The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,271 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: 9,377 out of 20271
  2. Mixed: 8,430 out of 20271
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20271
20271 movie reviews
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  1. Beirut
    Mr. Hamm certainly makes it easy to care for Mason and all that he signifies, and it’s a pleasure to watch him just silently nurse another drink, a lifetime of regret weighing on him. Yet as Mason sits alone, the shadows closing around him, you also catch sight of a character whose past — including a cozy association with Henry Kissinger — suggests a tougher, harder and more interesting movie than the one you are watching.
  2. Where Is Kyra?
    As a statement about the economic insecurity inherent in American capitalism, Where Is Kyra? has grim power.
  3. Sweet Country
    The director Warwick Thornton constructs a searing indictment of frontier racism as remarkable for its sonic restraint as its visual expansiveness.
  4. Blockers
    It features a casually diverse cast and is openly, at times dutifully, feminist, with you-go-girl speeches that sound as if everyone involved had tried too hard to be decent. Funny and enlightened would have been better.
  5. ACORN and the Firestorm
    Although the documentary makes clear how some accusations proved false or overblown, perhaps its biggest flaw is that it’s too eager to hand-wave any actual mistakes that Acorn made.
  6. The Heart of Nuba
    The film is worth seeing because it’s a moving and remarkable story and it represents a great cause. Mr. Carlson often puts a directorial foot wrong.
  7. Good Luck
    Both halves feature breathtaking camera work.
  8. The Endless
    The Endless rewards patience with mind-bending twists and turns.
  9. Lean on Pete
    There’s almost a cosmic dimension to some of the most beautiful passages, as if the world (call it nature or God or sensitive direction) were holding Charley in its embrace.
  10. Big Fish & Begonia
    Never short on visual or emotional wonder, Big Fish & Begonia contemplates mortality with the imagination of an old soul who has been given new eyes.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Spinning Man
    A few moody flashbacks and daydreams are presumably intended to add to the noirish sense of uncertainty and unease, but instead of intensifying the mystery, they dissipate it.
  12. The Miracle Season
    That The Miracle Season is based on a true story makes it tough to endure and to review, because it’s no pleasure to report that filmmakers have turned real-life tragedy and tenacity into a manipulative weepie.
  13. All the Cities of the North
    It can be tough to say whether the movie is productively or arbitrarily baffling, but it is never boring, and it achieves a balance between natural flow and purposefulness that suits its subject matter.
  14. Chappaquiddick
    Whether or not events actually unfolded this way, the story the film tells is an interesting and complicated character study, with something to say about the corrosive effects of power and privilege on both the innocent and the guilty.
  15. A Quiet Place
    In its convincing portrayal of a situation where a rusty nail is as lethal as an unexploded bomb, and the few remaining inhabitants seem — much like the audience — more likely to die of stress than anything else, the movie rocks. You may go in jaded, but you’ll leave elated or I’ll eat my words.
  16. You Were Never Really Here
    The gravity and force of Mr. Phoenix’s performance and Ms. Ramsay’s direction are impressive, but it’s hard not to feel that their talents have been misapplied, and that there is less to the movie than meets the eye.
  17. Tyler Perry's Acrimony
    Ms. Henson does what she can with a role that keeps her anger at a low simmer until requiring her to go full banshee within basically one scene. You can’t accuse her or Acrimony of being boring, but the film falls short of a design for living.
  18. Gemini
    What really interests Mr. Katz here are movies — the fingerprints of directors like Robert Altman, David Lynch, Michael Mann and Sean Baker are all on Gemini — and how they have shaped Los Angeles, or at least our ideas about it.
  19. Wilde Salomé
    Wilde Salomé is most fascinating as a portrait of a superstar actor who, for all his wealth and privilege, encounters unusual frustrations as he pursues genuine artistic ambitions.
  20. Salomé
    The concentration of the performers and the power of Wilde’s unusually baroque, even for him, language (he originally composed the play in French, as it happens) makes for some mesmerizing scenes.
  21. Caught
    Underwritten and a smidge too long, Caught is marred by an over-excited musical score that browbeats where it should tease. Yet the movie’s bleak and brutal tone works, as does the visitors’ bizarrely unstable behavior.
  22. Love After Love
    Elegantly shot on film by Chris Teague, the movie feels unforced and at times shockingly authentic, allowing its emotions to percolate and rise of their own volition.
  23. Finding Your Feet
    Watching it demands little effort. Evict your inner cynic and enjoying it should demand even less.
  24. The Last Movie Star
    The director Adam Rifkin wrote this showcase for Mr. Reynolds, who, like Vic, was a college football player. The Last Movie Star effectively allows the ever-assured actor to score a touchdown on an empty field.
  25. All I Wish
    Both sartorially and cinematically, the seasoned star at the heart of All I Wish deserves a movie with more to offer than knockoff style.
  26. Outside In
    In a movie whose greatest tension comes from wondering whether Chris will violate his parole by drinking a beer, the actors need to be compelling. Easily clearing that bar, Ms. Falco gives Carol a gentle kindness and the emotional intelligence to transform Chris’s ardor into a catalyst.
  27. The China Hustle
    In the case of The China Hustle, a documentary may simply be the wrong delivery mechanism for a byzantine exposé that cries out for detailed news reporting.
  28. The Gardener
    Overall The Gardener is flat and lacking in soul, a word that comes up many times in the movie.
  29. Personal Problems (1980)
    This is a work that looks as if it were evolving even as portions of it were completed. That’s entirely appropriate. For all its rough edges, Personal Problems retains a vitality and an integrity that practically bounds off the screen.
  30. After Louie
    Some stronger filmmaking would be welcome, sure, but After Louie has an honesty that’s often just as valuable.
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