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. The Reason I Jump
    The portraits are moving and informative. . . . As an aesthetic endeavor, though, The Reason I Jump is questionable, regardless of how much sensitivity the filmmakers took in their approach.
  2. The Three Musketeers
    Mr. Lester's interpretation of The Three Musketeers looks like an evening in a bump-o-car arena, with magnificently costumed people in place of cars. The adventures are less swashbuckle than slapstick.
  3. Effigy: Poison and the City
    Wordy and stilted (it was derived from a stage play), this low-budget debut nevertheless benefits from a mesmerizing central performance by Suzan Anbeh.
  4. Cleopatra Jones
    The movie seems to want to be a James Bond sort of adventure in black drag, but it's more reminiscent of Batman.
  5. The Iceman Cometh
    From the opening frames of John Frankenheimer's film version of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, you get the feeling that you're being taken on a guided tour of one of the greatest American plays ever written, instead of seeing a screen adaptation with a life of its own.
  6. The Escape Artist
    The Escape Artist represents a lot more talent than is ever demonstrated on the screen.
  7. The Color Purple
    For the first two hours, it’s absorbing: big song-and-dance numbers and emotional set pieces, dynamic performances from everyone, and a feeling of reverence for the story and what it’s meant for 40 years give it gravitas and heart. . . Yet by the end it’s clear that the story remains slippery to would-be adapters.
  8. Happy Face
    Happy Face dares to be distinctive, and that’s something, even if the behavior — particularly Stan’s — isn’t always convincing.
  9. My Rembrandt
    While My Rembrandt poses heady questions about the difference between acquisitiveness and appreciation, it mostly plays like a straight art-world documentary that itself would have benefited from a more vertiginous, obsessive approach.
  10. The Element of Crime
    A film noir that's murky without being terribly mysterious.
  11. The Program
    A routine Joe College movie.
  12. Striking Distance
    If Striking Distance were a book, it could be called a good read. Instead, it's a painless watch.
  13. Passenger 57
    There are lots of oohs and ahs in this nasty shoot-'em-up story of a psychopathic terrorist who hijacks a jumbo jet. But beneath the thrill-by-numbers surface of the film, nothing makes much sense.
  14. Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
    “Barb and Star” offers a mixed bag of laughs, often feeling like a Frankenstein assembly of various sketches. Still, I can’t help but admire its commitment to the act, and its gloriously unhinged absurdity.
  15. Rush
    Rush is often more successful at being clinical than at being clear.
  16. Don't Look Up
    McKay has made “Don’t Look Up,” a very angry, deeply anguished comedy freak out about how we are blowing it, hurtling toward oblivion. He’s sweetened the bummer setup with plenty of yuks — good, bad, indifferent — but if you weep, it may not be from laughing.
  17. Stone Cold
    Once the movie gets down to business, the muscle and pyrotechnics take over. The action -- especially the motorcycle chases through the marble government halls -- pack a fairly good visceral charge.
  18. Mortal Thoughts
    Mortal Thoughts has a good cast and a lot to recommend it, but what it doesn't have is the kind of dramatic payoff that makes so much extended buildup and explanation seem worthwhile.
  19. Oscar
    Mr. Stallone displays an unexpected gameness, even a flair, for the kind of broadly durable comedy that is the television sitcom's specialty. It works a lot better than might have been expected. Mr. Stallone may not be a comic genius, but he's definitely a sport.
  20. Point of No Return
    Once the story settles down to wondering whether Maggie/Claudia can find happiness in romantic love, it becomes noticeably less interesting. Ms. Fonda sometimes verges on the mechanical in mouthing her character's nobler sentiments (the film also relies heavily on Nina Simone records to express its heroine's feelings), but that is to be expected. At heart, this woman is little more than a laboratory specimen with great legs, so it's miraculous to find an actress breathing life into her at all.
  21. True Mothers
    Only a mountain couldn’t be moved by True Mothers — but like Asato’s parentage, the sources of that effect are complex. From one angle, True Mothers is sensitive and layered. From another, the tricks it plays with perspective constitute an all-too-calculated ploy for tears.
  22. Boogie
    It’s a competent movie, but it doesn’t quite make it to the big leagues.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Phase IV
    In making his feature directorial debut after a succession of distinguished film titles, graphics and short subjects, Saul Bass, with the aid of special insect photography by Ken Middleham (Hellstrom Chronicle), has fashioned a pictorially persuasive adventure.
  24. Class Act
    As directed by Randall Miller, the movie doesn't aspire to much more than cartoonish verve, but Kid 'n' Play easily hold it together. Their comic timing is right, and their humor manages to be both traditional and current.
  25. The Dry
    The many red herrings and the dark-secret finale recall the reliable, compulsive appeal of a page-turner, although the tensions don’t always feel fully translated to the rhythms and demands of a film.
  26. What Happened Was...
    In performance, as in the rest of this film, Mr. Noonan only haltingly captures what he seeks.
  27. Mirror (1975)
    Mr. Tarkovsky appears so absorbed in grappling with his own demons that universality suffers. [17 Aug 1983, p.C14]
    • The New York Times
  28. In the Earth
    If the bigger picture of In the Earth doesn’t appear fully realized — this is a movie not just of the moment, but perhaps rushed to meet it — it would be difficult, this year, for at least some of its atmosphere of isolation-induced madness not to inspire a chill.
  29. John and the Hole
    Chilly, enigmatic and more than a little spooky, John and the Hole patrols the porous border between child and adult with more style than depth.
  30. Misha and the Wolves
    Misha and the Wolves plays best on first viewing, with its surprises intact.
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