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. Ladder 49
    What makes this nonsense more galling than usual is that while Ladder 49 might have started out as a heartfelt attempt to honor those in the line of literal fire, it weighs in as an attempt to exploit their post-Sept. 11 symbolism.
  2. National Treasure
    If National Treasure mattered at all, you might call it a national disgrace, but this piece of flotsam is so inconsequential that it amounts to little more than a piece of Hollywood accounting.
  3. Say It Isn't So
    All you really need to know about Say It Isn't So,the latest flatulent noisemaker from the Farrelly Brothers' gross-out comedy factory, is that late in the movie, Chris Klein punches a cow from behind and finds his arm stuck inside.
  4. The Life: What's Your Pleasure?
    A tedious, not-at-all titillating exploitation film.
  5. Garfield
    That Garfield speaks in the supercilious, world-weary drawl of Bill Murray is some small consolation, as are a few of the animal tricks.
  6. Love Actually
    A patchwork of contrived naughtiness and forced pathos...The loose ends are neatly tied up, as they are when you seal a bag of garbage -- or if you prefer, rubbish.
  7. Swept Away
    There is no credible feeling here, no comedy, no eroticism.
  8. Spawn
    But after 15 minutes, this yellow-orange vision of spiraling circles of hell, snorting devils and demonic shapes continually morphing out of one another, begins to seem redundant and conceptually impoverished.
  9. Unconstitutional
    Use experts and eyewitnesses to less rousing effect than Michael Moore has. Sometimes their arguments inspire unintended doubts about the alleged abuses.
  10. Staying Alive
    This one is clumsy, mean spirited and amazingly unmusical.
  11. The Outsiders
    It is spectacularly out of touch, a laughably earnest attempt to impose heroic attitudes on some nice, small characters purloined from a ''young-adult'' novel by S.E. Hinton, the woman who wrote the novel on which ''Tex'' was based.
  12. Cocktail
    Cocktail, which opens today at the Cinema 2 and other theaters, is ''Saturday Night Fever'' without John Travolta, the Bee-Gees and dancing. It is an inane romantic drama that only a very young, very naive bartender could love. How it got that way is difficult to understand.
  13. Harlem Nights
    Harlem Nights is not the disaster some people might have been expecting. Mr. Murphy has appeared in far worse films written and directed by people much more experienced.
  14. Russian Doll
    Blends the least of Woody Allen with a plot complication out of "Love, American Style," stuck together with sitcom glue.
  15. Ouch
    "Ouch!" is also what you might exclaim as you pinch yourself to stay awake through the film's slow, labored contrivances.
  16. Miss Wonton
    The director has fallen into the common first-timer's trap of biting off more than he can chew, stitching together an unwieldy, disorganized story out of subplots and flashbacks, without paying enough attention to the basic requirements of character and narrative.
  17. Group
    It is all a contrivance; the cast and filmmakers were under the delusion that putting unhappy women in a room would lead to drama.
  18. Emerald Cowboy
    Though Mr. Hayata seems convinced that he is a colorful, romantic figure, the movie itself is crushingly mundane and unlikely to attract any audience beyond close relatives.
  19. Jersey Guy
    Monotonously paced and too long, Jersey Guy also suffers in its early scenes from attempts at humor that probably read better on the page than they play on the screen.
  20. Alma
    Begins to seem not so much an examination but an exploitation.
  21. Bob, Verushka & the Pursuit of Happiness
    A cross-cultural clunker.
  22. Straight-Jacket
    Played in a loud sketch-comedy style that might be described as "Gay Mad TV." The haranguing, badly acted farce wears out its comic welcome within half an hour.
  23. A Hole in My Heart
    Mr. Moodysson may believe that he can stick it to the audience politically by sticking it to his characters. But like most film directors who commit to this strategy, his tactics come across as both naïve and wildly self-indulgent, while his fascination with the spectacle of the corrupt and the cruel is simply tedious.
  24. Walking on the Sky
    A modern-day "Big Chill" wannabe without the subtlety, humor, memorable soundtrack, strong performances or convincing dialogue.
  25. The Rodnees: We Mod Like Dat!
    Messy, unfunny and unforgivably dull.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Boy Who Cried Bitch: The Adolescent Years
    The film is so clumsily written and directed, and the performances so one-note, that any potential for enlightenment is suffocated.
    • 18 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Miriam
    The title role is played by Ariana Savalas, daughter of Telly. She's good, but not inventive enough to rescue Miriam, which is hobbled by flatly lighted video imagery, unconvincing period details and an inclination to wallow in atrocity.
  28. Funny Games (2008)
    The film calls attention to its own artificial status. It actually knows it’s a movie! What a clever, tricky game! What fun! What a fraud.
  29. The Dukes
    Plods along in its sloppy, joshing way, it tastes like pasta sauce that has sat on the shelf long after the expiration date on the can.
  30. Let Them Chirp Awhile
    This sort of thing was indulgent enough the first time around; transplanted to the mumblecore milieu, it's intolerable.
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