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. Outlaws
    Oppressively mirthless, Outlaws can nevertheless be enjoyed, after a fashion, as a surreal tapestry of macho garbling.
  2. Braid
    Peirone’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink directing does tend to head butt her thin writing, but the movie eventually coalesces as a sly, bitter parable against chasing-your-dreams optimism.
  3. Arctic
    Arctic has the courage to avoid obvious payoffs.
  4. Miss Bala
    This version, in the dreariest Hollywood-remake tradition, turns a grim, morally ambiguous story into a fable of empowerment. That might be kind of fun if it didn’t feel so tired and timid.
  5. Velvet Buzzsaw
    The confident storytelling and the bravura acting — Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette and John Malkovich contribute compelling caricatures — carry “Buzzsaw” all the way home.
  6. The Wild Pear Tree
    The unapologetic, sometimes heavy-handed literariness of The Wild Pear Tree is leavened by hints of grim comedy and sharp, if subtle, social criticism.
  7. The Gandhi Murder
    The conspiracy thriller The Gandhi Murder begins with a claim to be “based on verified facts.” Given the overall shoddiness of the production, including distractingly inapt casting and matte work that makes a Ganges River scene look fake, those facts are probably worth reverifying.
  8. Soni
    Ayr does not offer any tension-releasing catharsis, making his film efficiently disquieting in its own unassuming manner.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski
    A title like Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski suggests a breadth and depth that’s difficult to live up to, which makes it all the more remarkable that this Netflix documentary by Irek Dobrowolski manages to deliver.
  10. Never Look Away
    Never Look Away bristles with half-formed thoughts and almost-heady insights, and hums with an ambition that is exasperating and exhilarating in equal measure.
  11. The Invisibles
    Hearing from these survivors is vitally important. But by smushing together two distinct styles of narrative, The Invisibles risks draining the power from both.
  12. Jihadists
    The erasure of the difference between propaganda and reality cuts to the heart of what is appalling about Jihadists, a terrorist mixtape that appears remarkably uninterested in presenting these men in a more critical way than they would want.
  13. Heartlock
    Some scenes in this film, directed by Jon Kauffman, put across the perversity of prison social ecosystems. But the picture’s gender and race dynamics, not to mention its forced star-crossed lovers theme, are sufficiently commonplace to register as hackneyed.
  14. The Kid Who Would Be King
    The action is creatively staged, without ever getting too intense or scary for young viewers. And the script balances humor, pathos and wish fulfillment as it portrays Alex’s rise from mopey dreamer to confident warrior, without overdoing the mythic portent.
  15. Tito and the Birds
    The adventure plot in the Brazilian feature Tito and the Birds, directed by Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, and André Catoto, is no great shakes — it wouldn’t be out of place on a Saturday-morning cartoon — but visually, the movie leaves room for the viewer to synthesize, and to dream.
  16. Serenity
    More than half the reason I went to see this movie is because I miss “Fool’s Gold,” too. But that movie is 11 years old. And the days of low-stakes thingamabobs with some stars and even a little bit of writing are gone. Instead of a caper with Kate Hudson, McConaughey has got a mess written and directed by Steven Knight.
  17. King of Thieves
    For all its flaws — and they are legion — King of Thieves wraps you in a fuzzy blanket of familiarity.
  18. The Image Book
    I found it haunting, thrilling and confounding in equal measure. It is a work of ecstatic despair, an argument for the futility of human effort that almost refutes itself through the application of a grumpy and tenacious artistic will.
  19. IO
    The dynamic between Sam and Micah shifts the film into romantic melodrama, as lifeless and as chaste as the windswept apocalypse that surrounds them.
  20. The 5 Browns: Digging Through the Darkness
    The director and his editor, Amanda Larson, construct the movie in a fairly conventional way, but leave a single string dangling, which they pull tight to devastating emotional effect near the end.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Solo
    The end result is a survival story that never quite sinks or swims, but rather drifts with the tide.
  22. Glass
    Shyamalan’s talent for primitive scares remains intact in Glass, as does his love for cramming a whole lot of story in one feature.
  23. Don't Come Back from the Moon
    The movie’s emotional potency is undeniable, its slow crescendo of wounded feelings and shimmering photography leaving unexpected imprints on the eyes and heart.
  24. Who Will Write Our History
    Using newsreels, voice-overs and re-enactments, Roberta Grossman, the documentary’s director, paints a comprehensive portrait of the times and of the risks taken by Ringelblum and his group. The staged scenes are well acted, while readings from diaries and letters are heartbreaking.
  25. I Hate Kids
    The single achievement of I Hate Kids, a new comedy directed by John Asher, is that it is simultaneously tepid and offensive.
  26. An Acceptable Loss
    For a political thriller to come up with a scheme that feels genuinely rousing, An Acceptable Loss would need the two qualities it most severely lacks: style and substance.
  27. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
    The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, the writing-directing feature debut of Henry Dunham, strands seven actors in a warehouse to bark exposition at one another. Listening closely is necessary: The monotonously dark visuals barely function to carry the story on their own.
  28. Adult Life Skills
    Anna feels more like a device than a person, a collection of eccentric behaviors (her job involves counting molehills) that support an aesthetic of excessive cuteness.
  29. Fyre
    Fyre needs another layer. You can locate in it this national moment of brashness and effrontery.
  30. The Heiresses
    This isn’t a perfect movie — sometimes the machinery of plot-focused screenwriting hums a little too insistently, especially toward the end, disrupting the quieter, richer music of everyday life — but its clearsighted sensitivity makes it a satisfying one.
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