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. Hillbrow Kids
    The blithe cruelties of outdoor living mount up, but the filmmakers refuse to exaggerate or sensationalize their material.
  2. Too Much Sleep
    Maquiling creates an unusual and intriguing tone somewhere between sharp, deadpan comedy and a soft, dreamy surrealism.
  3. Divorce Iranian Style
    Reminds you that marital discord knows no geographic boundaries.
  4. A Trial in Prague
    Shows the human face of both communism and its victims, and shows how hard it is to tell the two apart.
  5. Barenaked in America
    May not be dispassionate filmmaking, but it is certainly entertaining.
  6. Facing the Music
    Often feels like two movies loosely sewn together. By far the most compelling of the two is its portrait of Ms. Boyd, a woman who for all her quirks and self-dramatizing flourishes, emerges as a noble spirit on the side of the angels.
  7. Sia, the Dream of the Python
    In trying to reproduce the griot's tone, Mr. Kouyaté rejects psychological nuance and dramatic shading: this is a tale that advances quickly and boldly, peopled by deliberately one-dimensional characters.
  8. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
    Has a lovely, unadorned, though distended sentimentality.
  9. Standing by Yourself
    Highly irritating at first, Mr. Koury's passive technique eventually begins to yield some interesting results.
  10. *Corpus Callosum
    A playful parlor trick, a departure from the performance-art films that have made this director's reputation. In keeping with his lighter side, *Corpus is also fun; imagine a Looney Tunes segment or an episode of Nickelodeon's "Kablam!" directed by Red Grooms.
  11. Burning Man: The Burning Sensation
    An appealing blend of counter-cultural idealism and hedonistic creativity.
  12. Close, Closed, Closure
    The freer and more sophisticated approach of "Divine Intervention" makes these traditional-minded documentaries look somewhat stodgy and old-fashioned by comparison, but both have a value as reportage that Mr. Suleiman's film does not pretend to have.
  13. Strange Fruit
    Polished, well-structured film.
  14. Catching Out
    The scruffy, outspoken train-hoppers in Sarah George's exhilarating documentary, Catching Out, are a sure sign that the pioneer spirit still flickers in pockets of TV-wired America.
  15. Pellet
    As blunt as it is in depicting child abuse, El Bola is a movie steeped in an ambiguity that lends its conflicts a symbolic resonance.
  16. Friendly Persuasion: Iranian Cinema After the 1979 Revolution
    An inspiring demonstration of that old saw about necessity being the mother of (in this case, artistic) invention.
  17. Bombay Eunuch
    The film offers a concise history of hijras, who used to officiate at births, weddings and other religious rituals.
  18. Daydream Believer
    It's the best kind of homemade movie, created with skill, modesty and a pleasing awareness of what works in an ultra-low-budget format that tends to be performance and storytelling, rather than visual expressiveness and technical polish.
  19. Punks
    The movie's warmth, and Mr. Gilliam's sober, likable performance sustain it through its ragged stretches and amateurish lapses.
  20. Morning Sun
    Does a thoughtful job of streamlining the bloody realities -- both literal and psychological -- of China's Cultural Revolution into roughly two hours of film.
  21. Gibel Otrara
    Has an edge of cynicism and cruelty that just as often suggests the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone.
  22. From the Other Side
    A spare, painterly and scrupulously unsentimental look at the plight of illegal Mexican immigrants massed at the United States border.
  23. Empathy
    The director's seriousness and intelligence are evident, but so is her satisfaction in displaying them, and the movie has a self-indulgent, undisciplined tone that nearly obscures its provocative ideas.
  24. Made-Up
    Its warm, occasionally off-putting individuality is more like what you look for in a friend than in a movie, and like a friend it invites you to see the unique beauty that lies under its superficial flaws.
  25. Eat This New York
    The directors Andrew Rossi and Kate Novack may not be great filmmakers -- it's hard to tell, based on this bare-bones picture -- but they know a great story, and more important, how to tell it.
  26. Chain Camera
    Filtered through tears, laughter and affection, the results -- are touching and fascinating though, by their nature unilluminated by dispassionate analysis.
  27. Marathon
    The beauty of Mr. Naderi's filmmaking lies in his combination of acute social observation (with the subway population providing its habitual cross section of New York classes and cultures) and pure, almost mathematical formalism.
  28. Collateral Damages
    The most moving aspect of Collateral Damages is the firefighters' sense of brotherhood and duty to their jobs. It is expressed matter-of-factly, without a shred of smugness or superiority, almost with embarrassment.
  29. An Injury to One
    Revels in directorial assertiveness, including an omniscient narrator and an intrusive use of slick, magazine-style graphics to identify characters and spell out slogans.
  30. Superstar in a Housedress
    This bright, entertaining movie focuses on Curtis, but it is also a portrait of a scene, whose survivors look back with a mixture of pride and a screwball sense of mischief.
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