The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,280 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: 9,381 out of 20280
  2. Mixed: 8,435 out of 20280
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20280
20280 movie reviews
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  1. The Package
    The Package is a feeble attempt to keep the old-fashioned cold-war thriller alive in this era of glasnost...Mr. Davis has directed what may be the worst movie Gene Hackman has ever made.
  2. Millennium
    The movie is so inept in almost every particular that even its love scenes, when a grimacing Kris Kristofferson mashes his grizzled face against an impassive Cheryl Ladd, are likely to produce giggles.
  3. The Adventures of Milo and Otis
    The wonder of Mr. Hata's anthropomorphic fairy tale, which opens today at Cinema 3 and other theaters, is that it is cast with real animals who seem to share deep affection. And the mixture of realism and fantasy lends this children's film a poignancy that cuts much deeper than might a similar story featuring animated characters. [25 Aug 1989, p.10]
  4. Let It Ride
    The movie is so witless and confused in tone that its seedy racetrack clientele only emerge as dim, inarticulate cartoons.
  5. Casualties of War
    Mr. Penn plays Meserve with terrific elan. There is plausibility in every movement and gesture, and especially in his crafty handsomeness. His Meserve is the sort of man one credits with thoughts when the mind may, in fact, be completely blank.
  6. Uncle Buck
    Sometimes funny and, in the way of small-screen entertainment, so perfectly predictable that one could mail in the laughs.
  7. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
    Though the film hints at psychological intrigue, it never moves beyond the limits of its genre.
  8. sex, lies, and videotape
    Astonishing... One of the freshest American films of the decade. [4 Aug 1989]
    • The New York Times
  9. Parenthood
    Ron Howard's bittersweet adult comedy, Parenthood, lays out an entire catalogue of psychological stresses afflicting family life in white middle-class America, then asks if the rewards of being a parent are worth all the agony.
  10. Kiki's Delivery Service
    A conventional but delightful tale of self-discovery and heroism from Mr. Miyazaki, it feels like Disney one moment, Truffaut the next.
  11. Turner & Hooch
    It isn't [Hanks's] fault that the five writers don't come up with five funny lines or one exciting scene.
  12. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
    But (Jason) will never change and never die, not while cheap, dull ax-murder movies can yield one witty, misleading, probably lucrative commercial.
  13. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
    The movie remains one of the most startling and moving animated films ever. It is also, with the likes of “The 400 Blows,” “Kes,” and “Vagabond,” one of the finest films about being young in an indifferent world.
  14. UHF
    The movie is forever digressing so that Mr. Yankovic can offer media spoofs that have only the most tangential relation to the story. [22 Jul 1989, p.1.15]
    • The New York Times
  15. Shag
    Long before the film is over, one is left frustratedly grasping after characters and an ambiance that have evaporated into formulaic freneticism.
  16. Licence to Kill
    For all its clever updatings, stylish action and witty escapism, Licence to Kill is still a little too much by the book. Mr. Dalton is perfectly at home as an angry Bond, and as a romantic lead and as an action hero, but he never seems to blend any two of those qualities at once.
  17. When Harry Met Sally...
    Like the sitcom version of a Woody Allen film, full of amusing lines and scenes, all infused with an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.
  18. Lethal Weapon 2
    Before it skids out of control in the final sequence, the film is so careful to preserve its successful comic-action formula that it follows the most basic law of sequels. If you liked ''Lethal Weapon,'' you'll like Lethal Weapon 2; it's almost as simple as that.
  19. Do the Right Thing
    A remarkable piece of work. [30 June 1989]
    • The New York Times
  20. Twister
    The trip, however, is well worth the effort for anyone whose sensibilities have been worn numb by the idiocies of most conventional films.
  21. The Karate Kid Part III
    With its sluggish script and unaging characters, The Karate Kid Part III has the rote sense of film makers trying to crank out another moneymaker.
  22. Great Balls of Fire!
    Anyone looking for a true sense of his importance in the history of rock-and-roll will be let down by Great Balls of Fire. But though the film may skimp on the truth, it is loaded with terrific music and outrageous fun.
  23. Batman
    It's neither funny nor solemn. It has the personality not of a particular movie but of a product, of something arrived at by corporate decision.
  24. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
    The director, Joe Johnston, paces this adventure to suit the film's tone. It is swift and smooth, never wild or raucous.
  25. Ghostbusters II
    Even the special effects are more to the point of the comedy than they were in the first film. For some reason, this appears to leave more room for the sort of random funny business that Mr. Murray and his friends do best, or to which they react with most aplomb.
  26. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
    Captain Kirk and his crew go where too many film makers have too often gone before.
  27. Vampire's Kiss
    The film is dominated and destroyed by Mr. Cage's chaotic, self-indulgent performance. He gives Peter the kind of sporadic, exaggerated mannerisms that should never live outside of acting-class exercises.
  28. No Holds Barred
    More than Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Hogan behaves like a self-invented comic-book character sprung to life. No Holds Barred is as cartoonish as its star.
  29. Renegades
    With a little more wit and a little less blood, Renegades could have been Lethal Weapon Jr. It is a fast, violent, implausible film about mismatched partners, and though it doesn't exactly break the bounds of its trashy genre, it's not at all bad for what it is.
  30. Pink Cadillac
    It is the laziest sort of action comedy, with lumbering chase scenes, a dull-witted script and the charmless pairing of Mr. Eastwood and Bernadette Peters.
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