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. Red Hill
    Like the best westerns, Red Hill is a stripped-down morality tale; like the best horror movies, its true monsters remain cloaked until the final reel.
  2. Four Lions
    A shockingly hilarious, stiletto-sharp satire directed by Chris Morris and written by a squad of British wits.
  3. For Colored Girls
    As it turns out, Mr. Perry, while busily establishing his economic independence, has been finding his voice as a filmmaker. And here, working with fine performers like Ms. Elise, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad and Kerry Washington, he sings the song the way he likes it - with force, feeling and tremendous sincerity.
  4. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
    Those swayed by the argument in Client 9 that some of the rich and powerful whom Mr. Spitzer crusaded against might have exploited his stupidity should find all this enthralling. Others might just remember the hubris.
  5. Fair Game
    Things worked out between Joe and Valerie, and for their real-life models, who are now the subjects of a terrifically entertaining movie. But that does not mean that justice was done, or that truth prevailed.
  6. 127 Hours
    Mr. Boyle has a knack for tackling painful, violent or unpleasant subjects with unremitting verve and unstoppable joie de vivre.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Change Nothing (Ne Change Rien)
    Ne Change Rien is about the work, the mix of inspiration and hard labor that performers draw on from moment to moment, an alchemical event that cinema rarely shows.
  8. Jolene
    Jolene's skin may smell like warm milk to Brad, but to the rest of us it has curdled long before she leaves his bed.
  9. Walkaway
    Walkaway is a pleasant enough time-pass, as they say in India, but stays too near the surface to be memorable.
  10. A Small Act
    The film couldn't be more heartening - yes, individual actions do make a difference. But it's bittersweet as well. You can't help wondering about all the children who don't get tapped on the shoulder by the hand of fate.
  11. Wild Target
    The considerable wit, style, and skill that Mr. Nighy and Ms. Blunt bring to the project are squandered.
  12. The Kids Grow Up
    You are not Doug Block, of course. Except to the extent - measured by the depth of your absorption in this remarkable film - that you are.
  13. Monsters
    Monsters effortlessly compels. The ending may be pure sci-fi schmaltz, but it's schmaltz that this viewer, at least, could believe in.
  14. Waste Land
    "We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials," Tião, an impoverished Brazilian catadore, or trash picker, declares to a talk-show host in Lucy Walker's inspiring documentary Waste Land.
  15. Inspector Bellamy
    The ease and professionalism that distinguished this prolific director's later work is very much in evidence, as is an insouciant attitude, at once resigned and dismissive, toward mortality.
  16. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
    Mr. Alfredson directed the second movie as well, and his work is again essentially functional, limited to clumsy action sequences and television-ready conversations. He doesn't prettify the violence in either movie, which might be unintentional but makes them feel more honest than the first did.
  17. Amer
    What does it all mean? Less than meets the eye. Amer is a voluptuous wallow in recycled psychosexual kitsch.
  18. Welcome to the Rileys
    What keeps the film's fragile realism intact are actors who can make even small moments count.
  19. Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
    In her director's statement for Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, Gail O'Hara writes that "this one's for the fans." Rarely has that been more true.
  20. Vision: From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen
    Vision offers a hard-headed view of 12th-century religiosity in which church politics and money conflict with the characters' asceticism. It portrays Hildegard as a passionate humanitarian and a lover of nature.
  21. Paranormal Activity 2
    Frozen camera setups and blurry night-vision images raise goose bumps without the assistance of eerie music or showy effects, though the strain of stretching the gimmick to a second movie is palpable.
  22. Punching the Clown
    Holding things together are Mr. Phillips's quiet charm and his songs, which really are funny.
  23. The Taqwacores
    The Taqwacores aims for a provocative, anarchic cool by juxtaposing Islam and punk rock. But the storytelling is so muddled and the filmmaking so unpolished - and not in a good way - that mostly this movie is just unpleasant. It's also not nearly as insightful as it thinks it is.
  24. Knucklehead
    A number of talented performers are stymied by this mediocre material.
  25. The Portuguese Nun
    The Portuguese Nun has wit and feeling, though the wit is at times almost imperceptibly subtle and the feeling somewhat stylized.
  26. Inhale
    Inhale is a creepy medical thriller in the tradition of "Coma" that amps up the tension and suspense by slicing up time.
  27. Kalamity
    For all its seriousness, Kalamity lacks a steady narrative drive; its speeches are too long, and its themes become repetitive.
  28. Boxing Gym
    Pugilists and philosophers of all kinds converge in Frederick Wiseman's mesmerizing documentary Boxing Gym.
  29. Conviction
    It would be easy to dismiss Conviction on the ground that it plays like a made-for-television movie, but the truth is that, as often as not, movies made for the small screen are better than this: braver, darker, more willing to explore odd corners of feeling.
  30. Hereafter
    One of the reasons that Hereafter works as well as it does - it has the power to haunt the skeptical, to mystify the credulous and to fascinate everyone in between.
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