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. Joy
    Matching content with form, the movie is tight and merciless, even if parts play like a tract.
  2. The Fall of the American Empire
    With its galloping pace and strange criminal bedfellows, this funny and engrossing film sometimes feels like the droll capers of the Ealing studio (maker of “The Lavender Hill Mob” among other small classics). But Arcand packs in a lot of pointed social and political commentary.
  3. The Spy Behind Home Plate
    There’s much to absorb throughout “The Spy Behind Home Plate,” and sometimes details speed by too fast or digressions go on a bit long. Still, Kempner’s passion for her remarkable subject is always evident.
  4. XY Chelsea
    What’s left is a touching and tragic portrait of a vulnerable work in progress, one that for now might only be visible through a clouded lens.
  5. Domino
    De Palma can’t realize all the elaborate effects he clearly wanted (the film’s climax occurs at a bullfight that’s conspicuously not crowded). But his direction often compensates with B-movie energy, particularly when he’s able to concentrate on his perverse vision.
  6. The Russian Five
    Riehl gears his documentary more toward avid fans than casual viewers, though he nods to the human side of story.
  7. Too Late to Die Young
    Too Late to Die Young is above all an achievement in mood and implication. Sotomayor has a way of structuring scenes and composing images that makes everything perfectly clear but not obvious.
  8. Yomeddine
    Yomeddine makes its strongest impression through the direction and performances; at times, the story is rather flimsy.
  9. Echo In the Canyon
    The delight of Echo in the Canyon is in the delicious details its subjects impart.
  10. For the Birds
    Miron avoids easy conclusions about what drives Kathy, and he stays with her long enough for her story to surprise. The reward of his patience is a psychological portrait that develops mystery the more it reveals.
  11. Always Be My Maybe
    Always Be My Maybe feels a lot like a movie propped up by a stunt, a high-gloss romantic comedy so mired in triteness and unconvincing emotions that its main recommendation is the appealing diversity of its cast.
  12. The Image You Missed
    The Image You Missed is less compelling as an act of personal therapy than it is as filmed film criticism, but even if it doesn’t fully cohere, Foreman’s family stake helps keep it original.
  13. Ma
    The movie ties itself up in knots as it tries to be provocative without giving offense, and offering more complacency and comfort than terror.
  14. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
    This movie is often pretty slack in matters of story construction and direction.
  15. Rocketman
    The point of Rocketman isn’t self-aggrandizement. It’s fan service of an especially and characteristically generous kind.
  16. Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank
    This material covers a good deal of the same ground as the 2016 documentary on Frank, “Don’t Blink.” Both films give a strong “lion in winter” sense and are moving in their treatments of the tragedies of Frank’s life. If you’ve seen “Don’t Blink,” you may ask whether you “need” to see this. I’d say yes. “More light,” as Goethe put it.
  17. The Perfection
    This is a filmmaker aware of the conventions, who wields them with wit and precision and knows his audience is on the gag as well. In many ways, The Perfection amounts to little more than a bag of tricks. But no one is pretending otherwise. And they’re good tricks.
  18. Halston
    I liked the deluge of visual information and personalities. The pictures, footage, biography, news and gossip are the opposite of a Halston dress — unruly, busy, fussed over. But they come at you with an energy that feels substantial. Knowing what to do with all of that material is its own kind of intelligence. Why overthink it? Or: why show us what you’ve overthought?
  19. Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
    An informative and overdue documentary.
  20. Brightburn
    The gore and the scares work pretty well.
  21. Q Ball
    As a sales pitch for an undeniably popular program, Q Ball (filmed in 2018) builds a crescendo of hope and good will. Anyone seeking a more substantive conversation on life beyond the basket, however, will have to look elsewhere.
  22. Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation
    Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation, directed by Barak Goodman, uses the perspective of nearly 50 years’ hindsight to demonstrate anew how the festival was both a mess and a miracle, and implicitly argues that it was a good deal more miracle than mess.
  23. The Proposal
    Detailing at once an art project and a rescue mission, a love triangle and an elaborate, outlandish bargain, the movie has a surface serenity that belies its fuming emotions.
  24. Diamantino
    There are moments in which this film, written and directed by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, feels like an early Adam Sandler comedy remixed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
  25. Booksmart
    The rapid-fire, note-perfect dialogue is punctuated with moments of brilliant conceptual whimsy: animated and underwater sequences; horror-movie jump scares; immersive theater.
  26. Aladdin
    The movie itself, while not entirely terrible — a lot of craft has been purchased, and even a little art — is pointless in a particularly aggressive way.
  27. The Tomorrow Man
    The Tomorrow Man is a cloying, at times disturbing tale of two dotty seniors whose eccentricities unexpectedly mesh.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    See You Yesterday
    Although the film doesn’t sugarcoat the horrors of police brutality, it does empower C.J. to think she has invented a loophole around it. That is the dream worth cherishing.
  29. The Souvenir
    The Souvenir feels like a whispered confidence, an intimate disclosure that shouldn’t be betrayed because it isn’t really yours.
  30. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    In “Chapter 3,” the violence has been supercharged, and so has the virtuosity. At a certain point, though, the carnage becomes deadening, its consequences no more than soulless tableaus of damage that encourage disengagement.
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