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. Hard to Kill
    Mr. Seagal is effective for both his novelty value and his ability to be both literally and figuratively disarming. And the film itself is a lively one for its genre, ambitious enough to do more than simply string fight scenes together.
  2. The Breaker Upperers
    This collaboration between Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami — who wrote, directed and star together — exhibits their fairly irresistible comic chemistry, even if the conceit of the movie wears a bit thin.
  3. The Hummingbird Project
    As the geological, financial and personal barriers the cousins face grow increasingly absurd, the movie works up a satisfying sweat.
  4. Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
    More than a few moments here are new, and real grabbers.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski
    A title like Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski suggests a breadth and depth that’s difficult to live up to, which makes it all the more remarkable that this Netflix documentary by Irek Dobrowolski manages to deliver.
  6. Soni
    Ayr does not offer any tension-releasing catharsis, making his film efficiently disquieting in its own unassuming manner.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    SpaceCamp
    The outcome is pretty predictable, but it's done well, and the actors do a good job of transforming general types into individuals whom we grow to like. It is also hard to resist Jinx, the funny little computer responsible for all the trouble.
  8. Fire Down Below
    A superior Seagal film, a smooth blend of action, character and noble environmental message. Credit is owed to the screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Philip Morton, which provides strong supporting roles; the photography, directed by Tom Houghton, which brings out the beauty of the landscape violated by the villains, and the lively country music, which is attributed to Nick Glennie-Smith. [6 Sept 1997, p.18]
    • The New York Times
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Someone Great
    The hooks on which Someone Great chooses to hang its emotional hats are a little clichéd, but Rodriguez, Snow and Wise have enough chemistry to pull it all off.
  10. The Batman
    I can’t say I had a good time, but I did end up somewhere I didn’t expect to be: looking forward to the next chapter.
  11. The Witches
    Zemeckis improves on the first film adaptation, a 1990 oddity directed by Nicolas Roeg. There’s more heart in the new version and more emotion, qualities which can go missing in those Zemeckis movies that get lost in his technical whiz-bangery.
  12. A Vigilante
    Daggar-Nickson gestures in certain directions, but for the most part she avoids deeper, troubling questions about retribution and violence. Instead, she concentrates on the genre basics, as in the movie’s admirably hard-core final face-off.
  13. The Farewell
    Its affection for its characters feels protective; the film is reluctant to spill any secrets or cause any embarrassment. There is admirable kindness and impressive loyalty in this approach, but it also puts a bit of a damper on the party.
  14. Light From Light
    Light From Light reveals it’s far more interested in human concerns than metaphysical ones.
  15. Wounds
    The lack of local color notwithstanding, the movie more than fulfills its promise to unsettle and to incite shivers — and it doesn’t quit.
  16. Run
    Despite a script (by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian) that sees no need to flavor its tension with flashbacks or character-fleshing, Run has fun with its ludicrous plot.
  17. David Crosby: Remember My Name
    Fans will enjoy the backstage access, the home movies, the snapshots and the reminiscences, but the movie keeps you at a distance, while implying that it may be just as well not to get too close.
  18. Giant Little Ones
    Where many coming-of-age films build their stories around the discovery of a fixed selfhood, “Giant Little Ones” succeeds when it chooses to treat youthful identity as open to shift with accumulated experience.
  19. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
    Despite the new faces, there are, unsurprisingly, no real surprises in “Dead Reckoning Part One,” which features a number of dependably showstopping stunts, hits every narrative beat hard and, shrewdly, has just enough winking humor to keep the whole thing from sagging into self-seriousness.
  20. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
    "Final Reckoning” is flat-out ridiculous, but it’s a model example of blockbuster entertainment at its most highly polished, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, despite its clichés, extravagant violence and gung-ho militarism.
  21. The Great Race
    Natalie Wood is on hand as a cheroot-smoking suffragist (with a phenomenal wardrobe), but the movie is largely powered by Lemmon’s energy, roaring like Jackie Gleason as the bombastic Professor Fate and later appearing as his double, the klutzy crown prince of a Ruritanian kingdom.
  22. So Fine
    Its comic episodes are nicely controlled, and the movie has a consistent zany style.
  23. Heart Like a Wheel
    Its story is unusual, but it's told in a style that is immediate and understandable, and that never opts for heroism at the expense of authenticity.
  24. Greased Lightning
    Mr. Pryor is especially successful in presenting Mr. Scott as a man who guards his energy and intelligence carefully, betraying very little to his enemies and saving a great deal for the moments that matter.
  25. Nomadland
    Nomadland is patient, compassionate and open, motivated by an impulse to wander and observe rather than to judge or explain.
  26. Abominable
    Abominable is an exceptionally watchable and amiable animated tale.
  27. Parkland: Inside Building 12
    The movie, directed by Charlie Minn, is unbearable to watch, yet its centering of first-person testimony — supplemented with floor plans of the building and phone footage from that day — makes the massacre immediate in a way that sometimes gets lost in news coverage or political debates.
  28. Fourteen
    What begins as a movie with two protagonists almost imperceptibly evolves into a movie with just one — a touching demonstration of how narratives that seem inevitably intertwined can unravel.
  29. I Was at Home, But
    In I Was at Home, but…, the German director Angela Schanelec seems to have taken her ideas and stashed them deep in a private vault. Every so often, though, she cracks open this movie — with a line, an image, a snatch of a song — offering you fugitive glimpses of an intensely personal world.
  30. Light of My Life
    It’s not original, but it is enlivened by some artful touches and two excellent performances.
  31. Out Stealing Horses
    The overall integrity of the effort is impressive.
  32. The Tin Drum
    The story it tells is so outsized, bizarre, funny, and eccentric, the movie compels attention. [11 Apr 1980, p.6]
    • The New York Times
  33. Combat Obscura
    Leaning in to the style its patchwork of source material requires, Combat Obscura, is an eye-opening dispatch from a conflict mired in confusion.
  34. Europa Europa
    This film includes several remarkable episodes illustrating the strange events that shaped Mr. Perel's destiny and the full force of his terror and sorrow.
  35. Prosecuting Evil
    The main interest lies with Ferencz himself, who comes across as thoughtful, principled and engaging in a film that, in keeping with his demeanor, is a modest profile rather than a sprawling portrait.
  36. Police Story (1985)
    Police Story is of principal interest as a souvenir of another culture.
  37. Fritz the Cat
    A low, bawdy cartoon feature that hasn't forgotten that there still can be something uniquely funny in animated films that exaggerate human actions and emotions (in this case, love, rage, compassion and, especially, lust) to the extraordinary extents available only in cartoons.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fist of Fury
    The action here is as black-and-white and as pleasantly, if naively, diverting as that in any western even though it was all shot in vivid colors.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Big Jake
    Jogs along fairly tediously on the rescue trail, with the star being his laconic self, plus conventional spurts of violence, likewise the saddle humor.
  40. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles
    The animation is handsome, the graphic settings understated but intelligently detailed.
  41. Shaft
    Shaft is not a great film, but it's very entertaining.
  42. The Photographer of Mauthausen
    Targarona began as an actor before becoming a producer and, finally, a director. The Photographer of Mauthausen is her second feature, but if feels like the work of an old pro — vivid, involving and frequently terrifying.
  43. Rudy
    Rudy shamelessly manipulates the heartstrings and pumps the adrenaline. There are many moments in which it seems like nothing more than a promotional film for Notre Dame...For all its patness, the movie also has a gritty realism that is not found in many higher-priced versions of the same thing, and its happy ending is not the typical Hollywood leap into fantasy...Most important, it has a tough, persuasive performance by Mr. Astin that keeps the role firmly in perspective.
  44. Adopt a Highway
    Like a spare short story, this little indie nurtures a few simple emotions, then hopes its audience will stick around to share in them. I’m glad I did.
  45. Come As You Are
    It softens the cruder edges of the original, but the candor with which Erik Linthorst’s script regards the characters’ sexual desires — coupled with the winning performances of the actors — leavens any sentimentalism.
  46. Extra Ordinary
    While Extra Ordinary overextends its ghosts-are-blasé conceit, Higgins and Ward are appealing leads, and the movie has plenty of charming moments, such as Rose watching an episode of her dad for guidance.
  47. Mickey and the Bear
    A sturdy, watchable character drama.
  48. The Peanut Butter Falcon
    Gottsagen is a disarming performer who creates a sweet and funny character.
  49. Saint Frances
    With a warm heart and a nonjudgmental mind, Saint Frances weaves abortion, same-sex parenting and postpartum depression into a narrative bursting with positivity and acceptance.
  50. Yes, God, Yes
    Burdened by a silly R rating that may deter the very youngsters who are likely to enjoy it most, Yes, God, Yes (written and directed by Karen Maine) fights back with an appealing lead and an overwhelmingly innocent tone.
  51. Everybody's Everything
    An engaging account of Peep’s life and the alt-music scene.
  52. #Female Pleasure
    [An] illuminating if one-sided overview of the myriad ways in which women’s sexuality is controlled and subjugated.
  53. Vision Portraits
    Despite its focus on as fluid and mysterious a subject as art, Vision Portraits addresses blindness in concrete, comprehensible terms.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Opening Night
    Opening Night is a reminder of what has made Mr. Cassavetes's films so appealing, and of what can make them so maddening, too. For all its length -- nearly two and three-quarter hours -- it's a relatively thin example of the director's work, but a mischievous and inviting one, too.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Circus
    There are passages in The Circus that are undoubtedly too long and others that are too extravagant for even this blend of humor. But Chaplin's unfailing imagination helps even when the sequence is obviously slipping from grace.
  56. The Russian Five
    Riehl gears his documentary more toward avid fans than casual viewers, though he nods to the human side of story.
  57. Starfish
    If White’s wild formal experimentation and narrative cul-de-sacs result in a strange identity crisis for the film — a sense that he wasn’t entirely sure which movie he wanted to make — Gardner’s stellar work unifies it.
  58. The Most Dangerous Year
    While The Most Dangerous Year can be intensely personal — Knowlton speaks of the pain she felt watching visitors to a strawberry festival sign the petition for the anti-transgender ballot measure — it is primarily an informational documentary, not a film with artistic pretensions. But it makes its case effectively.
  59. Wild Rose
    First and foremost, the movie, written by Nicole Taylor and directed by Tom Harper, is a superb showcase for Jessie Buckley. Doing her own singing, Buckley is a rich, startling vocalist who if anything seems to under-excite the crowds she performs for.
  60. The Perfection
    This is a filmmaker aware of the conventions, who wields them with wit and precision and knows his audience is on the gag as well. In many ways, The Perfection amounts to little more than a bag of tricks. But no one is pretending otherwise. And they’re good tricks.
  61. Midnight Traveler
    What largely distinguishes Midnight Traveler is its anxious intimacy, a sense of uneasy closeness that pulls you into a family circle that at times gets very small, creating a sense of appropriate claustrophobia.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    See You Yesterday
    Although the film doesn’t sugarcoat the horrors of police brutality, it does empower C.J. to think she has invented a loophole around it. That is the dream worth cherishing.
  63. Hyenas
    Even done so lightly, the film still carries a sting.
  64. Come to Daddy
    Absurd yet bold, lurid yet a tiny bit touching, Come to Daddy drags poor Norval from hopefulness to horror to a wickedly literal form of closure. More than a few audience members might even be happy to accompany him.
  65. Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
    “Recorder” doesn’t explore the extent to which Marion’s original project of analysis was subsumed by the compulsion to tape everything. But her taping of everything created an irreproducible archive that is enlightening and the stuff of madness.
  66. Decade of Fire
    Decade of Fire is at its best when showing how the fires affected individuals effectively left to fend for themselves.
  67. Rewind
    For the director, putting family members on camera clearly had a therapeutic value. Witnessing that unburdening feels almost ancillary, even intrusive. But Rewind could only be made by this filmmaker in this way, and that gives it an unsettling fascination.
  68. 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.
  69. Ready or Not
    It’s Weaving who gives this blunt satire of class warfare a heart.
  70. Echo In the Canyon
    The delight of Echo in the Canyon is in the delicious details its subjects impart.
  71. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
    It’s less a biography than an extended essay, which is entirely a good thing. If you want a thorough documentation of everything Morrison has done and everyone she knows, there’s always Wikipedia. But if you’d prefer an argument for her importance and a sense of her presence, then you won’t be disappointed.
  72. Bedtime Story
    Mark this one down as good, crisp fun.
  73. The Spy Behind Home Plate
    There’s much to absorb throughout “The Spy Behind Home Plate,” and sometimes details speed by too fast or digressions go on a bit long. Still, Kempner’s passion for her remarkable subject is always evident.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We Have Always Lived in the Castle
    Under Stacie Passon’s precise direction, this gothic fable of isolation and violence expertly treads a fine line between tragedy and camp.
  75. Little Joe
    Little Joe manages to exert a peculiar pull in spite of being constructed with material you’ve likely seen elsewhere.
  76. The Whistlers
    It is Porumboiu’s most elaborate feature and in some ways his least ambitious. Like a meringue or like a whistle, its substance is mostly air.
  77. Adam
    In Maryam Touzani’s Adam, certain stylistic choices — a muted palette, the absence of a melodramatic score, hand-held camerawork — help temper sentimentality with verisimilitude.
  78. Fire Will Come
    Fire Will Come practically becomes a documentary, and a devastating one at that.
  79. The Miracle Worker
    The absolutely tremendous and unforgettable display of physically powerful acting that Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke put on in William Gibson's stage play The Miracle Worker is repeated by them in the film made from it by the same producer, Fred Coe, and the same director, Arthur Penn.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Frankenstein
    It is naturally a morbid, gruesome affair, but it is something to keep the spectator awake, for during its most spine-chilling periods it exacts attention.
  81. Quartet
    Almost always entertaining to watch and infuriatingly wrong in several important ways, chief among these being the casting of Miss Adjani as Marya.
  82. Our Mothers
    Díaz’s approach is plain and solid, like a well-built wooden chair before varnishing.
  83. Tales of Terror
    Tales of Terror is still lots of fun; Price is paired with Peter Lorre for an adaptation of The Black Cat that veers almost immediately into The Cask of Amontillado.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Woman Under the Influence
    The movie didn't need to be 2 hours and 35 minutes long: there's too much small talk, which doesn't really reveal character. Still, the most frightening scenes are extremely compelling, and this is a thoughtful film that does prompt serious discussion.
  85. An American in Paris
    It is the wondrously youthful Miss Caron and that grandly pictorial ballet that place the marks of distinction upon this lush Technicolored escapade.
  86. The Survivor
    While Levinson is not working from his own history as in “Diner” or “Avalon,” The Survivor, partly because of its subject matter and postwar milieu, feels of a piece with those overtly personal films. Whatever its flaws, it’s powerful.
  87. Three Peaks
    Three Peaks has a placid surface, but Zabeil uses abstraction — with edits that elide information or play tricks with spatial perception — to deepen a trite scenario.
  88. All Is Well
    Trobisch has made a drama of tragic accommodation — limited not to one woman’s sexual assault, but to the everyday interactions that all women must navigate carefully.
  89. Bottom of the 9th
    The result is pleasing — a stadium snow cone, palatable despite being sweetened with corn syrup.
  90. The Quiet One
    Wyman narrates throughout, and his innate common sense can be persuasive.
  91. Satanic Panic
    The comedy-horror film Satanic Panic is the kind of movie that revels in the details of eviscerations and demonic orgies. With jovial bad taste and a bag of gruesome tricks, the director Chelsea Stardust cheerfully invites her audience to hail Satan.
  92. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
    As a work of cinema, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch can seem a bit torn in its approach, caught between a desire to spread a message to mainstream viewers and more cryptic, artistic aims. At times, more information would be preferable; in other scenes, images speak volumes without words. But as advocacy, the movie is potent and frequently terrifying.
  93. 16 Shots
    16 Shots remains valuable as a record of past events that hold sway over the present.
  94. The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir
    Despite the film’s syrupy sweetness, it takes some risks ... and its relentless earnestness is tough to resist, even as the film sugarcoats intimations of real danger.
  95. The Caine Mutiny
    The Caine Mutiny, though somewhat garbled, is a vibrant film.
  96. Absolute Beginners
    Looking through these layers of time, this flashy, extravagant rock musical, which opens today at the Ziegfeld, elevates style to a symptom and cause of social change. And though it aims for more coherence than it delivers, it has endless flair with no self-importance...For all its unevenness, Absolute Beginners is high pop culture.
  97. Jay Myself
    It’s a fun journey.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Freaks
    Freaks is not a picture to be easily forgotten.
  99. The Buddy Holly Story
    It's Gary Busey's galvanizing solo performance that gives meaning to an otherwise shapeless and bland feature-length film about the American rock-and-roll star who was killed in a plane crash in 1959.
  100. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
    Until its devastating final scenes, the way “I Do Not Care” makes its points is discursive rather than dramatic.
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