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. Flicka
    An entertainingly ridiculous update of Mary O’Hara’s 1941 children’s novel, “My Friend Flicka.”
  2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
    Of course, while your brain is fritzing out, you're trying to figure out how the cinematic trick was done and what the implications might be for other old films. Scary, disturbing, intriguing, all at once.
  3. Come Early Morning
    An incisive but static and occasionally confusing character study of Lucy Fowler, a disheveled, hard-drinking single woman who has a day job as a contractor and a dissolute night life.
  4. Bobby
    When you hear his (Robert Kennedy's) patient, meditative speeches, from which every note of demagoguery or pandering has been purged, you glimpse the film Mr. Estevez set out to make -- the one you may wish you were watching.
  5. The Holiday
    Ms. Meyers, whose ambitions are telegraphed by her film's title, which directly invokes George Cukor's lovely 1938 romp "Holiday," has created a cumbersome vehicle by saddling Iris with a flamboyantly glamorous Los Angeles double, Amanda. As played by Cameron Diaz with oodles of charm and not an ounce of persuasion, Amanda doesn’t as much mirror Iris's love troubles as throw them into wincing relief.
  6. Dreamgirls
    The problem with “Dreamgirls” -- and it is not a small one -- lies in those songs, which are not just musically and lyrically pedestrian, but historically and idiomatically disastrous.
  7. Screamers
    Part rockumentary, part howl of outrage, Screamers would have benefited from less concert film and more historical background.
  8. The Good Shepherd
    The most interesting thing about The Good Shepherd is how hard the filmmakers work not only to demystify the agency, but also to strip it of its allure, its heat.
  9. Notes on a Scandal
    The actors in Notes on a Scandal are equally distinguished: Ms. Dench and Ms. Blanchett are among the finest on the market today, and each can deliver expert performances, even when, as is the case here, their roles are false and hollow. The performers sell the goods, but the goods are cheap.
  10. 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.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alone with Her
    In the end, the characters seem less archetypal than vague, and aside from its sophisticated presentation, Alone With Her doesn't differ all that much from its template: the late-’80s and early-’90s Fill-In-the-Blanks-From-Hell movies that followed in the wake of "Fatal Attraction," many of whose elements (including the heroine’s inquisitive, doomed best friend) Mr. Nicholas revives almost verbatim.
  12. Catch and Release
    Although I find the term "chick flick" odious, I imagine that Columbia Pictures regards Catch and Release as exactly that, although there are signs that Ms. Grant was reaching for something more layered and subtle than the usual fairy-tale formula
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shockproof
    While Shockproof”will inspire more groans than gasps, it's essential viewing for fans of Mr. Fuller and Mr. Sirk.
  14. An Unreasonable Man
    Its ideological leanings are evident and unsurprising, but more screen time for Mr. Nader's pre-2000 (or pre-post-2000) adversaries would have made a richer film.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Last Sin Eater
    Handsomely produced, earnestly performed and 100 percent irony-free, The Last Sin Eater is religious art for mainstream consumption.
  16. Music and Lyrics
    While there is not much chemistry between Mr. Grant and Ms. Barrymore, they are professional enough to work with the movie's conceit while sending flickers of idiosyncratic charm off the screen.
  17. Beyond the Gates
    Though less reassuring and not as dramatically coherent as "Hotel Rwanda," it still packs a hard punch.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pride
    The movie serves up the expected ratio of setbacks to triumphs and closes with video footage of the real Jim Ellis. But when sinewy young idealists glide through water to the tune of "I'll Take You There," the heart still leaps.
  19. The Page Turner
    A would-be psychological thriller with next to no psychology and shivers instead of thrills, The Page Turner is a nervous-making, lightly amusing vengeance story that owes an obvious debt to Claude Chabrol.
  20. Whole New Thing
    This movie is a more conventional, but also more believable, exploration of the potential cost of thumbing your nose at society.
  21. Zoo
    Paradoxically, it is precisely because Mr. Devor refuses to acknowledge the murkiness that clings to every frame in his film, because he refuses to engage with the world beyond that of the zoophiles, that they seem like creatures from some never-ending night.
  22. Wind Chill
    A moody, spooky tale, rendered with laudable economy.
  23. Paris, je t'aime
    A cinematic tasting menu consisting entirely of amuse-bouches. After two hours of such tidbits the palate is sated. But if there is no need for a main course, you still leave feeling vaguely disappointed at not being served one.
  24. Allegro
    Its most intriguing moments evoke the way that memory plays tricks and our visions of the past are actually scrambled composites of impressions and feelings.
  25. Chalk
    This loose-jointed ensemble comedy is funny in a squirm-inducing way.
  26. 9 Star Hotel
    By ignoring Israeli voices and focusing only on the immigrants, Mr. Haar has produced a documentary filled with immediacy but free of analysis, a fascinating but ultimately unenlightening record of their plight.
  27. Angel-A
    Rie Rasmussen and Jamel Debbouze, the stars who portray Angela, the celestial therapist, and André, her star patient, display enough screwball romantic charm to keep this sugary trifle afloat longer than you'd expect.
  28. Gracie
    A familiar underdog story told with unusual sensitivity.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Vitus
    The triumphant musical cues and comic double takes encourage us to cheer Vitus's high jinks as if he were Ferris Bueller's ivory-tickling kid brother.
  30. Dynamite Warrior
    Chalerm Wongpim keeps it all moving along at such a clip that you’re more likely to leave the theater smiling than yawning.
  31. Tekkonkinkreet
    Demands to be seen, if only for its beauty.
  32. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
    The hormonal realism to the performances and a laid-back run-up give the film a fairly legitimate feel for adolescence.
  33. Arctic Tale
    The movie’s stunning underwater photography (fearlessly captured by Mr. Ravetch) effectively dilutes the saccharine tone.
  34. Charlie Bartlett
    If the attention span of Charlie Bartlett didn’t wander here and there, the movie might have been a high school satire worthy of comparison with Alexander Payne’s “Election.” But as it dashes around and eventually turns soft, it loses its train of thought.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Signal
    Part 1, directed by David Bruckner is superb, with affecting performances, a sense of dread reminiscent of John Carpenter’s “Prince of Darkness” and many striking images. Part 2, directed by Dan Bush aims for George Romero-style ghastly humor, but it’s more grating than funny. Part 3, directed by Jacob Gentry adds a splash of tragic love, but its preference for gore over feeling becomes monotonous.
  36. Resurrecting the Champ
    For Mr. Lurie, who specializes in political subjects, Resurrecting the Champ is an encouraging return to film following the rise and fall of his television series "Commander in Chief."
  37. Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
    Instead of seriously investigating corruption, money laundering and the buying of politicians, Manda Bala would rather spend its time showing slimy brown frogs slithering over one another as they are dumped from one container into another.
  38. Fierce People
    When F. Scott Fitzgerald remarked that the rich “are different from you and me,” he might have been thinking of someone like the moody billionaire from Fierce People.
  39. In the Valley of Elah
    However you judge the movie’s politics, and whatever its flaws, there is something inarguable, something irreducibly honest and right, about Mr. Jones’s performance.
  40. King of California
    King of California may look and feel realistic, but it is really a Don Quixote-like fable about nonconformity and pursuing your impossible dream to the very end.
  41. Sydney White
    Ms. Bynes, with her cherubic face, expressive eyes and comic timing, helps create a positive, pleasing diversion that caters to the geek in all of us.
  42. Trade
    An eagerly prurient dip into the sex-trafficking trough, Trade teeters between earnest exposé and salacious melodrama. Minus the film’s near-visible weight of conscience, success in the second category would have been virtually guaranteed.
  43. Rails & Ties
    Everything looks professional if undistinguished.
  44. P2
    Swift and stealthy P2 is a canny exploitation of one of the urban woman’s greatest fears: the after-hours parking garage. Throw in a car that won’t start, a creepy security guard and a filmmaking team with perfect synchronicity, and the result is a minimalist nightmare.
  45. Saawariya
    The experience is visually enchanting, cloyingly sweet, at once utterly chaste and insanely erotic, and finally exhausting. Aficionados will not settle for less.
  46. This Christmas
    Boisterous and bittersweet, the film is not dull, but it does feel hopelessly overstuffed, with scant time to devote to any one story line.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sharkwater
    Mr. Stewart dilutes the movie’s urgency by framing the subject within a “personal journey” format and selling himself as a hunky, sensitive martyr.
  48. Flawless
    A mildly diverting period heist movie.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oswald's Ghost
    The documentary Oswald’s Ghost initially plays as yet another primer on the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the vilification of Lee Harvey Oswald.
  50. Maurice Richard
    After a while the humorless solemnity of The Rocket stifles any interesting sense of Maurice Richard as a character. The hockey sequences are nicely done, though, and give a reasonably good sense of what a great player he was.
  51. The Great Debaters
    The wonder is that The Great Debaters transcends its own simplifying and manipulative ploys; it radiates nobility of spirit.
  52. Honeydripper
    Honeydripper is agreeable, well-intentioned and very, very slow. Sadly, it illustrates the difference between an archetype and a stereotype. When the first falls flat, it turns into the other and becomes a cliché.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    National Treasure: Book of Secrets
    Like its predecessor, “National Treasure,” this sequel amounts to a bunch of crossword puzzle answers stitched together with explosions, chases and displays of intuitive reasoning that the “Twin Peaks” F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper would reject as too right-brained.
  54. City of Men
    City of Men has a more humane, you might say bleeding-heart, perspective on this anarchic culture than “City of God.”
  55. Rambo
    The movie does have its own kind of blockheaded poetry.
  56. In Bruges
    Mr. Gleeson, Mr. Farrell and especially the late-arriving and welcome Mr. Fiennes have great fun rummaging around inside Mr. McDonagh’s modest bag of tricks.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins
    It’s a cut above other films of its type because every scene is packed with details like those pliers -- touches that suggest that the film’s writer and director, Malcolm D. Lee (“The Best Man”), is working overtime to smuggle life into formula.
  58. Diary of the Dead
    The body has its needs, and one of the problems with Diary of the Dead is that it doesn’t get into your body; it doesn’t shake you up, jolt you, make you shiver and squeak. It’s clever, or at least clever enough to keep you going and interested from start to finish. It just isn’t scary.
  59. The Bank Job
    The workmanlike title The Bank Job is a nice fit for this wham-bam caper flick.
  60. Snow Angels
    For a film full of murder, jealousy and fatalism, Snow Angels feels curiously small and anecdotal, and its impact diminishes as it nears its terrible conclusion.
  61. Heartbeat Detector
    The rather lost-looking Mr. Amalric, most recently seen on screens giving his left eyeball a furious workout in “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” maintains a suitably funereal mien throughout.
  62. The Grand
    The actors certainly look as if they’re having a good time, and if you’re in the right mood, you might too.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Hammer
    Rambling and disorganized. At the same time, though, The Hammer also has dry wit and unforced working-class swagger, and hits some surprising emotional notes.
  64. Meet the Browns
    What he serves up -- a mixture of moralism and forgiveness, semibawdy humor and cautionary drama, mockery and affection -- may sometimes lack coherence, but never integrity.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Run, Fatboy, Run
    The kind of movie that’s apt to be dismissed a goofy lark. It is that. But it’s also a rare comedy that believes in its own message, and that could inspire the depressed and the demoralized to grit their teeth and keep running.
  66. The Cool School
    The Cool School, is, well, cool, but it’s also fairly parochial.
  67. Priceless
    The movie is an amusing ball of fluff that refuses to judge its characters’ amoral high jinks. Winking at the vanity of wealthy voluptuaries and hustlers playing games of tainted love, it heaves a sigh and says welcome to the human comedy.
  68. Stop-Loss
    Ms. Peirce’s movie, which she wrote with Mark Richard, is not only an earnest, issue-driven narrative, but also a feverish entertainment, a passionate, at times overwrought melodrama gaudy with violent actions and emotions.
  69. Water Lilies
    Water Lilies is a nice, watchable, attractive, minor work. What it lacks is a sense of purpose, a commitment not just to its characters but also to its own reason for being.
  70. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
    Does not entirely play by the established conventions of its genre. Its willingness to explore states of feeling and modes of behavior that tamer romantic comedies never go near is decidedly a virtue, though this same sense of daring and candor also exposes its limitations.
  71. Bra Boys
    This crude, rowdy movie is also unexpectedly touching in its embrace of surfing as an escape from the stigma of poverty and broken homes. Escape from Russell Crowe’s droning narration, however, is impossible.
  72. Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
    Much like its subject: affable, quotable and emotionally guarded in the extreme.
  73. 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.
  74. Turn the River
    Until it transforms into an improbable thriller, Turn the River is a finely observed portrait of a desperate working-class woman who refuses to play by ordinary rules.
  75. 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.
  76. The Children of Huang Shi
    Roger Spottiswoode directs with old-fashioned style, avoiding the saccharine with realistic depictions of a war-ravaged China (where he filmed) and a cast well versed in stiff-upper-lip.
  77. A Jihad for Love
    Mr. Sharma's film emphasizes testimony over context to such a degree that it feels at first of little use to anyone except gay Muslims who might take comfort in knowing they're not alone. But the documentary gains depth of feeling as it goes and even develops something of a nail-biting narrative.
  78. The Happening
    A divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense and a solid lead performance from Mark Wahlberg.
  79. The Unknown Woman
    Ms. Rappoport’s sturdy performance helps keep this outlandish melodrama from collapsing into unintended comedy.
  80. The Promotion
    As this sweet, ineffectual comedy follows two sad sacks competing for the job of manager at a new branch of a Chicago grocery chain, it pointedly avoids the raucous bad-boy clowning of the typical Everyguy farce. Think of it as a polite, tightly muzzled "Clerks."
  81. Pineapple Express
    It's an unshowy, generous performance [by Franco] and it greatly humanizes a movie that, as it shifts genre gears and cranks up the noise, becomes disappointingly sober and self-serious.
  82. Gunnin' for That #1 Spot
    As guileless and eager as the most avid fan, Gunnin’ is neither cautionary nor analytical, allowing its insights to occur organically and without fancy camera moves.
  83. The Wackness
    The movie he (Josh Peck) is in, The Wackness, written and directed by Jonathan Levine, makes a good-faith effort to steer clear of such clichés, and succeeds and fails in roughly equal measure.
    • The New York Times
  84. Bustin' Down the Door
    The darker side of the story -- how the advent of pro surfing was taken as an act of cultural colonialism by some of the locals -- adds gravity to this otherwise lightweight, if amiable summer diversion.
  85. Red
    Once Avery's mission assumes a Freudian dimension, the allegory loses its moral force and changes from a meditation on justice, power and inequality into a gory melodrama.
  86. Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
    Harks back to the drive-in classics of yesteryear with unapologetic nostalgia and undisguised affection.
  87. Towelhead
    A crude but scathing portrait of suburban life.
  88. Appaloosa
    The movie's tolerant, good-humored view of its characters drains it of some dramatic intensity, but Mr. Harris seems more interested in piquant, offhand moments than in big, straining confrontations.
  89. Morning Light
    Like the disastrously overpopulated "Amazing Race: Family Edition," Morning Light never finds a way to make us care who wins.
  90. Good Dick
    Good Dick surmounts its indie-movie quirkiness with exceptional acting and a sincere belief in the salvation of its wounded characters.
  91. Quarantine
    The template is familiar, but Quarantine delivers the heebie-jeebies with solid acting and perfectly calibrated shocks.
  92. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
    A candy-colored never-never land that Peter Pan might envy.
  93. Soul Men
    A raucous, rambling comedy, offering some laughs, some groans and a feast for fans of the musical idioms it mocks and celebrates.
  94. Transporter 3
    Though the car chases have grown more banal as the franchise has started to run on fumes, the smackdowns have retained their zing.
  95. The Reader
    The film is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it's about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.
  96. Chandni Chowk to China
    Starts too frantically but settles down to become an enjoyable if slight Saturday-matinee picture.
  97. My Bloody Valentine
    A strange synergy of old and new, My Bloody Valentine 3D blends cutting-edge technology and old-school prosthetics to produce something both familiar and alien: gore you can believe in.
  98. Notorious
    Notorious settles into a curious comfort zone; it's half pop fable, half naturalistic docudrama. Not a bad movie, but nowhere near as strong as its soundtrack.
  99. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
    Although the presence of Mr. Sheen is initially distracting, it soon becomes the movie's greatest asset. There is, as it turns out, some benefit to having a real performance even in a formulaic entertainment like this.
  100. Push
    Imaginatively filmed by Peter Sova, Push has a dizzying, chaotic energy that pulls you along. Paul McGuigan directs with maximum efficiency and minimum use of computers, creating effects that feel satisfyingly tangible.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »