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. Simon & the Oaks
    With its exhilarating World War II narrative and performances that touch notes intimate and grand, Simon and the Oaks has an exquisite, and epic, ache.
  2. 3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom
    A vibrantly vulgar comedy that never hangs around to admire its own cleverness.
  3. Photographic Memory
    The connections made in Photographic Memory are more tentative than those found in Mr. McElwee's earlier films, which also seek answers in roundabout ways while maintaining an acute eye for light, color, space and atmosphere.
  4. Sinister
    A twitchy Mr. Hawke builds a persuasive portrait of desperation with little help from the script and despite playing a character who makes so many mistakes he might as well be on a suicide mission.
  5. The Big Picture
    Paul is not a sociopath like Tom Ripley, and the movie does not convey the same diabolical Hitchcockian sense of being manipulated by a slightly sadistic master puppeteer. As the story sprawls across the screen, it darts from one incident to the next as though it were inventing itself as it goes along.
  6. Smashed
    The degree to which Smashed refuses to indulge a voyeuristic taste for the kind of sordid details exploited by reality television amounts to an unspoken declaration of principle. In lieu of self-pity, Smashed substitutes tough love.
  7. Middle of Nowhere
    Ms. DuVernay, from start to finish in this very fine movie, works to make sure that Ruby is a woman to remember.
  8. Seven Psychopaths
    Meta to the max, filled with clever jokes and observations that stick like barbs and deflated ones that land with a thud, Seven Psychopaths is a leisurely riff about movies, violence, storytelling and the art of the steal.
  9. Argo
    It's a doozy of a story and so borderline ridiculous that it sounds - ta-da! - like something that could have been cooked up only by Hollywood.
  10. An Affair of the Heart
    An agreeable documentary about the pop singer Rick Springfield and his legions of female fans.
  11. In My Mother's Arms
    In My Mother's Arms takes a distressing snapshot of an ongoing struggle.
  12. The Oranges
    How could a movie starring Hugh Laurie, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney and Catherine Keener go so wrong? That is the mystery behind The Oranges, a dysfunctional-family comedy - excuse the cliché - that backs away in terror from its potentially explosive subject.
  13. Wuthering Heights
    The grunts and howls seem every bit as mannered as the florid diction of Olivier and Oberon, perhaps even more so. Their artifice, like Brontë's own, was overt, whereas Ms. Arnold strives to disguise hers in the trappings of authenticity. And as a result, the impact - the grandeur, the art - of Wuthering Heights is diminished.
  14. Sister
    Trading the cooler, more emotionally detached style and vibe that characterized "Home," her debut feature, about a family falling apart, Ms. Meier quietly goes for the emotional jugular in Sister.
  15. The House I Live In
    It's easy to take issue with a documentary like The House I Live In, which tackles too much in too brief a time and glosses over complexities, yet this is also a model of the ambitious, vitalizing activist work that exists to stir the sleeping to wake.
  16. Trade of Innocents
    Part infomercial, part public-service announcement, Trade of Innocents carries such a suffocating human-rights burden that it never had much chance of becoming an actual movie. Yes, child trafficking is horrific; but embedding your raise-the-alarm mission in a film this inept runs the risk of arousing more amusement than activism.
  17. Decoding Deepak
    "Decoding" ultimately becomes Gotham's gentle tribute to Dad, who shall probably provide handsomely for his heirs. It is also a tacit endorsement of Chopra Inc.
  18. Fat Kid Rules the World
    This adaptation of K. L. Going's 2003 young-adult novel about a rejuvenated overweight teenager takes a humble, heartfelt approach, until sentiment loses out to message sending.
  19. Frankenweenie
    While Frankenweenie is fun, it is not nearly strange or original enough to join the undead, monstrous ranks of the classics it adores.
  20. Avé
    No one can really run away - that's the animating principle of the Bulgarian film Avé, which is placid and unchallenging, with tiny eruptions of striking purpose.
  21. Bel Borba Aqui
    Bel Borba Aqui gives us plenty to look at, but not much to think about.
  22. Now, Forager
    This uneven, slow-brewed film begins by observing a brittle relationship about to crumble, but it is better at portraying how the exacting standards of food professionals can lead to personal grief.
  23. V/H/S
    A low-budget horror anthology with segments both ghastly and moronic.
  24. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
    Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, a film based on Peter Cameron's novel, is several kinds of excruciating.
  25. Butter
    Well acted and sporadically amusing - especially when Olivia Wilde's profanity-spewing stripper is around - Butter alternates between looking down its nose at Midwestern passions and cooing over smugly liberal values.
  26. Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
    Advocating freedom from a system that "doesn't want you to die and doesn't want you to get well," this hard-hitting film leaves us finally more hopeful than despairing.
  27. Taken 2
    What follows seems like a nonstop car and foot chase, with Albanian after Albanian falling victim to Bryan's remarkable aim and hand-fighting skills. Foreigners bad, Americans good, box office busy.
  28. The Paperboy
    It is by turns lurid, humid, florid, languid and stupid, but it is pretty much all id all the time.
  29. The Double Steps
    It's never clear how Mr. Lacuesta, whose use of other art-cinema conventions (like nonprofessional performers) risks cliché, sees these parts working together or what he wants you to take from them. He's so committed to non-transparency as a principle that he locks you out.
  30. Dear Mandela
    Following the efforts of a South African housing rights group, the documentary Dear Mandela illustrates how fresh injustices have succeeded the inequality once enforced by apartheid.
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