The New York Times' Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. The Friend
    Some may be offended by this film's use of Sept. 11 as a plot device, but ultimately The Friend is less concerned with the politics of terror than with its psychology.
  2. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    The British comic turned actor (Paul Kaye) appears in almost every scene and he carries that weight admirably. He manages the very neat trick of keeping you interested in a character who doesn't merit our affection but earns it nonetheless.
  3. A Lot Like Love
    Isn't half bad and every so often is pretty good, filled with real sentiment, worked-through performances and a story textured enough to sometimes feel a lot like life.
  4. Save the Green Planet!
    At once a sick comedy, a bile-raising thriller and a genre pastiche, Save the Green Planet is a welter of conflicting tones, dissonant moods and warring intentions.
  5. Double Dare
    Thin but pleasantly diverting documentary
  6. Ladies in Lavender.
    The cinematic equivalent of a visit from a cherished but increasingly dithery maiden aunt.
  7. Fighting Tommy Riley
    Despite its flaws, the film gets across some genuine melancholy, played up by a sobbing Irish fiddle.
  8. The Great Role
    Mr. Coyote, who appears to be playing Steven Spielberg and steals every scene he is in.
  9. A Wake in Providence
    Lovingly shot on location in the Italian neighborhoods of Providence, this comfortably predictable film has its pleasures, most notably a dryly funny Adrienne Barbeau as the brothers' hip, hard-drinking Aunt Lidia.
  10. Mojados: Through the Night
    Manages to capture firsthand the danger, fatigue and sheer tedium of an arduous illegal border crossing from Mexico without ever becoming tedious itself.
  11. Saving Face
    Everything that happens in the last half-hour betrays the canny, hardheaded perspective of what came before.
  12. The Deal
    It's when The Deal leaves the corporate offices behind that the story turns into a bogus, convoluted mess. Once the Russian mafia, personified by Angie Harmon playing an evil seductress with a terrible Russian accent, rears its head, the ballgame is over.
  13. Deep Blue
    Much of what the filmmakers and their team of cinematographers capture is undeniably remarkable, but their overt attachment to certain scenes can make watching a chore.
  14. The Honeymooners
    Superfluous though it may be, The Honeymooners is not so bad.
  15. Heights
    Like the film, the characters mean well and look good. But they're so deeply immersed in their own heads that they can't see the world for their needs.
  16. Dallas 362
    Mr. Caan's debut film is not quite a whole thing, but it offers up enough promising fragments to make his sophomore effort worth watching for.
  17. Steve + Sky
    A mere slip of a movie, a wan character study of people who add up to little more than a series of studied quirks.
  18. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
    Occasionally, this richly lyrical movie passes over the line separating sympathetic exploration from freak-show condescension.
  19. Wedding Crashers
    Reasonably enjoyable until its guys are forced to grow up. Because bad behavior is usually more fun to watch than good, the movie is especially fine during the preliminaries.
  20. November
    In the same way that a crossword puzzle tickles the mind without asking to be taken as literature, November plays games for the sake of game-playing. It also has a pretentious streak.
  21. Edgar G. Ulmer - The Man Off-screen
    In the main, Mr. Palm sticks to the usual biopic formula: a chronological account of a heroic individual told through talking heads, still photographs and film clips. Mr. Palm's principal deviation from this formula is that some of the interviews take place in moving cars.
  22. Oyster Farmer
    This darkly humorous, sometimes even raunchy film mostly eludes a typical cutesy, feel-good formula.
  23. The Skeleton Key
    One of the most enjoyably inane movies of the season, this faux Southern Gothic offers an embarrassment of geek pleasures.
  24. The Baxter
    In the end, The Baxter is a Baxter of a movie: well meaning and mildly likable, but unlikely to sweep you off your feet.
  25. Formula 17
    More interested in romance than sex, Formula 17 swoons with youthful innocence.
  26. Transporter 2
    Purely shallow but never dull, the film wisely pushes the limits of absurdity to the extreme, making it easier to submit to its sheer camp.
  27. Margaret Cho: Assassin
    Though specializing in confrontational, caustic and often raunchy humor, Ms. Cho has a relaxed and playful stage presence.
  28. HellBent
    Because more time is dedicated to crafting authentic, sympathetic characters than the average horror movie, it's easier to overlook the film's often-corny dialogue and so-so special effects.
  29. The Future of Food
    Quietly inflammatory film.
  30. Cry_Wolf
    First-time screenwriters Jeff Wadlow and Beau Bauman prove more adept at staging mind games than creating chills and thrills for the audience.
  31. Just Like Heaven
    It's not heaven, exactly, but after the purgatory of the late summer movie season, it may be close enough.
  32. Separate Lies
    The movie is so busy constructing its labyrinthine plot that it often forgets to plumb the souls of its characters.
  33. Dorian Blues
    With some gentle humor that will delight the "Napoleon Dynamite" set, Dorian Blues lights a natural little footpath between two ways of living.
  34. Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D
    The film is an unabashed promotion for space exploration.
  35. Going Shopping
    Going Shopping, like Mr. Jaglom's other movies, has enough smart, knowing touches and enough easy spontaneity among its well-chosen actors to make you wish it added up to more than what it turns out to be: a flighty, motor-mouthed cinematic divertissement.
  36. Little Manhattan
    Small-scale, perfectly acted family film.
  37. The War Within
    The War Within succeeds only as a thriller with some wartime overtones, rather than as a character study that thrills.
  38. Once Upon a Time in the West (re-release)
    The biggest, longest, most expensive Leone Western to date, and, in many ways, the most absurd... Granting the fact that it is quite bad, Once Upon the Time in the West is almost always interesting, wobbling, as it does, between being an epic lampoon and a serious hommage to the men who created the dreams of Leone's childhood. (Review of Original Release)
  39. Never Been Thawed
    Propelled by astute, straight-faced performances, it succeeds in stirring up some maniacal laughs.
  40. Zombie Honeymoon
    Leisurely paced and never truly engaging or frightening (beyond the fear commitment-phobes may experience), this low-budget film, shot on high-definition video, looks cheap, but makes up for it in part with solid performances (especially Ms. Coogan's) and capable direction by Dave Gebroe, whose script is infused with some wickedly funny lines.
  41. North Country
    That the film works as well as it does, delivering a tough first hour only to disintegrate like a wet newspaper, testifies to the skill of the filmmakers as well as to the constraints brought on them by an industry that insists on slapping a pretty bow on even the foulest truth.
  42. The President's Last Bang
    Tight, sober and strangely comical.
  43. Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
    Follows a formula, but the formula, when applied with skill and intelligence, as it is here, is pretty much foolproof.
  44. 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."
  45. The Roost
    The Roost proceeds with such youthful enthusiasm that its rawness is more charming than annoying.
  46. Prime
    All of this makes the movie pleasant, but not very memorable - a pale mirror image of "Shopgirl," which touches on some similar themes.
  47. The Weather Man
    Neither the screenplay nor the direction has the requisite depth to turn the banality of one unremarkable life into the stuff of Chekhov, much less of Mr. Payne.
  48. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    Ms. Silverman is a skilled performer, and Jesus Is Magic is occasionally very funny, but don't be fooled: naughty as she may seem, she's playing it safe.
  49. Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
    The unabashedly sentimental film is a juicy morsel for the great British actress Dame Joan Plowright, who endows Mrs. Palfrey with stoic charm and decency.
  50. Mrs Henderson Presents
    Watching this reasonably funny, professionally assembled calculation is a little like snuggling up in front of the television with a mug of hot cocoa and a warm blanket. Those who prefer their drinks and recreation spiked would do well to look elsewhere.
  51. Fun with Dick and Jane
    Mr. Carrey is such an attention hog that most actresses have a hard time holding on to their corner of the screen when he's onboard, especially in broader comedies. But Ms. Leoni never cedes her ground. Both performers exude such acute neediness - there's a touch of Jerry Lewis and Lucille Ball in their mutual frenzy - that not to love them even a little would seem cruel.
  52. The White Countess
    With its tentative pace, fussy, pieced-together structure and stuffy emotional climate, The White Countess never develops any narrative stamina.
  53. The Promise
    The Promise occupies a curious landscape somewhere between opera and cartoon.
  54. Glory Road
    Glory Road is satisfying less for its virtuosity than for its sincerity, and also because it will acquaint audiences with a remarkable episode that had ramifications far beyond the basketball court.
  55. Tristan and Isolde
    Just as there is something undeniably pleasant about an entertainment like Tristan & Isolde that delivers exactly what it promises, no less, no more.
  56. April's Shower
    Yet despite the absurdities and predictable outcome, April's Shower is enjoyable, primarily for its refreshingly volatile approach to sexual orientation.
  57. Go for Zucker
    It's the rare German movie calling itself a comedy that is actually funny, even if only in bits and pieces.
  58. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
    Front-loaded with inspired gags, and the first half-hour is both sneakily and explosively funny, raising expectations that are never quite met.
  59. Blossoms of Fire
    It's easy to be seduced by this film's warmhearted, if slightly utopian, vision.
  60. Dai si gin
    It's a slam-dunk of an opener in a film filled with terrifically choreographed action and very little on its mind.
  61. Little Jerusalem
    For the first full hour, as we're guided inside privacies of culture and consciousness, Ms. Albou sustains her rich and gently intoxicating mode of storytelling, a feat all the more admirable in light of the overly schematic script.
  62. The Second Chance
    Startlingly direct if unavoidably preachy, The Second Chance takes aim at Christianity's racial divide and the corporatization of faith. Its message is simple: being a Christian requires more than just dropping a check in the collection plate every Sunday morning.
  63. Aquamarine
    Ms. Paxton isn't quite as magnetic as a movie mermaid ought to be, but the two buddies are a treat to watch, especially Ms. Roberts, showing the genes of her Aunt Julia.
  64. Failure to Launch
    The movie has only the most tenuous connection with reality. But the same could be said of classic 30's screwball comedies in which the treacherous feints and ploys of the mating game are transmuted into witty, romantically charged repartee.
  65. Evil
    The movie is as blunt as its title. It portrays such behavior as "evil" without offering any deep insights or revelations, beyond handing out the plot equivalent of a lollipop at the end of the movie as compensation for the vicarious anguish.
  66. Take My Eyes
    The director, Iciar Bollain, who wrote the screenplay with Alicia Luna, invests Antonio with humanity, which would be more impressive if she had paid more attention to exploring the darker recesses of Pilar's inner life.
  67. Iluzija
    Mr. Ristovski's story (written with Grace Lea Troje) feels a bit underdeveloped, partly because he uses too many lingering, silent shots of Marko and doesn't give the boy much of a voice.
  68. Don't Trip ... He Ain't Through with Me Yet
    The film's first half, at least, is full of good comedy, no matter what the crowd.
  69. ATL
    The fun here is in seeing a new batch of rappers try acting, and some of them turn out to be eminently watchable.
  70. Lucky Number Slevin
    From its sly, amused performances to its surreal comic book gloss to its artfully nervous camerawork, Lucky Number Slevin sustains the blasé tone and look of a smart-aleck thriller that buries its heart under layers of attitude.
  71. The Wild
    While the kids are giggling at gambling pigeons and psychedelic chameleons, parents can enjoy a screenplay sensitive to the travails of single fatherhood and the evils of oppression. In The Wild, the most valuable weapons are honesty, tolerance and the ability to be oneself.
  72. I Am a Sex Addict
    The movie is a minor triumph of sincerity, neatly skirting the pitfalls of narcissism and unexamined misogyny. It never mugs for our good will, only our witness, which it rewards with honesty and wit.
  73. Quality of Life
    A minor movie, modestly made, that develops to a counterculture beat but ends with a status quo conundrum: Is selling out the new keeping it real?
  74. Kinky Boots
    All it wants is to divert you for about 100 minutes and leave you with the glow of vicarious comradeship, as blue-collar blokes and drag queens pull together to save the day. Foot fetishists will drool.
  75. Wassup Rockers
    However you respond to Wassup Rockers, it is completely alive, unlike any number of teenage Hollywood movies with their stale formulas and second-hand puerility. And that's mostly to the good.
  76. Guys and Balls
    The climactic game provides an opportunity for some of the most sustained - and literal - gay bashing in movie history, even if the outcome is no more surprising than that of any other underdog comedy.
  77. The Whore's Son
    The film fearlessly plumbs the depths of this intense mother-son relationship, and also explores the ways in which role models affect children's lives.
  78. Giuliani Time
    In general, and in spite of its deft use of archival video clips and interviews, Giuliani Time offers a superficial reading of recent New York history, zeroing in on the headlines while often missing the context.
  79. Keeping Up with the Steins
    Keeping Up With the Steins would have been a much better film if it had waited twice as long before retracting its fangs.
  80. Mendy
    Ms. Dias gives the role an understated allure, and Mr. Sandomire is as good as his character's inconsistencies allow. Their performances and Mr. Vardy's ability to be reverent when he wants to be are the film's strengths.
  81. Coastlines
    A larger problem is the film's attempt to piece together a hard-boiled crime drama with a soft-boiled soap opera, ultimately giving precedence to the suds and adding a sickly lemon scent.
  82. The Road to Guantanamo
    While far from a great movie, nonetheless effectively dramatizes a position that has been argued, by principled commentators on the left and the right, for several years now: that the abuse of prisoners, innocent or not, is not only repugnant in its own right.
  83. The Great Yokai War
    Narrative coherence is perhaps not among the film's virtues, but its loopy, cluttered story is part of the fun. And a clearer, simpler plot might have required the sacrifice of some delightful grace notes and visual marvels, like the elastic-necked geisha or the one-eyed ambulatory umbrella.
  84. Shadowboxer
    A gaudy thriller saturated in sex and violence, is an extravagance that leaves you with your mouth hanging open - partly in admiration of its audacity and partly in disbelief at its preposterousness.
  85. Darshan: The Embrace
    Filling our heads with pretty pictures and not much else, Darshan: The Embrace is likely to leave audiences enchanted but unenlightened.
  86. 13 Tzameti
    With its icy cynicism and desolate settings, the film evokes the work of the young Roman Polanski in his sadistic trickster mode.
  87. Shock to the System
    A sly, refreshingly grown-up gay entertainment, though rather less satisfying as a thriller.
  88. Conversations with Other Women
    None of it is quite believable -- the film is too studied, too forward in its conceits to be entirely satisfying -- but Mr. Eckhart and Ms. Bonham Carter approach their roles with intelligence and conviction.
  89. Step Up
    The story is as old as Mickey Rooney but its appeal is eternal, and Step Up cleaves to the template with significantly more rigor than originality. For a director who is also a choreographer, Anne Fletcher is strangely reluctant to step out of line.
  90. The Ordeal
    Calvaire is pompous, but not without talent or shivers.
  91. LOL
    Authentic in texture if narrow in scope, LOL is a movie about the way we live -- or rather about the way white, urban, heterosexual circuit boys are failing to live.
  92. How to Eat Fried Worms
    Nicely directed, the film version proves refreshingly free of the customary blights that affect most modern children's movies, notably adult condescension. But, man, is it mean.
  93. Invincible
    Invincible counters its predictably inspirational trajectory with close attention to historical detail and blue-collar hardship.
  94. Queens
    The most remarkable thing about Queens, a silly but generous Spanish farce from the writer and director Manuel Gómez Pereira, is its unadulterated worship of middle-aged women.
  95. Red Doors
    This agreeable, lightweight movie, written and directed by Georgia Lee, turns the malaises of a suburban family into bittersweet farce that teeters between cheeky humor and surface pathos.
  96. Train Man
    Though clearly aimed at teenagers, this unashamedly heartstruck movie is neither obsessed with sex nor driven to humiliate its characters. Compared to those of the average American teen movie, its ambitions are so innocent they’re almost childlike.
  97. The Guardian
    An action movie, a basic training movie, a swaggering sea adventure, a home front melodrama and an inspiring tough-love heroic teacher fable. If the aggregate of all these movies is exhausting and occasionally overwrought, some of the parts are stirring and effective, though not exactly fresh.
  98. Tales of the Rat Fink
    Depending on your age, sex and mechanical inclinations, Tales of the Rat Fink will convince you that Mr. Roth should either have been canonized or smothered at birth.
  99. Nearing Grace
    There's nothing remotely surprising in the entire film. But the generally winning -- and freakishly good-looking -- cast, endowed by Jacob Aaron Estes's script with intelligent, if occasionally overwritten dialogue, makes for viewing that is easy on the eyes and the ears.
  100. A Touch of Spice
    It does have some sweet touches and a droll sense of humor.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »