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 World Is Not Enough
    In his third and most comfortable effort to model the Bond mantle, Pierce Brosnan bears noticeably more resemblance to a real human being.
  2. U-571
    Yet there is so little characterization that when the sub goes down, you may find yourself confused as to which of the supporting cast members lived through the torpedo blast.
  3. Erin Brockovich
    The feel-good movie of the year.
  4. The Medallion
    As soon as the medallion appears, so do the digital maneuverings -- speeded-up movement, composite images, objects and people morphing into supernatural thingamajigs -- that undercut the genuine thrills of the genuine action.
  5. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...
    Though the director's jet-set fantasy world of rugged jewel thieves and sailboat races, triste cabaret singers and sybaritic pleasures may feel dated and more than a little decadent, it is a nice enough place to visit.
  6. Blast from the Past
    Fortunately, the Webber shelter is a jaunty monument to kitsch, and the Webbers themselves are an appealingly batty crew.
  7. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
    Though Ms. Jovovich's performance dominates the film, she remains pedestrian and underwhelming.
    • The New York Times
  8. Jet Lag
    A peppy romantic trifle from France that rises above the mundane on the strength of its beautifully detailed lead performances.
  9. The Hot Spot
    The Hot Spot, his film noir set in a small, sex-starved Texas backwater, is the closest Mr. Hopper has yet come to working within the bounds of a familiar genre. Nevertheless, The Hot Spot bears the film maker's idiosyncratic stamp all the way.
  10. La Femme Nikita
    The film, like Nikita herself, becomes more conventionally sleek and less interestingly bizarre as it moves along.
  11. An Amazing Couple
    Some of the scenes are like mislaid puzzle pieces, and they snap into place only when all three movies have been seen and absorbed. This makes watching any one of the episodes both more interesting and more frustrating than it might otherwise be, since a portion of dramatic satisfaction is always withheld.
  12. After the Life
    Mr. Belvaux's sensitive, generous way with actors suggests that, with more discipline and less gimmickry, he might have made a single masterwork, and After the Life provides the best support for this assessment.
  13. Just an American Boy
    A crude but stirring video documentary filmed over last year and this by Amos Poe, while Mr. Earle and his band were on tour.
  14. Boxing Helena
    Ultimately, Ms Lynch has nowhere to take her erotic parable except to a dead end, but she makes the unfolding of the story a spooky, engrossing process.
  15. 200 Cigarettes
    Gathers a partyful of young players and barely gives them enough of a story line to puff on, but it gets by on personality anyhow.
  16. Dark Blue
    Unfortunately, the rest of the movie does not live up to Mr. Russell's performance.
  17. The Deep End of the Ocean
    Grosbard mercifully avoids melodrama -- the only real false notes are musical ones, from a score by Elmer Bernstein that turns familiar and trite when the film does not.
  18. E-Dreams
    The movie is a little claustrophobic -- a marathon of conference calls, frenzied pointing and clicking, and office pep talks.
  19. Thirteen Days
    Kevin Costner is suitably flinty in 13 Days, a competent, by-the-numbers recreation of the events surrounding the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
  20. Kippur
    Immerses you in violence and agony, but it may leave you with a curious feeling of detachment.
  21. Journeys with George
    A witty reminder that campaigns are an endless string of foolish events and photo ops that are wildly detached from the hard issues a president has to deal with.
  22. The Experiment
    It's empty calories trying to trumpet its bogus nutritional value, and the strain for social importance undermines the picture.
  23. Crazy in Alabama
    Banderas directs capably enough to keep the film lively.
  24. Midnight Run
    Mr. De Niro and Mr. Grodin are lunatic delights, which is somewhat more than can be said for the movie, whose mechanics keep getting in the way of the performances. [20 July 1988, p.C15]
    • The New York Times
  25. The Big Tease
    As it rubs our noses in our own fascination with vanity and the silliest values in life, it's charming enough to make us like it.
  26. Daughter from Danang
    May not be a great piece of filmmaking, but its power comes from its soul's-eye view of how well-meaning patronizing masked a social injustice, at least as represented by this case.
  27. The Gatekeeper
    Though the film is far from polished, the force of its significance to Mr. Frey, as well as the urgency of its political message, give it some genuine impact.
  28. Unknown Pleasures
    Perhaps the world doesn't need another picture on disaffected youth, but Pleasures is about more than alienation.
  29. Dr. Dolittle 2
    Mr. Murphy is not given much to do in this sloppy, good-hearted sequel, so he graciously allows himself to be upstaged by all manner of animatronic, celebrity-voiced talking animals.
  30. The Man from Elysian Fields
    By the end, after an hour and a half of wondering -- sometimes amusedly, sometimes impatiently -- just what this strenuously unconventional movie is supposed to be, you discover that the answer is as conventional as can be.
  31. Two Men Went to War
    It mocks the absurdity of war, but between the chuckles, and especially near the end, it plucks the heartstrings.
  32. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
    For all the hype and the inevitable box office bonanza, Terminator 3 is essentially a B movie, content to be loud, dumb and obvious.
  33. The War Zone
    The actor Tim Roth makes a fierce, disturbing directorial debut with a film that treats incest as something worse than a terrible secret.
  34. Riding in Cars with Boys
    As the movie jumps back and forth in time, it displays an impressive cut-and-paste agility, skillfully interweaving humor and drama without tipping over into farce or soap opera.
  35. Okraina
    A strange, disturbing and yet occasionally quite funny cultural artifact from the new Russia.
  36. ABCD
    A better and more serious film than its forerunner, "American Desi."
  37. The Flower of Evil
    Wanders rather than moves chillingly toward its climax.
  38. Sacred Planet
    What the movie lacks is contrast. The sped-up ribbons of traffic in a city look as pretty as the interior of a redwood grove. As for the perils of logging, one brief shot of a clear-cut forest flashes by so quickly it is almost subliminal.
  39. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
    For horror film devotees eager to know how this unseasonable visit from the darker spirits of autumn rates, frankly, it's more marketing trick than moviegoer treat.
  40. The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm
    Emerges as an uncommonly sober, well-researched film of its type.
  41. The Gift
    The picture is saved from mediocrity by Mr. Raimi's smooth competence, and by the unusually high quality of the acting.
  42. Kingdom Come
    You are left with the feeling that its excesses notwithstanding, it knows its chosen terrain.
  43. Saving Grace
    That they're English and elderly apparently makes their antics screamingly funny to people who would turn up their noses at similar humor in a film like "Scary Movie."
  44. Beefcake
    A fascinating double-edged portrait of 1950s Los Angeles.
  45. The Man in the Iron Mask
    Beyond its persistent coarseness, Wallace's story often trades yesterday's inspiration (Dumas) for today's (Simpson-Bruckheimer).
  46. The Object of My Affection
    Easier to watch than it is to believe.
  47. Bad Boys
    Would have been better if it had been sleeker and shorter. After all, this film isn't aiming for high-toned drama, just high-energy entertainment, which is what it delivers.
  48. The Princess Blade
    Not quite good enough to jump out of the pack of Asian swordplay movies but is too well crafted to sink into utter anonymity.
  49. Sliding Doors
    Once the movie throws in a jolting, late-in-the-gameplot twist that could have been borrowed from "City of Angels," it never regains its balance.
  50. Divan
    If Divan is often fascinating, it is sometimes frustrating.
  51. Frankie and Johnny Are Married
    Good-natured, mildly appealing video feature.
  52. Venus Boyz
    She (Baur) has clearly earned the trust and respect of her subjects, the first qualification for any responsible documentarist, and they have repaid her with an intimate glimpse into their singular lives.
  53. Train of Life
    What saves Train of Life from sinking into sudsy Holocaust kitsch is its sustained comic buoyancy.
  54. Men in Black II
    As fizzy as the first, but not quite as refreshing. The pleasurable, eye-popping sense of surprise has diminished, and the teasingly referential attitude shows signs of fatigue.
  55. Beyond the Clouds
    The impact of these stories is not in the words but in the way the mood, texture and the acting build each situation into a visually intense parable about the similarity of spiritual, erotic and aesthetic aspiration.
  56. On the Line
    Once you've accepted the notion that On the Line gives product placement in movies a blatant new prominence, the film turns out to be a soothing cinematic snack of milk and cookies.
  57. By Hook or by Crook
    The essential humanity of the characters shines through, giving face and form to a subculture the movies have largely neglected.
  58. Below
    Has the bad luck to come on the heels of Kathryn Bigelow's beautifully made and politically impassioned "K-19," making this submarine picture -- a relatively modest, low-budget affair -- seem skimpy by comparison.
  59. Great Expectations
    Largely because Mr. Cuaron is such a voluptuous visual stylist, this Great Expectations is capable of wonder even when its wilder ideas misfire.
  60. All My Loved Ones
    The material continues to carry its inherent emotional power and moral importance. As banal as the telling may be -- and at times, All My Loved Ones more than flirts with kitsch -- the tale commands attention.
  61. Senseless
    The gags, like the plotting, have a giddy edge that can be sharp, but just as often they go nowhere.
  62. Metropolis
    A hallucinatory tour de force of color, perspective and scale, virtually encapsulates the history of Japanese animation.
  63. Stir of Echoes
    Another thriller that packs a spooky wallop as it conjures an unseen world within reach.
  64. What a Girl Wants
    Minnelli's comedy had its serious underpinnings: by the end of the film, a girl had become a woman. By the end of Ms. Gordon's film, the girl is still a girl, but a girl with much cooler stuff, including a stately home, a butler and a cute British boyfriend.
  65. The Siege
    Edward Zwick's ultimately sedate thriller starts out with crisply efficient style and the potential for a much more involving story.
  66. Star Trek: Nemesis
    An amiably klutzy affair whose warm, fuzzy heart emits intermittent bleats from the sleeve of its gleaming spacesuit.
  67. From Hell
    So beautifully realized as a mood piece that it takes a while for a slight disappointment to register.
  68. The Mudge Boy
    Depending on your choice, the film is either an unpleasantly masochistic fantasy or an unpleasantly sadistic one.
  69. American Chai
    American Chai may not tell a new story, but in its understanding, often funny way, it tells a story whose restatement is validated by the changing composition of the nation.
  70. Rugrats in Paris: The Movie - Rugrats II
    A one- way ticket to infantile heaven.
  71. What Dreams May Come
    What Dreams May Come, based on a novel by Richard Matheson and directed by Vincent Ward, the New Zealand filmmaker noted for his skill at creating lavish cinematic dreamscapes, represents the uncomfortable collision of two ideas about filmmaking, one commercial, the other eccentrically, ambitiously dreamy.
  72. Palmetto
    The film, adapted from a novel by James Hadley Chase, aspires to out-noir every other film noir that has been lumped under that popular term, including "The Big Sleep" (which it resembles), in plot trickery and steaminess.
  73. The Negotiator
    Though the film has its basis in an actual event that took place in St. Louis, it takes on the homogeneous look of many other thrillers in which an emergency escalates into a paramilitary operation.
  74. Angela's Ashes
    Not since the latest fashion layout flirted with arty desolation, has misery looked this fabulously pristine.
  75. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
    As goofy and throwaway as the "Brady Bunch" movies, but it has the same winking appreciation of vintage kitsch.
  76. But I'm a Cheerleader
    So campy it reflexively sends an elbow to its own ribs.
  77. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
    There is a lot of violence, but not much action; a plot involving vengeance, jealousy and double-crossing, but not a great deal of suspense.
  78. Joe Gould's Secret
    Settles for being an atmospheric scenes-in-the-life biography of someone's most unforgettable character. It could have been so much more.
  79. Dead Man on Campus
    A predictably dumb movie made for very young audiences, playing to youth's love of excess and loaded with masturbation jokes.
  80. Picture Perfect
    The film bounces busily among these players until it has to slow down and pretend to be sincere.
  81. Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back!
    But the animation, with its rich colors and stylized angles, is fun to watch and at times does seem like a psychedelic "Sesame Street."
  82. Wild Things
    Predicated on two ideas -- that human nature is rife with perfidy and that it's important to get the cast into hot cars or bathing suits whenever possible -- Mr. McNaughton and the cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball (''Top Gun,'' ''True Romance'') give a decadent gloss to this far-fetched, quintuple-crossing tale.
  83. Celebrity
    Ms. Davis gets to deliver the film's obvious message in a single unremarkable line: ''You can tell a lot about a society by who it chooses to celebrate.'' But most of what you can tell from the fun-house mirrors of Celebrity is what you already know.
  84. Hollywood Ending
    Probably the worst thing you can say about Hollywood Ending is that it has one: it turns out that Mr. Allen wasn't being ironic after all, he just made a comedy that feels ironclad.
  85. Tupac: Resurrection
    Ms. Lazin succeeds in conjuring his presence and in showing how smart and likable he could be, but the film's perspective is frustratingly limited.
  86. The Truth About Charlie
    You may be taken by the director's enormous enthusiasm, but the picture doesn't quite work.
  87. Girl on the Bridge
    Leconte's visual instincts are so impressive that they outstrip his story, leaving us flushed and dazzled, but also, as after a long night of champagne and baccarat (to say nothing of other irresponsible pleasures), hungry, tired, and homesick.
  88. Love Object
    The modestly assembled Love Object... is only periodically derailed by its tone; Mr. Parigi sometimes overplays the humor in the midst of all the deadpan.
  89. Miracle
    Does a yeoman's job of recycling the day-old dough that passes for its story.
  90. Ghost
    Nothing if not earnest. It's also eccentric enough to remain interesting even when its ghost story isn't easy to believe.
  91. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
    It does have its tart, fizzy moments.
  92. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
    If the movie has loads of nerve, its ambitious fusion of cartoons and live-action comedy is only fitfully amusing.
  93. Mayor of the Sunset Strip
    Keeps its claws carefully retracted. That's probably for the best, since the documentary still leaves a bitter aftertaste.
  94. Wonderland
    As well done as it is, Wonderland feels predictable. There is no sad turn in these characters' lives that you cannot see coming about an hour before.
  95. Forces of Nature
    The film shows off Ms. Bullock to amusing if overly frenetic advantage. It also leaves Affleck without enough of a Cary Grant aura to play his wimpier character with style.
  96. Bulletproof Monk
    Too much seriousness can be fatal to a picture like this one, since it impedes the efficient delivery of dumb laughter and easy thrills.
  97. Kiss Me, Guido
    Manages to have playful comic ingenuity of its own.
  98. Undercover Brother
    The one-liners are clever enough and the physical comedy and pop-culture goofing sufficiently dumb and broad to make Undercover Brother, a reasonably pleasant experience.
  99. A Beautiful Mind
    The movie can -- indeed, should -- be intellectually rejected, but you can't quite banish it from your mind.
  100. The Manchurian Candidate
    The film is so artfully contrived, the plot so interestingly started, the dialogue so racy and sharp, and John Frankenheimer's direction so exciting in the style of Orson Welles when he was making Citizen Kane and other pictures that the fascination of it is strong. So many fine cinematic touches and action details pop up that one keeps wishing the subject would develop into something more than it does.
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