The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,311 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: 9,399 out of 20311
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20311
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20311
20311 movie reviews
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  1. Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away
    While the bodies of the performers do amazing things, the hectic editing and frequent use of slow motion distract from their physical artistry rather than enhance it. The 3-D, on the other hand, gives some sense of the scale of a Cirque du Soleil performance, and even if the film is no substitute for the real thing, it is at least an effective advertisement.
  2. Aquí y Allá (Here and There)
    If the intent was to keep the characters here just as anonymous as most migrant workers are to prosperous people in the United States, it succeeds: Pedro and his family remain mere sketches. If, however, the aim was a more meaningful portrait of hardship and aspiration, the film is merely underdone. It's no secret that life in many places is hard.
  3. Barbara
    Barbara is a film about the old Germany from one of the best directors working in the new: Christian Petzold. For more than a decade Mr. Petzold has been making his mark on the international cinema scene with smart, tense films that resemble psychological thrillers, but are distinguished by their strange story turns, moral thorns, visual beauty and filmmaking intelligence.
  4. This Is 40
    There are a lot of loose ends and a few forced conclusions. But, then again, the acceptance of imperfection is Mr. Apatow's theme, so a degree of sloppiness is to be expected. That's life.
  5. Jack Reacher
    Apart from the car chase, the only real fun in Jack Reacher comes from Mr. Herzog and Robert Duvall, called in near the end for some marvelously gratuitous scenery chewing as a gruff former Marine. They enliven the movie's atmosphere of weary brutality for a few moments, but they also call attention to the dullness of their dramatic surroundings.
  6. Amour
    A masterpiece about life, death and everything in between.
  7. Zero Dark Thirty
    Ms. Bigelow's direction here is unexpectedly stunning, at once bold and intimate: she has a genius for infusing even large-scale action set pieces with the human element.
  8. The Guilt Trip
    The chief pleasures of this mild-mannered dud lie in watching two resourceful comic actors go through their paces like the pros they are.
  9. Let Fury Have the Hour
    Infinitely less than the sum of its parts, Antonino D'Ambrosio's Let Fury Have the Hour crams 50 thoughtful artists into a disappointingly muddled film.
  10. Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet
    This heartfelt documentary is also, more subtly, a tribute to the squadron of caregivers that has enabled Mr. Becker not only to survive for an extraordinarily long time but also to continue to compose music, using virtually the only part of him that still moves, his eyes.
  11. Trashed
    If we must talk trash, Mr. Irons - assisted by a scientist or two and Vangelis's doomy score - is an inspired choice of guide. Soothing and sensitive, his liquid gaze alighting on oozing landfills and belching incinerators, he moves through the film with a tragic dignity that belies his whimsical neckwear and jaunty hats.
  12. Save the Date
    The reunion of Ms. Caplan and Mr. Starr, cast mates on Starz network's "Party Down," seemed intriguing. That series, though, with all the fizz and social comedy that this movie lacks, was a better showcase for them.
  13. Yelling to the Sky
    It's disconcerting to watch Sweetness, tiny and light-skinned, assaulting Latonya, large and dark-skinned, partly because it bluntly if inconclusively underscores a crucial color divide that runs through this film like a throbbing vein.
  14. The Girl
    What at first came across as a tale of dawning conscience increasingly starts to feel rigged.
  15. Saving Grace B. Jones
    Ms. O'Neal's Grace is a fluttery Blanche DuBois type who transforms into a ranting madwoman wreaking havoc. Instead of an ax, she wields scissors. From here on, the movie is a grotesquely overacted, ineptly staged screamfest.
  16. Stand Up Guys
    Most of the modest pleasures are in the ways the men expertly play off one another and invest their shallow characters with more depth than any filmmaker could reasonably expect.
  17. Any Day Now
    An outraged, unblinking depiction of institutionalized homophobia three decades ago, when the prevailing court opinion in adoption cases was that exposing a child to a homosexual environment was harmful. Never mind that nobody else wants Marco.
  18. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
    Tolkien's inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle.
  19. Consuming Spirits
    It is a work of obsessive artisanal discipline and unfettered artistic vision. You have never seen anything like it.
  20. Saving America's Horses: A Nation Betrayed
    Filled with crushing facts about animal cruelty yet also overstuffed and overwrought, it's emotionally and visually tough to watch.
  21. The Sheik and I
    Poking the bear of repression has consequences beyond Mr. Zahedi's immediate artistic goals, as this layered, intermittently fascinating documentary makes abundantly clear.
  22. Honor Flight
    The film might have made a decent end-of-broadcast segment on a newscast. But inflated to feature length and devoid of nuance or fresh insights, it just seems self-congratulatory - aren't we great for having done this for these old guys? - and exploitive.
  23. Happy New Year
    A dully directed movie that sends a message but lacks oomph.
  24. Waiting for Lightning
    In this overly sympathetic film he's a superhero without feelings, curiously bloodless except for the moment just before the China jump, when his mother presents him with his stepfather's ashes for inspiration.
  25. Sahkanaga
    A haunting piece of fact-based Southern Gothic free of histrionics, Sahkanaga is a thoughtful, atmospherically heavy study of reactions to an inexplicably inhumane act.
  26. Delhi Safari
    The worst thing about the animated film Delhi Safari isn't that it's awful. It's that it shamelessly rips off much better animated movies.
  27. Off-White Lies
    Poised unwaveringly between gentle comedy and delicate drama, Maya Kenig's Off White Lies keeps a lot to itself. But this narrative withholding, while infuriating at times, presents no real barrier to our engagement with the film's unconventional look at the growing connection between a shy teenage girl and her shiftless father.
  28. Heleno
    Though powerfully acted and dazzlingly shot (by Walter Carvalho) in heavenly black and white, Heleno is a feverish opera that, like its doomed antihero, loses vitality much too soon.
  29. The Rabbi's Cat
    The film presents an often sharp commentary on dueling beliefs and idiocies that unfolds in lush pastel hues and distinctively retro drawings.
  30. In Our Nature
    Is the movie psychologically accurate? Yes. But that doesn't keep it from being a little dull.
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