The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,323 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: 9,408 out of 20323
  2. Mixed: 8,448 out of 20323
  3. Negative: 2,467 out of 20323
20323 movie reviews
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  1. The Pelican Brief
    The story, neatly compressed, unfolds in dependable and photogenic ways. And it is coaxed along by Mr. Pakula's considerable skills as a brisk, methodical film maker.
  2. The Flintstones
    The greatest lost opportunity in The Flintstones is that its writers (more than 30) are so faithful to the 60's television series that they failed to add enough updated pop-culture references. The few included are among the film's best jokes.
  3. Mortal Kombat
    The movie's extensive martial arts sequences, in which combatants bounce off each other doing triple handsprings, suggest a slightly more earthbound version of the aerial ballets in Hong Kong action-adventure films.
  4. Wayne's World
    The film tends to be funny when confining itself to short sketches or dopey television-based humor, flat when pretending to be anything more.
  5. Michael Collins
    The film itself works eagerly to emphasize the frankly entertaining aspects of its story.
  6. Fire
    Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, this glossy melodrama, mixing references to Indian mysticism and the epic poetry of the "Ramayana" with late-20th-century feminism, teeters unsteadily between sociology and soap opera.
  7. Copycat
    The screenplay for Copycat, by Ann Biderman and Jay Presson Allen from a story by David Madsen, is otherwise so crackling good that character development threatens to eclipse the actual crimes.
  8. Clockers
    Beyond its grit and nonchalance, this story has a resigned, reflective, hard-earned wisdom that's unusual in an American film about such familiarly lurid subject matter. It's even more unusual in a film by Spike Lee.
  9. Dolores Claiborne
    Written as a book-length harangue from its heroine's point of view, and directed efficiently by Taylor Hackford, Dolores Claiborne has become a vivid film that revolves around Ms. Bates's powerhouse of a performance.
  10. Don Juan DeMarco
    It benefits not only from Mr. Brando's peculiar presence, but also from Johnny Depp, who again proves himself a brilliantly intuitive young actor with strong ties to the Brando legacy. The movie is cheesy, but its stars certainly are not.
  11. Strictly Ballroom
    Baz Luhrmann's Australian film Strictly Ballroom is, in short, pure corn. But it's corn that has been overlaid with a buoyant veneer of spangles and marabou, and with a tireless sense of fun.
  12. Cold Comfort Farm
    Mr. Schlesinger draws lively performances out of his cast and surprising variety out of the film's secondary sights, which range from a gala soiree to a heap of steaming dung.
  13. 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.
  14. Philadelphia
    In the end, thanks to such effects and to the simple grace of Mr. Hanks's performance, this film does accomplish what it means to. Philadelphia rises above its flaws to convey the full urgency of its difficult subject, and to bring that subject home.
  15. The Portrait of a Lady
    Brilliantly eccentric even when it yields mixed results.
  16. A Bronx Tale
    A Bronx Tale offers a warm, vibrant and sometimes troubling portrait of the community it describes. Almost everyone within that community sounds a little bit like Robert De Niro except Mr. De Niro himself.
  17. The Flower of My Secret
    [Almodovar’s] returns to the mordant but sympathetic comedy of his early, best work. Though the new film is not as antic as "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," it is funny and free of the nasty undertone that has made him seem tired and tiresome lately.
  18. Bird
    Bird is less moving as a character study than it is as a tribute and as a labor of love. The portrait it offers, though hazy at times, is one Charlie Parker's admirers will recognize.
  19. Bram Stoker's Dracula
    Dracula has the nervy enthusiasm of the work of a precocious film student who has magically acquired a master's command of his craft. It's surprising, entertaining and always just a little too much.
  20. RoboCop
    Paul Verhoeven, a Dutch director ("Soldier of Orange"), doesn't let the furiously futuristic plot get in the way of the flaming explosions, shattering glass and hurtling bodies.
  21. The Conversation
    Mr. Coppola, the writer as well as the director, has nearly succeeded in making a great film but has, instead, made one that is merely very good.
  22. Naked Lunch
    For the most part this is a coolly riveting film and even a darkly entertaining one, at least for audiences with steel nerves, a predisposition toward Mr. Burroughs and a willingness to meet Mr. Cronenberg halfway.
  23. Porky's
    A portion of the audience will be strongly offended by Porky's, just as another portion will find it filthy but fun. However, there is no debating the success of Mr. Clark's casting, for he has assembled a cheerful, likable bunch of actors, most of them unknowns.
  24. Witness
    It's not really awful, but it's not much fun. It's pretty to look at and it contains a number of good performances, but there is something exhausting about its neat balancing of opposing manners and values.
  25. Crooklyn
    Messy as the semiautobiographical Crooklyn often is, it succeeds in becoming a touching and generous family portrait, a film that exposes welcome new aspects of this director's talent.
  26. The City of Lost Children
    The movie is best appreciated as a collection of whimsical toys drawn from a fantasy grab bag that encompasses everything from Grimm's fairy tales to "Star Wars."
  27. First Blood
    It's a film with a number of strengths, not the least of them its fierce, agile, hollow-eyed hero.
  28. Trading Places
    It's a big, lavishly staged farce that aims to please even those who favor sophisticated screwball comedy, a genre to which it is greatly indebted.
  29. The Last Temptation of Christ
    despite such maladroit moments, The Last Temptation of Christ finally exerts enormous power. What emerges most memorably is its sense of absolute conviction, never more palpable than in the final fantasy sequence that removes Jesus from the cross and creates for him the life of an ordinary man.
  30. Father of the Bride
    The screenplay represents recycling at its best. The material has been successfully refurbished with new jokes and new attitudes, but the earlier film's most memorable moments have been preserved.
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