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. 21 Jump Street
    It wants to be fun and, to a perhaps surprising extent, it is. Largely forsaking the sweet multiculturalism of the original for white-dude bromance, and completely abandoning earnest teenagers-in-crisis melodrama in favor of crude, aggressive comedy, this 21 Jump Street is an example of how formula-driven entertainment can succeed.
  2. Casa de mi Padre
    A quick-sketch routine stretched - amusingly, absurdly, thinly - to feature length.
  3. Jeff Who Lives at Home
    The ending is also a test of the audience's openness to the kind of fantasy mocked, at the outset, by everyone in Jeff's life, including the filmmakers. They want to make us believe in something, though it's also possible that they are only fooling.
  4. Good for Nothing
    Good for Nothing may be slight, but it portends a promising frontier for Mr. Wallis.
  5. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
    Despite foodie-baiting close-ups of nigiri sushi brushed with soy sauce, and montages of skillful food prep, the film falls short as a satisfying exploration of craft. Like many other such portraits, it wastes valuable time declaring its subject's excellence that could be spent fleshing out demonstrations, explanations, context.
  6. Apart
    A brief appearance by Joey Lauren Adams adds a welcome warmth to the standard therapist role, but otherwise all is bewilderment and repetition.
  7. The Decoy Bride
    The script, by Sally Phillips and Neil Jaworski, mocks celebrity culture but never turns too caustic. The movie, like an island vacation, passes pleasantly and all too quickly.
  8. Friends with Kids
    The result is a talky, predictable, less-audacious-than-it-thinks romantic comedy.
  9. Silent House
    The film's most interesting aspects are its gimmicks rather than its frights.
  10. Sound of Noise
    What follows is a character study mixed with outlandish crime procedural. Everyone's quite serious about the joke, without a moment of Adam Sandler-style "look at how cute we are" that would only dilute the film's appeal. Sound of Noise is a dry treat - a solid, self-aware cult pleasure.
  11. Dissolution
    Filmed in high-definition black and white, Ms. Menkes's often exquisite compositions - a single, attenuated shot of the aftermath of a car crash is a miracle of choreography - drive a narrative mired in poverty and spiritual desperation.
  12. A Thousand Words
    The director, Brian Robbins, perhaps as a result of his prime-time pedigree, has so carefully engineered this manipulative machine that little emotional residue remains - only a product inoffensive, unsurprising and uninspiring.
  13. Attenberg
    The emotions are quiet, and the connections among the characters feel tentative and fragile. Though it makes no reference to the current economic and political crisis in Greece, Attenberg is suffused with a sense of malaise - of stasis, if you prefer a Greek word - that way well reflect the contemporary national mood.
  14. Shakespeare High
    Performing Shakespeare can save children's lives. That is the persuasive argument of Alex Rotaru's documentary Shakespeare High, an inspiring, if too short and overcrowded, examination of the competition among high schools at the 90th annual Drama Teachers Association of Southern California Shakespeare Festival.
  15. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
    Highlighting the wacky while playing down the distasteful, Marie Losier's playful profile of the English musician and artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and his second wife, Lady Jaye, takes a lighthearted look at the things they did for love.
  16. Footnote
    It is a truism that academic arguments are so passionate because the stakes are so small. Footnote, a wonderful new film from the American-born Israeli director Joseph Cedar, at once affirms this conventional wisdom and calls it into question.
  17. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
    Unlike those in the book, who speak through e-mails, diaries, letters and interviews, the characters here leave the impression of giving harmless nibbles instead of flesh wounds. Defanged and pushed into the background, the satire vanishes, and you are left with an agreeable romantic comedy.
  18. John Carter
    It is a potpourri of arcane and familiar genres. "Mash-up" doesn't begin to capture this hectic hybrid; it's more like a paintball fight. Messy and chaotic, in other words, but also colorful and kind of fun.
  19. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
    A disposable trifle of fleeting rewards that - like many a feature built around a "Saturday Night Live" sketch - shows its seams after three minutes.
  20. The Woods
    With a sturdy indie vibe and pacing that feels like "Portlandia" this film, a series of related sketches, maintains a laconic, deadpan tone that's a nice break from the usual high-volume comedy. But it simply offers endless variations on the same joke.
  21. Project X
    The Oscars are swell, but once in a while a film comes along that is so courageous it deserves consideration for the Nobel Prize. An entire generation has been born and gone to college since the Beastie Boys defined that most basic of civil liberties: You've got to fight for your right to party.
  22. Better Than Something: Jay Reatard
    The result is a frustratingly superficial look at a smart, driven and sometimes frightened young man who always felt as though he were "racing against time."
  23. Patriocracy
    Brian Malone's documentary Patriocracy feels as if it were made by someone who had been out of the country since the Clinton administration and upon re-entering was shocked at the polarized, dysfunctional state of the federal government.
  24. Where Are You Taking Me?
    Though it eventually includes landscape and wildlife, Where Are You Taking Me? is no survey of Uganda; it's too quiet, slow and personal for that. But the film is an unusual, visually rich visit to the nation.
  25. Last Days Here
    Nevertheless the fierce loyalty of Mr. Liebling's nearest and dearest is extremely touching, and Last Days Here - despite its stinginess with back story and early performance footage - works hard to reveal the man beneath the four-decade heroin habit.
  26. Let the Bullets Fly
    At least 30 minutes and several scams too long, the plot passes from amusing to confounding long before the final double-cross.
  27. Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?
    Heist feels rushed. Many of its points could use elaboration. Its final section is a to-do list delivered in the tone of a high school civics teacher.
  28. Boy
    This unpretentious comic tale of a youngster's growing relationship with a long-absent father has a surprising rhythmic genius: joy juxtaposed with humiliation, silliness with sadness, fantasy with reality, and none of it formulaic. The editing feels fresh, as does the film.
  29. The Snowtown Murders
    The Snowtown Murders reminds us that sometimes evil is immediately recognizable, but at other times it comes bearing bacon and beer.
  30. The Salt of Life
    Mr. Di Gregorio wrote the screenplay with Valerio Attanasio, and this movie is a richer variation of his small, exquisite 2010 film, "Mid-August Lunch."
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