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. White Wedding
    Wedding chaos has been heavily mined by both film and stage comedies, but Jann Turner, the director here, keeps this story fresh, aided by the effortless interplay between Mr. Nkosi and Mr. Seiphemo (who are credited with Ms. Turner as writers). The goat helps too.
  2. Hideaway (Le refuge)
    But while the Pietà imagery startles, it makes increasing sense as the story builds around it. Because as Hideaway deepens and evolves, you understand that the image of Mousse cradling Louis is a manifestation of her love: this was how she held him, with a tender love that in its depth was itself holy.
  3. I'm Still Here
    My guess is that after years of being the trick pony, he wanted to see what it was like to be the ringmaster.
  4. The Freebie
    A smart seriocomic playlet with some emotionally harsh moments, although it refrains from plumbing its subject in agonizing depth.
  5. The Girl
    As tadpoles morph into frogs, and fears are conquered, The Girl delivers a satisfying, sun-dappled fable about the kindness of strangers and the cruelty of peers.
  6. Kings of Pastry
    The film builds in interest and intrigue as it goes along, helped immeasurably by the directors' choice - canny or fortunate or both - of the astonishingly good-natured and likable Jacquy Pfeiffer, an Alsace-born, Chicago-based chef, as their chief protagonist.
  7. Unstoppable
    It's the kind of outrageous, excessive flourish that can make Mr. Scott's work so enjoyable in the moment. He doesn't do much, but with a handful of appealing actors in tow, he sure keeps that machine going.
    • The New York Times
      • Posted Dec 14, 2010
  8. Love and Other Drugs
    A sometimes intoxicating, sometimes headache-inducing cocktail: a sweet, libidinous love story; a candid comedy of bedroom and workplace manners; and, most bravely, if also most jarringly, a medical melodrama involving a chronic and very serious disease.
  9. Hatchet II
    Swift and amusingly brainless, Hatchet II more than delivers on splatter expectations.
  10. Samson and Delilah
    How do you know you're looking at a pretty good piece of filmmaking? When the director and actors can make you care about the central characters even though they exchange almost no dialogue.
  11. William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
    It is all either blood-chilling or hilarious. For those who celebrate Burroughs as one of the darkest and greatest of all comic artists, he is an extreme social satirist of Swiftian stature, whose quasi-pornographic images offer a stark, ghastly/funny photonegative image of the American body politic.
  12. The King's Speech
    That film does have its attractions, notably in its two solid leads and standout support from Mr. Pearce.
  13. All Good Things
    Certainly the fictionalized brood in All Good Things is equal to the Friedmans in terms of dysfunction, and they're loaded.
  14. The Illusionist
    The Illusionist is both a modest homage to its writer and a melancholy look at a lost world.
  15. Music Makes a City: A Louisville Orchestra Story
    Viewers unfamiliar with artists like Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller will find themselves agreeably challenged. And stirred.
  16. The Other City
    The film's most vivid presence is seen but barely able to speak: Jimmy, a gay man in his 30s dying at Joseph's House, an AIDS hospice. Anyone who has kept a deathbed vigil will relate to his suffering and his family's, and perhaps arrive at a sense of just how universal this epidemic truly is.
  17. Hot Summer Days (Chuen sing yit luen - yit lat lat)
    Do they have date movies in China? Probably, and Hot Summer Days, an enjoyable concoction of loosely intertwined stories of love and obsession, is just right for that purpose.
  18. Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
    In her director's statement for Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, Gail O'Hara writes that "this one's for the fans." Rarely has that been more true.
  19. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    Mr. Alfredson directed the second movie as well, and his work is again essentially functional, limited to clumsy action sequences and television-ready conversations. He doesn't prettify the violence in either movie, which might be unintentional but makes them feel more honest than the first did.
  20. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
    Those swayed by the argument in Client 9 that some of the rich and powerful whom Mr. Spitzer crusaded against might have exploited his stupidity should find all this enthralling. Others might just remember the hubris.
  21. Barney's Version
    In spite of Mr. Giamatti's ferociously energetic performance Barney's Version never figures out just who Barney is.
  22. Rabbit Hole
    Rabbit Hole could easily have been maudlin, grim or exploitative, and it is none of those things. It is sensitive, considerate, and, in the end, not entirely persuasive.
  23. Cool It
    Cool It finally blossoms into an engrossing, brain-tickling picture as many of Al Gore's meticulously graphed assertions are systematically - and persuasively - refuted.
  24. The Way Back
    It's impossible not to cry at their suffering, but whether you'll feel anything is another story.
  25. The Portuguese Nun
    The Portuguese Nun has wit and feeling, though the wit is at times almost imperceptibly subtle and the feeling somewhat stylized.
  26. A Marine Story
    Ms. Weber (Mr. Farr's wife) anchors the movie with a gritty, honest performance that has the same to-the-bone quality as Melissa Leo's in "Frozen River." There's not a false note or inflection.
  27. Tiny Furniture
    Tiny Furniture is at times more pleasurable to think about than it is to watch, more of a conceptual coup than an enjoyable experience.
  28. Unknown
    Despite its A-movie aspirations, as the chases continue and the plot holes widen, Unknown quickly settles into the familiar B-movie comfort zone.
  29. Me, Too
    Sensitive without being unrealistically utopian (this isn't a fairy tale), Me, Too movingly represents the frustration of the high-functioning yet falling-short individual.
  30. Undertow
    A small movie with a full heart, Undertow takes an old idea - the loving, lingering ghost - and gives it reverberant, resuscitated life.
  31. Bhutto
    If nothing else, the directors, Duane Baughman and Johnny O'Hara, deserve praise for devoting this kind of attention to a foreign leader and to the internal politics of another country (as opposed to how those politics affect the United States).
  32. Come Undone
    Like Mr. Soldini's last film, "Days and Clouds," a calm, very sad examination of the effects of a husband's sudden job loss on an affluent couple's relationship and social life, Come Undone is solidly grounded in mundane reality. If the movie tells an old story, its unvarnished realism lends it poignancy and depth.
  33. Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie
    Make of it what you will: like its subject, Saint Misbehavin' is an unabashed love letter to the world that defies the cynicism of our age.
  34. Rabbit à la Berlin
    Teasing and shrewd, Rabbit à la Berlin is a floppy-eared fable about the uneasy trade-offs between liberty and security.
  35. I Am Secretly an Important Man
    While I Am Secretly an Important Man skims the surface of Mr. Bernstein's life, it's a surface with more than enough texture to keep you interested.
  36. The Strange Case of Angelica
    The charm of The Strange Case of Angelica lies in the way it balances this mysticism with a thoroughly secular sense of the business of everyday life.
  37. Summer Wars
    There's a lovely, unhurried quality to Mr. Hosoda's storytelling, which nicely matches the clean, classically composed images of his outer story.
  38. A Somewhat Gentle Man
    Patiently directed by Hans Petter Moland, Ulrik's journey back to life slowly draws you in.
  39. Go Go Tales
    A lovely drift of a movie, Go Go Tales commands your attention even as it lulls you along. Conspicuously inspired by John Cassavetes's "Killing of a Chinese Bookie," among other touchstones, it is a sincere and inspired meditation on art and creation, but in a loose, funny key.
  40. Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune
    The story told by Mr. Bowser's film is complicated and tragic.
  41. Every Day
    Very well written and acted, Every Day feels like a glorified television drama softened with comic and surreal trimmings.
  42. The Housemaid
    An admiring, clever remake of Kim Ki-young's legendary film of the same title from 1960, this version, directed by Im Sang-soo, is at once more explicit than the original and less kinky.
  43. Nobody Else But You (Poupoupidou)
    If Nobody Else but You is smart and entertaining, it is a little too clever for its own good.
  44. Prom
    There are new tweeners every year. To them, the characters and plot devices in this perfectly competent film might well seem fresh.
  45. Source Code
    In crucial ways, Source Code, written by Ben Ripley, recalls "Moon," Mr. Jones's accomplished feature debut about a solitary astronaut played by Sam Rockwell. Source Code is bigger, shinier, pricier.
  46. When We Leave
    It is frequently gripping and sincere in its intentions, but never quite as revelatory, or as devastating, as it should be.
  47. Kung Fu Panda 2
    Accomplishes the depressingly familiar mathematical trick of being both more and less than its predecessor.
  48. Carancho
    At heart an unlovely love story illuminated by sudden flares of violence, the film reeks of hopelessness and moral destitution, offering its lovers few means of escape.
  49. Orgasm Inc.
    Explores the link between female sexuality and corporate profits with a style that's as entertaining as it is revelatory.
  50. Vidal Sassoon: The Movie
    Its upbeat tone, perky visual rhythm and sleek graphics capture the "swinging '60s" aesthetic epitomized by Mr. Sassoon's major invention: the geometric "five-point" haircut.
  51. Brotherhood
    The script, by Mr. Canon and Doug Simon, eventually strains credulity - even frat boys aren't this dumb - but Mr. Canon, in his first feature, shows a great knack for keeping things moving. The gathering implausibility is dispelled by a nice ending twist.
  52. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
    The latest and best of the movies about a girl, her vampire and their impossible, ridiculously appealing - yes, I surrendered - love story.
  53. Friends with Benefits
    The results are about as naughty as that sounds (not very), but it also makes for a fairly giggling good time.
  54. Captain America: The First Avenger
    Has a winningly pulpy, jaunty, earnest spirit.
  55. X-Men: First Class
    With its spy-on-spy globetrotting, old-fashioned villains, flirty but prematurely swinging minis and fan-boy bits (look for an eye-blink-fast tribute to "Basic Instinct" and a cameo from the cult actor Michael Ironside), the whole enterprise has an agreeable lightness, no small thing, given its rapidly moving parts.
  56. The Lincoln Lawyer
    There are modest pleasures in a familiar story told differently enough that you're happy to keep guessing and watching.
  57. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
    Gets back to action basics with globe-trotting, nifty gadgets, high-flying stunts and less loquacious villainy.
  58. Limitless
    An energetic, enjoyably preposterous compound - it's a paranoid thriller blended with pseudo-neuro-science fiction and catalyzed by a jolting dose of satire.
  59. Crazy, Stupid, Love
    The movie, true to its own PG-13 rating, opts for mildness, modesty and chastened optimism. At the same time, though, it seems to know that a crueler, more cynical rendering of its story - a "Bitter, Hopeless, Love" - lurks between the lines.
  60. Heartbeats
    Monologues delivered by assorted unidentified losers in love who relate their unhappy stories to an unseen listener lend Heartbeats the semblance of a structure. But beyond that, the movie is a gush of gorgeous images and music.
  61. Born to Be Wild
    The women's efforts have already had a fair amount of publicity, so the attraction here is the cinematography, and it makes good use of Imax and 3-D technology, with lovely aerial views and startling close-ups.
  62. Fright Night
    The old "Fright Night" was both self-aware and effectively scary, and if this one seems to prefer gruesome digital effects to old-fashioned bump-in-the-night spookiness, it still succeeds in keeping the audience both tickled and anxious.
  63. Hobo with a Shotgun
    Only for those with a truly bottomless appetite for gore and fan-boy humor.
  64. Puss in Boots
    Puss has his charms, but he is not as memorable a character as Shrek or Shrek's mouthy sidekick, Donkey. Consequently the story, which involves a quest for magic beans and golden eggs, feels improvised and diffuse.
  65. Into Eternity
    There is something apocalyptically awful about Onkalo, to be sure, but the impulse behind it is noble, and the installation itself has an undeniable grandeur.
  66. Troubadours
    The enjoyable, lightweight Troubadours is a musical scrapbook that throws together a bit of this and a bit of that.
  67. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
    It's good, canny-dumb fun.
  68. Damsels in Distress
    Even if it did not have other charms, this peculiar, uneven campus comedy would be worth seeing for the delightful felicity of its dialogue.
  69. Win Win
    Win Win goes a bit soft in places, protecting its characters from serious danger or tough moral reckoning. But the film's niceness is also central to its appeal, because nearly all of the characters are people you enjoy spending time with.
  70. The Possession
    Even if you resist the film's claims of being based on one family's actual experiences, The Possession is eerily enjoyable pulp. Perched somewhere between "The Exorcist" and "The Amityville Horror" - and with a dash of "The Unborn" - the story benefits from an unusually restrained sound design and special effects that enhance but never obliterate its troubled-family center.
  71. Brighton Rock
    By discarding most of the theological debate, the movie is no longer a passion play but a gritty and despairing noir. That's good enough for me.
  72. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    This leisurely paced two-hour movie is a reasonably tasty banquet for the same Anglophiles who embrace "Downton Abbey."
  73. The Big Year
    Like birding itself, The Big Year rewards patience. It respects both the integrity and the eccentricity of the avian obsession, and it communicates something of the fascinating abundance and weirdness of the animals themselves.
  74. Horrible Bosses
    The laughter is mean but also oddly pure: it expels shame and leaves you feeling dizzy, a little embarrassed and also exhilarated, kind of like the cocaine that two of the main characters consume by accident.
  75. Albert Nobbs
    Ms. McTeer's sly, exuberant performance is a pure delight, and the counterpoint between her physical expressiveness and Ms. Close's tightly coiled reserve is a marvel to behold. The rest of the film is a bit too decorous and tidy to count as a major revelation, but it dispenses satisfying doses of humor, pathos and surprise.
  76. Everything Must Go
    Unlike its beer-soaked protagonist, Everything Must Go remains dry, serving up its catharsis in wry, moderate doses and making the most of its modest, careful virtues. It is a sober movie, but also sad and satisfying.
  77. Trust
    The mantle of social relevance can be a heavy one, but Trust, a smooth drama about a girl's seduction and rape by a middle-aged Internet predator, is neither preachy nor hysterically overreaching.
  78. Snow White and the Huntsman
    Though it is an ambitious - at times mesmerizing - application of the latest cinematic technology, the movie tries to recapture some of the menace of the stories that used to be told to scare children rather than console them.
  79. We Are What We Are
    This ghastly scenario of poor preying on poor is, like the film's gray-green palette, profoundly depressing and entirely pitiless.
  80. I Saw the Devil
    A droll Nietzschean fable that's fully aware of its lapses into absurdity.
  81. Winter in Wartime
    Winter in Wartime turns into a moderately gripping thriller with predictable plot twists and reversals.
  82. Potiche
    You suspect, before long, that there is no strong reason for this production to exist, but it is reasonably good fun all the same.
  83. To Die Like a Man
    For all its melodrama To Die Like a Man is a not a tearjerker. Its gaze into the void is as unblinking as that of the H.I.V.-positive 60-year-old hustler in Jacques Nolot's even more hard-headed film, "Before I Forget."
  84. Dolphin Tale
    Pitched awfully young, without a shred of the satire or subtlety that is generally found in films aimed at tweeners and above. That's not a bad thing; it just means accompanying grown-ups or older siblings will have to choke down a sizable dose of schmaltz with their fish milkshakes.
  85. Big Miracle
    Big Miracle gets off to a shaky start, but once revved up, it becomes an involving work-against-the-clock-and-the-odds action movie.
  86. Safe House
    Essentially and very effectively a rollicking smash-and-crash chase movie that happens to be surprisingly well acted.
  87. Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story
    The film bounces around enjoyably, giving a history of the game, talking to people who love it and chronicling the 2009 Monopoly World Championships in Las Vegas.
  88. Meet Monica Velour
    This is Ms. Cattrall's movie all the way. Photographed more cruelly than a tabloid victim, she gives Monica a grubby dignity that her "Sex and the City" alter ego, Samantha Jones, would wholeheartedly applaud.
  89. Attenberg
    The emotions are quiet, and the connections among the characters feel tentative and fragile. Though it makes no reference to the current economic and political crisis in Greece, Attenberg is suffused with a sense of malaise - of stasis, if you prefer a Greek word - that way well reflect the contemporary national mood.
  90. One Hundred Mornings
    Leavening the rather grim atmosphere with luminous earth tones (photographed by Suzie Lavelle) and a smidgen of wry humor, this low-budget beauty draws you in.
  91. Rise of the Guardians
    Works so hard at celebrating wide eyes and naïve joy that it comes close to spoiling its own intermittent wonderfulness.
  92. 21 Jump Street
    It wants to be fun and, to a perhaps surprising extent, it is. Largely forsaking the sweet multiculturalism of the original for white-dude bromance, and completely abandoning earnest teenagers-in-crisis melodrama in favor of crude, aggressive comedy, this 21 Jump Street is an example of how formula-driven entertainment can succeed.
  93. Prometheus
    The virtuosity on display makes the weakness of the story all the more frustrating. I'll avoid spoilers here, but Prometheus kind of spoils itself with twists and reversals that pull the movie away from its lofty, mind-blowing potential.
  94. Brave
    The tussling between Elinor and Merida is familiar, but while the mother-daughter clashes may make the story "relatable," they drain it of its mythopoetic potential, turning what could have been a cool postmodern fairy tale into another family melodrama.
  95. Our Idiot Brother
    A thin, unconvincing movie made likable by the charm and skill of its cast and by a script peppered with wit and insight.
  96. Circumstance
    Though it lacks the artful, headlong immediacy of "The Circle" and "Offside," Jafar Panahi's films about women in Tehran - and the breakneck exuberance of Bahman Ghobadi's "No One Knows About Persian Cats," about Tehran's underground music scene - Circumstance ripples with the indignant energy of youthful rebellion.
  97. How to Live Forever
    Mr. Wexler has found interesting people and useful, funny and sometimes crackpot-seeming information.
  98. The Elephant in the Living Room
    Fair to a fault, "Elephant" omits what could be considered crucial voices - like lawmakers, the Humane Society (which helped finance the film) and mental-health professionals - in its attempt to understand those who believe their particular beast is as harmless as a kitten. At least until it rips someone's face off.
  99. Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer
    The most consistent and useful thread running throughout this enervating travelogue is the value of silence as a path to inner peace, a notion to which any Manhattan dweller can surely attest.
  100. The Princess of Montpensier
    The French director Bertrand Tavernier deploys some smart ideas in this film, a period story about wars on the battlefield and those closer to home, but there's something a bit goatish in his attention to some female charms.
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