The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,312 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: 9,400 out of 20312
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20312
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20312
20312 movie reviews
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  1. Our Idiot Brother
    A thin, unconvincing movie made likable by the charm and skill of its cast and by a script peppered with wit and insight.
  2. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
    None of Mr. del Toro's classy fiddling, however, can improve on the original's marvelously economical scares. But if you've always wondered what the tooth fairies want with all those teeth - or if you just need proof that a terrified Katie Holmes looks not that different from the everyday version - this is the movie for you.
  3. Tales from the Golden Age
    The strongest tales embrace a strain of barnyard humor that is matched by the robust performances of actors who convey an earthy jocularity. The movie doesn't shy away from comparing these hardy, weather-beaten rustics to their livestock.
  4. Special Treatment
    A story that should have been a taut poker-faced French farce that pushed its premise to the brink of absurdity stalls, unsure of its balance between comedy and drama. The movie's one reliable constant is Ms. Huppert. You can't take your eyes off her, even when she is misused and misdirected.
  5. The Family Tree
    The only reason I can think of to watch Vivi Friedman's flat, satirical farce The Family Tree - and it's not a good enough reason - is the opportunity to play a game of spot the semi-star.
  6. Circumstance
    Though it lacks the artful, headlong immediacy of "The Circle" and "Offside," Jafar Panahi's films about women in Tehran - and the breakneck exuberance of Bahman Ghobadi's "No One Knows About Persian Cats," about Tehran's underground music scene - Circumstance ripples with the indignant energy of youthful rebellion.
  7. Brighton Rock
    By discarding most of the theological debate, the movie is no longer a passion play but a gritty and despairing noir. That's good enough for me.
  8. Higher Ground
    There is something remarkable - you might even say miraculous - about the way Higher Ground makes its gentle, thoughtful way across the burned-over terrain of the American culture wars.
  9. Iron Crows
    A startlingly beautiful documentary by Bong-Nam Park that is also devastatingly sad.
  10. 3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy
    Sex in this film looks so nonecstatic that a better title might have been "3D Sex and Zen: Zero Child Policy."
  11. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
    The fall-off in sexiness, soulfulness and wittiness from Ms. Gugino and Antonio Banderas, the parents in the first three "Spy Kids" films, to Ms. Alba and Joel McHale is whiplash steep.
  12. Flypaper
    Full of indie mannerisms - compulsive swearing, jokey violence, quirk-laden characters - Flypaper can't quite manage to find a style or a comic groove of its own.
  13. Programming the Nation?
    Fusty research, aging interviewees and decades-old advertising campaigns offer background to the uninitiated, but Mr. Warrick's muddled, undisciplined approach destroys even the possibility of a cogent overview.
  14. A Horrible Way to Die
    Viewed simply as a horror movie, A Horrible Way to Die is diverting; viewed as commentary on our willingness to tune out evil for the sake of emotional connection, it's devastating.
  15. The Last Circus
    Brilliant, bizarre, dazzling and utterly demented, The Last Circus views Franco-era Spain through the crazed eyes of two clowns doing battle for the love of one magnificent woman.
  16. Mozart's Sister
    Nannerl, the subject of at least three novels also titled "Mozart's Sister," is in this film meant to be something more than a chapter in her brother's biography though it's not exactly clear what. Somewhat frustratingly if reasonably, Mr. Féret never settles on whether she was a genius, a martyr, a feminist cause, a disappointed daughter, a resigned woman or all of the above.
  17. The Journals of Musan
    Mr. Park's screenplay, pedestrian direction and stolid performance don't set us up to care.
  18. The Hedgehog
    At times The Hedgehog suggests a Gallic "Harold and Maude," with an intellectual gloss as it celebrates the life force passed from an older generation to a younger. But its concept of vitality isn't the popular cliché of kicking up your heels, breathing deeply and gorging on ice cream. It is an aesthete's ideal of pursuing moments of ecstatic perfection in art and companionship.
  19. Griff the Invisible
    Mr. Kwanten, meanwhile, best known for playing the sweet, dim Jason Stackhouse on the HBO show "True Blood," gives Griff the delicate, ethereal affect of a man who's an alien in his own world except when he's running down an alley in a disguise. He's a pleasure to watch.
  20. 5 Days of War
    The movie is a continuous barrage of explosions, sneak attacks, chases, life-and-death face-offs, and amazing rescues that are as far-fetched as they are exhilarating. The cheap thrills are compounded by Mikko Alanne and David Battle's screenplay, a wallow in old-time Hollywood boilerplate, some of which you can't believe is being recycled yet again.
  21. Fright Night
    The old "Fright Night" was both self-aware and effectively scary, and if this one seems to prefer gruesome digital effects to old-fashioned bump-in-the-night spookiness, it still succeeds in keeping the audience both tickled and anxious.
  22. Conan the Barbarian
    Mr. Momoa has some awfully big biceps to fill. He rises to that task with a pumped physique made for ogling. Thankfully, he also shows glints of self-awareness that can make hypermasculine blowouts like these more watchable and were largely missing from Mr. Schwarzenegger's wide-eyed turn in the first "Conan the Barbarian" (1982).
  23. Amigo
    Amigo is a well-carpentered narrative, fast-moving and emphatic, stepping nimbly from gravity to good humor.
  24. One Day
    Her (Ms. Scherfig) eccentric eye and offbeat rhythm sustain One Day through its stretches of banality and mitigate some of its flaws.
  25. Summer Pasture
    For all the hardship they endure, this intimate dual portrait, directed by Lynn True and Nelson Walker, with Tsering Perlo, suggests that their lives are neither more nor less fulfilled than those of any highly stressed upper-middle-class Americans.
  26. Bad Posture
    Mr. Murray creates a beguiling, visually rich canvas.
  27. Littlerock
    It's significantly smaller and more casual than "Mystery Train" or "Lost in Translation," movies its premise calls to mind, but in some ways it's more layered and complex.
  28. Final Destination 5
    A new wrinkle in how the killings spool out actually makes the film even more predictable, and the deaths, which tend to be squirmy rather than explosive, are so perfunctory and lazily jokey that they leave a decidedly bad aftertaste.
  29. Aarakshan
    Subtle it ain't and subtle it needn't be. It is, though, mostly involving (if Bollywood long, at 2 hours 45 minutes) and even occasionally stirring.
  30. Damn!
    Mr. Fisher-Cohen captures Mr. McMillan's transformation from a guy with a funny look and line into someone who believes his own hype and misconstrues his Warholian 15 minutes for widespread popularity and influence. It's a dismaying portrait and, here in the YouTube age, a direct hit.
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