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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  1. Believe Me
    The film’s congeniality, however, in no way dulls its humor or the sharpness of its observations.
  2. Northern Light
    There’s a stillness to the filmmaking, coupled with Saunder Jurriaans and David Bensi’s truly lovely original score, that lends specific shots... a near-heartbreaking melancholy.
  3. The Good Lie
    For all its softening, The Good Lie, like “Monsieur Lazhar,” has a core of decency, humanity and good will that feels authentic. You won’t curse yourself for occasionally tearing up.
  4. Selma
    Even if you think you know what’s coming, Selma hums with suspense and surprise. Packed with incident and overflowing with fascinating characters, it is a triumph of efficient, emphatic cinematic storytelling. And much more than that, of course.
  5. Beyond the Edge
    This absorbing account of the first recorded summit of the world’s highest mountain is a rare documentary for which re-enactments make complete sense.
  6. Siddharth
    Its portrayal of impoverished, careworn people barking at one another and protecting their territory in a daily struggle is bracingly hardheaded.
  7. The Empty Hours
    Working with grace and patience, Mr. Fernández makes the mundane captivating.
  8. Closed Curtain
    On one level, the film (or nonfilm; it was shot on digital video and partly with smartphone cameras) is a mischievous, Pirandellian entertainment. It is also an allegory, dark but not despairing, of the creative spirit under political pressure, and of the ways the imagination can be both a refuge and a place of confinement.
  9. As It Is in Heaven
    This low-budget debut by Joshua Overbay cooks a surprising amount of tension from the barest minimum of ingredients.
  10. The Dog
    The Dog is, as its title suggests, a documentary portrait, but it’s also an exploration of that sometimes messy thing called identity.
  11. The Martian
    Mr. Damon’s Everyman quality (he’s our Jimmy Stewart) helps scale the story down, but what makes this epic personal is Mr. Scott’s filmmaking, in which every soaring aerial shot of the red planet is answered by the intimate landscape of a face.
  12. Level Five
    Its themes are a bit nostalgic and some of its technology looks dated, but there is nothing else in theaters now that feels quite as new.
  13. Cheatin'
    Mr. Plympton rewrites the laws of physics at will, but within a rigorous and coherent logic. He conjures a world of absolute improbability that, somehow, makes perfect sense.
  14. Red Hollywood
    Insistently cinematic and dialectical, Red Hollywood has another virtue: It doesn’t toss everyone into a single leftist lump. Differences are articulated and illustrated, as individual voices rise and fall, fade and endure.
  15. Kink
    A fascinating profile of the online pornography provider Kink.com.
  16. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
    Exquisitely drawn with both watercolor delicacy and a brisk sense of line, the film finds a peculiarly moving undertow of feeling in a venerable Japanese folk tale.
  17. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People
    At times, Mr. Harris’s voice-over narration veers into academic abstraction or lyrical emotionalism in ways that undercut the eloquence of the images, but over all he is a wise and passionate guide to an inexhaustibly fascinating subject.
  18. Memphis
    A soulful cinematic tone poem.
  19. Patema Inverted
    The music is lovely, and the animation is soft and imaginatively detailed. Patema and Age may not know what’s upside down or right-way up, but their director is never in any doubt.
  20. All That Jazz
    An uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and, especially, ego.
  21. Born to Fly
    A singularly focused and avant-garde talent, Ms. Streb bends the messy rush of risk to her indomitable will.
  22. The Duke of Burgundy
    In the end there is nothing especially campy about “The Duke of Burgundy,” which neither mocks its heroines nor the breathless, naughty screen tradition to which they belong. It’s a love story, and also a perversely sincere (and sincerely perverse) labor of love.
  23. Goodnight Mommy
    Unspooling with virtually no music and a seriously unsettling sound design, Goodnight Mommy gains significant traction from small moments.
  24. Phoenix
    Never less than intriguing, coolly intelligent and flawlessly paced, Phoenix often feels trapped in the logic of its conceit.
  25. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
    If fun does not really fit into Roy Andersson’s frame of reference, there is ample pleasure to be gleaned from his formal discipline and his downbeat wit.
  26. The Riot Club
    Lone Scherfig (“An Education”), the Danish filmmaker who directed the movie from a screenplay by Ms. Wade, has coaxed wonderfully nasty performances from a young cast.
  27. While We're Young
    This film, Mr. Baumbach’s movie, mostly brings a light touch and a forgiving gloss to its own self-consciousness. It is not afraid to be implicated in the confusion — in the self-involvement, the anxiety, the pettiness — it depicts. But there are also areas where it feels soft and compromised, where the subtlety and clarity of Mr. Baumbach’s vision seem to desert him.
  28. Stop the Pounding Heart
    Its scenes, quiet and undramatic, are nonetheless suffused with an almost lyrical intensity, and its sympathy is as limitless as its curiosity.
  29. 21 Years: Richard Linklater
    The luminaries in “21” pay deserving tribute to Mr. Linklater. Soon, perhaps, so will the Academy
  30. Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border
    This vivid and haunting essay steps away from the debate about illegal immigration.
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