The New York Times' Scores

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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
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  1. Madrid, 1987
    Sweet, sometimes dull and certainly overlong.
  2. Janeane from Des Moines
    With Ms. Wilson's rare talent for staying in character as the media circus swirls around her, Janeane From Des Moines is actually a commentary on the immense gap between a desperate citizen and the politics she had hoped might help her.
  3. Two Years at Sea
    The result is haunting.
  4. Special Forces
    Dedicated to French servicemen and wartime journalists, Special Forces aims to inspire but ends up wallowing in melodrama.
  5. Here Comes the Boom
    If you can choke down the implausible notion that the doughy Kevin James would last more than five seconds in a mixed martial arts ring, Here Comes the Boom is a moderately enjoyable, nontaxing sort of comedy.
  6. War of the Buttons
    The slick filmmaking - the movie has a glossy, Hollywood-ready feel that sometimes tips into the cutesy - works against its themes.
  7. Smiley
    Failing to expand on the intriguing notion that evil can find physical form online, Smiley, like its sutured monster, is sadly more to be pitied than feared.
  8. A Whisper to a Roar
    A vivid documentary with unusual access to the key players in the geopolitical dramas it recounts.
  9. The Iran Job
    This observant documentary avoids pedagogy; it's not always artful, but it has a relaxed, light touch that never topples into pretension.
  10. Least Among Saints
    Though both actors deliver performances more credible than the plot that frames them, their authenticity only highlights the script's affection for improbable coincidences and an ending even Garry Marshall might consider too pat.
  11. Gayby
    Inoffensive and low-key, Gayby is too diffuse to have much pop when it comes to the topics at hand: love and friendship, and how unconventional modern permutations might help rewrite the script of romance.
  12. The Thieves
    Loaded with all the twists, disguises, glamorous settings and split-screen montages you could ask for.
  13. Simon & the Oaks
    With its exhilarating World War II narrative and performances that touch notes intimate and grand, Simon and the Oaks has an exquisite, and epic, ache.
  14. 3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom
    A vibrantly vulgar comedy that never hangs around to admire its own cleverness.
  15. Photographic Memory
    The connections made in Photographic Memory are more tentative than those found in Mr. McElwee's earlier films, which also seek answers in roundabout ways while maintaining an acute eye for light, color, space and atmosphere.
  16. Sinister
    A twitchy Mr. Hawke builds a persuasive portrait of desperation with little help from the script and despite playing a character who makes so many mistakes he might as well be on a suicide mission.
  17. The Big Picture
    Paul is not a sociopath like Tom Ripley, and the movie does not convey the same diabolical Hitchcockian sense of being manipulated by a slightly sadistic master puppeteer. As the story sprawls across the screen, it darts from one incident to the next as though it were inventing itself as it goes along.
  18. Smashed
    The degree to which Smashed refuses to indulge a voyeuristic taste for the kind of sordid details exploited by reality television amounts to an unspoken declaration of principle. In lieu of self-pity, Smashed substitutes tough love.
  19. Middle of Nowhere
    Ms. DuVernay, from start to finish in this very fine movie, works to make sure that Ruby is a woman to remember.
  20. Seven Psychopaths
    Meta to the max, filled with clever jokes and observations that stick like barbs and deflated ones that land with a thud, Seven Psychopaths is a leisurely riff about movies, violence, storytelling and the art of the steal.
  21. Argo
    It's a doozy of a story and so borderline ridiculous that it sounds - ta-da! - like something that could have been cooked up only by Hollywood.
  22. An Affair of the Heart
    An agreeable documentary about the pop singer Rick Springfield and his legions of female fans.
  23. In My Mother's Arms
    In My Mother's Arms takes a distressing snapshot of an ongoing struggle.
  24. The Oranges
    How could a movie starring Hugh Laurie, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney and Catherine Keener go so wrong? That is the mystery behind The Oranges, a dysfunctional-family comedy - excuse the cliché - that backs away in terror from its potentially explosive subject.
  25. Wuthering Heights
    The grunts and howls seem every bit as mannered as the florid diction of Olivier and Oberon, perhaps even more so. Their artifice, like Brontë's own, was overt, whereas Ms. Arnold strives to disguise hers in the trappings of authenticity. And as a result, the impact - the grandeur, the art - of Wuthering Heights is diminished.
  26. Sister
    Trading the cooler, more emotionally detached style and vibe that characterized "Home," her debut feature, about a family falling apart, Ms. Meier quietly goes for the emotional jugular in Sister.
  27. The House I Live In
    It's easy to take issue with a documentary like The House I Live In, which tackles too much in too brief a time and glosses over complexities, yet this is also a model of the ambitious, vitalizing activist work that exists to stir the sleeping to wake.
  28. Trade of Innocents
    Part infomercial, part public-service announcement, Trade of Innocents carries such a suffocating human-rights burden that it never had much chance of becoming an actual movie. Yes, child trafficking is horrific; but embedding your raise-the-alarm mission in a film this inept runs the risk of arousing more amusement than activism.
  29. Decoding Deepak
    "Decoding" ultimately becomes Gotham's gentle tribute to Dad, who shall probably provide handsomely for his heirs. It is also a tacit endorsement of Chopra Inc.
  30. Fat Kid Rules the World
    This adaptation of K. L. Going's 2003 young-adult novel about a rejuvenated overweight teenager takes a humble, heartfelt approach, until sentiment loses out to message sending.
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