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. Madea's Big Happy Family
    This time the suds outweigh the humor, and to its credit Mr. Perry's script doesn't duck tragic consequences.
  2. What on Earth?
    It's the film's geometrists who enthrall most, revealing that many of the shapes - one of which famously made the cover of a 1990 Led Zeppelin album - hold entirely new answers to Euclidean problems.
  3. When Harry Tries to Marry
    Producing smarm at the high level of When Harry Met Sally requires special talent, and when you fall short all you're left with is garden-variety smarm.
  4. Stake Land
    This unusually taut sophomore feature from Jim Mickle is more abnormal than most in that its creatures are capable not only of evolving but also of embracing religious fanaticism.
  5. Dumbstruck
    The writer and director, Mark Goffman, sticks to a no-frills style that makes the film feel longer than its 1 hour 24 minutes.
  6. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
    It's generally fun to watch Mr. Yen move and not much fun to watch him act, and Legend of the Fist is no exception.
  7. The Bang Bang Club
    Why, then, do we care not one bit when Pulitzers are won and bullets unsuccessfully dodged? The answer lies partly in Mr. Silver's refusal to elucidate the racial politics or engage with the world outside the film's incoherently chaotic bubble.
  8. Beautiful Darling
    Beautiful Darling, James Rasin's touching documentary biography of Candy Darling, the transsexual Andy Warhol "superstar," is a sad, lyrical reflection on the foolish worship of movie stars.
  9. Children of Hiroshima
    Mr. Shindo's world is sad and inspiring in familiar ways, but what makes it so memorable is that it is also gorgeous and strange.
  10. African Cats
    At one point the lions make a meal of a lovely young zebra they've just killed. That spelled the end for the little boy sitting next to me. "I'm too scared," he said, and he dragged his mom out of the theater. Sorry, kid, it's a jungle out there, even in Disneynature.
  11. Water for Elephants
    Short-circuits the novel's quirky charms and period atmosphere by its squeamish attitude toward gritty circus life and smothers the drama under James Newton Howard's insufferable wall-to-wall musical soup.
  12. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
    Even more amusing than "Super Size Me," the documentary that put Mr. Spurlock on the moviemaking map in 2004.
  13. Incendies
    Mr. Villeneuve tells Nawal's story in a way that is both subtle and emphatic, and Ms. Azabal, portraying Nawal from hopeful youth to despairing middle age, gives a performance that is all the more powerful for the restrained, unshakeable sense of dignity she brings to it.
  14. Fly Away
    Taking a coolheaded approach to hot-button issues, Fly Away overcomes its neatly bow-tied ending with strong performances (including Greg Germann as a sensitive neighbor) and a spare, intelligent script.
  15. Square Grouper
    The film mixes period footage with visually unappealing contemporary interviews. If you're expecting voluble, outsize personalities with colorful war stories, you'll be disappointed.
  16. Phillip the Fossil
    That the movie remains consistently watchable is largely a tribute to Brian Hasenfus, a Needham, Mass., contractor making his acting debut as Phillip.
  17. Footprints
    From its "once upon a time" beginning to the anticlimactic end, Footprints remains fatally lodged in La-La Land.
  18. The First Beautiful Thing
    Comedy and poignancy weave together in Mr. Virzì's hands, but the maudlin meter only occasionally goes into the red zone. And Ms. Pandolfi gives such an exquisitely understated performance that you don't realize until the very end that the film was as much about her character as it was about Bruno and Anna.
  19. Scream 4
    The central conceit of the characters' fates being determined by the "rules" of horror movies feels irredeemably tired; a clever idea that was worth one movie.
  20. The Imperialists Are Still Alive!
    If The Imperialists Are Still Alive! doesn't go much of anywhere despite its peripatetic characters, that stasis seems intentional.
  21. Rio
    This animated feature effort is a significant step forward from the studio's "Ice Age" films, in the richness of its cast, the exuberance of its music and the vibrance of its palette.
  22. A Screaming Man
    It's a modest film, if only in scale and apparent budget, about some of the greatest questions in life, like the existence of God, our capacity to see beyond our own vanity and the legacies of fathers, both blood and state.
  23. Armadillo
    The achievement of this film is to forestall and complicate easy judgment. You emerge shaken and bothered, which may sound like a reason not to see the movie. It is actually the opposite.
  24. The Double Hour
    The best movie of its kind since the French director Guillaume Canet's hit from 2006, "Tell No One."
  25. The Princess of Montpensier
    The French director Bertrand Tavernier deploys some smart ideas in this film, a period story about wars on the battlefield and those closer to home, but there's something a bit goatish in his attention to some female charms.
  26. The Conspirator
    The few glimpses we catch of the Ford's Theater production of "Our American Cousin" are unfortunately the liveliest and most convincing moments in this well-meaning, misbegotten movie.
  27. Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny
    Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny is a handsomely produced, television-scale documentary with a split personality.
  28. Meeting Spencer
    Isn't quite savvy enough to compete with the slyest entries in that genre or madcap enough to run with the zaniest.
  29. Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer
    The most consistent and useful thread running throughout this enervating travelogue is the value of silence as a path to inner peace, a notion to which any Manhattan dweller can surely attest.
  30. The Elephant in the Living Room
    Fair to a fault, "Elephant" omits what could be considered crucial voices - like lawmakers, the Humane Society (which helped finance the film) and mental-health professionals - in its attempt to understand those who believe their particular beast is as harmless as a kitten. At least until it rips someone's face off.
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