The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,324 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: 9,408 out of 20324
  2. Mixed: 8,449 out of 20324
  3. Negative: 2,467 out of 20324
20324 movie reviews
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  1. Muppets from Space
    Instead of sending up their cinematic sources, the creators of Muppets From Space rely too much on this spent screen fuel. Frenetic movement and loud music overwhelm warmth and compassion, and the balance of character, plot, irreverent humor and innate decency that made some of the earlier Muppet movies so welcome is lost.
  2. Casino Royale
    If it were stopped at the end of an hour and 40 minutes instead of at the end of 2 hours and 10 minutes, it might be a terminally satisfying entertainment instead of the wearying one it is.
  3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
    If the Turtles insist on remaining a mainstream box-office attraction, at least they've now had the decency to make a mainstream movie.
  4. Angel Heart
    Mr. Parker is an eclectic film maker. He seems to have no readily identifiable obsessions that define supposedly more serious directors. He's a very able technician who needs a good screenplay, which is what's missing here.
  5. Cielo
    Ms. McAlpine’s purple musings in voice-over (“the stars tell me to go on a journey in this desert”), and the decision not to identify subjects formally until the closing credits, give the film an unnecessary fuzziness.
  6. Shine
    A big heart and a blunt plot run through Shine, a movie whose story is there mostly just to usher in a dance sequence or an earnest speech.
  7. Jungle 2 Jungle
    Jungle 2 Jungle' still finds time to appreciate Mr. Allen's easy way with a child actor, an audience or a heavily tranquilized pet cat.
  8. Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
    The Kids in the Hall's first feature isn't anything more than a sloppy showcase for the group's costume-changing tricks, but sometimes its sheer chutzpah can be amusing. Just as often, flashes of complete plot incoherence or atrocious taste spoil the effect.
  9. Father of the Year
    I admit, I laughed. I was also charmed by Bridgit Mendler as Meredith, Ben’s feisty hometown love interest.
  10. Pure Luck
    Martin Short can do anything, it seems, except find the right movies to star in.
  11. McHale's Navy
    Leaky PT boat of a comedy, descended from the television series.
  12. Love Affair
    Cary Grant's shoes aren't fillable, but Mr. Beatty could have come closer if Love Affair had given him half a chance.
  13. The Wild Boys
    It’s hard to untangle the film’s many bizarre indulgences, which at times seem intended to titillate as much as disturb, and yet somehow do neither. It’s all a bit too ludicrous to be sensuous or unsettling, or ultimately all that insightful.
  14. Life Stinks
    Even more dispiriting than the film's silly moments are its pious ones. Only at rare moments does Life Stinks offer much in the way of surprise or grace.
  15. The Indian in the Cupboard
    With its long silences washed over by banal, overused music, The Indian in the Cupboard is best watched for its ingenious tricks of scale and for an invitingly peaceful look. [14 July 1995, p.C3]
    • The New York Times
  16. Of Unknown Origin
    The comic possibilities of this are generally ignored in Brian Taggert's screenplay and the direction of George P. Cosmatos, which features about as many shots from the point of view of the rat as of Bart Hughes.
  17. Forever Mine
    Everyone on screen is relentlessly gloomy, as if parched for a drop of wit, which isn't forthcoming.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The House That Dripped Blood
    Moves in many directions, but never too far from the mechanics of the high school play.
  19. Paper Moon
    Peter Bogdanovich and his screenwriter, Alvin Sargent, who adapted Joe David Brown's novel, have set out to make a bittersweet comedy that is both in the style of thirties movies and about the thirties. They evoke the time (1936) and the place (rural Kansas and Missouri) so convincingly that their rather sweet formula story seems completely inadequate, even fraudulent.
  20. Bayou Caviar
    Like a boxer who doesn’t know when to quit, Bayou Caviar goes on a bit long, then rallies — in this case with an agreeably cynical closing image.
  21. The Lords of Flatbush
    This study of the growing pains of the leather jacket‐bobby soxer Brooklyn high school set of 1957 is, by turns, cheerful, confused, juvenile and never fully realized.
  22. Gleaming the Cube
    Gleaming the Cube (the title refers to achieving the skateboarding equivalent of cosmic bliss) has an intrigue plot that is unremarkable, and it doesn't do anything terribly novel with the relationship between Brian and the policeman (Steven Bauer) who helps investigate the case. It becomes somewhat more interesting in exploring the Vietnamese community of Orange County, Calif., especially in its tinier details.
  23. The Little Drummer Girl
    What the film demonstrates most obviously is that when there is this much plot on the screen, there isn't time for actors to develop anything much in the way of plausibility of characterization.
  24. Young Guns II
    Young Guns II concentrates principally on the drawing power of the post-adolescent heartthrobs in its cast. This approach has its appeal in limited doses, but it makes for a western that's smaller than life.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Shootist
    Mr. Siegel's lack of form and fidelity to his own story means that as the movie proceeds, even those things that are charming turn to lead.
  26. Trouble
    Trouble makes a whole lot of noise without saying very much. The direction is wooden and the cinematography dull, leaving the solid cast (including Julia Stiles as a daffy clerk and Jim Parrack as her knuckle-dragging boyfriend) to shoulder the weight.
  27. King of Thieves
    For all its flaws — and they are legion — King of Thieves wraps you in a fuzzy blanket of familiarity.
  28. Shampoo
    In Shampoo Ashby shows that he has a good memory for a couple of decades of cinematic clichés. He gives us an unnecessary motor race and some obligatory slow motion, but he misses most of the opportunities offered him.
  29. Lookin' to Get Out
    Lookin' to Get Out is not as bad as Mr. Ashby's Second Hand Hearts though, like that film, it is a showcase in which excellent actors are allowed to make fools of themselves.
  30. The Public
    Most egregiously, Gabrielle Union plays a TV news reporter determined to portray the protest as a hostage situation. At the film’s nadir, Stuart, on the phone with her during a broadcast, stops making his case and begins quoting from “The Grapes of Wrath.”
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