The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,323 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: 9,408 out of 20323
  2. Mixed: 8,448 out of 20323
  3. Negative: 2,467 out of 20323
20323 movie reviews
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  1. Home of the Brave
    As this cautious, politically evenhanded movie grinds along like clockwork, the fuse that should spark an emotional explosion fizzles after some sporadic hisses and sputters.
  2. The Secret Life of Words
    The exquisitely coordinated performances elicit an empathy as powerful as anything I can remember feeling in a recent film.
  3. Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here)
    This being a film review, the relevant question is whether J L Aronson's documentary about Danielson is worth watching. The answer, for about two-thirds of it, is yes. Though ultimately, alas, the movie has a little too much Danielson in it.
  4. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Julian P. Hobbs directs by getting out of the way of his star's soulful eyes and considerable talent, allowing Mr. Mays to feed on the tension between the rationality of his character's courtroom argument and the utter lunacy of his beliefs.
  5. Reminiscing in Tempo
    Ellington fans will certainly relish the many vintage clips scattered throughout.
  6. Resilience
    One of those rare ensemble dramas whose actors work toward common goals rather than individual awards, the movie resolves its creeping escalation of poor judgment and reprehensible behavior with surprising emotional force.
  7. Automatons
    Automatons is driven less by its hints of suicide bombers than by its rigorous adherence to a time when robots were played by inverted dustbins and battles were represented by dots converging on a crackling screen. This lack of sophistication is enormously endearing, leaving us with the comforting notion that the end of the world will look a lot like the beginning of television.
  8. Apocalypto
    Neither Mr. Gibson’s fans nor his detractors are likely to accuse him of excessive subtlety, and the effectiveness of Apocalypto is inseparable from its crudity. But the blunt characterizations and the emphatic emotional cues are also evidence of the director’s skill.
  9. Blood Diamond
    While Mr. DiCaprio turns out to be an ideal fit for Blood Diamond, there's an insolvable disconnect between this serious story and the frivolous way it has been told. There is no reason to doubt the filmmakers' sincerity; only their filmmaking.
  10. The Holiday
    Ms. Meyers, whose ambitions are telegraphed by her film's title, which directly invokes George Cukor's lovely 1938 romp "Holiday," has created a cumbersome vehicle by saddling Iris with a flamboyantly glamorous Los Angeles double, Amanda. As played by Cameron Diaz with oodles of charm and not an ounce of persuasion, Amanda doesn’t as much mirror Iris's love troubles as throw them into wincing relief.
  11. Unaccompanied Minors
    Not for the faint of heart, the movie is unsettling and startlingly true to life. At least that’s how it seemed to me. To the minors I happened to be accompanying, it seemed to be reasonably good fun.
  12. Off the Black
    Off the Black is so much Mr. Nolte’s movie that it couldn’t exist without him. His character is the latest in a long line of Hemingway-esque ruins, marinated in beer and testosterone, who have become Mr. Nolte’s specialty.
  13. Screamers
    Part rockumentary, part howl of outrage, Screamers would have benefited from less concert film and more historical background.
  14. The Empire in Africa
    A forest of talking heads and pointing fingers, The Empire in Africa is a noble but failed attempt to explicate the tragedy of the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone.
  15. I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
    Dismayingly, bad filmmaking isn't really to blame for the lack of punch in Ever Again. Perhaps it's the familiarity of it all.
  16. Family Law
    Delicate, bittersweet comedy.
  17. Forgiveness
    Everyone’s sorry about something in Forgiveness, a glum drama about the way repentance can do more damage than the sin that precedes it.
  18. Snow Blind
    Snow Blind calls itself a documentary, but it's really all about selling the product of snowboarding; it never stops feeling like the in-house channel on a ski-lodge television.
  19. Inland Empire
    One of the few films I've seen this year that deserves to be called art. Dark as pitch, as noir, as hate, by turns beautiful and ugly, funny and horrifying, the film is also as cracked as Mad magazine, though generally more difficult to parse.
  20. The Bergman Trilogy
    Intimate, compelling film.
  21. Days of Glory
    It is a chronicle of courage and sacrifice, of danger and solidarity, of heroism and futility, told with power, grace and feeling and brought alive by first-rate acting. A damn good war movie.
  22. Hermanas
    A perceptive and beautifully acted drama.
  23. The Lives of Others
    The easy, complacent distance that informs much historical filmmaking is almost entirely absent from this supremely intelligent, unfailingly honest movie.
  24. The Nativity Story
    At its best, The Nativity Story shares with "Hail Mary" an interest in finding a kernel of realism in the old story of a pregnant teenager in hard times. Buried in the pageantry, in other words, is an interesting movie.
  25. Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj
    National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj harnesses smut and silliness to an oddly innocent tale of true love.
  26. 3 Needles
    Had it taken a more hard-headed approach, 3 Needles, might have been to the AIDS epidemic what "Traffic" was to the drug trade.
  27. 10 Items or Less
    This is a picture with nothing to prove, and not all that much to say, but its modesty and good humor make it hard to resist.
  28. The Architect
    Deteriorates from a potentially enlightening exploration of urban development and class conflict into a preposterous melodrama.
  29. Turistas
    A grubby, lethally dull bid to cash in on the new extreme horror, the film turns on a conceit as frayed as Freddy Krueger’s shtick.
  30. Two Weeks
    Two Weeks gets into serious trouble in its clumsy attempts to offset the sadness and anxiety with humor. This pursuit of sitcom levity contaminates a movie that might have been an American answer to the hardheaded Romanian masterpiece "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu."
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