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. Tender Mercies
    Tender Mercies has a bleak handsomeness bordering on the arty, but it also has real delicacy and emotional power, both largely attributable to a fine performance by Robert Duvall.
  2. The Elephant Man
    What we eventually see underneath this shell is not the study in dignity that Ashley Montagu wrote about, but something far more poignant, a study in genteelness that somehow supressed all rage. That is the quality that illuminates this film and makes it far more fascinating than it would be were it merely a portrait of a dignified freak. [03 Oct 1980, p.C8]
    • The New York Times
  3. The World Before Your Feet
    Short of walking with Green, a film is an ideal way to share in his knowledge. And after watching The World Before Your Feet, it’s difficult to look at the city the same way.
  4. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
    The resulting film is moving, charming and sad, a tribute to Ms. Briski's indomitability and to the irrepressible creative spirits of the children themselves.
  5. Putty Hill
    Putty Hill doesn't strive for overt social commentary. It drops you into a world that the director, who grew up in the area, knows firsthand: a suburban fringe of stasis, downward mobility and lowered expectations.
  6. Breathe
    Breathe conveys an uncanny insight into the psychology of late adolescence, when lingering childhood fantasies can combust with burgeoning adult sexuality in a swirl of uncontrollable feelings.
  7. The Freshman
    The visual style of The Freshman isn't always up to its verbal wit, but then the writing sets an exceptional standard.
  8. John Wick: Chapter 4
    There is simply and once again Reeves, the axis who centers this franchise with his grave sincerity, beatific glow and mesmerizing, rooted fighting style, with its heavy-footed solidity and surprising suppleness. No matter what happens, nothing ever feels as poignantly at stake here as Reeves’s own ravaged, beautiful, aging body.
  9. We Met in Virtual Reality
    Hunting’s documentary catches up with where many people are finding their dreams realized, and understands that sometimes the dream is simply to be yourself.
  10. Enys Men
    At times, Jenkin’s bold, experimental style can perplex; but his vision is so unwavering and beholden to local history that his message is clear: On Enys Men, the earth remembers what the sea has taken.
  11. Foreign Parts
    People talk but don't say too much, and as curious and thorough as Ms. Paravel and Mr. Sniadecki are - Foreign Parts is the result of many months of patient filming - they are too polite to pry. But their tact adds to the richness of their film, which discovers a busy, complicated world within the space of few unlovely city blocks.
  12. Clash
    Clash turns into a full-fledged horror movie, albeit one without the fake comfort of a supernatural or science-fiction pretext. It’s just man’s inhumanity to man, in full sway.
  13. Number 37
    Cheerfully derivative yet doggedly entertaining, Number 37 benefits from Dumisa’s slick execution and impressive acting by her small cast.
  14. The Grief of Others
    It’s an artful portrait of a world that refuses the order we try to impose on it when we close ourselves off to heartache, doubt and pain.
  15. Shuffle
    While some institutions are legitimate, Shuffle, a shocking and confounding new documentary directed by Benjamin Flaherty, lays out in painstaking detail the collusion between moneymaking rehab treatment centers, double-dealing insurance entities and predatory social-media “scouts” who make sure cash flows into corporate pockets while the sick and suffering never get well.
  16. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
    With immense perceptiveness, Neville shows us both the empath and the narcissist: The man who refused to turn the suffering he saw in war zones into a bland televisual package, and the one who would betray longtime colleagues to please a new lover.
  17. The Color Purple
    Some parts of it are rapturous and stirring, others hugely improbable, and the film moves unpredictably from one mode to another. From another director, this might be fatally confusing, but Mr. Spielberg's showmanship is still with him. Although the combination of his sensibilities and Miss Walker's amounts to a colossal mismatch, Mr. Spielberg's ''Color Purple'' manages to have momentum, warmth and staying power all the same.
  18. Amanda Knox
    The directors, Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst, have produced a tightly edited, coherently structured and ultimately moving reassessment that burrows beneath the lurid in search of the illuminating.
  19. Becoming Bulletproof
    While the scenes shown from “Bulletproof,” the western they complete, are haphazard, that’s of little concern. If you want to see real courage, it’s not in that movie anyway. It’s in this documentary.
  20. Queens of the Qing Dynasty
    McKenzie doesn’t rely on the usual uplifting messaging and strained empowerment arc to humanize An and Star . . . Their friendship remains mysterious, yet the film, as if by witchcraft, makes their connection feel palpable and true.
  21. High Flying Bird
    The intellectual virtuosity on display is somehow both ostentatious and casual. The performances — Holland’s in particular, full of sadness, guile and audacity — feel the same way.
  22. The Humans
    The confessions and tensions are commonplace, but The Humans is never less than high on the terrible power of the mundane.
  23. The Card Counter
    The solitary man returns in The Card Counter, a haunting, moving story of spirit and flesh, sin and redemption, love and death about another lonely soul, William Tell, who, with pen to paper, grapples with his present and his unspeakable past.
  24. Beatles '64
    Watching the band in the Plaza Hotel and fans in the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of their idols, you can’t help but get swept up in a 60-year-old fervor.
  25. Near Dark
    You might call this the scattershot school of film making... The result of being pushed and pulled through the confusing styles of Near Dark is simple exhaustion.
  26. Babette's Feast
    All of this is by way of being the prelude to the film's extended, funny and moving final sequence, a spectacular feast, the preparation and execution of which reveal Babette's secret and the nature of her sustaining glory.
  27. 5 Broken Cameras
    5 Broken Cameras deserves to be appreciated for the lyrical delicacy of his voice and the precision of his eye. That it is almost possible to look at the film this way - to foresee a time when it might be understood, above all, as a film - may be the only concrete hope Mr. Burnat and Mr. Davidi have to offer.
  28. One of Us
    As a documentary, One of Us is a small act of portraiture, but each portrait captures the pain of having a life upended.
  29. How to Draw a Bunny
    An intriguing and entertaining introduction to Johnson through his varied art; the mystery surrounding his death, which may have been his final performance piece, and the reminiscences of contemporaries.
  30. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
    The film they have put together is dense with sound and information, but it moves with a swift, lilting rhythm that is of a piece with the musical heritage it explores.
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