The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,278 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: 9,380 out of 20278
  2. Mixed: 8,434 out of 20278
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20278
20278 movie reviews
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  1. A Royal Night Out
    What makes A Royal Night Out palatable are the lead performances.
  2. Bikes vs Cars
    Breezy, intelligent, diffuse but uncluttered, Fredrik Gertten’s documentary Bikes vs Cars could be called a tale of congestion-plagued cities.
  3. Dementia
    It’s an assured, deftly acted movie that builds its creepiness slowly and keeps its secrets well hidden till the end.
  4. Every Thing Will Be Fine
    Something is off with Every Thing Will Be Fine. Even for a movie about a writer detached from his emotions, it’s ponderous, like a lucid dream gone bad.
  5. My Friend Victoria
    As drifting and dreamy as its searching heroine, My Friend Victoria takes a graceful but unsatisfying stroll through the life and longings of a young black woman in contemporary Paris.
  6. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
    It’s a curious, bittersweet story, flecked with dashes of bombast and overstatement that Presley himself would have admired.
  7. dream/killer
    Though the timeline and a few details could use further clarification, dream/killer remains fast-paced and frightening.
  8. The Lady in the Van
    In Ms. Smith’s tough, levelheaded performance, Mary is an irascible termagant full of batty notions clutching on to life as best she can. She is hard to like, and that’s good.
  9. Macbeth
    Mr. Fassbender gives you a reason to see this Macbeth, although the writing isn’t bad, either.
  10. Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One
    There is a fine line between delving into the mysteries of life and engaging in mystification, and Mr. Gomes lands on the wrong side of it. There is something disingenuous in the way this movie disowns its own ambitions and scorns the possibility of clarity or coherence. Maybe its opacity is a matter of principle. Or maybe it’s just an excuse.
  11. Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One
    Mr. Gomes has a tendency to revel in his own cleverness and to indulge in self-conscious cinematic jokes. He also has a penchant for obscurantism, a habit of confusing ambiguity with depth.
  12. Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
    It is worth sticking with it until the end, since the third part is the most powerful.
  13. Youth
    The problem with Youth is not that it’s empty — the accusation Kael and others lodged against Mr. Sorrentino’s precursors — but that it’s small. Its imagination feels shrunken and secondhand, in spite of the gorgeous vistas and beautiful naked women. Or actually, because of them.
  14. Krampus
    Occasionally funny, intermittently scary, but mostly hectic and sloppy, Krampus tries very hard to be a different kind of Christmas movie.
  15. The World of Kanako
    Mr. Nakashima, it must be said, does have a knack for composition. But the torrential, if glossy, violence — he adores juxtaposing innocuous pop ditties with gruesome set pieces — grows tiresome.
  16. Life
    Mr. Corbijn picturesquely frames the back story to the shoot, but his muffled retelling drifts with Dane DeHaan’s murmurous impersonation of Dean and Robert Pattinson’s almost perversely listless turn as Stock.
  17. The Letters
    Though speechifying and mawkishness are thankfully scarce, the bland script gives her few chances to go beyond the expected formula.
  18. The Wannabe
    Mr. Piazza offers a persuasive portrait of decline, but it is the crumbling beauty and flailing hopes of Rose that resonate. Ms. Arquette comprehends the character inside and out, and her aim is true.
  19. Chi-Raq
    The laughs in Spike Lee’s corrosive Chi-Raq burn like acid. Urgent, surreal, furious, funny and wildly messy, the movie sounds like an invitation to defeat, but it’s an improbable triumph that finds Mr. Lee doing his best work in years.
  20. Christmas, Again
    This is a Christmas movie in which magic exists largely on the periphery, and that is just the right mix of chilly and sweet.
  21. Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story
    It’s a fond and forgiving tribute to the man, filled with music that moves beyond happy and sad, and toward something like brilliance.
  22. Hitchcock/Truffaut
    Curating a selection of the original interview recordings (whose sound quality is damn near pristine), Mr. Jones fashions an unfaltering encomium that’s entirely free of the highfalutin monologues that might deter noncinephiles.
  23. Karski & the Lords of Humanity
    Karski & the Lords of Humanity is fascinating, but Mr. Lanzmann’s efforts tower over it.
  24. Tamasha
    The biggest offender is the director, Imtiaz Ali, who, also again collaborating with Mr. Kapoor, actually celebrates two love affairs: Ved and Tara’s, and (given Ved’s universal adulation) Mr. Ali’s with his own self-aggrandizing vision of his calling.
  25. Killing Them Safely
    Mr. Berardini’s packed documentary makes its case early and often, perhaps too often, but it’s more chilling than your average issue film.
  26. Stink!
    Sensible and unnerving, Stink! is likely to incite, at the least, a purging of Axe body spray from adolescent boys’ bedrooms.
  27. Iraqi Odyssey
    Watching it is like slowly leafing through a giant scrapbook whose contents include the individual stories of a large extended family.
  28. Submerged
    There’s claustrophobia to burn in Steven C. Miller’s Submerged, a modest thriller offering glints of talent amid predictable plot threads.
  29. Janis: Little Girl Blue
    Although Ms. Berg’s enthralling film tells a story somewhat similar to “Amy,” Asif Kapadia’s recent documentary portrait of Amy Winehouse (who also died at 27), the demons that devoured Winehouse came from outside as much from within. Not so with Joplin.
  30. The Danish Girl
    It’s impossible not to be moved by Lili’s self-recognition and by her demand to be recognized by those who care most about her. But it’s also hard not to wish that The Danish Girl were a better movie, a more daring and emotionally open exploration of Lili’s emergence.
  31. The Good Dinosaur
    The Good Dinosaur is charmingly different, but its oddness sneaks up on you only after the filmmakers lay out some storybook bona fides.
  32. Victor Frankenstein
    Thin as a halfpenny, Victor Frankenstein has nothing to offer on science and the mysteries of creation, but it does reaffirm the grip that Shelley’s story retains on the imagination, no matter how far afield it’s taken.
  33. Creed
    Creed is a dandy piece of entertainment, soothingly old-fashioned and bracingly up-to-date.
  34. Frame by Frame
    The film’s four-person shuffle turns into a bit of a hash.
  35. Kingdom of Shadows
    The American demand for drugs, which feeds the cartels, is mentioned, though regrettably not expanded upon. But as a rendering of Mexico’s agonized convulsions, Kingdom of Shadows is unforgettable.
  36. Drone
    There are no suggested solutions here to the difficult issues raised, but the film at least reminds us that it’s important not to accept this new way of warring without scrutinizing it.
  37. Censored Voices
    An essential amendment to the historical record, Censored Voices reminds us that no war is entirely virtuous and makes clear that, even at the time, the dangers of becoming an occupying force were evident.
  38. Criminal Activities
    It doesn’t feel like a mere imitation; it has too much wit and too many striking performances for that.
  39. The Summer of Sangaile
    It’s all very heady and voluptuous, but it’s also painfully superficial.
  40. Legend
    Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy are the reasons to see Legend.
  41. Mediterranea
    This calm, hardheaded film never sacrifices its toughness for a swooning, misty-eyed moment of hope.
  42. Mustang
    The ensemble of young actresses is a constantly restless and real presence, the perspective filtered mostly through the cheeky Lale but also through the group as a loving crew.
  43. The Night Before
    The emotional moments don’t pay off any better than most of the jokes, which reach for the safest kinds of provocative punch lines having to do with sex, race and religion.
  44. Secret in Their Eyes
    Sad to say: There is far more crackle in an average episode of “Law & Order.”
  45. Sweet Micky for President
    One of the decade’s odder political stories is revisited, without much illumination, in Sweet Micky for President.
  46. Very Semi-Serious
    If you’ve ever been curious as to how a cartoonist gets into The New Yorker and what happens then, Very Semi-Serious offers very satisfactory info.
  47. #Horror
    The audience, given not an ounce of human warmth nor one person to care about, finally has no choice but to cheer for the anonymous cyberbully who wants them all dead.
  48. Carol
    At once ardent and analytical, cerebral and swooning, Carol is a study in human magnetism, in the physics and optics of eros. With sparse dialogue and restrained drama, the film is a symphony of angles and glances, of colors and shadows.
  49. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
    What makes the material still feel personal — other than the yearslong investment and love that transform entertainments into fan communities — is the combination of Katniss and Ms. Lawrence, who have become a perfect fit.
  50. A Journey Through Time with Anthony
    Offers mild youthful rebellion and even milder youthful ardor.
  51. Democrats
    Both inspiring and upsetting, Democrats is, finally, a film that deserves to be called “necessary.”
  52. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo
    The director, Sooraj R. Barjatya, courts and embraces cliché at every turn, which is both the movie’s charm and its limitation.
  53. Song of Lahore
    If all of Song of Lahore were as exciting as its ending, you’d need an hour afterward to catch your breath. It’s not, yet despite a lackluster start, this documentary redeems itself by the finale.
  54. Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words
    Part of what makes In Her Own Words so pleasurable is that it’s so insistently celebratory, despite the traumas and hurts that trickle in. To that upbeat end, it tends to soften and even elide some of the thornier passages in Bergman’s life.
  55. Shelter
    The movie never bothers to show you life inside a shelter dormitory or tries to convey a broader vision of the city’s street culture. It is too busy showcasing its star Jennifer Connelly (Mr. Bettany’s wife) in degrading situations.
  56. Funny Bunny
    Ms. Bagnall’s baffling story about a trio of oddball outsiders is stricken with a galloping case of romantic whimsy and falls short of its serio-comic aspirations.
  57. Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans
    It doesn’t really succeed in conveying McQueen’s great passion for auto racing. In truth, it mostly makes him seem like a jerk — but cinephiles might enjoy it as a case study of moviemaking gone wrong.
  58. Casa Grande
    Mr. Barbosa blends tales of a coming-of-age and a burgeoning class consciousness, and never loses sympathy for Jean (Thales Cavalcanti).
  59. Entertainment
    Mr. Alverson jacks up the tension with exquisite restraint.
  60. Heist
    Battling a preposterous plot and second-tier performances that are, at best, serviceable, this roll-along thriller from Scott Mann works its keister off to turn beef jerky into chateaubriand.
  61. Man Up
    Man Up, a destined-for-romance story in the spirit of “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle,” has just enough edge to distinguish it from a Lifetime movie. It also has Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, versatile and likable actors who help the mild story considerably.
  62. Love the Coopers
    The film is occasionally amusing but rarely feels genuine.
  63. James White
    Its abrasive portrait of contemporary New York as a place of noise and nerve-rattling turmoil captures the mood of the city more accurately than any recent film I can think of. And the jagged camera work exacerbates the film’s jarring sense of immediacy.
  64. By the Sea
    At first luxurious blush it’s a jet-setting marital melodrama, one of those he-said, she-said (and wept) encounter sessions decked with designer shades, to-die-for digs and millionaire tears. More interestingly, the movie, which Ms. Jolie Pitt wrote and directed, is a knowing or at least a ticklishly amusing demonstration of celebrity and its relay of gazes from one of the most looked-at women in the world.
  65. The 33
    With the help of some solid performances and James Horner’s heart-squeezing, throat-constricting score (one of the last he composed before his death in June), The 33 holds your attention and pushes the required buttons.
  66. Madam Phung's Last Journey
    Gentle, coaxing questions from off camera draw out their stories.
  67. Rock in the Red Zone
    Rock in the Red Zone has its best moments when it explores the anxiety of Sderot’s residents and their endurance. It’s the strongest topic here, and the one you’re most sorry to see interrupted when the film inevitably switches over to something else.
  68. The Nightingale
    The virtues of understatement and restraint are vividly apparent in Philippe Muyl’s The Nightingale.
  69. Sembene!
    Mr. Sembène was an inspiration; as a film, Sembène! is something less than that, petering out as it goes on, but at least offering a fair-minded tribute to a master.
  70. What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy
    While these men aren’t accountable for the actions of their fathers, they are obligated to recognize the truth of what happened. To see one of them deny that truth is difficult to watch, and just as hard to look away from.
  71. Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
    Ms. Vreeland has paced her documentary well, a chapter to each era, with hundreds of beautiful images spanning decades of artists, galleries, parties, scenes. She also makes good use of interviews Guggenheim gave to a biographer a couple of years before her death in 1979.
  72. Palio
    Despite its oversights, the film — shot and scored beautifully — is an enthusiastic introduction to this delirious event and its peposo of passion, style and intrigue. As the Sienese like to say, the Palio is life.
  73. Of Men and War
    This devastatingly raw documentary shows that for some the fighting may stop, but the suffering continues.
  74. Lost in the Sun
    The movie briefly picks up some warmth when John and Louis encounter a mother and daughter (Lynn Collins and Emma Fuhrmann) who are also in the midst of some self-discovery, but the movie seems unwilling to linger too long on it for fear of becoming rewarding.
  75. In the Basement
    Ulrich Seidl’s raw portrayals of ordinary people have been criticized as unflattering and wallowing in abjection. But occasionally, as in his newest, In the Basement, the director can make you wonder whether the problem doesn’t lie with his films but with everyone else’s.
  76. Theeb
    In Jacir Eid’s extraordinary performance, Theeb exhibits the composure, bravery and cunning of a little savage driven by animal instinct.
  77. Sand Dollars
    Ms. Chaplin, in one of her most touching screen performances, imbues Anne with a world-weary melancholy that makes your heart sink.
  78. The House That Jack Built
    As directed by Henry Barrial, there is solid ensemble acting, particularly by Mr. Bonilla, who dependably anchors a movie that is almost too busy.
  79. The Hallow
    Mr. Hardy, however, would rather busy himself with reminders of earlier creature features.... Luckily, John Nolan’s old-school effects are wicked good, and Martijn van Broekhuizen’s mossy photography is pleasingly sinister.
  80. Trumbo
    It’s impossible to tell if the filmmakers don’t trust the audience or simply don’t have the chops, guts or heart to do this story justice.
  81. The Peanuts Movie
    The Peanuts Movie may be simultaneously the most charming and the most daring experiment in human genetics ever conducted. At issue is whether the character summaries and back stories of fictional pop-culture figures can be passed from one generation to the next solely through DNA.
  82. Miss You Already
    To accuse it of being manipulative is like accusing it of being in color. The genre is melodrama. The assault on the tear ducts and heartstrings is part of the contract, and the movie more than holds up its end of the bargain.
  83. Spotlight
    Spotlight is a gripping detective story and a superlative newsroom drama, a solid procedural that tries to confront evil without sensationalism.
  84. SPECTRE
    There’s nothing surprising in Spectre, the 24th “official” title in the series, which is presumably as planned. Much as the perfect is the enemy of good, originality is often the enemy of the global box office.
  85. In Jackson Heights
    Over time, as the movie returns to specific spaces, touching on human rights and gentrification along the way, it develops into a deeply stirring ode to the immigrant experience and American identity.
  86. Brooklyn
    Brooklyn endows its characters with desires and aspirations, but not with foresight, and it examines the past with open-minded curiosity rather than with sentimentality or easy judgment.
  87. Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971)
    What plays out is a cinematic experience of life as performance, performance as life, reality as a construction and reality as someone else’s construction impinging on your own. The pace, which picks up and slows down throughout, is not some kind of perverse challenge to the audience. It is intrinsic to the inescapable atmosphere of the work.
  88. The Price We Pay
    The ideas in this densely packed but enlightening film can be challenging, but must be heard.
  89. McCullin
    McCullin is not a groundbreaking documentary, but it wears its conventional format well, taking its cues (and its power) from the photographs themselves.
  90. City Slickers Can't Stay with Me: The Coach Bob Larsen Story
    The director, Robert Lusitana, who ran for Larsen himself, has assembled a touching celebration of a coach and mentor.
  91. How to Change the World
    This absorbing account is hardly definitive, but it teaches movement building without denying the high costs paid by true believers.
  92. The Royal Road
    Ms. Olson’s images are often captivating, but too often undercut by the aforementioned aspiring-to-the-dialectical voice-over, which is awkwardly written, and delivered with a lack of affect that grows tedious over the course of an hour.
  93. Love
    As if all its artistic energy had been gobbled up by the fornication, Love has nothing left with which to build its characters or set them in motion.
  94. The Wonders
    Ms. Rohrwacher’s strengths here are the tender intimacy of the performances, particularly those of the older child actors, and her gentle meandering, both narrative and cinematographic.
  95. Flowers
    To its benefit, it has rich roles for, and splendid performances by, its three principal actresses. To its detriment, their characters are each in their own way pining for the same man, whose simple actions in life seem undeserving of their considerable exertions after his demise.
  96. Hard Labor
    The filmmakers, largely forgoing a soundtrack, skillfully manipulate stillness, silence and anomie to unsettling effect.
  97. Heneral Luna
    I’m only a little embarrassed at liking Heneral Luna, an audaciously manipulative movie that’s more involving than it should be. But really, when a film works this hard to rouse you, there’s no shame in just giving in.
  98. The Armor of Light
    Not every point of view portrayed in the film will sit well with each viewer, but Mr. Schenck and Ms. McBath do their utmost to act in good faith.
  99. Bare
    The Sarah character isn’t developed well enough to make her journey enlightening or involving.
  100. Burnt
    What follows is a decently structured story of personal demons and culinary competition, with a couple of nice twists thrown in, but it’s built with materials that at this point in the life cycle of this genre are mighty shopworn.
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