The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,311 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: 9,399 out of 20311
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20311
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20311
20311 movie reviews
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    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mississippi Burning
    For those who know such places, Mr. Parker, who is English, evokes the texture, the gritty, fly-specked Southernness, the brooding sense of small-town menace, the racial hatred, with considerable accuracy.
  2. Ghostbusters II
    Even the special effects are more to the point of the comedy than they were in the first film. For some reason, this appears to leave more room for the sort of random funny business that Mr. Murray and his friends do best, or to which they react with most aplomb.
  3. Parenthood
    Ron Howard's bittersweet adult comedy, Parenthood, lays out an entire catalogue of psychological stresses afflicting family life in white middle-class America, then asks if the rewards of being a parent are worth all the agony.
  4. Empire of the Sun
    A visual splendor, a heroic adventurousness and an immense scope that make it unforgettable.
  5. Henry V
    Mr. Branagh has made a fine, rousing new English film adaptation of Shakespeare's ''Henry V,'' a movie that need not apologize to Laurence Olivier's 1944 classic.
  6. The Disappearance of Finbar
    Acted by an appealing cast, enlivened with well-chosen and varied music and filmed with bleak beauty by the cinematographer Eduardo Serra.
  7. The Governess
    Because the cinematography of The Governess is so richly panoramic, the movie forces you to contemplate the emotional power exerted by film.
  8. Lethal Weapon
    The film is all fast action, noisy stunts and huge, often unflattering close-ups, but it packs an undeniable wallop.
  9. Broadcast News
    Mr. Brooks's screenplay overstates matters both at the beginning of the film and at the end, with a prologue that strains to be cute and an epilogue that is just unnecessary. In between, however, the movie is a sarcastic and carefully detailed picture of a world Mr. Brooks finds fascinating and also a little scary.
  10. Big
    Big features believable young teen-age mannerisms from the two real boys in its cast, and this only makes Mr. Hanks's funny, flawless impression that much more adorable. This really is the performance to beat.
  11. Animal House
    National Lampoon's Animal House is by no means one long howl, but it's often very funny, with gags that are effective in a dependable, all-purpose way.
  12. The Pillow Book
    The film is best watched as a richly sensual stylistic exercise filled with audaciously beautiful imagery, captivating symmetries and brilliantly facile tricks.
  13. Hairspray
    The actors are best when they avoid exaggeration and remain weirdly sincere. That way, they do nothing to break the vibrant, even hallucinogenic spell of Mr. Waters's nostalgia.
  14. The Lost Boys
    The Lost Boys is to horror movies what ''Late Night With David Letterman'' is to television; it laughs at the form it embraces, adds a rock-and-roll soundtrack and, if you share its serious-satiric attitude, manages to be very funny.
  15. The Goonies
    It has crooks, bats, cobwebs, skeletons, a lovable monster, an underground grotto and a treasure hidden by some of the most considerate, clue-loving pirates who ever lived. Their ghostly ship is the movie's piece de resistance.
  16. Pump Up the Volume
    Working within the confines of the teen-age genre film, Pump Up the Volume succeeds in sounding a surprising number of honest, heartfelt notes.
  17. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
    With their remarkable contributions, ''Baron Munchausen'' is full of moments that dazzle, just for the fun of seeing the impossible come to life on the screen. What the Folies-Bergere once was for the foot-weary tourist, ''Baron Munchausen'' is for the television-exhausted child. Nothing much happens, but you can't easily tear your eyes away from it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cabaret
    Cabaret is one of those immensely gratifying imperfect works in which from beginning to end you can literally feel a movie coming to life.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Home Alone
    Kevin has the potential to be the mawkish child or the obnoxious little adult so common on screen, but he is neither. Played with great glee by Macaulay Culkin, he is a totally endearing, up-to-the-minute little boy.
  20. Aliens
    Under the direction of James (''The Terminator'') Cameron, [the special effects team has] put together a flaming, flashing, crashing, crackling blow-'em-up show that keeps you popping from your seat despite your better instincts and the basically conventional scare tactics.
  21. North Face
    Transfixing in the way that well-told life-and-death adventure tales inevitably are. It is the film’s more mundane elements -- an awkward, under-nourished love story and half-baked politics -- that are problematic.
  22. Dinner for Schmucks
    The film collects a cast of performers who know how to be funny. The success of this movie, following a formula upheld by just about any recent hit comedy you can name, lies as much with supporting players and plot-derailing set pieces as with the central story and characters.
  23. Human Weapon
    A gripping and important documentary.
  24. Warrior of Light
    It would be foolish for a middle-class do-gooder confronting homeless children on the streets of Rio de Janeiro to expect conventional morality to have any meaning to them at all. That's one of the blunt, no-nonsense observations of Yvonne Bezarra de Mello, the Brazilian human rights activist profiled in Monika Treut's hard-headed documentary.
  25. Djomeh
    An investigation, at once lucid and enigmatic, of exile, loneliness and the fragile possibility of friendship.
  26. The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story
    In a very real way, The Great Dance constitutes an act of preservation and a requiem.
  27. Sobibór, 14 Octobre 1943, 16 heures
    The feelings that this simple, deeply intelligent movie produces -- of horror, admiration, hope and grief -- are as hard to name as they are to dispel.
  28. My Terrorist
    The movie's disparate voices coalesce here as an emotionally charged microcosm of the conflict.
  29. A Moment of Innocence
    Almost forbiddingly austere.
  30. Agnivarsha: The Fire and the Rain
    Has a lavish ceremonial gloss. It is also a very erotic movie.
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