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. Unicorn Store
    The message here is that there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for adulthood, but the film doesn’t bear it out.
  2. Dear Dictator
    Simultaneously preposterous and dull, Dear Dictator is the kind of movie where music and wardrobe choices — like the mean girls’ stridently visible underwear — substitute for character.
  3. American Animals
    The film, written and directed by Bart Layton, can’t quite decide what it wants to be: a slick, speedy caper; a goofball comedy; or a commentary on the state of the American soul. It’s none of those — a tame and toothless creature that is neither fish nor fowl.
  4. Padmaavat
    Mr. Bhansali is painting with a broad brush.
  5. Double Indemnity
    Such folks as delight in murder stories for their academic elegance alone should find this one steadily diverting, despite its monotonous pace and length...But the very toughness of the picture is also the weakness of its core, and the academic nature of its plotting limits its general appeal.
  6. Above & Beyond Acoustic: Giving Up the Day Job
    The movie, directed by Myles Desenberg and Paul Dugdale, frequently counts down to the Hollywood Bowl show as it chronicles rehearsals and other tour stops, but there’s no real suspense, because the footage from that show is interspersed throughout the movie from the very beginning.
  7. All I Wish
    Both sartorially and cinematically, the seasoned star at the heart of All I Wish deserves a movie with more to offer than knockoff style.
  8. Cannonball Run II
    The fact that Cannonball Run II isn't much good may not prevent it from becoming this summer's best- loved lowest-common-denominator comedy, if only because of the utter absence of any competition.
  9. Shag
    Long before the film is over, one is left frustratedly grasping after characters and an ambiance that have evaporated into formulaic freneticism.
  10. Uncle Drew
    It’s not every day that you can say, “Shaquille O’Neal was the best actor in that movie.” And yet that may well be true in the case of Uncle Drew, a genuinely unusual exercise in screen comedy.
  11. Steel Magnolias
    Steel Magnolias is pop entertainment of an especially condescending, superficial sort. Its bitchiness and greeting-card truisms are made no more palatable by the fact that Mr. Harling probably wrote it with as much sincerity and passion as Mr. Shepard put into "Fool for Love."
  12. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
    Miss Applegate is charming when the screenplay allows her to slow down. Working against her is the director, Stephen Herek, who pushes every gag so hard and fast that he seems to be keeping up with a laugh track only he can hear.
  13. Death on the Nile
    Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh’s second adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories, forgets the simple pleasures of ensemble excess and pure messing about.
  14. Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town
    Watching Izzy’s frenzied pratfalls often feels like watching a documentary of Ms. Davis — always great — running a hamster wheel that powers uninspired comic material.
  15. Who's Harry Crumb?
    In Who's Harry Crumb? Mr. Candy has a varied role, a good supporting cast, a script full of comic setups and every imaginable opportunity to shine. But the result is little more than a weak comedy, one that suggests Mr. Candy is potentially a great deal better than his material.
  16. Dark Crimes
    A good story gets stuck in a puddle of mood in Dark Crimes, a film that strays from its fascinating source — a real-life murder case — into a less successful attempt at noir.
  17. The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter
    One wonders why “Whitetail Deer Hunter” chose such a relatively toothless route, but one doesn’t wonder too long, as it’s the kind of movie you forget about 20 minutes after seeing it.
  18. Strangers on the Earth
    The sensations that Strangers on the Earth means to evoke are not well suited to the cinematic medium, at least not to a documentary that barely runs more than an hour and a half.
  19. Once Upon a Time in America
    It's a collection of occasionally vivid but mostly unfathomable incidents in which people are introduced and then disappear with the unexplained suddenness of victims of mob murders. [U.S. theatrical release]
  20. Valley Girl
    The characters and their jargon are occasionally amusing, but there's no action, no conflict, no overwhelming satire and nothing to jolt them out of their lethargy.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th Part 2
    FRIDAY the 13th Part II will frighten you, at least for moments, although it will be a close-run thing whether it will be fright, nausea or simple distaste that gets to you first. The movie exists for no other purpose than to shock. The plot is an excuse for joining together horrors, all of the sado-masochist kind, and the acting is rudimentary at best. It probably will make a fortune. [4 May 1981, p.C1]
    • The New York Times
  22. St. Elmo's Fire
    St. Elmo's Fire is most appealing when it simply gives the actors a chance to flirt with the camera, and with one another. When it attempts to take seriously the problems of characters who are spoiled, affluent and unbearably smug, it becomes considerably less attractive.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Commando
    Two-thirds of this 90-minute film is mayhem unrelieved by humor and untouched by humanity.
  24. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
    While not exactly an actress picture, The Final Chapter takes pains to make its characters a little more personable than the horror- movie norm. This is unfortunate, since there is nothing to do during the second half of the film but watch them die.
  25. Fireworks
    The unrealized potential makes the rote line style and stagnant backdrops seem all the blander.
  26. Boundaries
    Self-satisfied and too slick by half, Boundaries projects a sheen of artifice that deflects any genuine engagement with the story.
  27. Meatballs
    With far fewer high spirits than “Animal House,” and only two characters of any interest, Meatballs reveals itself to be a loud, offkey cry for conformism of a most disappointing sort. It's a sheep in wolf's clothing.
  28. For a Few Dollars More
    The fact that this film is constructed to endorse the exercise of murderers, to emphasize killer bravado and generate glee in frantic manifestations of death is, to my mind, a sharp indictment of it as so-called entertainment in this day.
  29. ...and justice for all.
    With the exception of Mr. Strasberg and Mr. Levene, the actors are as hysterical as their material. The screenplay has one funny exchange. Other than that, the screenplay and the direction are a complete muddle.
  30. Krystal
    At 93 minutes Krystal feels chaotic and thin, like a pilot that was also forced to be a series finale.
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