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. Two Men in Town
    The desert landscapes are gorgeously shot by Yves Cape, but Two Men in Town never seems to fully inhabit its setting. Nor does the schematic, occasionally clumsy story do justice to the skills of the cast.
  2. Boy Meets Girl
    Placing sex and gender identity at the center of almost every conversation, the writer and director, Eric Schaeffer, is so keen to demythologize that the film’s potentially most affecting moments are too often smothered by the hackneyed characters and setups that surround them.
  3. Beyond the Reach
    Any wilderness ordeal has to help some character clarify something, and for Ben it’s his relationship with his girlfriend (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence), which gives the film a modest side interest. But mostly this one is for fans of desert scenery and of Mr. Douglas in cranky, crazy mode.
  4. Last Knights
    Its cast aside, Last Knights proves as square and blandly manly as an old “Prince Valiant” comic strip. Mr. Owen’s hairdo and the faint smile edging his lips are more fetching than anything about Val, and the movie’s violence is more explicit than in most vintage comics, but “Knights” also works by combining narrative simplicity with moral certitude and appealing graphics.
  5. Cut Bank
    It is up to its fine cast to build what little sense of mystery is conjured and to bring a sense of coherence to a narrative mishmash that is all smirking attitude with no subtext. Think of it as a goof.
  6. Farewell to Hollywood
    Farewell to Hollywood is moving yet queasily unsettling, even if Ms. Nicholson’s enthusiasm mitigates the veneer of exploitation. Watching it feels like judging a last will and testament. The movie is an intimate dialogue from which viewers may prefer to recuse themselves.
  7. Alex of Venice
    What’s missing here is the sting of revelation, something less comforting than the story’s melodramatic turns and more worthy of Ms. Winstead’s performance, which is as natural as life.
  8. Champs
    Now and then this documentary by Bert Marcus rises above mere promotion, leaving you wishing it had tackled the sport’s difficult questions in more depth.
  9. Backcountry
    Mr. MacDonald’s ability to notch up dread moment by moment — with a rustle of leaves, the snap of a twig — is all the more impressive given that it takes a while to warm up to the two souls he cuts loose in those woods.
  10. The Dead Lands
    As it dives into this infrequently depicted culture, Mr. Fraser’s film is caught shuttling uneasily between speeches and action.
  11. The Mafia Only Kills in Summer
    The swings from goofy to gory and jokey to tragic cancel one another out, and Mr. Diliberto’s near-constant voice-over is irksome. As is the pivotal romance.
  12. Zombeavers
    An intermittently diverting stew of low-budget effects and potty-mouth humor.
  13. Lost and Love
    Lost and Love (“Lost Orphan” in the original Chinese title) confronts serious problems but is too busy reaching for epic sweep and soaring moments to nail the fine detail of main characters’ fraught give-and-take.
  14. She's Lost Control
    She’s Lost Control sustains a mood of deepening alienation, but the attitude of the movie is too detached for it to be emotionally gripping, and its ending is botched.
  15. The Boy
    It still has enough scary moments to satisfy horror fans, but you’re left wondering whether it might have been more disturbing had it stayed on its original path.
  16. Hyena
    The strongest elements of this film, which adds nothing new to the subgenre, are its atmospheric, smeared-lipstick cinematography and Mr. Ferdinando’s portrayal of an arrogant, double-dealing crook.
  17. Earth's Golden Playground
    Mr. Horvath’s procedural, increasingly dry documentary takes the “rush” out of “gold rush.”
  18. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
    Plots and subplots are handled with clumsy expediency, and themes that might connect this movie with the larger Lucasfilm mythos aren’t allowed to develop. You’re left wanting both more and less.
  19. Adult Beginners
    The three leads remain watchable, but only the sourness in Jake’s face when he moves into Justine’s house hints at the kind of true and complex emotions that, bromide by bromide, this movie insistently denies.
  20. My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes
    The director, Oren Jacoby, who made the Oscar-nominated short “Sister Rose’s Passion” and the feature “Constantine’s Sword,” doesn’t give My Italian Secret much structural or chronological organization. The anecdotal presentation sometimes seems more suited for museum browsing than for viewing in a theater.
  21. Burnt
    What follows is a decently structured story of personal demons and culinary competition, with a couple of nice twists thrown in, but it’s built with materials that at this point in the life cycle of this genre are mighty shopworn.
  22. Dior and I
    There are some amusing moments, to be sure, and some touching ones as well, but the film is less interested in ideas or emotions than in illusions. It produces an aura of suspense without a sense of real risk, and offers devotees of fashion an appealing, shallow fantasy of inside knowledge.
  23. The Forecaster
    The Forecaster has the distinct hermetic feel of a documentary that employs an echo chamber of people too close to the material.
  24. Preggoland
    The movie’s flaw is that it mixes tones. Ruth, her relatives and her fellow workers are realistically played, but her gal-pal buddies are caricatures.
  25. Ardor
    This slow-paced, cut-to-the-bone drama ought to be gripping, especially as the jungle and its beasts make their presence felt. But curiously, Ardor lacks tension, maybe because the actors are playing archetypes: Little is said, and there are few surprises.
  26. In Country
    Are these re-enactors really as clueless as they seem, or is the portrait just incomplete? It’s impossible to tell from this too-sparse film.
  27. In the Courtyard
    Falling back repeatedly on in-your-face symbolism — especially with regard to the specter of decline — Mr. Salvadori seems content to idle in neutral.
  28. Below Dreams
    Ms. Bradley’s debut feature flutters along with inoffensive lyricism and a kindly eye, but it’s not enough to bring off a full-fledged portrayal that holds together.
  29. The Great Museum
    The Great Museum, in comparison, feels like a cursory guided tour.
  30. Youth
    The problem with Youth is not that it’s empty — the accusation Kael and others lodged against Mr. Sorrentino’s precursors — but that it’s small. Its imagination feels shrunken and secondhand, in spite of the gorgeous vistas and beautiful naked women. Or actually, because of them.
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