confrontational, pansexual, gender-fluid, racially inclusive, angry and surprisingly romantic.
  68. Who We Are Now
    Superbly acted and confidently shot, Who We Are Now delivers substantial dramatic pleasures while posing pertinent questions.
  69. Summer 1993
    Summer 1993 is movingly understated and beautifully acted.
  70. The Gospel According to André
    The director, Kate Novack, has delivered a film that’s detailed and affectionate, but also frustratingly static, making a point not to get in its subject’s way.
  71. In Darkness
    In Darkness moves along so smartly that near the end, when the filmmakers entreat you to follow them just a bit more, you’ll likely oblige. And why not. They’ve already gotten you to invest quite a lot in this clever little thriller.
  72. Manhunt
    It’s undeniable that Manhunt delivers first-rate cinematic technique while skimping on substantial emotional investment. It’s still a great deal of fun.
  73. Alex Strangelove
    Alex Strangelove is witty, compassionate and enjoyable throughout; a charming movie and in many respects an enlightened one.
  74. Show Dogs
    If Show Dogs sometimes betrays its shaggy charms, there is comfort in remembering that many movies are much dumber than this one, and so few of them have either the good taste or the good manners to compensate with puppies.
  75. Saving Brinton
    The trouble is that despite how earnest and committed Mr. Zahs appears to be, the story of what’s in the collection might be more be more fascinating than the man who’s collected it.
  76. First Reformed
    It is the portrait of a soul in torment, all the more powerful for being so rigorously conceived and meticulously executed.
  77. Pope Francis - A Man of His Word
    The interview sections are fascinating, and scenes of the pope’s travels, during which he frequently washes the feet of those who come to him, are moving.... Less welcome are Mr. Wenders’s brief attempts at depicting the life of St. Francis himself.
  78. The Most Unknown
    The Most Unknown works best as inspiration to delve deeper into these disciplines, and as a celebration of science. And when the film comes up short, it still functions like an intriguing experiment: It doesn’t have to be entirely successful for you to learn something.
  79. Sollers Point
    Mr. Porterfield’s evenhanded direction doesn’t try to pull the viewer’s sympathies one way or another. Within his realistic mode he crafts some startling effects — a strip-club brawl that spills out into broad, embarrassing daylight is eye-opening.
  80. That Summer
    That Summer, a new documentary directed by Goran Hugo Olsson, sheds further light on the Beales with footage shot before the making of “Grey Gardens.”
  81. Dark Crimes
    A good story gets stuck in a puddle of mood in Dark Crimes, a film that strays from its fascinating source — a real-life murder case — into a less successful attempt at noir.
  82. Book Club
    These women — Ms. Fonda, Ms. Keaton, Ms. Steenburgen and Ms. Bergen, that is — have nothing to prove. Each one brings enough credibility and charisma to Book Club to render its weaknesses largely irrelevant.
  83. On Chesil Beach
    Onscreen, On Chesil Beach loses some intensity at the end, as the supple suggestiveness of Mr. McEwan’s prose is replaced by the stagy literalness of film. Perhaps this couldn’t be avoided.
  84. Solo: A Star Wars Story
    It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it also holds whatever irreverent, anarchic impulses it might possess in careful check.
  85. Deadpool 2
    There is something ever so slightly dishonest about this character, something false about the boundaries drawn around his sadism and his rage. Deadpool 2 dabbles in ugliness and transgression, but takes no real creative risks.
  86. Life of the Party
    The zaniness is pretty low-key, and what we witness is less the explosion of pent-up energy than the gentle affirmation of exuberant kindness.
  87. Breaking In
    With an overbearing score, Breaking In telegraphs almost everything that happens yet still provides several jolts amid its occasionally questionable twists. While the filmmakers aren’t exerting themselves to deliver anything other than a popcorn-seller, Ms. Union is working hard to keep you watching.
  88. Mountain
    For those terrified of heights, Mountain will be a nonstop nightmare. Yet big scares are a small price for the awe-inspiring footage you’ll see. As for what you’ll hear, that takes a little explaining.
  89. Anything
    It’s easy to second-guess a scene or three in Anything. Yet this is a film that wagers you’ll put aside your doubts and open up to its gentle emotions. It’s a bit of a risk for a viewer. But I’d take it.
  90. Lu Over the Wall
    Lu sometimes feels more like a cynical plot device than a character. The problem is only amplified by the animation itself.
  91. Filmworker
    The material about Kubrick’s process is finally more interesting than the discussions about his temperament.
  92. The Escape
    Subtle and slow and wrenchingly empathetic, The Escape is about gradually realizing that the life you have may not be the one you want.
  93. I Had Nowhere to Go
    What it conveys is not so much Mr. Mekas’s experience as Mr. Gordon’s will, and his cheap sadistic hostility to the audience. It makes this film a vexed experience.
  94. Beast
    Bathed in a shadowy beauty and slippery psychological atmosphere, “Beast” soars on Ms. Buckley’s increasingly animalistic performance.
  95. Terminal
    Featuring more twists than a 1960s dance marathon, Terminal is a flashy, hyperstylized bore.
  96. The Day After
    The Day After, one of three films this prolific director brought to festivals in 2017 (another one screened in Berlin in February), is an especially elegant presentation of some of his [Mr. Hong’s] characteristic concerns.
  97. Always at The Carlyle
    Discretion may be a virtue in the upscale hospitality business, but not in documentary film. If you are going to make a movie that hints at scandal and celebrity gossip and behind-the-scenes glamour, then it’s not too much to ask that some secrets be revealed and a glass or two of juice poured.
  98. Revenge
    Revenge leaves a lurid, punchy afterimage, an impression somewhere between righteous delight and quivering revulsion. It’s both a challenge and a calling card, in which Ms. Fargeat at once exposes what’s wrong with her chosen genre and demonstrates her mastery of it.
  99. Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat
    While, in many respects, it is conventional in form, alternating archival footage from the late 1970s and early ’80s with newly shot interviews, the movie has a momentum (aided by an exemplary soundtrack of songs from the era) and a rare interrogatory spirit.
  100. The Seagull
    The cast is great. The play is great. But this is still a bad movie, because it has no clear or coherent idea of how to be one.
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