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. Walkaway
    Walkaway is a pleasant enough time-pass, as they say in India, but stays too near the surface to be memorable.
  2. A Small Act
    The film couldn't be more heartening - yes, individual actions do make a difference. But it's bittersweet as well. You can't help wondering about all the children who don't get tapped on the shoulder by the hand of fate.
  3. Wild Target
    The considerable wit, style, and skill that Mr. Nighy and Ms. Blunt bring to the project are squandered.
  4. The Kids Grow Up
    You are not Doug Block, of course. Except to the extent - measured by the depth of your absorption in this remarkable film - that you are.
  5. Monsters
    Monsters effortlessly compels. The ending may be pure sci-fi schmaltz, but it's schmaltz that this viewer, at least, could believe in.
  6. Waste Land
    "We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials," Tião, an impoverished Brazilian catadore, or trash picker, declares to a talk-show host in Lucy Walker's inspiring documentary Waste Land.
  7. Inspector Bellamy
    The ease and professionalism that distinguished this prolific director's later work is very much in evidence, as is an insouciant attitude, at once resigned and dismissive, toward mortality.
  8. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    Mr. Alfredson directed the second movie as well, and his work is again essentially functional, limited to clumsy action sequences and television-ready conversations. He doesn't prettify the violence in either movie, which might be unintentional but makes them feel more honest than the first did.
  9. Amer
    What does it all mean? Less than meets the eye. Amer is a voluptuous wallow in recycled psychosexual kitsch.
  10. Welcome to the Rileys
    What keeps the film's fragile realism intact are actors who can make even small moments count.
  11. Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
    In her director's statement for Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, Gail O'Hara writes that "this one's for the fans." Rarely has that been more true.
  12. Vision: From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen
    Vision offers a hard-headed view of 12th-century religiosity in which church politics and money conflict with the characters' asceticism. It portrays Hildegard as a passionate humanitarian and a lover of nature.
  13. Paranormal Activity 2
    Frozen camera setups and blurry night-vision images raise goose bumps without the assistance of eerie music or showy effects, though the strain of stretching the gimmick to a second movie is palpable.
  14. Punching the Clown
    Holding things together are Mr. Phillips's quiet charm and his songs, which really are funny.
  15. The Taqwacores
    The Taqwacores aims for a provocative, anarchic cool by juxtaposing Islam and punk rock. But the storytelling is so muddled and the filmmaking so unpolished - and not in a good way - that mostly this movie is just unpleasant. It's also not nearly as insightful as it thinks it is.
  16. Knucklehead
    A number of talented performers are stymied by this mediocre material.
  17. The Portuguese Nun
    The Portuguese Nun has wit and feeling, though the wit is at times almost imperceptibly subtle and the feeling somewhat stylized.
  18. Inhale
    Inhale is a creepy medical thriller in the tradition of "Coma" that amps up the tension and suspense by slicing up time.
  19. Kalamity
    For all its seriousness, Kalamity lacks a steady narrative drive; its speeches are too long, and its themes become repetitive.
  20. Boxing Gym
    Pugilists and philosophers of all kinds converge in Frederick Wiseman's mesmerizing documentary Boxing Gym.
  21. Conviction
    It would be easy to dismiss Conviction on the ground that it plays like a made-for-television movie, but the truth is that, as often as not, movies made for the small screen are better than this: braver, darker, more willing to explore odd corners of feeling.
  22. Hereafter
    One of the reasons that Hereafter works as well as it does - it has the power to haunt the skeptical, to mystify the credulous and to fascinate everyone in between.
  23. Tamara Drewe
    There is something shallow and cautious about this film, which strains to maintain a glib, cheery demeanor that is not always appropriate to the details of the story.
  24. Modus Operandi
    You can admire the craftsmanship and enjoy the retro soundtrack, supplied by a roster of Milwaukee musicians, but it seems likely that Modus Operandi was more amusing to make than it is to watch.
  25. Stone
    The results prove disappointing, simultaneously over the top and underwhelming.
  26. A New Love in Tokyo (1994)
    While honesty dictates that this movie, directed by Banmei Takahashi, be classified first and foremost as erotica, it is erotica that finds room for real sweetness and intellectual pretensions along with its kink.
  27. The Road Dance
    Shifting between stagy sincerity and startling realism (the labor scene is particularly colorful), The Road Dance is a vividly rendered, if ultimately schematic portrait of feminine resilience.
  28. Lakota Nation vs. United States
    This stunning film, directed by Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli, interleaves interviews of Lakota activists and elders with striking images of the Black Hills and its wildlife, historical documents and news reports, clips from old movies and other archival footage to extraordinary effect, demonstrating not only the physical and cultural violence inflicted on the Lakota but also their deep connection to the Black Hills, the area where Mount Rushmore was erected.
  29. Since I Been Down
    “We’ve caused pain,” that inmate says, “primarily ’cause we were in pain.” Far from seeming like an excuse, in Since I Been Down, this observation sounds like a way toward reckoning and change.
  30. Downstream to Kinshasa
    The film sometimes flags in energy as it cuts between these different strands, but its pace feels faithful to just how halting the fight for justice can be when democracy becomes impenetrable to those it serves.
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