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. Mean Machine
    The surface is rough and profane enough, and the acting sufficiently restrained, to cover the sentimental story with a varnish of gritty realism. But stylish bravado and bad-boy performances don't make the film any less predictable.
  2. My Dog Skip
    Works best when it sticks with the gentle humor and pathos of its literary source.
  3. Shaolin Soccer
    So unabashed in its cheesiness that it could be spread on crackers; it may spike your cholesterol levels
  4. Tigerland
    Beneath the rough vérité exterior beats the same slick, corny heart.
  5. Yes Nurse! No Nurse!
    If the film's old-movie homages are affectionate, they're slavishly imitative and scattershot, and the story is so willfully daffy that not even the hint of a subtext asserts itself. The film rides on the dubious assumption that camp and infantilism are the same thing.
  6. Love & Sex
    Slight but bright and charming.
  7. The Rundown
    The director, Peter Berg ("Very Bad Things"), keeps the predictable story line on course without developing a truly compelling momentum in the action sequences or finding anything fresh in the interaction of the stock characters.
  8. Iris
    Rarely does a movie feel as leaden-footed as Iris, especially when it tries to bounce back and forth. The audience is transported between two very obvious stories and becomes slightly irritated by the grinding inevitability of both of them. As a result, Iris Murdoch gets lost in the shuffle.
  9. Cruel Intentions
    You have the queasy sense that the whole thing is just an elaborate stunt, and in this case an exploitative one.
  10. Vanity Fair
    Vanity Fair has a deeper conceptual confusion. In mixing satire and romance, the movie proves once again that the two are about as compatible as lemon juice and heavy cream.
  11. The Card Player
    The film unfolds as a tired, thoroughly conventional police procedural that might as well be titled "CSI: Roma."
  12. Crutch
    Self-conscious but nicely structured drama.
  13. Love Me If You Dare
    Whether you find its dual resolution hopelessly pretentious or profound depends on your tolerance for a certain strain of Gallic sentimentality that takes itself more seriously than it lets on.
  14. S1m0ne
    Because the material gives off such a delicious vibe, even though the movie itself feels a little old, you want to like Simone. It would be easier if it were a more forceful comedy. But Mr. Niccol's style is that of reticence -- as a director, he's a little coquettish.
  15. Home Room
    The lead performances of Home Room go a long way toward camouflaging the severe flaws of this exceedingly earnest movie.
  16. The Big Bounce
    The usual double-crosses and convolutions ensue, but the narrative is so haphazard that the whole thing -- both the caper and the movie that contains it -- seems to have been hastily improvised.
  17. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
    Perhaps not since "Steel Magnolias" has Hollywood turned out a movie so resolutely for and about women.
  18. Incident at Loch Ness
    These blatantly comic characters undercut the credibility established by Mr. Herzog's naturalistic performance, and sink the horror premise as quickly as it surfaces.
  19. Gloomy Sunday
    The story is so schematically histrionic that the bringing in of the Holocaust late in the day feels exploitative and unearned. Gloomy Sunday is an oddity that takes itself much too seriously.
  20. Sex Is Comedy
    The result is a minor, meandering film.
  21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    The Empire Strikes Back is not a truly terrible movie. It's a nice movie. It's not, by any means, as nice as "Star Wars." It's not as fresh and funny and surprising and witty, but it is nice and inoffensive and, in a way that no one associated with it need be ashamed of, it's also silly.
  22. The Hunting of the President
    In a misguided attempt to break up the monotonous flow of talking heads, the filmmakers have inserted oddly chosen clips from newsreels and public-domain features, meant to illustrate abstract concepts (like eavesdropping or government) while generating some low-level laughs.
  23. Spy Game
    The problem lies in the calculating pretentiousness of using human misery to make shallow entertainment seem serious. It's worth comparing Spy Game with "The Tailor of Panama," John Boorman's far superior exercise in post-cold-war spycraft.
  24. Stella Street
    The concept doesn't translate well to the longer form. The sense of the absurd is watered down.
  25. Paycheck
    Surprisingly . . . ept given that it is basically a dumb movie about smart people. This smooth but bland thriller may be the best we could expect from such a collaboration.
  26. Serendipity
    The cinematic equivalent of a plate made of spun sugar.
  27. Romance
    Hovers between passion and philosophical argument without fully achieving its ambition to fuse the two.
  28. Session 9
    The film, too artfully conceived to deliver many overt shocks, often feels long and aimless.
  29. Happy Accidents
    As impressive as it is in the abstract, all the detail ultimately drags the movie down and lengthens it unnecessarily.
  30. Saved!
    It has a bright young cast and a clever, eclectic soundtrack, but the tone veers unsteadily from mockery to preachiness, and the story loses its breath, hopping from one clumsily paced scene to the next.
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