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. Get Bruce
    Endearing, very funny and utterly unpretentious.
  2. Unknown Pleasures
    Perhaps the world doesn't need another picture on disaffected youth, but Pleasures is about more than alienation.
  3. Matchstick Men
    Both entertaining and empty: an emotional shell game that leaves you feeling cheated even though, on the surface at least, everyone is a winner.
  4. White Oleander
    The accumulation of sharp candid flashes adds up to a disturbing vision of Los Angeles as a teeming jungle of dysfunction.
  5. I'll Sing for You
    Informal, pleasant film that ably captures Mr. Traoré's spirit.
  6. The Damned Don't Cry
    Vincent Sherman's direction is as specious as the script.
  7. Prince of Broadway
    The movie is sharp, charismatic and so light on its feet we never know which way it will turn.
  8. The To Do List
    This movie is smarter and better acted and just plain funnier than most of its predecessors in the my-first-time genre, no matter which sex is losing what.
  9. Tightrope
    A suspenseful, involving detective drama with one of the screen's most durable tough-guy heroes, doing what he does best and still managing to show something new.
  10. The Bubble
    Mr. Fox may be a romantic, but he understands that love is rarely all you need.
  11. Dust to Glory
    There is occasionally some gorgeous scenery, and the challenge of driving through silt is mildly interesting.
  12. Candyman
    The film's spooky atmosphere is accentuated by Anthony B. Richmond's cinematography and Philip Glass's score. Ms. Madsen's performance is a lot more enterprising than what the material requires; the same can be said for Mr. Rose's direction.
  13. Hero
    Stephen Frears's film is always lively and often shrewd, but in the end Hero is at war with itself. The movie's Capraesque heart is locked in battle with its cynical, contemporary brain.
  14. Trucker
    Trucker sometimes feels like a performance in search of a movie.
  15. Generation Iron
    For a documentary about extreme discipline, the filmmakers lack restraint: the movie, about 20 minutes too long, undercuts much of its own momentum.
  16. Eye of the Needle
    An ambitious, energetic thriller that stops short of real excitement for reasons that are hard to pinpoint. It's an entertaining movie, and an extremely well-acted one.
  17. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
    In place of narrative drive it relies, on the momentum created by ‐ its visual spectacle, its prodigal way with ideas, its wit and its enthusiasm for the lunatic business of making movies.
  18. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie
    All in all, “Rise” is as dependable as a Manhattan slice: not mind-blowing in the slightest, but just delightfully cheesy enough to keep kids and adults alike satisfied.
  19. The Last Rodeo
    The story’s conventional beats (the get-back-in-shape montage, the bad news delivered at a critical moment) cohere into a wholesome journey of long-delayed healing. The inclusion of the wonderful Mykelti Williamson, as Joe’s longtime friend and rodeo partner, injects a buddy-movie vibe that anchors the action in riding bouts that are smoothly thrilling without being punishing.
  20. The Sense of an Ending
    Directed by Ritesh Batra from a screenplay by Nick Payne, The Sense of an Ending maintains intrigue and emotional magnetism as its mystery unfolds.
  21. Cat People
    Miss Kinski and Mr. McDowell are most effective - eerie and damned -and Mr. Heard is stalwart and self-effacing as the mere human who stumbles onto the truth and forever guards the secret.
  22. Bicycling With Molière
    The screenplay ultimately bears out Alceste’s observations about treachery, selfishness and deceit, but with such charm and zest that their sting tickles more than it hurts.
  23. The Karate Kid
    When karate is not being treated as the latest excuse for an Impossible Dream success story, and when the film is able to find more in Daniel's martial-arts career than pure Rocky-esque competitiveness, The Karate Kid exhibits warmth and friendly, predictable humor, its greatest assets.
  24. Dog
    Dog is unabashedly sentimental. A movie about a dog and a soldier could hardly be otherwise. Luckily, Tatum’s self-deprecating charm and Carolin’s script keep the story on the tolerable side of maudlin.
  25. The Big Chill
    The Big Chill represents the best of mainstream American film making. It's a reminder that the same people who turn out our megabuck fantasies are often capable of working even more effectively on the small, intimate scale of The Big Chill.
  26. La tropical
    Crammed with comments from patrons and performers, La Tropical is a sensual celebration of people for whom dancing is the "most important nonreligious ritual."
  27. Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey
    The purpose was no doubt more spiritual than the film conveys; if so, the execution doesn’t do the effort justice.
  28. Thank You for Playing
    If nothing else, it’s evidence that the digital age has opened up new ways to work through grief.
  29. Two Women
    Ultimately, Two Women is less a message movie than a featherweight comedy, gesturing at big ideas about sexual politics before settling in as an amusingly mischievous diversion.
  30. Freeway
    Rather than seeming classic, Freeway appears to be another film maker showcase, a derivative apprentice work.
  31. Rogue Agent
    The real account of Robert Freegard might have been unbelievable. Its dramatization, however, is preposterous.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    He's tall, dark, handsome and has a dimpled chin. But Mr. Lazenby, if not a spurious Bond, is merely a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement. For the record, he plays a decidedly second fiddle to an overabundance of continuous action, a soundtrack as explosive as the London Blitz, and flip dialogue and characterizations set against some authentic, truly spectacular Portuguese and Swiss scenic backgrounds, caught in eyecatching colors.
  33. Country Gold
    This movie gets better the more it strays from its real-life models and into hazy hallucinatory American weirdness. But the snotty dismissiveness with which it treats country music ultimately overwhelms its intriguing qualities.
  34. Coming Home
    Strong, stinging triangle of two Vietnam vets and one wife.
  35. Call Her Ganda
    Call Her Ganda (“ganda” means “beautiful” in Tagalog) remains commendable for its focus on the case, and for its insistence that the crime against Ms. Laude not be forgotten.
  36. Spoiler Alert
    The film is strongest when it falls silent, allowing the actors to communicate their thoughts with a look.
  37. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
    There's a lot to make [Heckerling's] film likeable, but not much to hold it together.
  38. Star Maps
    Though Star Maps lacks a strong ending or a Ratso Rizzo to play off Spain's ingenuous hustler, it introduces Arteta as a filmmaker with a credible style and a flair for caustic storytelling. And his film takes the interesting tack of sharing Carlos' matter-of-fact outlook.
  39. 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.
  40. Ladrón que roba a ladrón
    An effervescent comedy coasting on the charisma of its stars.
  41. Quitting
    With Quitting, he (Zhang) has removed sentimentality from the theme and presented it with unflinching honesty, a quality he shares with his fearless cast.
  42. Lucie Aubrac
    Stirringly romantic...a gripping period thriller that clicks along without resorting to hyped-up shock effects or gimmicky suspense.
  43. Stuart Little
    Sustains a lovely balance between enchantment and playfulness.
  44. Frida
    At its best when it forsakes earnest psychological exposition for magic realism, when, instead of trying to explain Kahlo's life, it conjures the moods and sensations that fed her art.
  45. Goya in Bordeaux
    Visual knockout of a film.
  46. Taking Sides
    Sparked by the actors' powerful performances, Arnold's moral absolutism and Furtwängler's lofty aestheticism make for a dramatically compelling clash.
  47. One
    The film's spareness and lack of words seem affected and ultimately unrealistic. At such moments, its refusal to put things into words and its crushing sense of gloom turn self-defeating.
  48. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - To the Hashira Training
    The combination of finale and premiere inevitably feels lopsided.
  49. Magic Mike XXL
    Magic Mike XXL boldly flouts pop-cultural conventional wisdom. It’s often said that an explanation of a joke can’t be funny, and that the analysis of pornography is never sexy. But here is a coherent and rigorous theory of pleasure that is also an absolute blast.
  50. Rocky II
    Rocky II has a waxy feeling, and it never comes to life the way its predecessor did. As the characters go through their stock routines — Talia Shire shyly whispering I love you, Mr. Stallone making self-deprecating jokes, Burgess Meredith telling the kid he's either a bum or a hero — you get the feeling that you've been here before. Well, you have.
  51. Sorry/Not Sorry
    An earnest and frustrating documentary.
  52. The Peasants
    As the story’s melodrama grows repetitive, so do the visuals.
  53. Disappearance at Clifton Hill
    For patient or forgiving fans of idiosyncratic thrillers, “Disappearance” may deliver satisfactory spills and chills.
  54. Black Phone 2
    Derrickson has crafted a sequel that is remarkably different from the original — up in the frosty mountains, this is more of an ax-murderer ghost chase than a trip to a serial killer’s horrific basement — and with that comes a ratcheting up of grisly theatrics.
  55. Anastasia
    A deeply silly movie, but it is sumptuous to look at, and it never stands still. Its creators, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, have given the story a lilting rhythm and glittering surface of the most extravagant jewel-encrusted fairy tale.
  56. The Observers
    Solitude is a character, so much so that, 25 minutes in, when the first human voice is heard, it feels like an intrusion. And when the weather warms enough for tourists to make the trek up to the observatory, they register not as a welcome relief from loneliness but as annoyances.
  57. The Hornet's Nest
    The Hornet’s Nest lets its soldiers do most of the talking. The action — the rapid fire of automatic weapons, the crack of a sniper’s shot, the medevac rescues — is vivid.
  58. Red Knot
    Lacking a formal script, the actors struggle with a plot so elemental that it might have played more persuasively as a silent-screen melodrama.
  59. Project X
    a young folks' story, a sweet-natured boy-and-his-chimp tale (even the bad guys aren't all that bad), with a dose of Animal Liberation to give the impression that something of current signficance is going on.
  60. Fear X
    Grimly austere barely begins to describe the atmosphere of dread that seeps through Fear X like a toxic mist.
  61. In the Pit
    With In the Pit [Rulfo] isn't advancing any totalizing theory, a treatise on transportation or an argument about alienation; he is, rather simply and elegantly, revealing the secret human face of a seemingly inhuman world.
  62. The Wretched
    Blessed with shivery setups and freaky effects — here, skin-crawling is literal — The Wretched transforms common familial anxieties into flesh, albeit crepey and creeping.
  63. The Soloist
    The film is imperfect, periodically if unsurprisingly sentimental, overly tidy and often very moving.
  64. Ladies in Lavender.
    The cinematic equivalent of a visit from a cherished but increasingly dithery maiden aunt.
  65. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
    Good enough in patches to make its distracting star turns, storybook clichés and stereotypes harder to take than they would be in a less enjoyable movie.
  66. Urban Cowboy
    Urban Cowboy is the most entertaining, most perceptive commercial American movie of the year to date. Here is a tough-talking, softhearted romantic melodrama that sees a world that is far more bleak than the movie, or the characters in it, ever have time to acknowledge.
  67. Documented
    His strategy is political — in a meaningful way — but not cinematic.
  68. John and the Hole
    Chilly, enigmatic and more than a little spooky, John and the Hole patrols the porous border between child and adult with more style than depth.
  69. The White Crow
    The problem is that while there are dance performances scattered throughout The White Crow, as well as interludes with a sweaty Rudy practicing and striving, the offstage scenes tend to feel like filler, the bits stuck between the barre and the theater.
  70. Vice
    Vice offers more than Yuletide rage-bait for liberal moviegoers, who already have plenty to be mad about. Revulsion and admiration lie as close together as the red and white stripes on the American flag, and if this is in some respects a real-life monster movie, it’s one that takes a lively and at times surprisingly sympathetic interest in its chosen demon.
  71. Paradise: Faith
    Like it or not, Paradise: Faith sticks in your head. The fierce, indelible performance of Ms. Hofstätter, a regular in Mr. Seidl’s films, may make you cringe with revulsion, but it is utterly riveting.
  72. Last Hijack
    This film could have been more surely and deftly put together.
  73. Raggedy Man
    Raggedy Man is something like a country-and-western ballad that relates a supposedly sad, melodramatic story but whose simple, repetitive, upbeat rhythms effectively deny the awfulness of the events being sung about.
  74. Ocean's 8
    Its cast aside, the movie sounds and narratively unwinds like the previous installments, but without the same easy snap or visual allure.
  75. Sleeping Beauty
    Though the tone is quiet and the pacing serenely unhurried, Sleeping Beauty is at times almost screamingly funny, a pointed, deadpan surrealist sex farce that Luis Buñuel might have admired.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    In this film [Hughes] has created a character who is every teen-ager's fantasy, but in the process he has lost some of the authenticity of his other films - leaving several slow transitions or awkward moments.
  77. Hideaway (Le refuge)
    But while the Pietà imagery startles, it makes increasing sense as the story builds around it. Because as Hideaway deepens and evolves, you understand that the image of Mousse cradling Louis is a manifestation of her love: this was how she held him, with a tender love that in its depth was itself holy.
  78. As They Made Us
    Even with veterans like Hoffman and Bergen, it’s Agron’s film. She and Bialik make Abigail’s filial loyalty as sympathetic as it is exasperating, and as rife with difficult truths about aging as it is understatedly hopeful about growing up.
  79. 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.
  80. Dead for A Dollar
    It’s solidly and proudly a B picture, as the Boetticher dedication makes clear. But in an age of blockbuster bloat and streaming cynicism, a solid B movie — efficiently shot (by Lloyd Ahern II) and effectively acted (by everyone) is something of a miracle. Hill had a job to do. He did it. That’s worth something.
  81. Respect
    Respect succeeds in doing exactly what is expected of it. You may argue with this or that filmmaking choice and regret its overly smooth edges, but it does give you a sense of Franklin as a historical figure, a crossover success story and a full-throttle, fur-draped diva.
  82. Hot Shots!
    Charlie Sheen brings just the right exaggerated seriousness to his ace pilot's role, and Cary Elwes perfectly captures the ingenue arrogance of Topper's handsome rival. Jon Cryer, as a pilot with major eyesight problems, also displays expert deadpan timing, especially when he delivers the film's most uproarious line.
  83. Blackthorn
    The movie plods along self-consciously, and when the big twist occurs (you'll most likely see it coming), it complicates the plot, but not Butch, who remains a paragon. That's the problem with Blackthorn: it goes all mushy when contemplating its grizzled, out-of-time hero.
  84. Addams Family Values
    Mr. Sonnenfeld repeats some of the first film's favorite visual stunts without wearing out their welcome, and he sustains much more exuberance than a sequel might be expected to have. The cast, which now includes Carol Kane playing Granny Addams, remains foolproof and great fun.
  85. Traitor
    A somber, absorbing and only moderately preposterous new thriller.
  86. A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas
    N.P.H, as he's often called in these films, does indeed return, singing and dancing. And talking dirty. He, that stoned baby and a stunning riff on the tongue-stuck-to-a-pole scene in "A Christmas Story" will, for fans of this franchise, make this a blissful holiday season indeed.
  87. Bugs!
    Vivid and visually stunning.
  88. The Dream Catcher
    Sustains a mood of aimless adolescent angst, and its vision of the road is uncompromisingly bleak.
  89. The Backyard
    This stuff is much too strange and much too disturbing to be invented.
  90. Laurel Canyon
    Reconfirms the filmmaker's talent as an acutely observant chronicler of upscale bohemian subcultures.
  91. Welcome to Collinwood
    What the movie lacks in polish, though, it makes up for in pluck, enthusiasm and slapstick shamelessness.
  92. Blue Gate Crossing
    Little more than a vignette elongated into a feature-length movie. Moody and slow moving, it depends on the truthfulness of its performances to carry it.
  93. Blue Crush
    It's hard to resist being swept up in Blue Crush, not least because David Hennings's shimmery photography carries the breeze and spray of the island right into the theater. The movie is also the latest example of a subgenre that might be called feminexploitation.
  94. Beijing Bicycle
    At once somber and mysterious, comical and sad. It shows just how lonely a crowded city can be.
  95. Rumble in the Bronx
    The movie is a giddy triple somersault of a film that makes no sense whatsoever, although in its best moments it is as much fun to watch as a death-defying circus act.
  96. Sunlight Jr.
    Despite the intensity of their performances, Ms. Watts and Mr. Dillon are only fleetingly convincing as these desperate young Americans trying to maintain a foothold.
  97. The Sword in the Stone
    The picture makes an eye-filling package of rollicking fun and thoughtful common sense. The humor sparkles with real, knowing sophistication.
  98. Until the Birds Return
    Although each chapter is built around an event — a tryst or a revelation — the film comes to life in quiet, conversational details that capture the textures of people’s lives across different generations and classes.
  99. The Eagle Has Landed
    A good old-fashioned adventure movie that is so stuffed with robust incidents and characters that you can relax and enjoy it without worrying whether it actually happened or even whether it's plausible.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »