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. China Heavyweight
    Illustrating the film's rags-to-ring narrative with panoramic mountain views and compact shots of young bodies punching their way up the food chain, Mr. Sun straddles ancient and modern, tranquillity and turmoil, with equal sureness.
  2. United in Anger: A History of ACT UP
    And by exploring the lighter side of communal action - the camaraderie and cruising that turned weekly meetings into what one member calls "a combination of serious politics and joyful living" - he uncouples the gravity of the cause from the perceived humorlessness of advocacy. Foot soldiers for the dying, the members of Act Up never forgot how to live.
  3. The Magic of Belle Isle
    Ms. Madsen, radiant and tousled, without a trace of narcissism, conveys maternal devotion, undaunted courage and a serene sensuality. Real, if idealized, grown-ups: We haven't seen them much in the movies lately, but here they are.
  4. Last Ride
    Mr. Ivin doesn't have a strong narrative line to play with or become distracted by, but he takes off on some lovely detours, whether he's narrowing in on Chook or going wide to take in the world that waits beyond.
  5. Crazy Eyes
    If it feels uncomfortably real, it's because its vision of decadence (if you'll pardon the word) is almost unwatchably creepy. Crazy Eyes awakens the same queasiness. Yes, it feels true. But why bother?
  6. Starry Starry Night
    Crammed with color and imagination, every one of Jake Pollock's gorgeously photographed images feels timelessly suspended between innocence and awareness.
  7. The Pact
    In the end, like a lot of genre movies, this one pulls from different inspirations, and so weighs in, by turns, as overly predictable and satisfyingly recognizable (part of genre cinema's one-two punch).
  8. Collaborator
    Collaborator has the tone and structure of an extended one-act play. Its uniformly wooden dialogue lends it the stage-bound feel of a tortured writing exercise.
  9. The Do-Deca-Pentathlon
    The most gripping scene in this near-perfect little sports comedy is a fraternal arm-wrestling contest that reaches apoplectic intensity.
  10. Savages
    Savages is a daylight noir, a western, a stoner buddy movie and a love story, which is to say that it is a bit of a mess. But also a lot of fun, especially as its pulp elements rub up against some gritty geopolitical and economic themes.
  11. Katy Perry: Part of Me
    There are several reasons that Katy Perry: Part of Me is more interesting than similar movies about Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Most simply, she just has more talent than any of them, and her songs have a wider emotional range.
  12. The Amazing Spider-Man
    Mr. Webb's Spider-Man movie works only because he keeps the whole package, at least until the requisite final blowout, tethered to his two appealing leads.
  13. Neil Young Journeys
    Mr. Young's passionate cracked whine assumes an oracular power.
  14. Madea's Witness Protection
    A comedy that's too late to the Ponzi-scheme party to be topical, and not outrageous enough to take advantage of its own setups.
  15. Unforgivable
    Unforgivable isn't one of Mr. Téchiné's greatest achievements, but it's engrossing even when its increasingly populated story falters, tripped up by unpersuasive actions, connections and details.
  16. People Like Us
    If its tone is considerably tougher than that of movies adapted from Nicholas Sparks novels, it is still a grown-up soap opera. And as the overly determined plot progresses, it feels increasingly Sparks-like, although there are no dewy young lovebirds to swoon over.
  17. A Burning Hot Summer
    In A Burning Hot Summer (a pulpy title that sounds better in the original, "Un Été Brûlant), two men fall into friendship, and while little happens, everything is at stake.
  18. Take This Waltz
    Take This Waltz, Sarah Polley's honest, sure-footed, emotionally generous second feature. Ms. Williams, one of the bravest and smartest actresses working in movies today, portrays a young woman who is indecisive and confused, but never passive.
  19. Magic Mike
    It works - beautifully.
  20. Ted
    The sin of Ted is not that it is offensive but that it is boring, lazy and wildly unoriginal. If Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ever got a hold of Ted, there would be nothing left but a pile of fluff and a few scraps of fur.
  21. Gypsy
    The movie filmed with nonactors, doesn't try to counteract stereotypes of the Roma people as shiftless, thieving hustlers. But it goes a long way toward explaining the antisocial behavior.
  22. Beasts of the Southern Wild
    This movie is a blast of sheer, improbable joy, a boisterous, thrilling action movie with a protagonist who can hold her own alongside Katniss Everdeen, Princess Merida and the other brave young heroines of 2012.
  23. Stella Days
    Relaxed performances and pillow-soft photography compensate somewhat for the story's narrow ambitions, but they're not enough to invigorate a movie that clearly would rather charm than challenge.
  24. Nate & Margaret
    Blessed with natural performances and brisk pacing, this unusual little movie would like us to know just one thing: Passion is fine, but a pal is priceless.
  25. The Last Ride
    This one is for Hank Williams fanatics only, and Mr. Thomas puts a dark and subtle sheen on a disappointingly watery script. Cover versions of Williams's songs - several sung by his daughter, Jett - remind us why he mattered, even as the movie fails to do the same.
  26. Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League's New York
    Extremely likable and has value as a historical document specifically because it includes snippets from a dozen later-life interviews with Photo League members like Rosalie Gwathmey and Mr. Engel.
  27. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
    After a sharp and promising start, she (Ms. Scafaria) allows the movie to collapse into a mild, lump-in-the-throat romantic comedy that is not made significantly more urgent or interesting by the prospect of global calamity.
  28. The Invisible War
    This means that the violations chronicled in The Invisible War are compounded by a deep and terrible betrayal, which ripples outward from the various branches of the service into the society as a whole. This is not a movie that can be ignored.
  29. To Rome with Love
    One of the most delightful things about To Rome With Love is how casually it blends the plausible and the surreal, and how unabashedly it revels in pure silliness.
  30. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
    Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is such a smashing title it's too bad someone had to spoil things by making a movie to go with it.
  31. Brave
    The tussling between Elinor and Merida is familiar, but while the mother-daughter clashes may make the story "relatable," they drain it of its mythopoetic potential, turning what could have been a cool postmodern fairy tale into another family melodrama.
  32. Kumaré
    A goal of this practical program of discipline and reflection is to cultivate an inner guru so that you don't need someone like Kumaré.
  33. Men on the Bridge
    A powerful portrait of working-class Istanbul that artfully suggests a wellspring of found moments. Quietly, steadily, it gathers a resonance belying its slice-of-life scale.
  34. The Tortured
    Veering from ridiculous to revolting, The Tortured would like to be about more than singed nipples and seared skin. And it is: It's also about cracked toes and lanced eardrums.
  35. Ikland
    Narrating as he goes, his humor as warm and dry as the ground beneath his feet, Mr. Soling is an unconventional explorer whose interactions with the long-suffering Ik - the women quiet and watchful, the men seamed and talkative - are politely deferential. He's clearly not there to engage in scientific study; he's simply reaching out across continents on a hunch that even eminent scientists can get it wrong.
  36. Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap
    This is a film that does sweat the technique, with at times illuminating and spirited results.
  37. Extraterrestrial
    Alien invasion is just an excuse for romantic farce in Extraterrestrial, a tiresome roundelay of lies, lust and leaping paranoia.
  38. Kite
    Patang ("The Kite"), Prashant Bhargava's first feature, has a lovely, unforced quality. That's because Mr. Bhargava lets his story, set during the annual kite festival in Ahmedabad, India, tell itself, unfolding slowly as he follows filmmaking's most basic and most sinned-against dictum: Show, don't tell.
  39. The Woman in the Fifth
    Although Mr. Pawlikowski often shows Mr. Hawke in medium and long shots, the actor draws you close. There's anguish in Tom's face that speaks of a terrible fragility and that leavens the story's mysterioso proceedings with a real, recognizable humanity.
  40. That's My Boy
    That's My Boy is a pretty wretched movie if you want to activate your brain cells, but its busily plotted second half approaches involving.
  41. Tahrir: Liberation Square
    Far from imposing clarity on the historic gatherings, Tahrir embraces the thrill and uncertainty of popular action. In some ways resembling old-fashioned vérité, Stefano Savona's chronicle aims to plunge you into the crowds and clamor.
  42. Americano
    Though not explicitly autobiographical, this film is deeply personal, and while the nature of cinema is very much on its mind, it rarely feels insular or self-conscious. Instead, it is wistful and nostalgic, and at the same time full of restless curiosity.
  43. Your Sister's Sister
    The film's late swerves into melodrama and the neighboring region of farce feel panicky and pandering. The subtlety of the performances - Ms. DeWitt's in particular - is sacrificed for easy laughs, shallow tears and a coy trick ending. Just when it was starting to get interesting.
  44. Rock of Ages
    It looks like Disneyland and sounds, well, like a bad Broadway musical, with all the power belting and jazz-hand choreography that implies.
  45. El Velador
    Natalia Almada's eloquent documentary portrait of a sprawling graveyard in Culiacán, Mexico, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. The rapidly expanding cemetery has become the burial ground of choice for the country's slain drug lords.
  46. UFO in Her Eyes
    Three-Headed Bird Village - the setting for Xiaolu Guo's stingingly funny satire, UFO in Her Eyes - is a quiet agricultural hamlet in the Guangxi province of southern China that is uprooted by instant globalization.
  47. Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
    Like many other recent documentaries about artists, it is more celebratory than analytical, a kind of slick, extended promotional video for its subject.
  48. Rowdy Rathore
    Ridiculous and undeniable, it's a punchy cartoon, rightly confident of its power to entertain. Why resist?
  49. Patagonia Rising
    A beautifully filmed and patiently explained assessment of a proposal to build five hydroelectric dams in the Patagonia region of Chile.
  50. The Oregonian
    Creepy, silly, startling, irritating, and black-vomit-and-multicolored-urine disgusting, The Oregonian wears out its welcome within 30 minutes.
  51. Corpo Celeste
    Ms. Rohrwacher combines a documentary impulse (effective in family scenes) with a more allegorical one. Her film gets clunky when allegory has the upper hand, and that means Corpo Celeste often stumbles, along with its 12-year-old heroine, Marta (Yle Vianello).
  52. Paul Williams Still Alive
    Mr. Williams's quiet integrity trumps Mr. Kessler at every turn. Self-aware and articulate, with a modesty born from confidence, he persistently uses the film to extol - and demonstrate - the rewards of recovery. His conviction brings necessary moral weight to Paul Williams: Still Alive, which transcends caricature to emerge an impressive personal testament.
  53. Safety Not Guaranteed
    That time machine - a wonderful-looking gizmo with some lasers stolen from a medical laboratory - really exists. Whether it works or not, you'll have to see for yourself. It's worth the wait.
  54. Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding
    Stylistically a formulaic, middle-drawer television movie about intergenerational strife and forgiveness. Every plot turn is groaningly predictable. But at least the lead performances set off sparks.
  55. Lola Versus
    In spite of its scruffy look and slack pacing, it often rings as false as any of the big, shiny and soft studio rom-coms (starring Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigl, say) of the last decade.
  56. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
    Where Madagascar 3 soars is in its visuals: A Monte Carlo chase is vertiginously madcap; a Cirque du Soleil-style spectacle dazzles with rich pastels; the 3-D effects have wit and invention. Kids will be stimulated. And, parents, you'll enjoy the sights.
  57. Bel Ami
    Although this is potentially juicy stuff, it is as dry and tasteless as a shrunken piece of fruit left in the refrigerator far too long.
  58. Dark Horse
    Mr. Solondz brilliantly - triumphantly - turns this impression on its head, transforming what might have been an exercise in easy satirical cruelty into a tremendously moving argument for the necessity of compassion.
  59. Prometheus
    The virtuosity on display makes the weakness of the story all the more frustrating. I'll avoid spoilers here, but Prometheus kind of spoils itself with twists and reversals that pull the movie away from its lofty, mind-blowing potential.
  60. Music from the Big House
    The filmmakers hesitate at going deeper into the dark places of the prisoners' biographies and the storied prison itself. The one wouldn't exist without the other, and Ms. Chiarelli's rambling platitudes are no substitute.
  61. Piranha 3DD
    The director, John Gulager, has no idea how to mix his ingredients to create a savvy self-parody.
  62. Sexual Chronicles of a French Family
    It's dull filmmaking.
  63. Crooked Arrows
    Directed by Steve Rash, Crooked Arrows gets points for its glimpses of Native American culture and history - the film's backers include the Onondaga Nation - but too many of these scenes are disappointingly static.
  64. Cellmates
    The credibility is low, the idealism high and the sentiment through the roof in Jesse Baget's slender, micro-budgeted comedy Cellmates, a schematic parable about racism and (less overtly) illegal immigration.
  65. Bill W.
    Names and events are ticked off in rapid succession, and the big, and fascinating, question of what role spirituality played receives cautious attention at best. Nonetheless, Bill W. offers a trove of information for non-A.A. members through the life of a man whose dedication has helped others understand their own.
  66. One Day on Earth
    One Day on Earth shows, there's a fine line between coherence and chaos.
  67. 6 Month Rule
    An ostensible romantic comedy that's really just a grating portrait of an irredeemable jerk.
  68. U.N. Me
    Not much here is new, but condensing it all into one zippy documentary makes for an ugly portrait.
  69. Richard's Wedding
    What works here is the pleasantly naturalistic acting from people who don't look like typical actors.
  70. Wish Me Away
    This scrappy-slick confessional is a fascinating study in dualities.
  71. Found Memories
    Its clever final plot twist adds a gratifying jolt of the uncanny to what is otherwise a charming, bittersweet meditation on the passage of time and the equivocal power of images to capture an older world at the moment of its disappearance.
  72. Pink Ribbons, Inc.
    Though leaving us with many more questions than answers, this well-intentioned blur of accusations, advertising clips and pink-washed events nevertheless deserves to be seen.
  73. High School
    Once the plot has sprung into action, High School is a bumpy ride that takes a few amusing dives but never coheres into anything special.
  74. For Greater Glory
    Even at 143 minutes, For Greater Glory cannot satisfyingly fill out the stories of a half-dozen secondary characters, and there are frustrating gaps in the biographies of Gorostieta and José. The jamming together of so much history and melodrama makes for a handsome movie that is only rarely gripping.
  75. A Cat in Paris
    This movie is graceful, subtle and sure-footed, much as its English title implies.
  76. Hide Away
    Much of the skimpy, waterlogged dialogue in Peter Vanderwall's screenplay is heavy with portent. Excerpts from Homer's "Odyssey" and Longfellow's "Children's Hour" add to the tonnage.
  77. 5 Broken Cameras
    5 Broken Cameras deserves to be appreciated for the lyrical delicacy of his voice and the precision of his eye. That it is almost possible to look at the film this way - to foresee a time when it might be understood, above all, as a film - may be the only concrete hope Mr. Burnat and Mr. Davidi have to offer.
  78. Snow White and the Huntsman
    Though it is an ambitious - at times mesmerizing - application of the latest cinematic technology, the movie tries to recapture some of the menace of the stories that used to be told to scare children rather than console them.
  79. Chernobyl Diaries
    The "Paranormal Activity" movies don't teem with metaphor, and neither does this film, directed by Brad Parker. The original "Night of the Living Dead" left you with plenty to chew on, so to speak; Chernobyl Diaries just leaves you feeling empty.
  80. OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger's Movie
    This moving, penetrating documentary records his attempt to describe his conditions, confront them and learn to manage them.
  81. Redlegs
    The film is a riveting portrait of young men in shock and in mourning as the tragedy stirs feelings that have long lain dormant.
  82. The Woman in the Septic Tank
    His (Rivera) movie hits its targets, but softly, more in amusement than in anger.
  83. Oslo, August 31st
    Mr. Trier and Mr. Lie - a quiet, recessive but nonetheless magnetically self-assured screen presence - emphasize Anders's individuality above all. Oslo, August 31st has the satisfying gravity of specific experience, and also, true to its title, a prickly sense of place.
  84. Mighty Fine
    Mighty Fine chugs along heartily until it abruptly stops on the edge of cliff, leaving you feeling shortchanged. It is a couple of crucial scenes away from feeling complete.
  85. The Intouchables
    It is possible to summarize the experience of watching The Intouchables in nine words: You will laugh; you will cry; you will cringe.
  86. Battle Royale
    American fans of "The Hunger Games" may not embrace - or even be permitted to see - Battle Royale, which is too bad. It is in many ways a better movie and in any case a fascinating companion, drawn from a parallel cultural universe. It is a lot uglier and also, perversely, a lot more fun.
  87. Moonrise Kingdom
    Moonrise Kingdom breezes along with a beautifully coordinated admixture of droll humor, deadpan and slapstick. Like all of Mr. Anderson's films, though, there's a deep, pervasive melancholia here too.
  88. Men in Black III
    It manages, in the end, to be touching as well as hectic and whimsical, and to send a few interesting thematic bubbles into the air, having to do with lost fathers, obscure regrets and racial reconciliation.
  89. Mahler on the Couch
    The scenes with Karl Markovics, as Freud, are the lingering appeal of this artfully composed film.
  90. Never Stand Still
    This film has the everyday vibe of a bunch of friends putting together a summer camp video. Gosh, the substance of Jacob's Pillow should be a little less sleepy.
  91. Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story
    Serves up its material with an excess of treacly music and an overabundance of glowing reminiscences. This has the odd effect of making his story less powerful than it actually is.
  92. Beyond the Black Rainbow
    Unless you're among those who still drop acid as a midnight-movie apéritif, your enjoyment of this retro oddity remains far from guaranteed.
  93. Indie Game: The Movie
    Along the way comes a bracing, honest confession about these interactive creations, voiced by one designer but no doubt applying to many more makers of all kinds: "I made it for myself."
  94. Lovely Molly
    Generating suspense without blowing the special-effects budget, Mr. Sanchez paints an intimate portrait of a tormented personality. Though horrors are eventually unveiled, the film is more chilling in its slower, quieter moments.
  95. The Samaritan
    His (Jackson) doleful revenant is in almost every scene, and this hardworking actor seems to know that the film around him should be a light-footed caper instead of a grim noir with a side order of deviance.
  96. Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
    Therein lies the essence of this simple, bluntly effective movie. Its principal selling point - the supreme watchability of dogs, especially working dogs - is undeniably powerful.
  97. Mansome
    Mr. Spurlock's film already feels a few years late to the discussion of an easily mockable subject, but it is a dud as a diversion.
  98. American Animal
    It's showtime!" says Jimmy, the one-man band of American Animal. And for Matt D'Elia, who plays him in this hour and a half of pretentious mind games, it certainly is. There are other players, but it's all about Jimmy, portrayed with a free-associative, Jim Carrey-like mania.
  99. Virginia
    Virginia is a wildly unpredictable piece of work. Playing the kind of role that is often associated with Laura Dern, Ms. Connelly gives a brave, full-tilt performance that is true to the character but can't hold the movie together.
  100. Hysteria
    Silly, featherweight comedy.
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