The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,335 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: 9,412 out of 20335
  2. Mixed: 8,455 out of 20335
  3. Negative: 2,468 out of 20335
20335 movie reviews
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  1. Dr. No
    This lively, amusing picture is not to be taken seriously as realistic fiction or even art, any more than the works of Mr. Fleming are to be taken as long-hair literature. It is strictly a tinseled action-thriller, spiked with a mystery of a sort. And, if you are clever, you will see it as a spoof of science-fiction and sex.
  2. Wolfen
    Wolfen is so good-looking that one tends to ignore a certain but very real inner vacuity.
  3. La Bamba
    A film like this is quite naturally a showcase for its star, and as Valens, Lou Diamond Phillips has a sweetness and sincerity that in no way diminish the toughness of his onstage persona.
  4. The Land Before Time
    The Land Before Time isn't heavily plotted; it doesn't do much more than concentrate on the amusingly lifelike dynamics among the dinosaur children as they make their journey. Luckily, it isn't very long either. At a just-right length of 73 minutes, it ought to win audiences' hearts without wearing out their patience.
  5. Addams Family Values
    Mr. Sonnenfeld repeats some of the first film's favorite visual stunts without wearing out their welcome, and he sustains much more exuberance than a sequel might be expected to have. The cast, which now includes Carol Kane playing Granny Addams, remains foolproof and great fun.
  6. Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge
    There’s a lot of labor and conflict shown here, and rarely have they looked so good.
  7. Lost in America
    A yuppie mid-life crisis is in the offing, and Albert Brooks has made it the basis for Lost in America, an inspired comedy in his own drily distinctive style.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    She's Gotta Have It
    These people are not victims of blind forces; they make choices, defend them and grow in understanding, not always happily, as a result. Their story would be more enjoyable in a more polished film, but it has a power that is not dissipated by this one's weaknesses.
  9. Frankie and Johnny
    Mr. Pacino has not been this uncomplicatedly appealing since his Dog Day Afternoon days, and he makes Johnny's endless enterprise in wooing Frankie a delight. His scenes alone with Ms. Pfeiffer have a precision and honesty that keep the film's maudlin aspects at bay.
  10. Cloak & Dagger
    In addition to tossing in the occasional spy-movie homage (there's certainly a Hitchcock touch to Mr. Franklin's choice of villains), he has kept the story moving and the actors lively.
  11. Soapdish
    Soapdish, directed with good-natured zest by Michael Hoffman, has as serious a split-personality problem as any of its characters, perhaps because its screenplay is the work of Robert Harling (who wrote the story) and Andrew Bergman, two screenwriters with decidedly different comic sensibilities.
  12. Santoalla
    Santoalla ends with the mystery solved. The threads that remain hanging imbue this peculiar story of paradise lost with a tragic resonance.
  13. Eddie Murphy: Raw
    This feature-length concert film is hilarious, putting Mr. Murphy on a par with Mr. Pryor at his best.
  14. Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry
    It’s a pleasure to spend 80 minutes in Mr. Berry’s company.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mr. Majestyk
    Except for some dutiful splattering of gore, it ticks along rather steadily, under Richard Fleischer's unruffled direction. There is a take-it-or-leave-it air that snugly suits the star's performance, or vice versa.
  16. Pilgrimage
    Pilgrimage raises a question or two about unexamined beliefs and religious zeal. Those questions, as well as all that blood, won’t appeal to everyone. But those who can stomach them will receive some dark rewards.
  17. The Living Daylights
    Mr. Dalton, the latest successor to the role of James Bond, is well equipped for his new responsibilities.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Live and Let Die
    There is a marvelous escape from an alligator farm (deadly reptiles are rather a motif in this movie), a superb collection of grotesque ways of killing, and a fine sense of pace and rhythm.
  19. The Wrong Light
    In the end, The Wrong Light is an engrossing cautionary tale teaching one of philanthropy’s oldest lessons: Caveat emptor.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crocodile Dundee
    Paul Hogan is a delightful Crocodile Dundee. He has an easy, extremely likable screen personality -a mixture of warmth, sex appeal, disarming innocence and dry humor.
  21. Birthright: A War Story
    Birthright: A War Story packs a powerful message: that reproduction has become perilous for women in America.
  22. Runaway
    Runaway doesn't stint on the gizmos, and its inventiveness in that respect is its best feature; it comes up with, among other things, foot-long metallic spiders with a deadly sting and heat-seeking bullets that can be programmed to track specific human targets.
  23. 68 Kill
    It’s a little amazing how a story so guilty of gross-out violence can retain a share of comic innocence.
  24. Stripes
    The chief thing it counts on is a built-in appreciation of the Murray sense of humor, which is growing ever more refined as Mr. Murray proceeds with his movie career. Mr. Murray hasn't yet reached the point at which his routines can be sustained for more than 10 minutes at a time. But he has achieved a sardonically exaggerated calm that can be very entertaining.
  25. A Taxi Driver
    The film climaxes with a breathless escape from Gwangju, as Kim and Hinzpeter elude government vehicles with the aid of other cabdrivers. But most impressive is Mr. Song, who persuasively conveys a working stiff’s political awakening.
  26. Cheech and Chong's Next Movie
    The lines, like the movie itself, don't scan perfectly, but they are funny in the knowing, cheerfully bigoted way of Cheech and Chong's brand of comedy...Cheech and Chong's Next Movie is casual, slapdash and rude, and it's frequently hilarious in the way of some intense but harmless confrontation between eccentrics on a street corner.
  27. Martin
    In this splattery George A. Romero movie from 1977, the title character is not your typical vampire. In fact, he may not be a vampire at all. I mean, did Count Dracula ever need hypodermic needles (for sedation) or razor blades? Mr. Romero, the director who gave the world the ravenous 20th-century zombies of Night of the Living Dead, plays around with the possibility that Martin is just certifiably psychotic.
  28. Benny & Joon
    Benny and Joon is a dangerously fanciful story of cute eccentrics, characters whose quirks are the very essence of their appeal. Some of us experience a form of red alert at the very notion of adorable oddballs on screen, but Benny and Joon turns out to be remarkably benign in that regard.
  29. Midnight Return: The Story of Billy Hayes and Turkey
    The movie is at its most entertaining when detailing the making of “Midnight Express” and the contentious personalities involved.
  30. Women Who Kill
    The humor is dry and the acting deadpan in Women Who Kill, a comedy that plays it droll and is all the funnier for it.
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