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. Bride Flight
    Best enjoyed as a lavish period travelogue whose story is dwarfed by its panoramic overview.
  2. Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny
    Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny is a handsomely produced, television-scale documentary with a split personality.
  3. Go for It!
    Best of all, Go for It! speaks to working-class young women without ignoring issues like race, class tensions and domestic violence. It's never mawkish, even at its understated climax. Uplift with minimal fanfare? That's no small feat. Latin spice only helps.
  4. A Better Life
    As is sometimes the case with movies that take on civil and political rights without force-feeding the audience,A Better Life" plays the human interest angle hard. It tries to put a lump in your throat and a tear on your cheek (it succeeds), pumping your emotions doubtless in an attempt to look nonpartisan.
  5. The Art of Getting By
    There is also much in The Art of Getting By that is worth praising, and if you can grade on a curve - setting the standard at "The Wackness" rather than "The Squid and the Whale" - you may find yourself touched, tickled and occasionally surprised.
  6. Viva Riva!
    Repackaging the revenge thriller in parakeet colors and distinctive African beats, the Congolese writer and director Djo Tunda Wa Munga gives Viva Riva! a playful sensuality that goes a long way toward disguising formula.
  7. Beautiful Darling
    Beautiful Darling, James Rasin's touching documentary biography of Candy Darling, the transsexual Andy Warhol "superstar," is a sad, lyrical reflection on the foolish worship of movie stars.
  8. The Guard
    There's a story, in case you're looking for one, though it's almost an afterthought, just the thin glue holding everything together, including the fine cast, the sense of broody place and the fatalism that seems to come with it. Mostly there's Mr. McDonagh's playful, sometimes overly cute language, which serves the actors and also threatens to upstage them.
  9. Road to Nowhere
    If Mr. Hellman's movie only partly fulfills its promise as a gripping neo-noir mystery, his stylistic hallmarks lend it a singularly haunting atmosphere.
  10. Caterpillar
    Shinobu Terajima, a major figure in Japan who won the best actress award at the 2010 Berlin film festival for Caterpillar, is effective as the wife, though Mr. Wakamatsu is more interested in scoring political and historical points than in shaping her character.
  11. L'amour fou
    To realize that you may have the world while still feeling as if you have nothing is to experience a closer encounter with the void than most of us are likely to have.
  12. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
    Eventually, though, Hey, Boo settles into a pleasant rhythm. It gives the fascinating history of how the book came to be.
  13. Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
    Interviews with Martin Scorsese, Lauren Bacall, Kim Hunter and the film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Powell's widow, among others, are fascinating, though we learn almost nothing about Cardiff's personal life.
  14. The Sleeping Beauty
    The pleasures of Ms. Breillat's work are its commitment and seriousness and its raw, sometimes very funny perversity: she's lets everything hang out, without apologies.
  15. The Five-Year Engagement
    The Five-Year Engagement dutifully hits the marks of its genre, but it is also about the unpredictability of life and the everyday challenges of love. The sensitivity and honesty with which it addresses those matters is a pleasant surprise.
  16. Lord Byron
    Against all reason, Byron's televangelist-led quest for clarity compels us to follow, the film's melting, naturalistic images softening the occasional scream of dialogue repeated beyond all necessity.
  17. 3
    In this quintessentially Germanic film, Berlin - where they live, work, and create and voraciously consume culture - is as much a character as any person. The collective sensibility on display is determinedly forward looking; you might even say avant-garde.
  18. The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls
    Merging old-fashioned comedy routines with up-to-the-minute politics - all of it enabled by fun-loving personalities and a gift for rousing original songs - the ladies emit a genuine warmth that reels audiences in.
  19. Make Believe
    The buildup to the actual competition is perfectly paced, with the film never tipping its hand as to the winner. And the championship has all the drama of a high-stakes sporting event: failure under pressure, unexpected triumph, gracious losers and winners both.
  20. Littlerock
    It's significantly smaller and more casual than "Mystery Train" or "Lost in Translation," movies its premise calls to mind, but in some ways it's more layered and complex.
  21. Lost Bohemia
    A sad and spirited elegy for the Carnegie Hall Studios, which for more than a century provided working, living and teaching space for all kinds of artists on the floors above the famous concert hall.
  22. Raw Faith
    Despite these flaws, it's refreshing to see a documentary about a normal grown-up who is struggling with problems of life and love, just as so many invisible others do.
  23. In the Land of Blood and Honey
    Both Ms. Marjanovic and Mr. Kostic are very fine (like the rest of the cast they deliver their dialogue in Bosnian) and they navigate the contradictions of their characters' feelings, the flashes of hate, the surrender to desire, with delicacy.
  24. The Woman in Black
    Less gore is more here, and what a relief. The Woman in Black isn't especially scary, but it keeps you on edge, and without the usual vivisectionist imagery.
  25. Hello Lonesome
    Adam Reid's smart, poignant trilogy of interwoven vignettes, manages the considerable feat of creating six fully human characters who are quirky enough to transcend the stereotypes found in a typical indie film.
  26. Puzzle
    Although Puzzle is a much smaller, less ambitious film without the ominous political subtext of Ms. Martel's masterwork, its story of a woman discovering her special gift and rejoicing in it has implications about sexual inequality in Argentina's middle class.
  27. Out of the Blue (1980)
    The theme music, from Neil Young's "Rust Never Sleeps" album, is a haunting accompaniment to Mr. Hopper's sometimes stunning imagery. The best moments of "Out of the Blue" have both the beauty and the banality of found art.
  28. Elysium
    Mr. Damon’s performance helps keep the movie from sinking under the weight of its artfully constructed horrors.
  29. Love Crime
    It is interesting and ingenious, even if some of the kinky, queasy fascination that had been so intoxicating in the earlier scenes ebbs away.
  30. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?
    Mr. Siegel is no Cassandra: retaining the waggish tone of his previous documentary, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" (released in 2007), he balances the doom-talking heads with cute animation and characters like Yvon Achard, a French "bee historian" who caresses the swarm with his elaborately styled facial hair.
  31. Agrarian Utopia
    The mood is not one of misery, but of quiet, weary endurance punctuated with moments of joy.
  32. Looper
    Mr. Johnson throws a lot at the screen, blasted corpses included, yet little here is as initially transfixing as Mr. Gordon-Levitt's mug.
  33. R
    Isn't as hellish as the situation behind bars is portrayed in American movies, some of which are so gory they qualify as prison porn. But it is awful enough.
  34. The Names of Love
    For all the potentially dangerous subjects it glosses, above all the tangled legacies of the Holocaust and the Algerian war, The Names of Love dances away from any uncomfortable provocation. Even when sticking out its tongue, it is finally just an airy comedy riding on one cheeky, incandescent performance.
  35. Savages
    Savages is a daylight noir, a western, a stoner buddy movie and a love story, which is to say that it is a bit of a mess. But also a lot of fun, especially as its pulp elements rub up against some gritty geopolitical and economic themes.
  36. The Mighty Macs
    Sometimes a film feels a bit too pat and yet is impossible to resist. The Mighty Macs, based on the national championship run of the 1972 women's basketball team at Immaculata College near Philadelphia, is such a film: lots of button pushing, but in the end you're glad you saw it.
  37. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
    The fact that the speakers' faces are never seen produces a feeling of estrangement that is crucial to the film's effectiveness. You become acutely aware of gaps and discontinuities: between slogans and realities, between political ideals and stubborn social problems, between then and now.
  38. Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace
    A well-reported history of the Camp David talks, the events that led to them, and the difficult negotiations that followed to forge the peace treaty that was signed the next spring.
  39. Delhi Belly
    It also shows, perceptively and often sweetly, a broader slice of young, urban, educated life in India as the three deal with careers, love and happiness.
  40. Small Town Murder Songs
    Compellingly acted from top to bottom. As the raw passions of its hard-bitten characters seep into you, the songs hammer them even more deeply into your consciousness. The film's only flaw - a big one - is its brevity.
  41. Fast & Furious 6
    A satisfying thrill ride, at least on a par with the earlier installments.
  42. Pacific Rim
    Pacific Rim, with its carefree blend of silliness and solemnity, is clearly the product of an ingenious and playful pop sensibility.
  43. Welcome
    Compelling, finely balanced immigration drama.
  44. Rapt
    A solid yet fleet French thriller about a society kidnapping and its shockwaves.
  45. Love in Space
    As domestic summer date movies ("A Good Old Fashioned Orgy"; "The Change-Up") compete for snark and gross-out points, it's a relief to know that the traditional frothy rom-com - sweet-hearted and hopeful, without profanity or sexual gymnastics - is not dead. Outsourced? That's another story.
  46. Senna
    As a personality profile, Senna is sketchy at best. Born into a well-to-do family in São Paulo, Brazil, Senna pursued the sport from a young age with a maniacal zeal. He comes across as a fatalistic daredevil and as a man of the people, his wealthy background aside.
  47. Aarakshan
    Subtle it ain't and subtle it needn't be. It is, though, mostly involving (if Bollywood long, at 2 hours 45 minutes) and even occasionally stirring.
  48. Where Soldiers Come From
    Where Soldiers Come From is, more than anything, a commentary on class. In its compassionate, modest gaze, the real cost of distant political decisions is softly illuminated, as well as the shame of a country with little to offer its less fortunate young people than a ticket to a battlefield.
  49. This Is 40
    There are a lot of loose ends and a few forced conclusions. But, then again, the acceptance of imperfection is Mr. Apatow's theme, so a degree of sloppiness is to be expected. That's life.
  50. Mr. Peabody & Sherman
    [The film] is not perfect, but it is fast-moving, intermittently witty and pretty good fun.
  51. How to Train Your Dragon 2
    Dragon 2 is considerably darker and more self-aware than its forerunner. Both films are speedier than the average animated blockbuster. In places, Dragon 2 is almost too fast to keep up with, and, in other places, it’s a little too dark, at least in 3-D.
  52. Fire in Babylon
    It all adds up to an entertaining 88 minutes, despite the film's ramshackle construction and its once-over-lightly approach to political, cultural and athletic history.
  53. The Woman with the 5 Elephants
    It's an interesting story, well told, though Mr. Jendreyko overworks some documentary fallbacks: gnarled fingers, the view from a moving train.
  54. Autoerotic
    Its tone is quietly comical, with each chapter treated as an extended joke, or as an R-rated O. Henry story angling toward a neat concluding twist.
  55. Burke and Hare
    Those who care less about such stuff than about being entertained will find plenty to like in this ghoulish comedy, a droll take on one of the most notorious mass-murder cases of the 19th century.
  56. Good Neighbors
    Swerving from bland to brutal, endearingly coy to shockingly explicit, the Canadian import Good Neighbors finds pitch-black comedy among white-bread lives.
  57. Khodorkovsky
    The prisoner rather eloquently portrays himself as a victim of human rights abuse.
  58. Walking with Dinosaurs
    The movie looks great, the writing is peppered with moments of wit, and there’s even an educational component built in as dinosaur facts are displayed on the screen.
  59. Mozart's Sister
    Nannerl, the subject of at least three novels also titled "Mozart's Sister," is in this film meant to be something more than a chapter in her brother's biography though it's not exactly clear what. Somewhat frustratingly if reasonably, Mr. Féret never settles on whether she was a genius, a martyr, a feminist cause, a disappointed daughter, a resigned woman or all of the above.
  60. Parker
    Parker...is not a great movie....But Parker is nonetheless great fun. It is part of a welcome trend, or counter-trend, in action filmmaking, an effort to strip away the apocalyptic bloat and digital fakery that have overtaken the genre and return to its pulpy, nasty, mechanical roots.
  61. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
    Catching Fire isn’t a great work of art but it’s a competent, at times exciting movie and it does something that better, more artistically notable movies often fail to do: It speaks to its moment in time.
  62. World War Z
    World War Z often feels smaller and quieter than it is, because your attention is drawn to details and moments rather than to showstopping spectacles or self-important themes.
  63. Griff the Invisible
    Mr. Kwanten, meanwhile, best known for playing the sweet, dim Jason Stackhouse on the HBO show "True Blood," gives Griff the delicate, ethereal affect of a man who's an alien in his own world except when he's running down an alley in a disguise. He's a pleasure to watch.
  64. Pearl Jam Twenty
    Before viewers learn this venerable ensemble's story, much less see its members rock out on screen, they are subjected to Mr. Crowe's voice-over account of his own early discovery of the Seattle scene.
  65. Toast
    Ms. Bonham Carter's hearty performance makes Mrs. Potter almost lovable. You may laugh at her garishness, but you applaud her pluck and stamina.
  66. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
    The film, by Constance Marks, is a little light on details of Mr. Clash's personal life once he broke through, but otherwise this is a winning tale of the persistence and creativity behind one of the most famous and fuzziest faces in the world.
  67. Outrage
    Not everything is as elegantly executed, including a tiresome, would-be comic subplot involving an African diplomat and a clandestine casino that drags the story down badly and comes close to noxious racial stereotype.
  68. Laugh at My Pain
    Some of Kevin Hart's fans may be disappointed that Laugh at My Pain, a film version of his recent stand-up tour, offers less than an hour of Mr. Hart onstage. But a couple of adornments - one before the concert footage, one after - flesh out this funny, profanity-heavy movie nicely.
  69. Tales from the Golden Age
    The strongest tales embrace a strain of barnyard humor that is matched by the robust performances of actors who convey an earthy jocularity. The movie doesn't shy away from comparing these hardy, weather-beaten rustics to their livestock.
  70. Pariah
    At its heart is an incandescent performance by Ms. Oduye, who captures the jagged mood swings of late adolescence with a wonderfully spontaneous fluency.
  71. Shaolin
    If the movie feels old-school (with new-school production values), consider its pedigree. It's no wonder: Shaolin is a reimagining of the 1982 "Shaolin Temple," in which Jet Li made his debut.
  72. Silent Souls
    Silent Souls is part folk tale, part lesson in letting go. In its quiet acceptance of the passing of time, this unusual film reminds us that to die is not always the same as to disappear.
  73. Limelight
    As a trippy, trifling memorial to a time before its eponymous club was a mini-mall and rave culture a woozy memory, Limelight delivers the messed-up goods.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football
    Fordson, however, does not condemn the United States. It rather proudly affirms the American dream, reclaiming it for Muslims who see no conflict between their patriotism and their faith.
  75. Sound It Out
    Like a mint pressing in a bargain bin Sound It Out is a rare find. Sweet.
  76. Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure
    A dandy little documentary whether you view the story it captures as a precursor to the flash fame of the Internet age or as one of the last genuine underground phenomena before the Internet made that whole concept obsolete.
  77. The Woman in the Fifth
    Although Mr. Pawlikowski often shows Mr. Hawke in medium and long shots, the actor draws you close. There's anguish in Tom's face that speaks of a terrible fragility and that leavens the story's mysterioso proceedings with a real, recognizable humanity.
  78. Wuthering Heights
    The grunts and howls seem every bit as mannered as the florid diction of Olivier and Oberon, perhaps even more so. Their artifice, like Brontë's own, was overt, whereas Ms. Arnold strives to disguise hers in the trappings of authenticity. And as a result, the impact - the grandeur, the art - of Wuthering Heights is diminished.
  79. Sidewalls
    Smart, wordy and sweetly sympathetic to lives lived online, Sidewalls coasts on Martín and Mariana's twin voice-overs, alternate musings on themselves and their city.
  80. Paul Goodman Changed My Life
    I suspect that he would have approved of Mr. Lee's film, and not only because it approves so unreservedly of him. Paul Goodman Changed My Life may not have that effect on every viewer, but it has a passionate, almost prophetic sense of the impact that a writer and thinker can have on his times and the future.
  81. Norman
    Norman may not conquer the box office, but it will certainly be a worthy calling card for its director and its leading man.
  82. Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
    Today Mr. Fisher and Mr. Moore are all who remain of the original lineup, enduring a punishing touring schedule in 500-seat clubs. But the group's influence - attested to by members of No Doubt, the Peppers and Jane's Addiction, among many others - is indisputable.
  83. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
    The carnage, although explicit and frequent, is not grotesquely overdone. But except for Mr. Moura's Nascimento, the movie doesn't have the same richness of characters. Psychologically he is the whole show; the rest are stereotypes.
  84. To Rome with Love
    One of the most delightful things about To Rome With Love is how casually it blends the plausible and the surreal, and how unabashedly it revels in pure silliness.
  85. Trouble with the Curve
    Regrettably, it is not a home run or a perfect game, but it isn't a wild throw, an errant bunt or a dropped fly ball either. Trouble With the Curve is either an off-speed pitch that just catches the edge of the strike zone or a bloop single lofted into right field. The runner is safe. The movie is too.
  86. Klitschko
    For those who care about the winning and losing of championship belts, the film's slow-motion attention to pugilistic style and powerhouse punches is thrillingly instructive.
  87. Pina
    The cumulative effect is exhilarating and also a bit frustrating, since so many dances are included and woven together the audience does not have the chance to experience any single work in its entirety. But the power and intelligence of Bausch's approach, which at times seems more cerebral than sensual, is communicated.
  88. The Reunion
    The Reunion has no pretensions of originality, and maybe that's just fine. It's relaxing to watch formula roll in front of you if that formula is engaged with affection, and that's the case here, much to the credit of the writer and director, Mike Pavone.
  89. The Great Gatsby
    Less a conventional movie adaptation than a splashy, trashy opera, a wayward, lavishly theatrical celebration of the emotional and material extravagance that Fitzgerald surveyed with fascinated ambivalence.
  90. Hipsters
    Who knows if anything remotely resembling the culture of Hipsters really existed? It's a musical, after all. In any case this movie, which won the 2009 Nika (the Russian Oscar) for best picture, is an endearing curiosity that, at 125 minutes, is as badly in need of a trim as the hair of its comically coiffed dandies.
  91. My Reincarnation
    Especially in the early footage, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu is an engaging, charismatic figure; by the end, Yeshi is finding his own footing, able to relate to a young, wired-in audience. My Reincarnation makes a pretty strong case: when the family business is enlightenment, listen to your dad.
  92. Warm Bodies
    Warm Bodies is an improbable romance sweetened with appealing performances and buoyed by one of the better cute meets in recent romantic comedy.
  93. Broken City
    Hughes visual choices can feel borrowed and clichéd, but his regard for beauty often compensates for his blunders, as does the sturdy, reliable appeal of another story of good and evil, men and women, light and dark, glass and steel, sex and power. As it turns out, there are eight million and one stories in the naked city.
  94. The Other F Word
    What begins as an amusing fluff piece ("Daddy's messed up," mumbles one woozy subject after dropping his gurgling infant) slowly emerges as a compelling and often touching peek at punk paternity.
  95. The Last Rites of Joe May
    Mr. Maggio's strengths here are his people (not their stories), a sense of intimacy and textured place rather than the generic hoops he forces the characters to jump through.
  96. Pianomania
    Although there's more romance in "Buck," a classic American survivor story in the triumphant individual vein, in Pianomania the very dry, very accomplished Mr. Knüpfer makes engaging company both because he keeps enviable company and because he's a full-on geek, though one possessed by pianos.
  97. Dragonslayer
    Seamlessly dovetailing style and subject, Dragonslayer, a poetic and affectionate portrait of the professional skateboarder Josh Sandoval.
  98. Rampart
    A sun-scorched noir, Rampart tells a familiar story with such visual punch and hustling energy that it comes close to feeling like a new kind of movie, though it's more just a tough gloss on American crime stories past.
  99. The Love We Make
    Captured mostly in gorgeous black and white, The Love We Make is alternately trite, touching, funny and fascinating.
  100. Dog Sweat
    Dog Sweat (the title is slang for alcohol) is surprisingly polished, the young actors warmly believable despite being restricted by the film's narrow focus.
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