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. Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
    The movie is a gaudy, noisy thrill ride -- hyperactive, slightly out of control and full of kinetic, mischievous charm.
  2. Heist
    Heist is a pleasure to watch, and the greatest pleasure is to watch Mr. Lindo and Mr. Hackman steal it.
  3. Barbershop
    I've seen better movies recently, but it's been a long time since I've left one feeling the easy, full-bellied happiness this one evoked.
  4. Bridget Jones's Diary
    Ms. Zellweger accomplishes the small miracle of making Bridget both entirely endearing and utterly real.
  5. We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists
    The film is most illuminating in showing how democratic practice can still find a new voice and innovative means with each generation. The fascinating efforts of Anonymous can be messy, but so are many freedoms when asserted so boldly.
  6. Story Ave
    Story Ave is marred by late revelations that appear designed, in a studio-notes sort of way, to clarify motivations. What’s unspoken — and what’s seen — does enough.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
    Dracula Has Risen From The Grave. Yes, again. And judging by this junky British film in color—asplatter with catchup or paint or whatever, to simulate the Count's favorite color—he can descend again.
  8. Mothering Sunday
    Mothering Sunday never conveys the intensity of erotic passion, the ardor of creative ambition or the agony of grief. Even though it is ostensibly about all of those feelings, it handles them with a tastefulness that is hard to distinguish from complacency.
  9. Moebius
    Mr. Kim does show an abiding concern here for the unsubtle realities of human libido and cruelty, but he’s alarmingly tone-deaf as he makes his points, and shows disregard for his female characters as he uses them up.
  10. I'll Be Right There
    Even as the gifted actresses trade jabs and punchlines gamely, the moments leave a sour taste.
  11. Elf
    A charming, silly family Christmas movie more likely to spread real joy than migraine, indigestion and sugar shock. The movie succeeds because it at once restrains its sticky, gooey good cheer and wildly overdoes it.
  12. The Way Back
    It's impossible not to cry at their suffering, but whether you'll feel anything is another story.
  13. Shadow in the Cloud
    The twists come rapidly in the movie’s first half; in the second, the narrative dissolves into a zigzag of flying bodies and explosions that bend the laws of space-time. But the implausibility of it all is a perk: There’s never a moment in this rollicking film when you can tell what’s coming next.
  14. A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
    Directing his first feature, Christopher Browne shows flair and determination in getting the movie's pathos down pat, but he can't quite find enough that is pleasurable in its many reels.
  15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
    Of these four plots, the story of Carmen's blended family is by far the most consistently engaging, largely because of the vibrant presence of Ms. Ferrera.
  16. The Sugar Curtain
    A pensive valentine to literacy programs and childhood idealism left in the ashes of broken families and an economically bifurcated society.
  17. Unsettled
    Adam Hootnick’s Unsettled makes the political personal, drawing a scattershot yet intimate picture of a nation divided.
  18. 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.
  19. Cold Fish
    A deliciously warped wallow in misogyny, depravity and dead-eyed manipulation, Cold Fish charts the twisted alliance of two tropical-fish salesmen with baleful glee.
  20. The One I Love
    Mr. McDowell manages and massages the mystery, even while he forgets to do much with the camera except periodically have it chase after someone. He can be frustratingly inattentive to the visual possibilities offered by the story.
  21. The Flight Fantastic
    Is the film a bit self-promotional? Sure, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.
  22. The Beguiled
    I must say that I found it interesting (even when it approached the ludicrous) because of its place in relation to other Siegel films and because I have nothing but appreciation for the performers.
  23. Kangaroo
    This film isn’t always pretty, but its message is necessary.
  24. The Price of Free
    The Price of Free is interested in spreading the word about Satyarthi’s work, both in India and globally, and in getting consumers to approach what they buy with a critical eye, so as not to support child labor. That’s an important message, and it’s not essential to watch the movie to receive it.
  25. Nasrin
    This extraordinary woman, seemingly incapable of despair through roughly two decades of struggle, remains elusive. There’s something daunting about this degree of implacable selflessness, and it has a curiously flattening effect on a movie that feels less emotionally complex — less enraged — than it ought to.
  26. Young Ahmed
    Young Ahmed is suspenseful and economical, with a clear sense of what’s at stake, but something crucial — perhaps a deeper insight into the character or the contradictions that ensnare him — is missing.
  27. Husbands
    Like Faces, which was rambling and funny and accurate, and which I admired, the new film demonstrates a concern for panicky, inarticulate squares that is so unpatronizing that it comes close to being reverential in a solemnly religious sense. Husbands, however, also puts one's tolerance of simulated cinéma vérité to the test. It is almost unbearably long.
  28. Harriet
    It is a rousing and powerful drama, respectful of both the historical record and the cravings of modern audiences.
  29. The Return
    Less an epic poem than a showcase for two of cinema’s finest actors, The Return is visually bleak and emotionally gripping.
  30. Guidance
    Mr. Mills (drawing on his own experiences and doing triple duty as the director and screenwriter) gives a performance of rancid single-mindedness. It’s a fearlessly unsympathetic role that provides plenty of space for train-wreck humor but almost no wiggle room for redemption.
  31. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
    It probes how the act of co-opting idealisms and converting them to dogmas has occurred many times over. What’s more, it points directly at the immense danger of romanticizing the past, imagining that if we could only reclaim and reframe and resurrect history, our present problems would be solved.
  32. Blood Father
    Mr. Gibson makes a persuasive derelict John Wayne with a loose, energetic performance, finely tuned comic timing and an amused, self-aware “Lethal Weapon” glint.
  33. Cobb
    As a film maker who has his own love-hate romance with the sports world, Mr. Shelton is naturally drawn to his writer's uneasy relationship to Cobb. And at its best, this film explores the edgy compromises that link these two, while at worst it dramatizes the relationship broadly and histrionically.
  34. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    With the strange caws and showy displays, these beasties provide a lot of the movie’s easygoing pleasures. The adults are rather less engaging.
  35. Nénette
    Beautiful in its minimalism, Nénette is no antizoo rant but a melancholy meditation on captivity.
  36. Black Butterflies
    In its jagged style and tone Black Butterflies is as close to an inside-out view of Jonker's tumultuous life as a movie could go without sinking into chaos. Its hues are continuously changing, and the seaside weather around Cape Town reflects her tempestuous emotional life.
  37. The Seventh Fire
    The betrayal of Native Americans by larger forces looms over this powerful movie without ever being explicitly discussed.
  38. Jurassic Punk
    Directed by Scott Leberecht, Jurassic Punk tells the very juicy story of pioneers, naysayers and professional hierarchies that made Williams both the Necessary Man and an eventual outcast.
  39. Beloved Sisters
    With its dearth of substance and its wandering focus, this is a middlebrow bodice-ripper posing as an epic that hasn’t the foggiest idea of what it wants to say.
  40. Becoming
    It hits all the notes of a megastar choosing to share her life with the public: selective biographical moments and star-studded guest appearances, plus a healthy dose of motivational messaging about the virtues of education and the holistic ownership of personal narratives.
  41. The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes
    Flaunting elements of "Phantom of the Opera" and "The Island of Lost Souls," the movie, with its haunting, claustrophobic environment, allows the living and the merely lifelike to interact with an eerie beauty.
  42. Elio
    Before long, the fleetingly liberated child and the filmmakers’ imaginative playfulness are boxed up, and the whole thing turns into yet another superhero adventure.
  43. 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.
  44. Bandslam
    Buoyant, gratifying and, yes, rocking.
  45. Earth Girls Are Easy
    With a scatter-shot style that includes lengthy, often lame song-and-dance parodies, as well as special effects, slapstick and satire, the film can't begin to sustain its lunatic premise. But during the lulls between witty scenes, there is always something amusing to look at. Mr. Temple and his collaborators create a near-California so cartoonish and crayon-colored that the film comes to seem like Aliens in Toyland.
  46. Do Revenge
    Do Revenge, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is a playful, sharp-fanged satire that feels like the ’90s teen comedy hammered into modern emojis: crown, knife, fire, winky face.
  47. Occupation: Dreamland
    Occupation: Dreamland presents a compelling study of composure and decency in the midst of overwhelming pointlessness.
  48. Mountainhead
    Still, what Mountainhead lacks in depth, it makes up for in satirical daring. Armstrong’s hallmarks are present: a brutal sense of interpersonal power dynamics, a flair for creative profanity, an abiding belief that the worst people will succeed.
  49. Straight Up
    You never quite buy Todd and Rory as flesh-and-blood people who could have conversations that don’t sound rehearsed.
  50. They Say Nothing Stays the Same
    The landscape can go only so far in expressing Toichi’s mind-set, and the movie turns hokey when it dramatizes Toichi’s inner thoughts.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Broadway Melody
    The story was written by Edmund Goulding, and it is one that has not taxed his imagination severely, for it merely concerns the shattered illusions and hopes of two small-time dancing and singing girls who, having been successful in their sphere, decide to give Broadway the benefit of their talents.
  52. Mission: Impossible III
    Mr. Hoffman enlivens Mission: Impossible III, which otherwise droops, done in both by the maudlin romance and by Mr. Abrams's inability to adapt his small-screen talent -- evident in his capacity as the television auteur behind "Alias" and "Lost" -- to a larger canvas.
  53. Sommersby
    Though there is a near vaccuum at the center of the film, "Sommersby" is never boring, largely because of Ms. Foster's beautifully self-possessed presence.
  54. Mystery Men
    A terrific offbeat cast operating on one shared, loony wavelength.
  55. Shelter
    Coming out has rarely looked so pretty.
  56. Thou Wast Mild and Lovely
    The setup’s clichés grow harder to ignore, despite a welcome mischievous streak and some bucolic imagery.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Soylent Green
    Unfortunately, the script, direction and the principals involved in this struggle for survival often are as synthetic as Soylent Green.
  58. The Return of the Living Dead
    Though certainly not for the squeamish, the film is by no means the ultimate horror movie it aspires to be. The volume of stagy gore quickly reaches a point of diminishing returns. And rather than trying to sustain a mood of grim suspense, the writer-director Dan O'Bannon has conceived this cinematic cousin of Night of the Living Dead as a mordant punk comedy.
  59. 8-Bit Christmas
    When it isn’t fawning over roller rinks, “Goonies” posters, and Casio watches, 8 Bit Christmas (streaming on HBO Max) is a warm and refreshingly earnest holiday comedy.
  60. The Cult of the Suicide Bomber
    Like so many political films of this type made for British television, this documentary contains more information than analysis, not to mention predictably spooky music.
  61. 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.
  62. The Public Image Is Rotten
    Even if you’ve scratched your head over Mr. Lydon’s TV ad work and other efforts to maintain a professional life in recent years, this affectionate and frank movie can elicit newfound admiration for a slightly mellowed iconoclast.
  63. Frankie and Johnny
    Mr. Pacino has not been this uncomplicatedly appealing since his Dog Day Afternoon days, and he makes Johnny's endless enterprise in wooing Frankie a delight. His scenes alone with Ms. Pfeiffer have a precision and honesty that keep the film's maudlin aspects at bay.
  64. Steve
    In hewing closely to Steve, the whole affair takes on a grating note of self-sacrifice, of perseverance through suffering.
  65. La bûche
    It unfolds with the verve and clarity of a piece of music, carefully composed and passionately played.
  66. The Source
    A stirring, kaleidescopic documentary.
  67. Robot Stories
    The most startling aspect of Robot Stories is not the mix that the director built from spare parts left on the curb but the evolving dramatic acumen of its maker; he's a talent with a future.
  68. Delicatessen
    Among the things that deserve mention in this lightweight but sometimes subversively stylish farce are its ingenious credit sequence, its lively editing by Herve Schneid, its use of code names like Artichoke Heart and Cordon Bleu in the guerrilla war that rages underground and its reference to a couple of odd inventions.
  69. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
    Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle has its flaws, but it also has a heartfelt grasp of what set Dorothy Parker apart from her fellow revelers and makes her so emblematic a figure even today.
  70. Breathing
    As a collaboration Breathing owes much to the balanced compositions, lucid imagery and judicious use of color executed by Mr. Gschlacht, who brought a similarly clear gaze to morally fraught work by other Austrian directors (Götz Spielmann's "Revanche," Jessica Hausner's "Lourdes," Michael Glawogger's "Slumming").
  71. What's in a Name?
    In their intensity, the actors’ incisive, impeccably coordinated performances are pitched slightly above normal conversation but not so much that “What’s in a Name?” shatters credibility.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Reivers
    Mark Rydell's direction conveys a zestful spirit, as do the film's turn-of-the-century look and picaresque minor characters.
  73. Suspended Time
    The most appealing character in Suspended Time is Assayas, a hovering offscreen presence who delivers the confessional, gracefully digressive narration.
  74. Deadpool 2
    There is something ever so slightly dishonest about this character, something false about the boundaries drawn around his sadism and his rage. Deadpool 2 dabbles in ugliness and transgression, but takes no real creative risks.
  75. The Way Back
    The movie withholds a crucial bit of back story in early scenes only to drop it like an anvil later on. Since the revelation is known to the characters the whole time, the decision to deploy it as a surprise is cheap and shameless — a blatant foul in a movie otherwise filled with smoothly executed plays.
  76. The Chosen
    Certainly, this is a gently evocative movie, with its glimpses of a strict and self-contained culture, and its memories of a time gone by.
  77. The Land Before Time
    The Land Before Time isn't heavily plotted; it doesn't do much more than concentrate on the amusingly lifelike dynamics among the dinosaur children as they make their journey. Luckily, it isn't very long either. At a just-right length of 73 minutes, it ought to win audiences' hearts without wearing out their patience.
  78. American Star
    Despite an oddball taste for wide-angle lenses, the director, Gonzalo López-Gallego, can sustain a solid slow burn. Still, neither McShane nor the scenery can take the rust off the basic scenario.
  79. Puzzle
    Like a bedtime cup of cocoa, Marc Turtletaub’s Puzzle has a soothing familiarity that quiets the mind and settles the spirit.
  80. I Care a Lot
    An unexpectedly gripping thriller that seesaws between comedy and horror, I Care a Lot is cleverly written (by the director, J Blakeson) and wonderfully cast.
  81. The Infiltrator
    Robert is not a Shakespearean figure like Walter White, but the film at least grants him the moral stature of an incorruptible man risking his life in a dangerous job. The Infiltrator is still a good yarn that, when it catches its breath, allows Mr. Cranston to convey the same ambivalence and cunning he brought to “Breaking Bad” and “All the Way."
  82. Pitch Perfect
    Only occasionally funny and not at all illuminating about the rich world of a cappella singing.
  83. Sea of Love
    Sea of Love is a lugubrious imitation of a second-rate television movie, over-produced and over-cast. Mr. Pacino tears into a role made out of rice paper, for messy results, while Miss Barkin does her level best to seem simultaneously sexy, homicidal and innocent, which is not easy.
  84. Gay Chorus Deep South
    The documentary is able to record only small, not sweeping, changes of heart. Nevertheless, the film, like the singers, maintains a compassionate optimism.
  85. Pink Skies Ahead
    It is not without tender or enjoyable moments — that’s the beauty of a formula — but there’s a tonal imbalance of comedy and drama. The two constantly deflate each other.
  86. Till Death
    This straightforward romp focuses its attention on its cunning and no-nonsense scream queen. And what Fox lacks in dramatic prowess, she makes up for in pure, wicked magnetism.
  87. Mary Poppins Returns
    What’s odd here is how closely the new movie follows the original’s arc without ever capturing its bliss or tapping into its touching delicacy of feeling.
  88. The Idol
    Mr. Abu-Assad’s pop filmmaking is resolutely simple in its approach and efficiently sentimental.
  89. Dog Man
    In this screen adaptation, written and directed by Peter Hastings, jokes fly with the bouncy randomness of Dog Man’s favorite tennis ball, and there are so many that a fair number of them would land even if they weren’t pretty good.
  90. Hard Goodbyes: My Father
    Considering the delicate and weighty subject matter, the film's tone is surprisingly light, sometimes even humorous, which helps to balance the harsh sentiments that death inevitably brings.
  91. The Fairy
    An alternately effortless and forced French-language diversion.
  92. Mickey: The Story of a Mouse
    It’s boosterish and jam-packed, like many pop-culture documentaries (not just ones produced by Disney about Disney).
  93. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
    The director, Simon Curtis, deftly choreographs what feels like a series’ worth of brief interactions into a mostly satisfying whole.
  94. Félix And Meira
    Tiny advances in seduction — like a direct gaze, or the eventual removal of that wig — assume the power of full-on sexual collisions, and Ms. Yaron, with her restlessly darting eyes, easily conveys Meira’s sensual deprivation.
  95. Madame Bovary
    Robert Ardrey has put it together into a literate and playable script and Vincente Minelli has kept it moving with a smooth and refined directoral touch.
  96. Vivo
    Vivo, despite its exuberant beginning and heartfelt ending, struggles to offer more than odd turns and clichés in the rest of its story.
  97. No Impact Man: The Documentary
    I can’t, in the end (all appearances to the contrary), judge Mr. Beavan or this film too severely. Making an impact is easy. Making a difference is hard.
  98. Last Passenger
    Mr. Nooshin stirs a mystery that’s light on special effects and bravely uncomplicated. He may not have much money, but his feel for age and class dynamics is sure, and his actors respond.
  99. You're Next
    Adam Wingard’s You’re Next strays just enough from formula to tweak our jaded appetites. That it does so without spraying the gore to geyserlike excess says a great deal about Mr. Wingard’s sensibility.
  100. Patema Inverted
    The music is lovely, and the animation is soft and imaginatively detailed. Patema and Age may not know what’s upside down or right-way up, but their director is never in any doubt.
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