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. Green Card
    That understated style at times makes Green Card seem too stiff and vacuous, as if Mr. Weir were inspired by the surface of a Jane Austen work and left out the wicked social observations. But the film is magnificently redeemed by Mr. Depardieu.
  2. Ragtime
    The movie is sorrowful, funny and beautiful. It is also, finally, very unsatisfactory.
  3. Higher Learning
    Higher Learning culminates in facile violence instead of the assurance that this film maker, in trying to explain forces that oppress his characters, has really done his homework.
  4. Married to the Mob
    Married to the Mob works best as a wildly overdecorated screwball farce.
  5. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
    Mr. Almodovar's comic invention runs out too soon, leaving the audience to giggle weakly in anticipation of the big laughs and disorienting shocks that never arrive.
  6. Jefferson in Paris
    Overshadowed by its own ambition and not-quite-ironic pageantry, Jefferson in Paris doesn't quite come to life.
  7. Jack
    Within the limits and cliches of utterly predictable material, Mr. Coppola is still finally able to make this one from the heart.
  8. Rumble Fish
    The stunning black-and-white cinematography in Francis Coppola's Rumble Fish functions rather like a cold compress, subduing a film that is otherwise all feverish extremes.
  9. M. Butterfly
    M. Butterfly as idiosyncratic as Mr. Cronenberg's work always is, is sometimes too flat and ambiguous for its own good.
  10. The Fly
    A film that tries to be too many things at once - funny but not campy, sad and scary, a horror story and a human tragedy
  11. Scanners
    Unfortunately the plot thickens so rapidly and so lumpily that one very soon loses interest in spite of the quite stunning and gory special effects.
  12. Poetic Justice
    Although its aspirations are high, the film works only fitfully when Mr. Singleton exercises his gift for vernacular speech, for finding the comic undertow in otherwise tragic situations, and even for parody.
  13. The Year of Living Dangerously
    Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously is a good, romantic melodrama that suffers more than most good, romantic melodramas in not being much better than it is.
  14. Girl 6
    Mr. Lee isn't as successful at shaping a story around Girl 6, but enjoying her company is all his slender, sunny film really tries to do.
  15. Friday
    Friday may touch its young target audience. For everyone else, it is more intriguing as a social problem than a movie.
  16. The Man with Two Brains
    This is Mr. Martin's movie, and he brings to it the ingeniously dopey presence that's become his trademark; he easily carries even the most dubious moments in the rather jumbled screenplay, which was written by Mr. Martin, Mr. Reiner and George Gipe. [03 Jun 1983]
    • The New York Times
  17. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a slight, good-humored film that's a lot more painless than might have been expected. Ms. Swanson's funny, deadpan delivery holds the story together reasonably well, as does the state-of-the-art Val-speak that constitutes most of Buffy's dialogue.
  18. Risky Business
    Risky Business improves as it goes along.
  19. Last Action Hero
    Last Action Hero is something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one. It tries to be too many things to too many different kinds of audiences, the result being that it will probably confuse, and perhaps even alienate, the hard-core action fans.
  20. Class Action
    Class Action won't put you to sleep. Yet it vanishes from the memory as fast as anything dreamed in the conventional manner.
  21. Lethal Weapon 3
    Lethal Weapon 3 isn't that much worse than the two earlier films.
  22. JFK
    The movie, which is simultaneously arrogant and timorous, has been unable to separate the important material from the merely colorful.
  23. Awakenings
    Awakenings both sentimentalizes its story and oversimplifies it beyond recognition. At no point does the film express more than one idea at a time. And the idea expressed, more often than not, is as banal as the reality was bizarre.
  24. Renaissance Man
    Inherently condescending, and finally awash in warm-bath sentimentality, this setup never goes out of style.
  25. Traveller
    Traveller is just a hot little sleeper with strong characters and a story to tell.
  26. Metroland
    Its strongest assets, aside from a performance by Ms. Watson that pierces through the nonsense, are Mark Knopfler's fine, expressive score and the attractiveness of its star.
  27. Spaceballs
    Mr. Brooks's vision of ''Star Wars'' and its underlying silliness cannot help but wear thin. But Spaceballs has none of the aggressively unfunny humor that has marred some of Mr. Brooks's other recent efforts, and its spirits remain consistently high.
  28. The Loss of Sexual Innocence
    Much of the film is a nearly wordless tone poem that sustains an intense emotional gravity and sexual tension through its mixture of music, beautiful outdoor cinematography and somber, silent acting.
  29. Red Heat
    Red Heat is a topically entertaining variation on the sort of action-adventure nonsense that plays best on television. Mr. Hill's touch is heavy when he takes himself seriously. However, he has a real gift for instantly disposable fantasy.
  30. Shallow Grave
    A sky-high level of misanthropy overwhelms his film in ways that prove more sour than droll, despite the presence of skillful actors and a bizarrely enveloping plot.
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