The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,313 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: 9,401 out of 20313
  2. Mixed: 8,446 out of 20313
  3. Negative: 2,466 out of 20313
20313 movie reviews
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  1. Cop Out
    It’s a phoned-in, gutless piece of hack work that reminds you of other, better films in the same vein.
  2. A Prophet
    One of those rare films in which the moral stakes are as insistent and thought through as the aesthetic choices.
  3. The Crazies
    Mr. Romero is executive producer of the new film. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have his style or sense of humor.
  4. The Yellow Handkerchief
    If Mr. Hurt gives a meticulously detailed performance, he is still so innately refined that Brett never quite registers as an authentic blue-collar type, either vocally or in his body language. Ultimately, men like Brett are just not in Mr. Hurt’s DNA, and you are left with the impression of observing a silk purse artfully (but only partially) disguised as a sow’s ear.
  5. Easier with Practice
    A tale about appearances in which not everything is as it seems, Easier With Practice tries to use phone sex as a way to explore contemporary alienation.
  6. The Art of the Steal
    One weakness is the too-brief, tantalizing peeks inside the Barnes. Yet, like the movie as a whole, this limitation comes with dividends: it made me want to hop on a plane to Philadelphia as soon as possible to see the original before it’s emptied.
  7. Formosa Betrayed
    Mr. Van Der Beek, manlier than in his “Dawson Creek” days, gives an able performance in a movie whose Asian actors tend to overplay the intrigue in an exaggerated 1940s style, exchanging sinister meaningful looks and, in general, hamming it up.
  8. Prodigal Sons
    A tale of two siblings -- one basking in memories, the other fleeing them -- Prodigal Sons grapples with identity through the prism of sibling rivalry. In the end its conclusions have little to do with gender and everything to do with acceptance.
  9. Toe to Toe
    Ms. Abt provides an unusually honest, compassionate and challenging view of contemporary youth, neither sugarcoated nor prurient.
  10. Shutter Island
    Something TERRIBLE is afoot. Sadly, that something turns out to be the movie itself.
  11. Happy Tears
    Mr. Lichtenstein seems to want your tears. Nothing wrong there. The problem is that, because he never settles persuasively into one groove -- you don’t believe the tears or the smiles or anything in between -- he can’t begin to approach the complex contradictions suggested by his movie’s title.
  12. The Good Guy
    The movie’s confident performances and its eye and ear for detail make The Good Guy a satisfying insider’s snapshot of a shark tank.
  13. Blood Done Sign My Name
    A curious, somewhat ungainly movie. But it is also rich and fascinating. At times you think you are watching a clumsy stage pageant superimposed on a documentary; it’s so stiff, and yet at the same time so real.
  14. The Ghost Writer
    Mr. Polanski’s work with his performers is consistently subtle even when the performances seem anything but, which is true of this very fine film from welcome start to finish.
  15. Phyllis and Harold
    The problem with these my-family-was-messed-up-and-I need-to-share projects is that they require an audience of complete strangers to give a damn. And while we sometimes do, it’s usually because the material is inherently compelling (“Tarnation”) or the filmmaking uncovers truths beyond the template of family therapy (“51 Birch Street”). Sadly, Phyllis and Harold fulfills neither requirement.
  16. The Last New Yorker
    The Last New Yorker would like to think of itself as a comic fairy tale, but Lenny’s pride and self-delusion are too pathetic to be amusing.
  17. Lourdes
    One of the pleasures of this intelligent, rigorously thoughtful, somewhat sly film is that it takes place in the space between the inexplicable (no explanation is possible) and the unexplained (enlightenment might be around the corner).
  18. The Wolfman
    In this shaggy-dog version the wolfman’s story is both gratuitously bloody and, finally, bloodless.
  19. Valentine's Day
    This might not be the Titanic of romantic comedies (it’s tugboat size), but it’s a disaster: cynically made, barely directed, terribly written. But quick: there’s still time to escape!
  20. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
    For all the earth shaking that goes on, “Percy Jackson” is agreeably tame and unthreatening.
  21. My Name Is Khan
    Skillfully directed by Karan Johar and with an evocative score by Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy, “Khan” jerks tears with ease, while teaching lessons about Islam and tolerance.
  22. Videocracy
    Given the stakes, it’s hard not to wish that Mr. Gandini had been more ambitious: at 85 minutes, Videocracy can only scratch the surface. Even so, after watching it, you realize that even a cursory look at Mr. Berlusconi is crucial to understanding an age in which celebrity is now the coin of the realm.
  23. October Country
    October Country feels at once personal and objective, a fascinating hybrid of two important tendencies in the modern documentary.
  24. American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
    Because it is a film, American Radical can only begin to sketch the complicated historical and political debates that engage Mr. Finkelstein and his detractors, but it allows both sides to make their cases.
  25. Tano da morire
    An inexplicable multiple award winner, To Die for Tano left me more perplexed than pleased. But then I don’t really get Roberto Benigni either.
  26. From Paris with Love
    I am ashamed to admit that this empty-headed, preposterous, possibly evil mélange of gunplay and high-speed car chases on Parisian boulevards is a feel-good movie that produces a buzz.
  27. Dear John
    Dear John carefully distills selected elements of human experience and reduces them to a sweet and digestible syrup. It may not be strong medicine, but it delivers an effective, pleasing dose of pure sentiment and vicarious heartache.
  28. District 13: Ultimatum
    It’s pleasurable nonsense and another reminder that one of the great pulls of cinema is the spectacle of other bodies in blissful motion.
  29. Frozen
    A minimalist setup delivers maximum fright in Frozen, a nifty little chiller that balances its cold terrain with an unexpectedly warm heart.
  30. Terribly Happy
    Not a horror movie but a witty, expertly constructed psychological thriller.
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