The New York Times' Scores

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:
20271 movie reviews
  1. Heavy with emotion yet light on information, 500 Years has the curious effect of being both passionate and pale. You may find yourself championing its subjects even while feeling confounded by the omission of details by its filmmaker.
  2. Given the aesthetically confrontational nature of the piece, one can understand why Mr. Rossi did not attempt an undiluted cinematic translation of the complete Bronx Gothic. But something about his approach (which I assume was approved by Ms. Okpokwasili, as she is one of the movie’s executive producers) feels, finally, like an evasion.
  3. There is a scene toward the end of War for the Planet of the Apes that is as vivid and haunting as anything I’ve seen in a Hollywood blockbuster in ages, a moment of rousing and dreadful cinematic clarity that I don’t expect to shake off any time soon.
  4. Swim Team mostly aims to educate and inspire; on those counts, it succeeds.
  5. At the end Ms. Maclean forsakes all the unsettling subtlety and nuance she has had so clearly in her command to serve up a finale that I found frankly confounding, despite its having been foreshadowed.
  6. An investigation among the attendees grants Mr. Andò the opportunity to pursue pithy, discursive exchanges about power, austerity and capitalism amid high-end accommodations and a tasteful classical soundtrack.
  7. More information and in-depth analysis, as well as greater restraint in the use of atrocity images, might have deepened a movie that leans on shortcuts and visual shocks.
  8. There are almost too many references to other movies for this one to become its own monster.
  9. The cast is surely capable of sharper comedy, but Will Raee, who directed, doesn’t get everyone on the same page. Ms. Cardellini and Ms. Schaal offer cardboard caricatures, while Mr. Ulrich, among others, plays it mostly straight.
  10. A Ghost Story is suspenseful, dourly funny and at times piercingly emotional.
  11. It’s Fang’s transformation, embodied by Ms. Zhou’s lean, cool authority, that carries the most weight, lending the proceedings an unforced feminist dimension, and reaffirming Ms. Hui’s status as one of China’s cinematic treasures.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Except for some dutiful splattering of gore, it ticks along rather steadily, under Richard Fleischer's unruffled direction. There is a take-it-or-leave-it air that snugly suits the star's performance, or vice versa.
  12. Chaplin is to serious biography, even to Mr. Attenborough's Gandhi, what unfortified cornflakes are to real food. It's slick packaging around what is mostly warm air.
  13. It is a dark, startlingly bloody journey into the bitter, empty, broken heart of the American middle class, a blend of farce and satire built on a foundation of social despair.
  14. The fierce-looking Sean Bean is outstandingly good as Ryan's main antagonist, and Patrick Bergin brings the right air of calculation to the terrorist mastermind he plays. Several of the film's main sequences, like an encounter between Mr. Bean's Sean Miller and David Threlfall as the police inspector who has been his captor, derive their horror from the looks of pure loathing that these terrorists bestow upon their prey.
  15. Despite the urgency of the situation the musicians face, when they’re not doing their work, the movie is quiet, observant, taking in the austere beauty of the land and the people.
  16. It’s a pleasure to spend 80 minutes in Mr. Berry’s company.
  17. Ms. Dorfman emerges as an artist of deep compassion, empathy, humor and wisdom.
  18. The Skyjacker’s Tale could stand to lose its gimmicky re-enactments. Why supplement a story this crazy?
  19. There’s a lot of labor and conflict shown here, and rarely have they looked so good.
  20. Over all, this is an exciting film if not a completely cohesive one.
  21. Reagan’s legacy remains a live and contentious issue. His name is still routinely invoked, on the left and the right, with reverence and rage. The Reagan Show helps attach a face to the name, but it doesn’t accomplish much more than that.
  22. The Vulture is a mess of prickly contradictions, only some of which seem intentional. His criminality, rage and perhaps his madness have been stoked by class resentment and Mr. Keaton, with his white-hot menace and narrowing eyes, makes him a memorably angry man, not a caricature.
  23. The Little Hours is saved from ignominy by two brief standout performances.
  24. With a little more shading and originality, 13 Minutes might have pushed beyond its familiar Nazi tropes to shape something more immediate and infinitely more potent: an ominous portrait of radicalization.
  25. A most delightfully acted and gracefully entertaining film, fashioned much in the manner of a stage drawing-room comedy, that seems to be about something much more serious and challenging than it actually is.
  26. Charlie Sheen brings just the right exaggerated seriousness to his ace pilot's role, and Cary Elwes perfectly captures the ingenue arrogance of Topper's handsome rival. Jon Cryer, as a pilot with major eyesight problems, also displays expert deadpan timing, especially when he delivers the film's most uproarious line.
  27. This feature-length concert film is hilarious, putting Mr. Murphy on a par with Mr. Pryor at his best.
  28. So little goes on that it might be argued that The Burbs means to be a comment on the vacuity of popular entertainment in the television age, though it's much more an example of it. The film does nothing for the reputation of anyone connected with it, including Mr. Hanks, who deserves the Oscar nomination he has just received for his work in Big. This time he's attempting to act a role in a screenplay whose pages are blank.
  29. The latest animated Despicable Me outing shows signs of wear even as its energy level escalates.
  30. Though Three Amigos is the kind of skin-deep contemporary comedy that assembles its stars and then just coasts, it's friendlier than most. And it contains a few elements that are destined for immortality.
  31. Though the scenery can't be faulted, there's not a single funny or surprising moment in the movie. However, Blame It on Rio is not simply humorless. It also spreads gloom. It's one of those unfortunate projects that somehow suggests that everyone connected with the movie hated it and all of the other people involved.
  32. The idea is funnier than the execution. Miss Goldberg is only funny when she is being foul-mouthed, which seems rude since no one else is allowed to respond in kind or degree.
  33. At its best, which it frequently is, it's a lunatic ball, an extremely genial, witty example of what is becoming a movie genre all its own.
  34. They make a funny pair, by turns amusing and puzzling, though also melancholic and touching. For the most part, these variations seem by design in a movie that flirts with assorted narrative conventions and fluctuating moods without ever settling into a familiar template.
  35. The picture, which never stops moving, is dense with information and feeling. Barbs of satire pop up and are washed away on streams of strong emotion. It’s all marvelously preposterous and yet, at the same time, something important is at stake.
  36. There’s much to enjoy in Baby Driver, including the satisfactions of genuine cinematic craft and technique, qualities that moviegoers can no longer take for granted.
  37. All the Rage overrides most of its shortcomings by keeping a breezy tone and by showing Dr. Sarno to be a convincing speaker, as well as an affable and somewhat crusty character.
  38. The look is rough, the emotions always hovering near the surface. Yet, buoyed by Mr. Sharif’s cheery personality, these can sometimes be defiantly upbeat.
  39. Its arguments range wide without going deep, but its factoids about the medical benefits of hanging out in a forest — and the cognitive costs of a noisy school or hospital — are fascinating and persuasive.
  40. What “Can’t Stop” mostly leaves you with is a sense of Mr. Combs’s success.
  41. Indeed, few satisfying answers arise here. But there’s bravery in asking the questions, and this film knows something about courage.
  42. With a soft tone, respectful to opponents but insistent on the data, Food Evolution posits an inconvenient truth for organic boosters to swallow: In a world desperate for safe, sustainable food, G.M.O.s may well be a force for good.
  43. Mr. Young, who also wrote the script, teases out the story in bits of coy hints and half-truths about a tragic accident, leaving too many questions unanswered.
  44. Just because Nobody Speak has a timely message doesn’t make it an ideal messenger.
  45. Here’s a summer movie that is about — and offers — escape.
  46. [Ms. Coppola’s] Beguiled is less a hothouse flower than a bonsai garden, a work of cool, exquisite artifice that evokes wildness on a small, controlled scale.
  47. Its explanatory title doesn’t begin to convey just how exhilarating or inspiring a documentary this truly is, and how excellent a trip this well-respected French director takes you on.
  48. It is a fluent and knowing pastiche of genres and styles with a brazen and vigorous wit of its own.
  49. Mr. Rodrigues ultimately delivers an intriguing, daring film that is likely to surprise both his fans and moviegoers unfamiliar with his work.
  50. I fell hard for both Ms. Kazan and Mr. Nanjiani and The Big Sick, which tells a great story with waves of deep feeling and questions of identity and makes the whole thing feel like a breeze.
  51. The fifth Transformers movie, The Last Knight, is far from the worst in this continuing experiment in noisy nonsense based on Hasbro toys. That is thanks largely to two words: Anthony Hopkins.
  52. It’s an interesting mix, though a few of the interviews meander, and, except for the championship, there’s little sense of urgency onscreen.
  53. Though the script tilts to the didactic, the performances are absolutely delicious, with Mr. Meaney droll and understated and Mr. Spall fiery and derisive, yet not above a joke.
  54. Certainly the journey of Rachel Flowers, a blind musician and composer, is impressive, but Hearing Is Believing, a documentary about her, doesn’t put enough effort into giving her tale depth and context.
  55. This chilly tale of violent secrets and unvoiced misery relies heavily on the skill of actors who seem to know that one false move could tip the whole enterprise into comedy.
  56. In the lulls between bouts of yammering, however, the director, Johannes Roberts, concentrates on building a solid atmosphere of desperation.
  57. A weepie, a thriller, a tragedy, a sub-Spielbergian pastiche, The Book of Henry is mostly a tedious mess.
  58. Stick with the movie for its leads, Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, a beautifully matched pair who open up two closed people, unleashing torrents of feeling.
  59. All Eyez on Me, a fictionalized film biography of Shakur, directed by Benny Boom and starring Demetrius Shipp Jr., is not only a clumsy and often bland account of his life and work, but it also gives little genuine insight into his thought, talent or personality.
  60. In 1993, the documentary “Visions of Light” won critical love for its overview of Hollywood’s classic cinematographers. Matt Schrader’s tidy and informative “Score” lavishes similar adoration on moviedom’s great composers.
  61. Lost in Paris grows a bit tiresome at feature length, but it’s a winning divertissement.
  62. The plot, unlike its execution, is not terrible.
  63. The movie tries for propulsive Tarantino grit but ends up being just another annoying example of Hollywood’s addiction to stories in which graying white men bed beautiful young women and beat up men much more youthful and fit than they are.
  64. It’s all blithely formulaic and would be more irritating if the performers — who include Zoë Kravitz and Illana Glazer — weren’t generally so appealing.
  65. If you can roll with it, the movie is both breezy fun and a pain-free life lesson delivery vehicle
  66. The movie’s climax has sufficient twists and turns for a conventional payoff. But the movie, adapted from a novel by Tatiana de Rosnay, is ultimately more concerned with the genuinely tragic dimensions of the story than its suspense angles.
  67. It’s hard to root for a protagonist who is focused only on his own narrow needs and seems indifferent to the broader issues his tale raises.
  68. Absent fathers and mothers, building bridges with children — Moscow Never Sleeps could easily have unfolded in a much darker register. That it doesn’t is both refreshing and deflating.
  69. This film belongs to its star.
  70. This first feature from Ari Issler and Ben Snyder (who both wrote the script with Mr. Almanzar, a military veteran) refuses to revel in violence.
  71. If the conclusion doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, you’re way too cynical.
  72. The result is a movie about large setbacks and small triumphs, and the grit that takes you from one to the other.
  73. It Comes at Night is pretty terrifying to sit through, but it may be even scarier after it’s over, when you sift through what you’ve seen and try to piece together what it may have meant.
  74. This is neither a simple satire of privilege nor a mock-provocative comedy of diversity and its discontents. It’s about a clash of values, about unresolvable contradictions. Or to put it another way, about good and evil.
  75. Dawson City now enters that time line as an instantaneously recognizable masterpiece.
  76. It’s all very pretty, but too often the movie’s beauty isn’t tethered to deep feeling or strong ideas, one reason you may often find your eyes and thoughts drifting away from the quietly escalating drama toward the vast green fields, the majestic horses and nice detail work.
  77. Fortunately, Camera Obscura has decent actors to flesh out its dubious premise.... But their diligent efforts cannot raise the whole enterprise above a mere exercise.
  78. The “Mummy” reboot from 1999, directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser, was kind of fun. Monster movies frequently are. This one, directed by Alex Kurtzman and starring Tom Cruise, is an unholy mess.
  79. Ultimately, Ascent is a genuinely poetic portrait of a place, and various people’s relation to it.
  80. Pushy, judgmental, tart-tongued and self-obsessed, the photographer at the heart of Otis Mass’s penetrating documentary, The Incomparable Rose Hartman, is, like her snapshots, a piece of work.
  81. As in many a high school movie, it’s the seasoned teacher who brings the best out of his pupils, and here Mr. Scott draws the hidden potential not only from his students but also from the film.
  82. The cast members remain dedicated to their brooding roles as the script admirably reaches for emotions it only sometimes captures.
  83. Yoshinari Nishikori’s period action film Tatara Samurai does not skimp with its swordplay, but its narrative arc takes you to a resolution uncommon for its genre.
  84. The Exception is a diverting and occasionally exciting film, though it is rarely disturbing or thought-provoking in ways the material might require.
  85. While Sami Blood can sometimes seem didactic, Ms. Kernell, who has Sami heritage, richly conveys a sense of the time and place, with elegant shots that glide through the Nordic wilderness.
  86. Michael Bonfiglio, the film’s director, provides a concise overview of the issues.
  87. Past Life is a page-turner that transforms into a clarion call: always compelling, but slightly stifled by noble intentions.
  88. The movie’s ambition is the good news. The bad news is that it is a hash, choosing to jumble the historical record and frame a Churchill bout with depression against the D-Day invasion of France by Allied forces.
  89. If Mr. Martin’s take on grief is facile, the movie overall is a pleasant trip, and Dean’s doodles — by Mr. Martin himself — are a treat.
  90. The movie’s tree-falling-in-the-forest-with-no-one-to-hear-it denouement is an apt but not entirely hopeless metaphor for the condition of its characters.
  91. There’s much historical material here that’s of high interest, and Ms. Swinton’s performance of Bell’s letters convey Bell’s skills as a writer, but the movie is ultimately too conceptually labored for its own good — or that of its subject.
  92. The best animated movies for children are sublime. This one generally settles for noisy, though it throws in a positive message at the end.
  93. Both leads are excellent together, and the movie is good at showing how Anna and Ben push each other’s buttons.
  94. 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.
  95. It’s surprising there has never really been an extended cinematic exploration of the band. Long Strange Trip, ambitiously assembled and elegantly directed by Amir Bar-Lev, fills that void.
  96. The entire cast is solid, but the women, especially Ms. Hagoel, bring depth to their comedic and dramatic turns.
  97. Her insistent imagery and sometimes oblique narrative approach don’t always deliver the dividends sought. But the movie identifies Ms. Shortland as a talent to watch.
  98. Amid the fight, there’s a sense of hope as we watch one tough kid turning into one tough man. With luck, that will lead to a sequel.
  99. The film belongs to Ms. Muñoz. She’s the kind of performer (like Setsuko Hara, the Japanese actress to whom the film is dedicated) you can’t take your eyes off, even when she doesn’t seem to be up to much of anything.

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