The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,336 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: 9,413 out of 20336
  2. Mixed: 8,455 out of 20336
  3. Negative: 2,468 out of 20336
20336 movie reviews
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  1. The Last Boy Scout
    Mr. Scott directs the film as if he were trying to win a prize for demolishing a building in record time. The opening is good: stylish video images of a night football game played in a torrential rain, climaxed by the only scene in the film that has legitimate shock. After that, the brutality and the pace don't slacken, but interest does.
  2. The Wilby Conspiracy
    The best thing about the movie, flimed mostly in Kenya, is its performances, funny and hip and self-assured in the manner of television personalities working in front of loving audiences. Mr. Caine and Mr. Poitier are never unaware that their material may not be the greatest, but that doesn't spoil their good spirits, and when a good line comes along they get maximum results without stomping on it or us.
  3. Book Club
    These women — Ms. Fonda, Ms. Keaton, Ms. Steenburgen and Ms. Bergen, that is — have nothing to prove. Each one brings enough credibility and charisma to Book Club to render its weaknesses largely irrelevant.
  4. 2010
    A perfectly adequate though not really comparable - sequel to Stanley Kubrick's witty, mind- bending science-fiction classic, ''2001: A Space Odyssey.'
  5. Mask
    All of the performances are limited by the material and, in the case of Mr. Stoltz, by Michael Westmore's quite spectacular makeup. The exception - and the film's best sequence - occurs when Rusty's very middle-class, well-meaning parents, played by Estelle Getty and Richard Dysart, come to visit. In these few, brief minutes, Mask becomes specific and interesting. Otherwise it's the kind of story that would work better as a television feature.
  6. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
    Even those who would never, without the urging of wild horses, dream of attending a film about the seamy world of heavy-metal music are sure to find Penelope Spheeris's The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years of unexpected interest.
  7. Raw Deal
    Though the language is vulgar, the macho posturing absurd and some of the plotting inscrutable, Raw Deal has a kind of seemliness to it. It delivers every punch it promises.
  8. The Devil and Father Amorth
    If this documentary celebrates a crackpot, Mr. Friedkin is his match. The director’s blabbermouth tendencies and wry manner make him an enjoyable M.C.
  9. Heartbreak Ridge
    As the gritty, raspy-voiced sergeant, Mr. Eastwood's performance is one of the richest he's ever given. It's funny, laid-back, seemingly effortless, the sort that separates actors who are run-of-the-mill from those who have earned the right to be identified as stars.
  10. No Light and No Land Anywhere
    In the scenes that break with banality, there is a zing not only of originality, but of daring.
  11. Don't Leave Home
    Don’t Leave Home is a frustratingly befuddled movie that’s nevertheless fascinating.
  12. Cocote
    This is a straightforward story that Mr. de Los Santos Arias, making his fictional feature debut, tells in an ever-changing style, shooting in color and black and white. He also alternates the shape of the frame, mostly toggling between a boxy frame and the wider one most mainstream movies are shown in. Whatever effect was hoped for, this viewer just saw affectation.
  13. The Heart of Nuba
    The film is worth seeing because it’s a moving and remarkable story and it represents a great cause. Mr. Carlson often puts a directorial foot wrong.
  14. Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero
    The director, Richard Lanni, whose biography also cites work as a battlefield tour guide, manages a fair amount of wit, particularly with a postcard montage of Stubby’s first trip to Paris.
  15. A Simple Favor
    Mr. Feig handily manages the mood and scene shifts, using regular laughs to brighten the deepening dark. By far his smartest move was to give Ms. Kendrick and Ms. Lively room to create a prickly intimacy for their characters, a bond that’s persuasive enough to push the story through its more forced moments.
  16. Bad Times at the El Royale
    Goddard keeps everything smoothly, ebbing and flowing as the characters separate and join together, but at some point during this logy 2-hour-and-21-minute exercise you want something more substantial than even Hemsworth’s admittedly mesmerizing snaky hips.
  17. Beautiful Boy
    It is hard not to be touched by the testing of paternal love, or by Nic’s fragility. But Beautiful Boy, rather than plumbing the hard emotional depths of its subject, skates on a surface of sentiment and gauzy visual beauty.
  18. Overlord
    As seen in the film’s terrifying opening and its gruesome climax, Avery deftly orchestrates some grisly, intense set pieces. He delivers on the thrills, even if the story leaves something to be desired.
  19. Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
    Breakin' 2 slights dramatic matters to concentrate exclusively on dancing. The movie contains so much of it that it's exhausting even to watch, but at least the choreography isn't being executed by John Travolta.
  20. The Pick-up Artist
    The film roams from the Upper West Side to Coney Island to Atlantic City, maintaining a lighthearted style that doesn't quite match the hints of obsessiveness in Mr. Toback's screenplay.
  21. When a Stranger Calls
    The gimmick behind When a Stranger Galls is a scary one, but it's been played for more than it's worth.
  22. The Gospel According to André
    The director, Kate Novack, has delivered a film that’s detailed and affectionate, but also frustratingly static, making a point not to get in its subject’s way.
  23. ACORN and the Firestorm
    Although the documentary makes clear how some accusations proved false or overblown, perhaps its biggest flaw is that it’s too eager to hand-wave any actual mistakes that Acorn made.
  24. That Summer
    That Summer, a new documentary directed by Goran Hugo Olsson, sheds further light on the Beales with footage shot before the making of “Grey Gardens.”
  25. Child's Play
    Child's Play has some limp dialogue among the clever touches. Its appeal is clearly for upscale horror fans rather than a general movie audience. Yet it is a fitting successor to the classic television horror stories it takes off from.
  26. The Judge
    Though voices both welcoming and hostile to women judges are represented, Ms. al-Faqih’s likely Sisyphean battle to reach her position feels insufficiently underlined.
  27. Hotel Artemis
    Mr. Pearce is also well-versed in staging and shooting decent action scenes, and building suspense enough to keep Hotel Artemis diverting in its overstuffed ambition. Add to that Ms. Foster’s welcome return to big-screen acting after a five-year layoff and you’ve got a movie almost worth seeing.
  28. Clash of the Titans
    Clash of the Titans is profligate in its use of talented people who are not particularly at home in this sort of film, though they all pay serious attention to their work.
  29. Feral
    Methodical and efficient, the script (by Mr. Young and Adam Frazier) gets some mileage from its generic setting and zombie-infection theme, even if the croaking order is easily predicted.
  30. A Very Brady Sequel
    This carefree comedy film does its best with material that would have been totally ephemeral in a less Brady world.
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