The New York Times' Scores

For 20,269 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:
20269 movie reviews
  1. The performances of the young actors who play them (actual twins, though not conjoined) are the real miracles here, each one creating a distinct personality.
  2. It is gorgeous and suspenseful, and it rushes heedlessly into dangerous terrain.
  3. Mr. Aronofsky is a virtuoso of mood and timing, a devoted student of form and technique straining to be a credible visionary. But as wild and provocative as his images can be, there is something missing — an element of strangeness, of difficulty, of the kind of inspiration that overrides mere cleverness.
  4. There is gentle comedy here, and a real rooting interest deriving from Ms. Zhang’s committed, never-a-false-note performance. The film’s unusual perspective makes it a distinctive and potentially enriching experience.
  5. In “Ex Libris,” democracy is alive and in the hands of a forceful advocate and brilliant filmmaker, which helps make this one of the greatest movies of Mr. Wiseman’s extraordinary career and one of his most thrilling.
  6. The diffuse filmmaking style muffles the story’s power.
  7. Sometimes the effort here is more admirable than exciting.
  8. Shot in rich, wide-screen color, with minimal camera movements (except when a small camera is attached to a falcon’s restless head) and almost no dialogue, it is detached almost to the point of abstraction.
  9. The documentary Company Town, by Natalie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian, feels fueled by pure desperation; even the rudimentary qualities of the filmmaking (cheap-looking camera work, poorly punctuated title cards) somehow add to its urgency, as if the movie needed to get its message out by any means necessary.
  10. School Life is a loving portrait, primarily, of the inspirational educator couple, who command the respect of their students and always seem to know what a particular child needs to hear.
  11. Denis Côté’s Boris Without Beatrice appears to have something to say about the hubris of the modern business tycoon, but it never coalesces into more than a self-amused goof.
  12. Fortunately, Mr. Spicer’s earnest performance bolsters many of the weaker spots in Mr. Shoulberg’s script.
  13. The movie is not entirely my cup of tea, although it is refreshing in its depiction of diverse, older female characters.
  14. The direction, by Preston A. Whitmore II, seems hampered by either a lack of resources or a lack of interest.
  15. Nobody’s Watching addresses immigration issues head on, but it’s more about being set existentially adrift.
  16. A hodgepodge of pseudoscientific twaddle and variously shifty murder suspects, Rememory satisfies neither as science fiction nor as psychological drama.
  17. Marrying fact and fiction, Jane Goldman’s seamy screenplay is wildly overstuffed; but the director, Juan Carlos Medina, gives the music hall scenes a rowdy authenticity.
  18. The intimacy of the film’s images and the surprising candor of its participants are disarming: Whatever your initial response, be prepared to re-evaluate.
  19. The Unknown Girl is as tense as a police procedural, and as mysterious as a religious parable.
  20. Like other fixtures of the Y.A. genre, Fallen is filmed with a professional sheen that sacrifices emotional sincerity for high production values.
  21. While Rebel in the Rye isn’t quite as bad as its pile-of-bricks-clunky title suggests, it’s both simple- and literal-minded, less concerned with Salinger’s consciousness or sensibility than with his ostensible ontological status as a Tortured Creative Giant.
  22. For her directorial debut, Home Again, Hallie Meyers-Shyer, Nancy Meyers’s daughter, has made a shabby copy of a Nancy Meyers romantic comedy.
  23. It
    The filmmakers honor both the pastoral and the infernal dimensions of Mr. King’s distinctive literary vision.
  24. It shows how the lingering disputes of war ripple through lives after guns have ostensibly been laid down.
  25. It’s neither a secret masterpiece nor a laughable disaster.
  26. Each time the movie edges into mannerism Mr. Harewood and Ms. Dickerson pull you close enough to make it hurt.
  27. The movie flouts its intolerance in an attempt at provocative humor. Unless you laugh at fossils, I have no idea why you should buy a ticket to gawk at this dinosaur.
  28. Peter Bratt, the director, uses an immense amount of historical footage and interviews, arranged with clarity.
  29. Like the teenage girls who monopolize its attention, Kill Me Please is moody, lovely, preening and libidinous.
  30. I suppose this went down easily enough for me because I grew up with this kind of stuff, and can surrender to it as a kind of cinematic comfort food. But still. For those not so inclined, the entertainment value could conceivably be derived from the brisk, no-nonsense direction by Michael Apted, and the talents of what they used to call “an all-star cast”.

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