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. Body
    Body eventually goes for ["Very Bad Thing"'s] brand of cheap irony in a less blackly comedic register, and unfortunately achieves it.
  2. American Hero
    American Hero starts off seeming as if it is going to be a fresh take on superheroes, but Nick Love, who wrote and directed, turns out to have nowhere to go with his intriguing premise.
  3. Don Verdean
    Its intentions are, to some degree, corrective: It mocks some of the popular corruptions of faith so as to invite the audience to reflect upon what real faith might be.
  4. The Girl in the Book
    Given [Ms. Cohn] confident hand behind the camera and gift for rich female characters, you hope to see more portraits from her in the future.
  5. In the Heart of the Sea
    As the movie lurches along by fits and starts, toggling between the little Nantucket room and the great watery world, it becomes apparent that the filmmakers have no idea how to reconcile not just two parallel stories but also the past and our contemporary age.
  6. The Big Short
    A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, The Big Short will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood.
  7. Boy and the World
    It’s both the best children’s animated film this year since “Inside Out” — you might call it “Outside In” — and, unexpectedly, a more stirring depiction of the deadening modern megalopolis than most heal-the-world documentaries.
  8. Stinking Heaven
    The brisk clip and dashes of dark humor ward off actual despair, but the length poses challenges for some of the heavy lifting of character growth.
  9. Almost There
    This first feature from Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden demonstrates that these documentary filmmakers might do well to think more like journalists sometimes.
  10. Night Owls
    The performances are so crackling that you can imagine Ms. Salazar and Mr. Pally, given richer material, becoming a slapstick comedy team: the spitfire and the nerd.
  11. River of Fundament
    River of Fundament is often a commanding, engaging and certainly challenging experience. Nevertheless, by the end of the piece I felt deliberately alienated, and to a nearly infuriating degree.
  12. The Messenger
    Overall, the arguments are persuasive, the message from the birds powerful, and the film a rich and satisfying call to action that is presented with some novel ideas for how to restore the ecological balance.
  13. A Royal Night Out
    What makes A Royal Night Out palatable are the lead performances.
  14. Bikes vs Cars
    Breezy, intelligent, diffuse but uncluttered, Fredrik Gertten’s documentary Bikes vs Cars could be called a tale of congestion-plagued cities.
  15. Dementia
    It’s an assured, deftly acted movie that builds its creepiness slowly and keeps its secrets well hidden till the end.
  16. Every Thing Will Be Fine
    Something is off with Every Thing Will Be Fine. Even for a movie about a writer detached from his emotions, it’s ponderous, like a lucid dream gone bad.
  17. My Friend Victoria
    As drifting and dreamy as its searching heroine, My Friend Victoria takes a graceful but unsatisfying stroll through the life and longings of a young black woman in contemporary Paris.
  18. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
    It’s a curious, bittersweet story, flecked with dashes of bombast and overstatement that Presley himself would have admired.
  19. dream/killer
    Though the timeline and a few details could use further clarification, dream/killer remains fast-paced and frightening.
  20. The Lady in the Van
    In Ms. Smith’s tough, levelheaded performance, Mary is an irascible termagant full of batty notions clutching on to life as best she can. She is hard to like, and that’s good.
  21. Macbeth
    Mr. Fassbender gives you a reason to see this Macbeth, although the writing isn’t bad, either.
  22. Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One
    There is a fine line between delving into the mysteries of life and engaging in mystification, and Mr. Gomes lands on the wrong side of it. There is something disingenuous in the way this movie disowns its own ambitions and scorns the possibility of clarity or coherence. Maybe its opacity is a matter of principle. Or maybe it’s just an excuse.
  23. Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One
    Mr. Gomes has a tendency to revel in his own cleverness and to indulge in self-conscious cinematic jokes. He also has a penchant for obscurantism, a habit of confusing ambiguity with depth.
  24. Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
    It is worth sticking with it until the end, since the third part is the most powerful.
  25. Youth
    The problem with Youth is not that it’s empty — the accusation Kael and others lodged against Mr. Sorrentino’s precursors — but that it’s small. Its imagination feels shrunken and secondhand, in spite of the gorgeous vistas and beautiful naked women. Or actually, because of them.
  26. Krampus
    Occasionally funny, intermittently scary, but mostly hectic and sloppy, Krampus tries very hard to be a different kind of Christmas movie.
  27. The World of Kanako
    Mr. Nakashima, it must be said, does have a knack for composition. But the torrential, if glossy, violence — he adores juxtaposing innocuous pop ditties with gruesome set pieces — grows tiresome.
  28. Life
    Mr. Corbijn picturesquely frames the back story to the shoot, but his muffled retelling drifts with Dane DeHaan’s murmurous impersonation of Dean and Robert Pattinson’s almost perversely listless turn as Stock.
  29. The Letters
    Though speechifying and mawkishness are thankfully scarce, the bland script gives her few chances to go beyond the expected formula.
  30. The Wannabe
    Mr. Piazza offers a persuasive portrait of decline, but it is the crumbling beauty and flailing hopes of Rose that resonate. Ms. Arquette comprehends the character inside and out, and her aim is true.
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