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. Alpha Dog
    The cretins rule in Alpha Dog, which has much the same entertainment value you get from watching monkeys fling scat at one another in a zoo or reading the latest issue of Star magazine. Of course a little of that nasty stuff may land on you, but such are the perils of voyeurism.
  2. Primeval
    The screenplay, by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, tosses out a few chewy bits of B-movie wit, most of them supplied by Mr. Jones, who expresses the ambivalence of an African-American visiting the motherland through a series of bitter jokes.
  3. Stomp the Yard
    A strange and at times strangely compelling mix of black fraternity recruitment video and inspirational tale about a hip-hop boy in a stepping world.
  4. God Grew Tired of Us
    Handsomely photographed and inspirational, but not cloyingly so, it is the rare contemporary documentary that doesn't leave a residue of cynicism and outrage.
  5. Tears of the Black Tiger
    The intoxicating madness of Tears of the Black Tiger is in the end too willed, too deliberate, to be entirely divine.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
    The filmmakers have loftier goals, though, and in the end their existential tabloid style justifies itself. Abduction isn't about what happened, but about the painful introspection that is sparked by not knowing.
  7. Guru
    Given a rich, multidimensional role, Mr. Bachchan ably seizes on its abundant opportunities.
  8. Ever Since the World Ended
    Thought-provoking rather than deeply philosophical, Ever Since the World Ended features many engaging performances and several outstanding ones.
  9. Comedy of Power
    As ever, Mr. Chabrol’s style is delicate and precise. Comedy of Power is not his deepest or most ambitious film, and its stance of knowing resignation in the face of corruption can feel a little glib. But Ms. Huppert's ferocity compensates for the director's detachment; no French actress is as riveting to watch once the gloves come off.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Happily N'Ever After
    This is another tired kidsploitation product.
  11. Freedom Writers
    In Freedom Writers Hilary Swank uses neediness to fine effect in a film with a strong emotional tug and smartly laid foundation.
  12. Code Name: The Cleaner
    Cedric the Entertainer's artless performance deadens what could have been a much funnier comedy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sacrifice
    Nonfiction doesn't quite describe what Ms. Bruno does. Her work takes risks with form to imply that individual suffering and transcendence are but particles in a river of spiritual energy that dwarfs geography and time.
  14. I Love You
    An unusually perceptive scrutiny of absence and emptiness.
  15. Pan's Labyrinth
    A swift and accessible entertainment, blunt in its power and exquisite in its effects.
  16. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
    Try as it might to be refined and provocative, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer never rises above the pedestrian creepiness of its conceit.
  17. Miss Potter
    This much sweetness and light in a movie is all very well. But there's a reason that recipes for cake and cookies call for a pinch of salt. In Miss Potter, there is only a grain or two -- not enough to dilute the sugary overload. The film is the cinematic equivalent of a delicate English tea cake whose substance is buried under too many layers of icing.
  18. The Dead Girl
    Just when it seems as though the language of insult and humiliation couldn’t get any nastier, the movie escalates the barrage.
  19. Factory Girl
    The kindest thing to be said about this deluxe photo spread of a film is that Sienna Miller's Edie and Guy Pearce's Andy capture their characters' images and body language with relative precision.
  20. The Flying Scotsman
    A conventional underdog sports movie that should have been much more gripping.
  21. Unconscious
    If Unconscious consistently overplays its hand, its fusion of a Sherlock Holmes-style detective story (Alma is the master sleuth, and Salvador her Dr. Watson) with a delirious bedroom farce in the spirit of early Pedro Almodóvar is frequently very funny.
  22. Arthur and the Invisibles
    The computer-generated world is visually rich, but short on the droll humor that makes good children's films bearable for adults.
  23. The Tiger and the Snow
    A scorching affront to Italians, Iraqis and the intelligence of movie audiences everywhere.
  24. Notes on a Scandal
    The actors in Notes on a Scandal are equally distinguished: Ms. Dench and Ms. Blanchett are among the finest on the market today, and each can deliver expert performances, even when, as is the case here, their roles are false and hollow. The performers sell the goods, but the goods are cheap.
  25. Children of Men
    Children of Men may be something of a bummer, but it’s the kind of glorious bummer that lifts you to the rafters, transporting you with the greatness of its filmmaking.
  26. Black Christmas
    With a peephole-riddled set and a flashback-heavy screenplay, Black Christmas smothers terror beneath a blanket of unnecessary information, revealing too much and teasing too little.
  27. The Good Shepherd
    The most interesting thing about The Good Shepherd is how hard the filmmakers work not only to demystify the agency, but also to strip it of its allure, its heat.
  28. Night at the Museum
    This season's answer to "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," it's an overstuffed grab bag in which lumps of coal are glued together with melted candy.
  29. We Are Marshall
    A movie like We Are Marshall stands or falls on its ability to make you feel the pain and loss of individuals in a place where community pride and football are one and the same. As the film, directed by McG (the "Charlie's Angels" movies) from a wooden screenplay by Jamie Linden, follows a handful of Huntington residents during the months after the accident, not one of them comes fully to life.
  30. Venus
    Since the movie is about desire -- not so much for sex as for the vitality and surprise that sex can provide -- it is also about power. Few writers can match Mr. Kureishi's knowing wit on this subject, or his skill at dissecting the shifting dynamics of longing and domination.
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