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. The Gambler
    Mr. Caan is generally convincing, except in those classroom scenes, but all of the other actors, with the exception of James Sorvino who plays a sympathetic bookie, seem defeated by the quality of the material.
  2. A Fine Madness
    Like its careening, footloose hero, A Fine Madness needs discipline. But you'll never guess what lurks around the bend, from gold to brass.
  3. The Other
    Thomas Tryon, the actor (The Cardinal), wrote the screen adaptation of his best-selling novel, which is in almost every way more precise, more complex and less ambiguous than the "Summer of '35" sort of movie Robert Mulligan has made from it.
  4. Nightbooks
    Its devotion to frights makes it memorable.
  5. Pawn Sacrifice
    Ultimately, it is only partly about Bobby Fischer. It is equally about us — Americans or any other nationality inclined to put too much importance on chess matches, soccer matches, space races, whatever. It’s about how we manufacture celebrities on scant pretext and then destroy them, or allow them to destroy themselves while we watch.
  6. Patrik Age 1.5
    Sweet, generous and tonally sure, Patrik, Age 1.5 has a nostalgic feel, and not just because of a soundtrack skewed toward last-millennium tunes and a hyperreal suburban setting lifted straight from "Pleasantville."
  7. The Picture of Dorian Gray
    The whole thing... makes little or no intelligible sense.
  8. White King, Red Rubber, Black Death
    Although too compressed by half, the film manages to recreate what, at one point, the hectoring narrator will call an "archaeology of repression."
  9. Driving Madeleine
    It’s a heart-warmer about respecting your elders.
  10. Ron's Gone Wrong
    As family entertainment, it’s fine.
  11. Memphis
    A soulful cinematic tone poem.
  12. My Week with Marilyn
    Ms. Williams tries her best, and sometimes that's almost enough.
  13. 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.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Firecreek
    Firecreek is a good, sturdy and occasionally powerful little Western.
  15. Lili
    [Caron] helps "Lili" to be a lovely and beguiling little film, touched with the magic of romance and the shimmer of masquerade.
  16. Kill Your Darlings
    Mr. Krokidas deftly shows how the ambition to write is entangled with other impulses.
  17. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
    The “Dragon Ball” formula is repetitive and predictable. But it’s difficult to overstate how exquisitely gratifying that formula can be.
  18. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    There's plenty of frantic energy here, lots of noise and money too, but what's absent is any sense of rediscovery, the kind that's necessary whenever a filmmaker dusts off an old formula or a genre standard.
  19. Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
    In a movie that avoids examining Mr. Walker’s personal history, there are hints of a man struggling with chronic depression and problems with alcohol, but they are only hints. No major personal relationships are mentioned or even alluded to. The music speaks for itself.
  20. All Square
    Hyams directs Timothy Brady’s script appropriately if not brilliantly (Hyams is also credited as a co-editor), but the movie’s main attraction, finally, is its cast.
  21. Battle for Haditha
    Mr. Broomfield maintains a level of cool detachment throughout. That's to the good of the movie, which, though technically exemplary, falters dramatically on occasion, becoming dangerously close to overheated whenever the characters speak for any length.
  22. Salt
    She is the prime special effect, and a reminder that even in an era of technological overkill, movie stars matter.
  23. The Princess of France
    The Princess of France has an appealing lightness and modesty, but it also feels flimsy and thin, like clever scribblings in the margins of a book, fleeting insights in search of form and energy.
  24. 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.
  25. I Love You Phillip Morris
    A Jim Carrey movie all the way: a good one, I might add. With his manic glare, ferociously eager smile, hyperkinetic body language and talent for instant self-transformation, Mr. Carrey has rarely been more charismatic on the screen.
  26. Venus and Serena
    Think of this movie as a greatest-hits package, with some good stuff to show but nothing very new to say.
  27. Pecker
    Finding hilarity in John Waters's latest movie title is the basic pre requisite for enjoying the goofy ingenuity of his new film.
  28. To All the Boys: Always and Forever
    Even at its most saccharine I can’t fault it for committing fully to what it is. I’m no fan of Valentine’s Day unless it’s a heart-shaped confection, but for those who are, “To All the Boys” is a light but satisfying dessert.
  29. Twister
    The trip, however, is well worth the effort for anyone whose sensibilities have been worn numb by the idiocies of most conventional films.
  30. Tucker & Dale vs Evil
    The impalement is a nice touch. The death by wood chipper, pretty sweet. But the best bit of comedy in the ridiculously gory Tucker and Dale vs. Evil eviscerates the field of psychology with no bloodshed at all.
  31. 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.
  32. The French Minister
    Mr. Tavernier’s filmmaking here is loose, almost casual, and you may not always notice what he’s doing with the camera as he frames the ministry’s choreographed chaos with its whirling people and parts.
  33. La Bamba
    A film like this is quite naturally a showcase for its star, and as Valens, Lou Diamond Phillips has a sweetness and sincerity that in no way diminish the toughness of his onstage persona.
  34. Exit: The Right to Die
    Despite the humanity and courage exhibited by the members of Exit, the film is inescapably grim.
  35. A Skin So Soft
    Their narcissism is repellent yet riveting, and Mr. Côté comes at his subjects with an artful, exploratory obliqueness that’s endearingly curious, as if discovering a whole new species.
  36. Amazing Grace
    The overall effect is part BBC-style biography, part Hollywood-like hagiography, and generally pleasing and often moving, even when the story wobbles off the historical rails or becomes bogged down in dopey romance.
  37. A Room for Romeo Brass
    It is essentially a personal reminiscence of daily life that captures with an astonishing precision exactly what it felt to be a 12-year- old boy growing up in a particular time and place.
  38. One Last Kiss
    Provides more than enough sentimental catharsis for a satisfying evening at the multiplex.
  39. Last Night
    Softening that apocalyptic undercurrent is a counter-strain of quiet nobility.
  40. Dirty Dancing
    The dancing itself, especially the dirty dancing, choreographed by Kenny Ortega, looks very contemporary, or, at least, as contemporary as "Saturday Night Fever," but it has a drive and a pulse that give the filim real excitement. [21 Aug 1987, p.C3]
    • The New York Times
  41. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    Though it cannot regain the brash originality of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' in its own way 'The Last Crusade' is nearly as good, matching its audience's wildest hopes.
  42. Francine
    A small gem of bleak, neorealist portraiture.
  43. Naz & Maalik
    Despite its deficiencies, Naz & Maalik feels authentic, and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Cook bring their characters completely alive.
  44. Saving Mr. Banks
    The best parts of Saving Mr. Banks offer an embellished, tidied-up but nonetheless reasonably authentic glimpse of the Disney entertainment machine at work.
  45. The Warriors
    The film is as handsome to watch as it is preposterous to listen to, full of gorgeous nocturnal city images that splash blaring neon colors against filthy, rain-slicked gray. Mr. Hill uses subways, jukeboxes, spectacularly eerie costumes and deserted streets to create a stark yet extravagant visual style, and a grimy little world in which everything looks curiously brand-new. Thanks to a lot of wipes and slow-motion shots, you are never in danger of forgetting that somebody clever is at the helm.
  46. Made in Dagenham
    Uplifting it may be, but to swallow it whole is to believe in happily ever after.
  47. The Gingerbread Man
    With unexpected success, Robert Altman plays a John Grisham mystery in a seductive new key.
  48. Beauty and the Beast
    Its classicism feels unforced and fresh. Its romance neither winks nor panders. It looks good, moves gracefully and leaves a clean and invigorating aftertaste. I almost didn’t recognize the flavor: I think the name for it is joy.
  49. Wheel of Time
    The movie might as well have been called "An Immersion in Tibetan Buddhism." With minimal explanation, it puts you right in the center.
  50. American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel
    American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel doesn’t break ground cinematically, but it is eye-opening in other ways.
  51. Ivory Tower
    Ivory Tower, a documentary about soaring costs and other problems confronting higher education, can’t seem to decide what points it wants to make and ends up making none.
  52. Deconstructing Dad: The Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott
    Like "My Architect," Nathaniel Kahn's film about his father, Louis I. Kahn, this documentary is a son's attempt to forge a posthumous bond with an elusive parent.
  53. Beautiful Girls
    Has warmth and good cheer. The film is loosely focused, but its ensemble cast is as affable as anything on television these days.
  54. Sin
    An austere, demanding sit, Sin — a Russian-Italian coproduction with Italian dialogue — nevertheless has a stubborn integrity in exploring the competing forces of patronage and creative inspiration that Michelangelo confronted in the 16th century.
  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 Confirmation
    The pleasures are modest but rewarding in Bob Nelson’s character study The Confirmation.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dancer
    In Dancer, Mr. Polunin’s suffering may be on display, but too little of his artistry.
  58. The Prince of Tides
    The Prince of Tides marks Ms. Streisand's triumphantly good job of locating that story's salient elements and making them come alive on the screen.
  59. Buck and the Preacher
    Buck and the Preacher, Sidney Poitier's first film as director as well as star, is a loose, amiable, post-Civil War Western with a firm though not especially severe Black Conscience.
  60. Selena y Los Dinos
    It’s an accessible presentation for fans. Others may find it too insider-focused, even as it renders Selena’s symbolic self more human.
  61. Oscar and Lucinda
    As directed exquisitely by Gillian Armstrong in a headstrong spirit that recalls her debut feature, "My Brilliant Career," this elliptical tale makes up in visual beauty whatever it lacks in universal meaning.
  62. Tekkonkinkreet
    Demands to be seen, if only for its beauty.
  63. Honeymoon
    A lean, low-budget debut that taps into newlywed anxiety with subtle wit and no small amount of style.
  64. Deathgasm
    In between the rampant four-letter words and the occasional partial nudity are likable attempts at humor — some sweet, some saucy.
  65. 1001 Grams
    1001 Grams achieves a charming equipoise of levity and gravity, of formal rigor and soulful sentiment.
  66. Alien: Covenant
    The fact that you know more or less exactly what’s coming doesn’t diminish the creepiness, or lessen the jolt when the thing you’re dreading arrives.
  67. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
    Mr. Newell directs with sensitivity and the occasional invention; the movie has an almost tactile appreciation of period detail, as when Juliet sets to writing, the camera lingers on her onionskin typing paper. The cast is impeccable.
  68. Sunset
    While Nemes’s near-subjective technique can generate genuine tension, it more often yields anxious tedium.
  69. Critical Thinking
    Critical Thinking does little to detach itself from genre cliché; yet this heartfelt drama about a rough-and-tumble group of high-schoolers who claw their way to a national chess tournament has a sweetness that softens its flaws.
  70. Bull
    While Silverstein’s commitment to authenticity is admirable (she spent years visiting backyard rodeos across Texas, talking with the participants), her narrative is too tamped-down and languorous to catch hold.
  71. Monsters University
    While it’s a visual enchantment (there’s a knockout compendium of horror film clichés), its reversion to a largely male domain after “Brave,” its first and only female-driven story, is a drag.
  72. School Ties
    David's habit of grabbing, berating or otherwise challenging anyone who insults him gives School Ties a muscular quality not usually found in films about this subject.
  73. The Story of an African Farm
    Meets its main requirements: it adapts a classic novel in gleaming cinematic form, and it ridicules the foibles of ruthless adults.
  74. The American Side
    If the self-consciousness can be charming, it also prevents The American Side from becoming fully its own film.
  75. Becoming Bond
    On the whole, Becoming Bond is sufficiently winning that you might even forgive its chapter titles, each one a worse-than-the-previous play on a James Bond-associated phrase
  76. Jinpa
    As amusing as these interludes are, they read as attempts to force an exaggerated sense of mystery into an ultimately simple and moralistic tale about the futility of vengeance.
  77. Scream of Fear
    Though clearly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho, Scream of Fear is closer to Orson Welles in its baroque visual design and delight in style for style's sake. [21 Oct 2008, p.C4]
    • The New York Times
  78. Deadpool
    It’s no surprise that the teams hired to bring a property like Deadpool to the screen know how to keep the machine oiled and humming; it’s the ones who somehow manage to temporarily stick a wrench in the works, adding something human — a feeling instead of another quip — who are worth your attention.
  79. Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders
    Although Maxed Out would like to be this year’s "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," it doesn’t measure up. "Enron" was a stronger film because its focus was specific, the personalities under its microscope were outsize, and its story had a beginning, middle and end. Maxed Out, which has no narrator, gathers facts, opinions and impressions and tosses them into a blender. And its story is still unfinished.
  80. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
    “Sponge on the Run” may take us back under the sea, but this sponge is all dried up.
  81. The Courier
    Though Jessie Buckley, as Wynne’s suspicious wife, and Rachel Brosnahan, as an amusingly pushy C.I.A. operative, add welcome jolts of female energy, The Courier is essentially the story of an extraordinary male friendship. The men’s mutual compassion peaks too late to save the picture, but is no less moving for that.
  82. Men
    The movie, an uneasy amalgam of horror and allegory, full of creepy, gory effects and literary and mythological allusions, amounts to a sustained and specific indictment of the titular gender.
  83. The Horse Whisperer
    Mr. Redford has found his own visually eloquent way to turn the potboiler into a panorama, with a deep-seated love for the Montana landscape against which his rapturously beautiful film unfolds.
  84. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
    The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part isn’t as distractingly fun, shiny and bright as the more satisfying franchise installments. It drags and sometimes bores, which makes it easier for your mind to drift elsewhere.
  85. The Disappearance of Alice Creed
    The Disappearance of Alice Creed will keep your attention, but you may walk away thinking you've seen something like it before: "Sleuth," with more sex and violence.
  86. The Matador
    Because The Matador sustains a tone of screwball insouciance and keeps its trump card hidden up its sleeve, it must be counted as a well-made comic thriller. That doesn't mean it has any depth, credibility or artistic value beyond its capacity to divert.
  87. Maudie
    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.
  88. Dangerous Animals
    This is a horror movie about horror movies made by people who seem to have spent more time observing horror movies than the real world. Making this work requires wit, the right tone and a ruthless sense of pace. Byrne manages all three with a sure hand.
  89. The Good Boss
    The Good Boss provides prime material for Bardem, who has to maintain a polished veneer even as his character’s mendacity and troubles mount. As satire, though, the movie is facile.
  90. The Town Is Quiet
    You are left with an overall impression of a movie so full of life that it is almost bursting at the seams.
  91. Dick
    An uproariously dizzy satire...Hedaya has created the year's funniest film caricature.
  92. Pola X
    Pola X has enough fireworks to keep you in your seat. When it's over, you'll know you've had an experience.
  93. Panic Room
    An above-average thriller.
  94. Ae Fond Kiss...
    For the most part, Paul Laverty's screenplay and the strong, naturalistic performances lend it a specificity that sets it apart.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beyond Hatred
    An example of a film whose style doesn’t merely suit its story but amplifies its meanings.
  96. Stopmotion
    The director and animator Robert Morgan has crafted a narratively slender, visually sophisticated first feature.
  97. Punching Henry
    Mr. Phillips’s self-deprecating humor is amusing but not funny enough to give him the edge he needs to rise up and conquer.
  98. Peak Season
    A lovely ending makes up for the filmmakers’ giving this triangle one blunt side.
  99. Love in the Buff
    There's charm aplenty in Pang Ho-Cheung's Love in the Buff, a romantic comedy that is as interesting for its glimpse into contemporary urban China as it is for the charisma of its leads.
  100. Take Me to the River
    Mr. Sobel’s film skates past any persuasive sense of motivation.
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