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 Paperboy
    It is by turns lurid, humid, florid, languid and stupid, but it is pretty much all id all the time.
  2. Meet the Fokkens
    Why the sisters felt that prostitution was their best alternative remains unclear, either because they aren't interested in revealing that part of themselves, or the filmmakers didn't know how to get them to talk. Or maybe Ms. Provaas and Mr. Schroder weren't interested, for political or personal reasons, in making what, despite the laughter, they ended up with: another sad story about whores.
  3. The Awakening
    Most of the supernatural sightings are flickers at the corners of the screen, so that at certain moments watching the movie feels like taking an eye exam. You see it, then you don't. But the film is not especially scary, and even its boo! moments lack a visceral shock.
  4. True Wolf
    Having devoted much of their lives to combating lupine myths by introducing Koani to wonder-struck schoolchildren, Mr. Weide and Ms. Tucker are ill served by a director who reduces the anti-wolf lobby to caricature and the debates over reintroducing wolves to the Northern Rockies to grossly biased clips.
  5. For Ellen
    Rather than finding an interesting, resonant ambiguity in his experience, Ms. Kim and Mr. Dano settle for a kind of suggestive vagueness, losing the thread of their character in the snow, steam and cigarette smoke that provide the film's main visual motif and perhaps also its dominant metaphor.
  6. Promised Land
    An earnest attempt, sometimes effective, sometimes clumsy, to dramatize the central arguments about fracking and its impact.
  7. Quartet
    A sincere but sloppy piece of work. Mr. Hoffman dotes on his cast of first-rate British actors of a certain age - and invites us to savor their energy and professionalism. This is not difficult, though the efforts of these fine actors might have yielded greater delight if they had been given more to do.
  8. Rio 2
    A tropical tornado of cadmium and cobalt, magenta and marigold, Carlos Saldanha’s frantic follow-up to his well-received 2011 animated feature, “Rio,” ups the ante on sound and movement but pays scant attention to story.
  9. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    Bilbo may fully learn a sense of friendship and duty, and have quite a story to tell, but somewhere along the way, Mr. Jackson loses much of the magic.
  10. The Manzanar Fishing Club
    The time with these survivors is appreciated, as who knows how much longer we'll have access to this living history. But I'd rather have heard them describe something other than bait, or how their fishing rods advanced from willow to bamboo to items from the Sears catalog.
  11. Hellbound?
    Mr. Miller makes a questionable choice in setting the film against the backdrop of the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, and he lingers too long on an offensive fringe group that hangs out near ground zero with signs saying the terrorist attacks were God's will. But for most of the way, his treatment is substantive and evenhanded.
  12. Doctored
    Unfortunately, in waving the flag for more holistic, naturopathic treatments, the already meandering Doctored loses focus, touching on topics like alternative cancer treatments, autism and vaccination, and genetically modified produce. Mr. Sheehan seems to forget the primary documentarian directive: First, do no harm to your main argument.
  13. Snitch
    For all its violence and road rage, Snitch doesn’t disintegrate into noisy popcorn nonsense.
  14. Admission
    Mr. Weitz lines up a target placed at the explosive intersection of class, race, region and every other source of societal anguish, and then does not so much miss as aim in another direction — or several — letting fly a volley of darts that land as lightly as badminton birdies.
  15. Here Comes the Devil
    A muddled supernatural thriller that fails to capitalize on either its horrific prologue or eerie location.
  16. Vulgaria
    The film's kinky energy eventually wanes, the pileup of profanities losing its initial zing.
  17. American Autumn: an Occudoc
    As manifestoes go it is calm and smart, offsetting its stridency with discussion, music, even humor, while issuing a call to arms.
  18. Now, Forager
    This uneven, slow-brewed film begins by observing a brittle relationship about to crumble, but it is better at portraying how the exacting standards of food professionals can lead to personal grief.
  19. Bel Borba Aqui
    Bel Borba Aqui gives us plenty to look at, but not much to think about.
  20. Just 45 Minutes from Broadway
    Partly reverent, mostly sendup, Just 45 Minutes From Broadway depicts theater folk as those lovably quirky people who can't stop performing in life, for better or worse. This film might be perfect for a preteen acting camp, or anyone whose eyes have that glowing, cultlike spark of the stage-obsessed.
  21. We're the Millers
    What really drives the movie is its own search for something to make fun of, and for a comic style that can feel credibly naughty while remaining ultimately safe and affirmative.
  22. Waiting for Lightning
    In this overly sympathetic film he's a superhero without feelings, curiously bloodless except for the moment just before the China jump, when his mother presents him with his stepfather's ashes for inspiration.
  23. All Together
    If the characters are likable enough, they are underdeveloped and have little of the quirky individuality or dimension of the adventurous seniors portrayed in the superior (but sugarcoated) movie "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." For a truthful film about those final years, you'll have to wait for Michael Haneke's heartbreaking masterpiece "Amour," which is to open in December.
  24. Sassy Pants
    Once the film softens, it starts to come unglued.
  25. Sexy Baby
    This scattershot investigation of the effects of Internet pornography on female behavior only ruffles the surface of a complex issue, one that demands a much larger sample than three white, educated women.
  26. Tai Chi Zero
    Fast and mostly fun, the movie also seems compulsively too much, throwing everything it can think of at you, lest it fail to entertain.
  27. Yogawoman
    Yogawoman, with narration enunciated by the actress and yogini Annette Bening, begins with an intriguing premise: yoga, historically a practice dominated by men in India, now occupies a mat-carrying slot on women's schedules the world over. That idea remains anthemic more than analyzed, and doing yoga proves more appealing than watching a film promote it.
  28. A Man's Story
    An unsatisfying look at the London designer Ozwald Boateng, was shot over 12 years and aspires to a degree of intimacy, yet this glancing treatment is not very enlightening.
  29. Bones Brigade: An Autobiography
    Gradually becomes an echo chamber of personal dramas and exploits, not to mention propulsive soundtrack cues - all within a sport already nursing a penchant for self-documentation.
  30. Dragon
    As a whole, it does not quite work, especially at the end, when Mr. Chan tries for a Shakespearean climax of filial rebellion and paternal rage. But at its less grandiose moments, the combination of expressive acting and kinetic action pays off in ways that are likely to satisfy both novices and adepts in martial-arts fandom.
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