The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,278 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: 9,380 out of 20278
  2. Mixed: 8,434 out of 20278
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20278
20278 movie reviews
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  1. 45 Years
    [A] sensitive and devastating portrait of a long, happy marriage in sudden crisis.
  2. Bajirao Mastani
    There’s plenty of story here, but Bajirao Mastani has more visual pop than narrative traction.
  3. The Genital Warriors
    The movie touches on some worthy topics — sex, age, ego, desire, reason, insanity, death — but never focuses long on any of them: Some bits are amusing, most are simply tedious.
  4. Mojin: The Lost Legend
    What starts eerie becomes strictly cartoonish.
  5. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning
    The immersive style is always fascinating. But it also seems uneasily suited to the material.
  6. Noma: My Perfect Storm
    Less a documentary than a glittering souvenir, but it’s still a record of a legend.
  7. He Never Died
    The humor in Mr. Krawczyk’s script is deliciously subtle, as it has to be when your lead character is a man of few words; a viewer might easily spend the first half of the movie not even realizing it’s there.
  8. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
    The film delivers the standard upbeat message about family, along with one particularly outstanding and incongruous cameo that — sorry — won’t be spoiled here.
  9. Son of Saul
    Mr. Nemes orchestrates a tour de force of suspense, a swift symphony of collisions, coincidences and reversals that is almost unbearably exciting. His skill is undeniable, but also troubling. The movie offers less insight than sensation, an emotional experience that sits too comfortably within the norms of entertainment. This is not entirely the director’s fault. The Holocaust, once forbidden territory, is now safe and familiar ground.
  10. Sisters
    Sisters is both too careful and too sloppy to take full advantage of the thornier implications of its premise. It’s too awkward — because scenes drag when they should swing and jokes sag when they should pop — and not awkward enough.
  11. The Creation of Meaning
    Cutaways to nature’s splendor abound: Mists enfold the mountain; Mr. Casanova mesmerizingly holds one cross-fade from these clouds.
  12. The Winding Stream
    Rhythmically blending vintage recordings and live performances, The Winding Stream exudes a quirky warmth that counters its PBS-pledge-drive aura.
  13. The Emperor's New Clothes
    The Emperor’s New Clothes is moderately effective agitprop.
  14. Dreams Rewired
    Dreams Rewired is mostly content to entertain. Its explanations of how new inventions work are simplified to the point of superficiality.
  15. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
    Mr. Abrams may be as worshipful as any Star Wars obsessive, but in The Force Awakens he’s made a movie that goes for old-fashioned escapism even as it presents a futuristic vision of a pluralistic world that his audience already lives in. He hasn’t made a film only for true believers; he has made a film for everyone (well, almost).
  16. Sunday Ball
    Captured more for poetry than for clarity, the topography of penalties and free kicks can be impossible to follow. But Léo Bittencourt’s photography has flash and flair, and hardscrabble determination on a real-life field of dreams has a narrative all its own.
  17. The Tainted Veil
    The subject matter makes The Tainted Veil much more visually interesting than many issue-oriented documentaries, though the thriller-like score goes too far in trying to counter dryness.
  18. Dixieland
    This is well-worn territory, and though the two leads are very good, the romance that is supposed to drive the story isn’t particularly well delineated.
  19. Body
    Body eventually goes for ["Very Bad Thing"'s] brand of cheap irony in a less blackly comedic register, and unfortunately achieves it.
  20. American Hero
    American Hero starts off seeming as if it is going to be a fresh take on superheroes, but Nick Love, who wrote and directed, turns out to have nowhere to go with his intriguing premise.
  21. Don Verdean
    Its intentions are, to some degree, corrective: It mocks some of the popular corruptions of faith so as to invite the audience to reflect upon what real faith might be.
  22. The Girl in the Book
    Given [Ms. Cohn] confident hand behind the camera and gift for rich female characters, you hope to see more portraits from her in the future.
  23. In the Heart of the Sea
    As the movie lurches along by fits and starts, toggling between the little Nantucket room and the great watery world, it becomes apparent that the filmmakers have no idea how to reconcile not just two parallel stories but also the past and our contemporary age.
  24. The Big Short
    A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, The Big Short will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood.
  25. Boy and the World
    It’s both the best children’s animated film this year since “Inside Out” — you might call it “Outside In” — and, unexpectedly, a more stirring depiction of the deadening modern megalopolis than most heal-the-world documentaries.
  26. Stinking Heaven
    The brisk clip and dashes of dark humor ward off actual despair, but the length poses challenges for some of the heavy lifting of character growth.
  27. Almost There
    This first feature from Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden demonstrates that these documentary filmmakers might do well to think more like journalists sometimes.
  28. Night Owls
    The performances are so crackling that you can imagine Ms. Salazar and Mr. Pally, given richer material, becoming a slapstick comedy team: the spitfire and the nerd.
  29. River of Fundament
    River of Fundament is often a commanding, engaging and certainly challenging experience. Nevertheless, by the end of the piece I felt deliberately alienated, and to a nearly infuriating degree.
  30. The Messenger
    Overall, the arguments are persuasive, the message from the birds powerful, and the film a rich and satisfying call to action that is presented with some novel ideas for how to restore the ecological balance.
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