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. Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
    As for the man who invented it all, he remains a mystery in the film, living out his days in sybaritic bliss.
  2. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
    Mostly, though, "Kitty Galore" is a grind, as well as proof that "What up, dog?" isn't any funnier when a pigeon says it to a dog.
  3. The Concert
    The harder this desperately obsequious circus of a movie tries to entertain, the more it falls short.
  4. The Dry Land
    Sincere performances elevate an underdeveloped script and awkward filmmaking in The Dry Land, a coming-home drama as inexpressive as its traumatized lead.
  5. The Extra Man
    For all its flighty charms, The Extra Man never really lands. It hovers like a hummingbird madly beating its wings to stay aloft.
  6. Get Low
    Though the story sometimes wanders into hazy, corny sentiment, its protagonist (called Felix Bush, which was apparently a nickname or alias of Breazeale's) is vivid, enigmatic and unpredictable.
  7. Smash His Camera
    In Smash His Camera Mr. Galella emerges as a kindred soul for the curious documentarian and as a large, complicated personality in his own right, not entirely likable but admirable for his persistence and the quickness of his index finger.
  8. What's the Matter with Kansas?
    The specific roots of a pervasive sense of disenfranchisement are barely described, as are strategies for liberals seeking to reclaim the state. What's the Matter With Kansas? depicts a groundswell of anger but largely ignores the external forces that helped shape it.
  9. Who Killed Nancy?
    An unruly mash-up of terrific anecdotes and terrible teeth, grainy film and garish memories, Who Killed Nancy? cares less about investigating a death than about vindicating an accused killer.
  10. Salt
    She is the prime special effect, and a reminder that even in an era of technological overkill, movie stars matter.
  11. Ramona and Beezus
    Parents may also be happy to see a movie for children that doesn't involve wizards, vampires or action figures that can be bought in the food court. They should be warned, though, that the price of contemporary realism is a story that includes layoffs, bickering and unpaid bills.
  12. Audrey the Trainwreck
    Frank V. Ross wrote and directed this slice of Midwestern mumblecore in a style -- overlapping dialogue, off-center compositions, a jumpy, disconnected narrative -- that suggests Robert Altman without any of Altman's instincts for character and poetry.
  13. Countdown to Zero
    Paying to see Countdown to Zero is like tipping a fortuneteller to predict the manner of your death.
  14. Farewell
    When it comes to actual historical details, Farewell crams too many notions into expositional blips of dialogue. And the scenes of conferences in the corridors of power, whether in Moscow, Paris or Washington, are strained and abrupt.
  15. Life During Wartime
    It is all perfectly dreadful and at times appallingly funny. Mr. Solondz winds thin tendrils of narrative around the dinner-table conversations, and allows everyone a chance to be earnestly foolish, unguardedly selfish and also, almost by accident, cruelly honest.
  16. Mugabe and the White African
    The courses of colonialism and racial strife were radically different in America and Australia than they were in Africa. That doesn't make Mr. Freeth's cause any less just, but it does mean that Mugabe and the White African needs to be approached with care.
  17. Spoken Word
    Strongly acted and beautifully photographed (by Virgil Mirano), Spoken Word is a quietly resonant family drama about the tug of old habits and the difficulties of escaping the past.
  18. Slingshot
    Portrayed entirely without sentiment, everyone here is equally abject, from the crushed victim of a human stampede to the starving baby playing in its own feces. The mood of scrambling desperation can be exhausting, but the filmmaking is never less than exhilarating.
  19. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
    It places Basquiat's art in a cultural context with an enthusiasm and zest that make the many pictures shown come blazingly alive.
  20. Inception
    Though there is a lot to see in Inception, there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan’s idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness -- the risk of real confusion, of delirium, of ineffable ambiguity -- that this subject requires.
  21. Kisses
    Kisses may strike you as either ingeniously magical or insufferably cute, depending on your taste. But more than the story, which circles back on itself, the natural performances of its young stars, Shane Curry and especially Kelly O'Neill, nonprofessional actors, lend the movie a core of integrity.
  22. Alamar (To the Sea)
    The characters in Alamar may be playing versions of themselves, but the writer, editor and director Pedro González-Rubio has constructed a film in which the journey has an overarching mythic resonance that evokes fables from "Robinson Crusoe" to "The Old Man and the Sea."
  23. To Age or Not to Age
    Robert Kane Pappas’s documentary about scientific experiments in life extension, makes a digressive, disorganized hash of a fascinating topic.
  24. Valhalla Rising
    Mr. Refn, who can pull off stylish brutality (in the "Pusher" films and "Bronson" ), shows no knack for the kind of visionary, hallucinatory image making that would render Valhalla Rising memorable.
  25. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
    While Mr. Molina and Mr. Cage supply a measure of well-compensated eccentricity, their labors ultimately serve to emphasize the grinding mediocrity of the enterprise.
  26. The Kids Are All Right
    It is outrageously funny without ever exaggerating for comic effect, and heartbreaking with only minimal melodramatic embellishment.
  27. Predators
    As its momentum accelerates, and its special effects transform it into a pulpy cartoon, Predators loses its judgment and turns into a frantic, clichéd chase film. This chaotic stew of fire, blood, mud and explosives is so devoid of terror and suspense that any metaphorical analysis is rendered moot.
  28. Despicable Me
    Despicable Me cannot be faulted for lack of trying. If anything, it tries much too hard, stuffing great gobs of second-rate action, secondhand humor and warmed-over sentiment into every nook and cranny of its relentlessly busy 3-D frames.
  29. The Girl Who Played with Fire
    Ms. Rapace, tiny and agile, her steely rage showing now and then the tiniest crack of vulnerability, belongs to another dimension altogether. She makes this movie good enough, but also makes you wish it were much better.
  30. Winnebago Man
    A small, mildly entertaining documentary.
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