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. Curse of the Golden Flower
    Since his debut in 1987 with "Red Sorghum" Mr. Zhang has made more controlled films but never one that's more fun. With Curse of the Golden Flower he aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too.
  2. Letters from Iwo Jima
    A few scenes serve as hinges joining this movie to "Flags of Our Fathers." While Letters From Iwo Jima seems to me the more accomplished of the two films -- by which I mean that it strikes me as close to perfect -- the two enrich each other, and together achieve an extraordinary completeness.
  3. The Painted Veil
    Whether through craft or constitution, Mr. Norton invests Walter with a petty cruelty that makes his character’s emotional thaw and Kitty’s predicament all the more poignant.
  4. Rocky Balboa
    Surprisingly Rocky Balboa, is no embarrassment. Like its forerunners it goes the distance almost in spite of itself. It's all heart and no credibility except as a raw-boned fable.
  5. Chats perchés
    One can never get enough of this prodigiously talented octogenarian artist and his bestiary.
  6. Matthew Barney: No Restraint
    Alison Chernick's film skims the surface of a strange and celebrated career. After a meager 72 minutes, the man who once stretched an obsession with testicles into a five-film cycle remains as unknowable as ever.
  7. Dreamgirls
    The problem with “Dreamgirls” -- and it is not a small one -- lies in those songs, which are not just musically and lyrically pedestrian, but historically and idiomatically disastrous.
  8. The Good German
    In his genre pastiche The Good German, Steven Soderbergh has tried to resurrect the magic of classical Hollywood, principally by sucking out all the air, energy and pleasure from his own filmmaking.
  9. Breaking and Entering
    What saves Breaking and Entering from foundering altogether in earnest self-regard is Mr. Minghella's evident affection for London, a city of inexhaustible architectural and human variety.
  10. Charlotte's Web
    May not be perfect, but it honors its source and captures the key elements -- the humor and good sense, as well as the sheer narrative exuberance -- that have made White’s book a classic.
  11. Eragon
    If some of the characters won't be returning for the sequel, no matter. In all likelihood, neither will the audience.
  12. The Pursuit of Happyness
    It's the same old bootstraps story, an American dream artfully told, skillfully sold. To that calculated end, the filmmaking is seamless, unadorned, transparent, the better to serve Mr. Smith's warm expressiveness.
  13. Home of the Brave
    As this cautious, politically evenhanded movie grinds along like clockwork, the fuse that should spark an emotional explosion fizzles after some sporadic hisses and sputters.
  14. The Secret Life of Words
    The exquisitely coordinated performances elicit an empathy as powerful as anything I can remember feeling in a recent film.
  15. Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here)
    This being a film review, the relevant question is whether J L Aronson's documentary about Danielson is worth watching. The answer, for about two-thirds of it, is yes. Though ultimately, alas, the movie has a little too much Danielson in it.
  16. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Julian P. Hobbs directs by getting out of the way of his star's soulful eyes and considerable talent, allowing Mr. Mays to feed on the tension between the rationality of his character's courtroom argument and the utter lunacy of his beliefs.
  17. Reminiscing in Tempo
    Ellington fans will certainly relish the many vintage clips scattered throughout.
  18. Resilience
    One of those rare ensemble dramas whose actors work toward common goals rather than individual awards, the movie resolves its creeping escalation of poor judgment and reprehensible behavior with surprising emotional force.
  19. Automatons
    Automatons is driven less by its hints of suicide bombers than by its rigorous adherence to a time when robots were played by inverted dustbins and battles were represented by dots converging on a crackling screen. This lack of sophistication is enormously endearing, leaving us with the comforting notion that the end of the world will look a lot like the beginning of television.
  20. Apocalypto
    Neither Mr. Gibson’s fans nor his detractors are likely to accuse him of excessive subtlety, and the effectiveness of Apocalypto is inseparable from its crudity. But the blunt characterizations and the emphatic emotional cues are also evidence of the director’s skill.
  21. Blood Diamond
    While Mr. DiCaprio turns out to be an ideal fit for Blood Diamond, there's an insolvable disconnect between this serious story and the frivolous way it has been told. There is no reason to doubt the filmmakers' sincerity; only their filmmaking.
  22. The Holiday
    Ms. Meyers, whose ambitions are telegraphed by her film's title, which directly invokes George Cukor's lovely 1938 romp "Holiday," has created a cumbersome vehicle by saddling Iris with a flamboyantly glamorous Los Angeles double, Amanda. As played by Cameron Diaz with oodles of charm and not an ounce of persuasion, Amanda doesn’t as much mirror Iris's love troubles as throw them into wincing relief.
  23. Unaccompanied Minors
    Not for the faint of heart, the movie is unsettling and startlingly true to life. At least that’s how it seemed to me. To the minors I happened to be accompanying, it seemed to be reasonably good fun.
  24. Off the Black
    Off the Black is so much Mr. Nolte’s movie that it couldn’t exist without him. His character is the latest in a long line of Hemingway-esque ruins, marinated in beer and testosterone, who have become Mr. Nolte’s specialty.
  25. Screamers
    Part rockumentary, part howl of outrage, Screamers would have benefited from less concert film and more historical background.
  26. The Empire in Africa
    A forest of talking heads and pointing fingers, The Empire in Africa is a noble but failed attempt to explicate the tragedy of the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone.
  27. I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
    Dismayingly, bad filmmaking isn't really to blame for the lack of punch in Ever Again. Perhaps it's the familiarity of it all.
  28. Family Law
    Delicate, bittersweet comedy.
  29. Forgiveness
    Everyone’s sorry about something in Forgiveness, a glum drama about the way repentance can do more damage than the sin that precedes it.
  30. Snow Blind
    Snow Blind calls itself a documentary, but it's really all about selling the product of snowboarding; it never stops feeling like the in-house channel on a ski-lodge television.
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