The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,313 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: 9,401 out of 20313
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20313
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20313
20313 movie reviews
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  1. Schizopolis
    It winds up illustrating the very emptiness it mocks.
  2. Mrs. Winterbourne
    But the film, written by Phoef Sutton and Lisa-Maria Radano and directed by Richard Benjamin in a style cute enough to peel paint off the walls, can't do much to generate romantic sparks between its two young leads.
  3. The Last Emperor
    The Last Emperor is like an elegant travel brochure. It piques the curiosity. One wants to go. Ultimately it's a let-down.
  4. Truly Madly Deeply
    Truly, Madly, Deeply should be enchanting, but it isn't. Everyone pushes too hard, especially Mr. Minghella, the writer and director. There are a few amusing lines and a lot of terrible ones, including Nina's overwrought response, early in the film, when her sister wants to borrow Jamie's cello: "It's like asking me to give you his body!"
  5. White Nights
    White Nights is only tolerable when Mr. Baryshnikov is on screen, especially when he is dancing alone or with Mr. Hines, with whom he does a couple of ballet-tap numbers that are of an order of excellence that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
  6. French Kiss
    French Kiss may have a more putatively foolproof formula, but everyone here has done vastly more interesting work. Too much gets lost in translation.
  7. Something Wild
    Something Wild is often "Something Wrong."
  8. High Heels
    High Heels has no real mirth and not even enough energy to keep it lively.
  9. Flashdance
    With a score by Giorgio Moroder, and with ingenious costumes that are utterly au courant, Flashdance contains such dynamic dance scenes that it's a pity there's a story here to bog them down.
  10. The Mosquito Coast
    In spite of its authentic scenery (it was filmed in Belize), this Mosquito Coast is utterly flat.
  11. Disclosure
    The storytelling of Disclosure is too forced and polemical to be on a par with better Crichton tales like "Jurassic Park." This time, it's the author who's the dinosaur.
  12. The Doors
    It is made by a Morrison groupie for other groupies, a film that leaves the rest of us locked outside wondering what the fuss is about.
  13. Tequila Sunrise
    The movie has the fuzzy focus of someone who has stared too long at a light bulb. Narrative points aren't made and the wrong points are emphasized. It could also be that too much footage was shot so that, when the time came for editing, a lot of essential material had to be cut out.
  14. Look Who's Talking
    Cute is the operative word for the movie, which stars some good actors doing material that is not super.
  15. Kalifornia
    Kalifornia, which was written by Tim Metcalfe, lets its stars overact to the rafters as it vacillates between wild pretentiousness and occasional high style.
  16. The Black Stallion Returns
    It is funny, unpretentious and fast-paced. It has a kind of comicbook appreciation for direct action and no time whatsoever for mysticism or for scenery for its own sake, though most of it was shot in Morocco and is fun to look at.
  17. Clue
    there is so little genuine wit to be found in ''Clue.'' The film does have a speedy pace, but that could hardly be confused with Mr. Hawks's madcap humor; instead, it involves a lot of running around through secret passages, and some slapstick routines involving dead bodies. The actors are meant to function as an ensemble, but that merely means that they often repeat the same line simultaneously.
  18. The A-Team
    The obstacle that the director Joe Carnahan and his colleagues failed to clear was finding the right self-mocking tone for a movie that was, by the looks of it, too expensive to risk real laughs.
  19. Piranha 3-D
    The entertainment formula behind this short and nasty movie - devised according to someone's idea of what teenage boys with the guile, the facial hair or the "guardian" to gain admission to an R-rated movie are likely to enjoy - is sloppy and simple.
  20. Marmaduke
    These cinematic feats are accomplished with meat-cleaver editing and awkward, jittery computer-generated imagery. The well-cast voices for the expressionless animals are at least good for a few smirks.
  21. Survival of the Dead
    Placidly photographed and lacking in urgency, "Survival" shows us the living flailing at fate and the dead just flailing.
  22. Butterfly
    While instructive on environmental concerns about the impact of logging, Butterfly does not reward those who seek dispassionate psychological insight into the zealous Ms. Hill.
  23. Milan Hlavsa a Plastic People of the Universe
    In short, here is a VH1 "Behind the Music" special that has something a little more special behind it: music that didn't sell many records but helped change a nation.
  24. Diario di una siciliana ribelle
    Loaded down with rhetorical devices -- writer and director, Marco Amenta, drowns it in a flood of sentimental effusions.
  25. Diamonds and Rust
    A film that chugs along as listlessly as the ship itself, discovering moments of value in a sea of ennui.
  26. Dreaming of Joseph Lees
    Tells its glumly bodice-ripping tale with somber sensitivity.
  27. Into My Heart
    Dreary.
  28. Some Body
    A shaky, uncertain film that nevertheless touches a few raw nerves.
  29. Garmento
    Although Garmento exhibits a flailing comic energy, its eagerness to condemn everything about Seventh Avenue, along with its sub-par acting and a choppy narrative style that finally runs amok, lends it a tone of hysterical finger-pointing.
  30. Echoes
    Has a strained, unconvincing screenplay whose failure to connect the dots of its story suggests that it might have been largely improvised.
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