The New York Times' Scores

Select another publication »
For 20,324 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 20324
  2. Mixed: 8,449 out of 20324
  3. Negative: 2,467 out of 20324
20324 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Erased
    Viewed solely as a string of action sequences, Erased delivers the kind of dryly efficient, wearyingly familiar entertainment that already clogs too many of our movie screens.
  2. State 194
    This is certainly competent filmmaking, sort of like a long “60 Minutes” segment without the confrontational interview style.
  3. Elemental
    The filmmakers behind Elemental might have done better to commit to a single portrait and been more fearless about avoiding familiar oratory, but small steps are progress too.
  4. Cape Spin: An American Power Struggle
    A documentary should give audiences insights they can’t get elsewhere. Otherwise, it’s just one more tumble in an endless media churn.
  5. Bidder 70
    Wisely deciding to refrain from rapping our knuckles with greenhouse gas statistics and Al Gore-style pie charts, the filmmakers fashion a portrait of a conscience spurred to action by an unexpected opportunity.
  6. Re-emerging: The Jews of Nigeria
    “Re-emerging” can be pedestrian as filmmaking, though it remains interesting as long as it remains in Nigeria.
  7. Black Rock
    The male characters here are too thinly developed for this to be a top-notch survival thriller, but Ms. Aselton knows how to get the pulse pounding.
  8. Pieta
    Morally cunning and with a tone as black as pitch, Pieta, the 18th film from the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, is a deeply unnerving revenge movie in which redemption is dangled like a cat toy before a cougar.
  9. 33 Postcards
    [A] sweet if not very credible film.
  10. Valentino's Ghost
    You may not agree with every observation in Michael Singh’s documentary Valentino’s Ghost. But this engrossing examination of American perceptions of Arabs and the Arab world gets you thinking.
  11. Frances Ha
    With its swift, jaunty rhythms and sharp, off-kilter jokes, Frances Ha is frequently delightful. Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Baumbach are nonetheless defiant partisans in the revolt against the tyranny of likability in popular culture.
  12. Augustine
    Everything depends on the subtlety of the direction and the charisma of the performances. Augustine is intellectually satisfying partly because it communicates its ideas at the level of feeling, through the uncanny power of Soko’s face and body.
  13. Star Trek Into Darkness
    It’s hard to emerge from “Into Darkness” without a feeling of disappointment, even betrayal.
  14. Old Dog
    Raw and resolute, this unsettling fable feels driven by an anger that remains largely unexpressed.
  15. Becoming Traviata
    May not be fully satisfying as a documentary. But it has what any good movie needs: a star — the ever-game soprano Natalie Dessay.
  16. The Girls in the Band
    The Girls in the Band is everything a worthwhile documentary should be, and then some: engaging, informative, thorough and brimming with delightful characters.
  17. Java Heat
    The film, directed by Conor Allyn, is rarely more than a few minutes away from a gun battle or a tedious chase, and soon you cease to care who is shooting at, or running from, whom or why.
  18. No One Lives
    Mr. Kitamura, an action enthusiast who prefers to show rather than tell, seems unaware that the film’s dialogue is laughable, its characters unfathomable and the acting often less than optimal.
  19. Pilgrim Song
    Ostensibly about a walk in the woods, this slight, uncertain film spends most of its time off trail.
  20. The Painting (Le Tableau)
    This is a sweet adventure story for children. (Surely, American parents can deal with the bare breasts of one talking painting.) For adults it is short on narrative sophistication but visually a true objet d’art.
  21. He's Way More Famous Than You
    This frenetic movie has moments of wit, and Ms. Feiffer, a seasoned screen and Broadway performer, has range, stamina and charisma.
  22. How Sweet It Is
    Brian Herzlinger’s How Sweet It Is, an ode to the healing powers of musical theater, misfires so badly at the beginning that it takes a while to notice when it goes from godawful to sweetly awful.
  23. The Second Meeting
    Their meeting was arranged by the filmmaker, and their encounters reek of false bonhomie.
  24. Aftershock
    The violence is quick and occasionally inventive, with little of the attenuated nastiness that characterizes so many genre pictures, and the photography ranges from brightly sun-kissed to down-and-dirty.
  25. Three Sisters
    Three Sisters documents extreme poverty in rural China with the compassionate eye and inexhaustible patience of a director whose curiosity about his country’s unfortunates never seems to wane.
  26. Peeples
    Revelations unfold predictably, but the subplots cohere and the assured pacing offers a stark contrast with the often disjointed tempos of Mr. Perry’s mosaics.
  27. And Now a Word from Our Sponsor
    To describe And Now a Word From Our Sponsor as a one-joke skit stretched well beyond the breaking point isn’t entirely fair, because when used ingeniously, which is very seldom, the joke lands.
  28. Venus and Serena
    Think of this movie as a greatest-hits package, with some good stuff to show but nothing very new to say.
  29. What Richard Did
    Every detail of What Richard Did rings true.
  30. Sightseers
    Working from a script by Ms. Lowe and Mr. Oram, Mr. Wheatley continues in the same bludgeoning, amusingly if dubiously deadpan fashion for what soon feels like an overextended joke.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »