The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,280 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: 9,381 out of 20280
  2. Mixed: 8,435 out of 20280
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20280
20280 movie reviews
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  1. Breathless
    Say this, in sum, for "Breathless": it is certainly no cliché, in any area or sense of the word. It is more a chunk of raw drama, graphically and artfully torn with appropriately ragged edges out of the tough underbelly of modern metropolitan life.
  2. Young and Innocent
    Alfred Hitchcock, England's jovial and rotund master of melodrama, has turned out another crisply paced, excellently performed film in "The Girl Was Young."
  3. Topaz
    Topaz is not only most entertaining. It is, like so many Hitchcock films, a cautionary fable by one of the most moral cynics of our time.
  4. Will
    With its rough-hewed realism, “Will” is remarkable not so much for its craft as for its philosophical depth in portraying the tensions between a struggling individual and his community, which can be both supportive and enabling.
  5. KPop Demon Hunters
    The action sequences are fluid and immersive, the art is frequently striking and the music (catchy, if formulaic earworms) is a properly wielded and dynamic storytelling tool.
  6. Keeper
    If some of the cabin’s lore is on the silly side, Maslany sells Liz’s terror so convincingly that the urge to giggle is dampened. Her lock on the film’s tone is absolute.
  7. Il Dono
    Il Dono manages to strike a balance between damnation and idolatry of its medieval setting. We’re sucked in, enraptured, even as we feel its lives fading away.
  8. The Wizard of the Kremlin
    It’s a useful framework for understanding leaders around the world, and Baranov is the ideal cipher, someone who intimately understands how easily people’s minds are swayed and molded.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shoeshine
    Not a pretty picture to contemplate nor is it by any means a well-made picture. But "Shoe-Shine" mirrors the anguished soul of a starving, disorganized and demoralized nation with such uncompromising realism that the roughness of its composition is overshadowed by its driving, emotional force.
  10. My Favorite Wife
    A frankly fanciful farce, a rondo of refined ribaldries and an altogether delightful picture with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne chasing each other around most charmingly in it.
  11. Sudan, Remember Us
    Meddeb keeps her focus on several young Sudanese activists. It’s a wise choice, creating an intimate portrait of their dreams and fears.
  12. Songs from the Hole
    Gayles has crafted a film that refuses to tidy the conflicted feelings its subjects share — or those feelings it stirs in us.
  13. A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant
    It’s a compelling history, one that’s especially vital in a time when irony and satire can be hard to pin down. Oliphant is the vehicle for the story, but there’s a bigger point here: that American politics, in particular, are built on a rich heritage of protest, of challenging authority, and that cartooning has been a part of that from the start.
  14. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert
    It’s a fan’s dream, to be sure. But in getting so close to a man who has so often been turned into a caricature, “EPiC” goes beyond just the concert: We enjoy both the performance and the man who loved nothing more than to perform.
  15. Dust Bunny
    At times, it can seem that Fuller is about to lose himself in the movie’s filigreed details, its curlicue lines, lush flowers and confectionary rest. In truth, I think he’s is sharing his delight in the imaginative possibilities of storytelling and in the plasticity of the medium itself, which is as infectious as it is welcome.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kid Glove Killer
    On its own modest level, "Kid Glove Killer" is a first-rate job all round.
  17. Islands
    There’s a refreshing willfulness here to leave some quandaries lingering, and like the rough beauty of the volcanic island the movie is set on, Islands beckons and rebukes and beckons some more.
  18. Tuner
    It’s a little silly, and yet, watching Woodall finally let loose then snap back into his sly and sexy cool, you can’t help but be lulled into the melody.
  19. His Girl Friday
    His Girl Friday is a bold-faced reprint of what was once—and still remains—the maddest newspaper comedy of our times.
  20. Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost
    At least two ideas running through “Nothing Is Lost,” which is streaming on Apple TV, and which takes its title from a line in a play that Anne wrote, give it a complexity that usually eludes profile-of-an-artist documentaries.
  21. Mistress Dispeller
    Lo’s construction of each person’s story grants them dignity and compassion. And their agreement at the end speaks volumes about what they saw in the film, too.
  22. The Plague
    This is what The Plague does best: Its storytelling inhabits a world so heated and confusing to its characters — that is, burgeoning adolescence — that it’s sometimes unclear whether things are actually happening or just in Ben’s head.
  23. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
    The movie is an imperfect gem — some of its ambitions toward grand emotional sweep are not without seams and it can at times feel like an overextended animated short. But it’s hard not to be charmed by its warm existentialism (in a children’s film, no less) and its belief that the greatest wisdoms can be found in the way a child sees and learns.
  24. The White House Effect
    Of course, you could argue that any documentary tells its story as much with what it omits as with what it includes. But by letting the news footage, speech clips and documents “speak,” the transformation of the rhetoric is undeniable, as are some of the causes. The tale is not flattering, but it is illuminating.
  25. Auction
    Bonitzer evinces an appreciable warmth toward his creations that you feel even from the analytic distance he establishes.
  26. Caterpillar
    Some of what Mandelup captures is the result of sharp observation, and some of it is incredible chance.
  27. The Tale of Silyan
    Some scenes are remarkably intimate — Nikola in his house on a stormy night drying off the stork, who falls asleep on his shoulder — and some are sweeping, which makes it an amazing portrait of a place on many scales.
  28. Bunny
    Bunny is a New York movie that eschews realism but still brims with authentic affection, and in doing so, bursts with life.
  29. Teenage Wasteland
    This crowd-pleasing documentary, directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (“Boys State” and “Girls State”), caters to multiple niches of moviegoer who enjoy rooting for the underdog. Even archivally minded cinephiles — the kind who get nostalgia pangs from watching long-shelved VHS tapes played anew — will find an itch scratched.
  30. Holding Liat
    Kramer quietly but forcefully recognizes that the conflict cannot continue as it has.
  31. Natchez
    Maybe telling the whole story doesn’t mean living happily ever after, but at least it can mean being a little wiser.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I'll See You in My Dreams
    The film makes the most of everyday incidents and personal drama to color the narrative and keep it moving. This musical is not your usual Hit Parade biography by any means. [13 Dec 1998, p.6]
    • The New York Times
  33. undertone
    It’s a properly scary movie, the kind that merits watching in a theater with a good sound system (or headphones in a dark room, at home). And “Undertone” provides terrific evidence of what a filmmaker can do even under constraint. The most powerful tool in an artist’s toolbox just might be the audience’s imagination.
  34. The Wrecking Crew
    The action in The Wrecking Crew is so good, its fights so brisk and its car chases so lively, that it makes you wish its muscular leads, Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista, had starred in more decent action movies.
  35. The Napa Boys
    The humor is over-the-top and often exaggeratedly juvenile, but like many nominally “dumb” comedies, it’s the product of a keen and deliberate intelligence.
  36. Heel
    Infused with the D.N.A. of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), Heel is an uneasy study of subjugation and transformation. Rock-solid performances from Boon and Graham maintain its precarious balance between anxiety and absurdity.
  37. Queen of Chess
    Kennedy sticks largely to conventional documentary techniques for Queen of Chess, which is not a bad thing: It’s a good story, well told, and Polgar makes for an interesting subject.
  38. Space Cowboy
    It’s an unexpected illustration of how psychiatric challenges can turn one’s life into a “shrinking world,” as Jennings puts it, and how to keep going.
  39. Group: The Schopenhauer Effect
    It’s invigorating to watch these interactions, even if similar filmmaking methods have been used before.
  40. Spacewoman
    If there were lingering doubts about the nation’s first female space shuttle pilot and commander’s rock-steady demeanor, the writer-director Hanna Berryman’s documentary jettisons them.
  41. Jimmy & The Demons
    "The Cathedral” embodies everything that’s lovely about [Grashow's] work — its impishness, its openheartedness and its darkness, too — and Jimmy & the Demons captures all of that with a spirit that matches its subject.
  42. Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
    This film works hypnotically, with great subtlety and grace, in ways that are gratifyingly consistent with Gould's own thoughts about his music and his life.
  43. Steal This Story, Please!
    Goodman’s career is fascinating on its own merits, and the film is full of footage of her doggedly chasing down politicians and sources who clearly would prefer to control their own story. But more important, the movie gradually explores the fundamentals of journalism that she believes in and passes on to colleagues.
  44. From Paris with Love
    I am ashamed to admit that this empty-headed, preposterous, possibly evil mélange of gunplay and high-speed car chases on Parisian boulevards is a feel-good movie that produces a buzz.
  45. Dear John
    Dear John carefully distills selected elements of human experience and reduces them to a sweet and digestible syrup. It may not be strong medicine, but it delivers an effective, pleasing dose of pure sentiment and vicarious heartache.
  46. District 13: Ultimatum
    It’s pleasurable nonsense and another reminder that one of the great pulls of cinema is the spectacle of other bodies in blissful motion.
  47. Sherlock Holmes
    There are worse things than loutish, laddish cool, and as a series of poses and stunts, Sherlock Holmes is intermittently diverting.
  48. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
    It’s a full three-ring affair, complete with puffs of smoke, glitter and grunge, some hocus-pocus, mumbo jumbo and even a dwarf.
  49. The White Ribbon
    An unnerving but unsatisfying chronicle of a German village filled with hidden cruelty, set on the eve of World War I.
  50. Daybreakers
    The narrative may flag, but the doomsday atmosphere and George Liddle’s production design remain vivid until the final, blood-splattered reel.
  51. Youth in Revolt
    Sweet and slight and often charming coming-of-age tale.
  52. The Road
    Engrossing and at times impressive, a pretty good movie that is disappointing to the extent that it could have been great. Is this the way the world ends? With polite applause?
  53. The Young Victoria
    Despite the filmmakers’ efforts to persuade us that The Young Victoria is a serious work, and despite some tense moments and gunfire, the movie’s pleasures are as light as its story. No matter. Albert may never rip Victoria’s bodice, but he does eventually loosen it, to her delight and ours.
  54. My Name Is Khan
    Skillfully directed by Karan Johar and with an evocative score by Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy, “Khan” jerks tears with ease, while teaching lessons about Islam and tolerance.
  55. Moon
    The film's ideas are interesting, but don't feel entirely worked out, and Mr. Rockwell's intriguingly strange performance (or performances) is left suspended, without the context that would give Sam's plight its full emotional and philosophical impact. The smallness of this movie is decidedly a virtue, but also, in the end, something of a limitation.
  56. Whip It
    You might, nonetheless, want to see this movie, even -- or maybe especially -- if you have seen “Billy Elliot” or “Bend It Like Beckham.” Familiarity is not always a bad thing, and if the script, by Shauna Cross, piles sports movie and coming-of-age touchstones into a veritable cairn of clichés, the cast shows enough agility and conviction to make them seem almost fresh.
  57. The Men Who Stare at Goats
    Likable, lightweight, absurdist comedy.
  58. The Girl on the Train
    The film can be described as a character study or a fictionalized slice of terribly real life. Mostly, though, it is an inquiry into the mysteries of other people.
  59. (500) Days of Summer
    Slight, charming and refreshingly candid little picture.
  60. Up
    Passages of glorious imagination are invariably matched by stock characters and banal story choices.
  61. Brothers
    A smart, well-meaning project -- never quite pulls itself together. It has a vague, half-finished feeling, as if it had not figured out what it was trying to do. Which may amount to a kind of realism -- an accurate reflection of where we are in Afghanistan.
  62. The Hangover
    But true to its title, The Hangover goes down smoothly enough and then kicks you in the head later on, when you start to examine the sources of your laughter.
  63. Slumdog Millionaire
    In the end, what gives me reluctant pause about this bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie is that its joyfulness feels more like a filmmaker's calculation than an honest cry from the heart about the human spirit (or, better yet, a moral tale).
  64. The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
    With its strained, quasi-poetic language that fitfully tries to soar, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is a significant, though less than monumental feat of reclamation.
  65. 9
    Every effort to expand the range of feature-length animation beyond the confines of cautious family fare is to be welcomed, and budding techno and fantasy geeks are likely to be intrigued and enthralled.
  66. Food, Inc.
    Time and again the movie stops short before it really gets started, as with the debates over the big business of organic food.
  67. The Good Guy
    The movie’s confident performances and its eye and ear for detail make The Good Guy a satisfying insider’s snapshot of a shark tank.
  68. Cold Souls
    In this attractive, smart-enough, finally un-brave movie Ms. Barthes peeks at the dark comedy of the soul only to beat a quick, pre-emptive retreat.
  69. Terminator Salvation
    It parades neither the egghead aspirations of "Star Trek" nor the thick-skulled pretensions of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," but instead feels both comfortable with its limitations and justly proud of its accomplishments.
  70. Waiting for Armageddon
    Respectfully and without dramatization (the ideas are electric enough), the directors observe a cross section of articulate evangelicals and accompany a Christian group on a revealing trip to Israel.
  71. Hunger
    The brutality in the film is pervasive and often stomach turningly graphic, but what is perhaps most unnerving is the tact, patience and care with which Mr. McQueen depicts its causes and effects.
  72. Jennifer's Body
    The movie deserves -- and is likely to win -- a devoted cult following, despite its flaws.
  73. Red Cliff
    While handsome and intelligent and perfectly easy to sit through, never really approaches the visceral tug of Mr. Woo’s Hong Kong hits.
  74. Soundtrack for a Revolution
    It’s the kind of film that will have audiences clapping and singing along. And why not? The images and stories may be familiar, but it’s history worth retelling.
  75. Halloween II
    There's some variety to the crimes, as there is to the characters, and an audience is likely to do more screaming at suspenseful moments than at scary ones. The gore, while very explicit and gruesome, won't make you feel as if you're watching major surgery. The direction and camera work are quite competent, and the actors don't look like amateurs.
  76. The Notebook
    The scenes between the young lovers confronting adult authority have the same seething tension and lurking hysteria that the young Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood brought more than 40 years ago to their roles in "Splendor in the Grass."
  77. Sin Nombre
    What keeps the movie from tipping into full-blown exploitation like "City of God," which turns third-world misery into art-house thrills, is Mr. Fukunaga's sincerity. What keeps you watching is his superb eye.
  78. Funny Games
    Funny Games observes the family's excruciating terror and suffering with the patient delight of a cat luxuriantly toying with a mouse that it is in the process of slowly killing. Posing as a morally challenging work of art, the movie is a really a sophisticated act of cinematic sadism. You go to it at your own risk.
  79. Superbad
    Horny is as horny does in the sweetly absurd high school comedy Superbad.
  80. Thirst
    Unfortunately, it is also less than the sum of its parts -- overly long, lacking in narrative momentum and too often choosing sensation over coherence.
  81. I Love You, Man
    A fitfully funny comedy.
  82. Revanche
    The characters and situations are interesting enough, and the filmmaking is sufficiently skilled to provide a measure of reasonably thoughtful entertainment.
  83. United 93
    Its focus is purposely narrow. But that narrow focus, along with the lack of fully realized characters, and the absence of any historical or political context, raises the question of why, notwithstanding the usual (if shaky) commercial imperative, this particular movie was made.
  84. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
    Mr. Reiner and Mr. Kudlow may not quite merit full-metal glory, but they don't deserve oblivion either, and Anvil! The Story of Anvil makes both a case and a place for their band.
  85. Two Lovers
    The flaws in Two Lovers are inseparable from its strengths. You could, I suppose, criticize the movie for being too sincere; too generous to its imperfect, self-deluded characters; too absorbed in their small crises and disproportionate reactions. But that criticism might sound a lot like praise.
  86. Che
    Mr. Soderbergh once again offers a master class in filmmaking. As history, though, Che is finally not epic but romance. It takes great care to be true to the factual record, but it is, nonetheless, a fairy tale.
  87. Pirate Radio
    Stuffed with playful character actors and carpeted with wall-to-wall tunes, the film makes for easy viewing and easier listening.
  88. Coco Before Chanel
    The blossoming of her ambition, as much as her love life, drives the story forward, and turns Coco Before Chanel into a costume drama worthy of the name.
  89. The Girlfriend Experience
    When the turmoil of the last 12 months has receded and the 10th-anniversary deluxe collectors edition comes around, this strange, numb cinematic experience may seem fresh, shocking and poignant rather than merely and depressingly true.
  90. P.S. I Love You
    The film is not a beautiful object or a memorable cultural one, and yet it charms, however awkwardly. Ms. Swank’s ardent sincerity and naked emotionalism dovetail nicely with Mr. LaGravenese’s melodramatic excesses.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Death at a Funeral
    There’s no dearth of rude humor on screens right now, but Death at a Funeral stands apart because its characters -- mostly reserved upper-middle-class British folk who have gathered to bury a patriarch -- are determined to keep a stiff upper lip no matter what.
  92. Fear X
    Grimly austere barely begins to describe the atmosphere of dread that seeps through Fear X like a toxic mist.
  93. Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
    Given the event's size and complexity, it is perhaps inevitable that this documentary feels haphazard and superficial, more tourist's photo album than analysis. Still, the glimpses it offers are never less than fascinating.
  94. Travelers and Magicians
    As he did in "The Cup," Mr. Norbu provides a lot of ingratiating comic moments. His Buddhism is the laughing, playful kind, and does not ask the Western audience - for whom the film is clearly intended - to deal with any uncomfortably complex religious issues.
  95. Machuca
    Both sweet and stringent, attuned to the wonders of childhood as well as its cruelty and terror.
  96. With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right in America
    Our turbulent political climate is so clogged with the instant hysteria demanded by the chattering class to keep its voice in shouting condition that a sedate documentary examining the long-term weather patterns is a welcome respite from the noise.
  97. Assisted Living
    May be a comedy, but its images of physical frailty are inescapably unsettling. As the camera fixates on frail, spotted trembling hands unsteadily reaching out, it is impossible not to imagine a future in which those hands could be yours.
  98. The Nomi Song
    An affectionate portrait, not only of Nomi, but also of the long-gone days when downtown Manhattan was an affordable enclave for creative misfits.
  99. Rory O'Shea Was Here
    Better than the usual three-stage journey of courage, heartbreak and redemption. In this case, the triumph of the human spirit comes with a small bitter chaser.
  100. Swimming Upstream
    The role, one of the meatiest of Mr. Rush's career, is equal in flash and complexity to his turns as the pianist David Helfgott in "Shine" and the Marquis de Sade in "Quills."
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