The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,280 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: 9,381 out of 20280
  2. Mixed: 8,435 out of 20280
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20280
20280 movie reviews
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  1. Swimming to Cambodia
    Mr. Gray's feature-length monologue brings people, places and things so vibrantly to life that they're very nearly visible on the screen.
  2. Tin Men
    Barry Levinson's richly textured new film also has a rueful nostalgia, a fine-tuned streak of con artistry, and the same hilarious, nit-picking small talk that colored Diner, his first and best film - which is recalled, rivaled and in a few ways even outdone by this one.
  3. Witchboard
    The very best I can say is that Witchboard should encourage struggling film makers. Watch it and think, ''I can do better than that!''
  4. Heat
    The setting is Las Vegas, where Mex wins and loses a lot of money in blackjack without getting too excited about it, and things work up tepidly to the big battle in a factory handily stocked with murderous devices.
  5. Lethal Weapon
    The film is all fast action, noisy stunts and huge, often unflattering close-ups, but it packs an undeniable wallop.
  6. Angel Heart
    Mr. Parker is an eclectic film maker. He seems to have no readily identifiable obsessions that define supposedly more serious directors. He's a very able technician who needs a good screenplay, which is what's missing here.
  7. Some Kind of Wonderful
    It has a light touch, a disarming cast, a well-developed sense of humor and a lot of charm. [27 Feb 1987, p.C17]
    • The New York Times
  8. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
    Freddy Krueger is the most talkative of slashers, and also the most creative. In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, he displays a great debt to Dali in concocting surreal visions for his prey. When Freddy enters the dreams of his teen-age victims, ordinary objects become armed and dangerous.
  9. Working Girls
    Working Girls, though a work of fiction, sounds as authentic as might a documentary about coal miners. The camera attends to the duties of the ''girls'' without apparent emotional response.
  10. Mannequin
    In place of a real story, there is just the spectacle of stock characters being put through their paces to fill up the time.
  11. Over the Top
    One of Mr. Stallone's more muddled efforts but by no means a flop on the order of F.I.S.T. or Rhinestone.
  12. Light of Day
    As in Blue Collar and Hardcore, Mr. Schrader shows himself capable of launching the action in a powerhouse style. Once again, that forcefulness deteriorates as the film progresses.
  13. Black Widow
    Comes on with the seductiveness of an expensive perfume that inevitably evaporates before the night is over. However, though it promises more than it can ever deliver, this classy-looking melodrama is soothing, in the way that luxe can be, as well as redeemingly funny, in part, at least, for not becoming mired in its own darker possibilities.
  14. Dead of Winter
    The screenplay is inelegant but lively, and the direction gives the material a wicked edge.
  15. Radio Days
    As free in form as it is generous of spirit.
  16. Outrageous Fortune
    It works because Miss Midler and Miss Long are hilarious, both separately and together. Another thing that works is Leslie Dixon's screenplay, which has energy, wit and a supreme confidence that's just this side of bluster.
  17. Crimes of the Heart
    As adapted by Miss Henley and directed by Bruce Beresford, this Crimes of the Heart has been turned into a majestic, totally humorless star turn for three individually splendid, collectively lost actresses -Diane Keaton (Lenny), Jessica Lange (Meg) and Sissy Spacek (Babe).
  18. The Bedroom Window
    The only thing The Bedroom Window seems to be about is movie making - that is, it's about putting pieces of film together to create momentary effects that needn't signify anything at all. Sometimes this is called ''pure cinema.'' Sometimes, in fact, it's pure nonsense.
  19. Wisdom
    The problem is that Wisdom is aggressively boring, either because one can predict everything that's going to happen and exactly how it will look on the screen or because the concept of the film eventually seems even more confused than the title character.
  20. Dogs in Space
    The background is energetic; too bad the foreground is just as chaotic...Mr. Lowenstein - whose work includes many rock videos and ''Strikebound,'' a film about Australian miners - prefers sensory overload to coherence.
  21. Brighton Beach Memoirs
    Neil Simon is hardly Norman Rockwell, but his Brighton Beach Memoirs has a warmly nostalgic quality, something that has traveled very nicely to the screen...A film of surprisingly gentle charms. Mr. Simon's humor is much in evidence, but it is not the film's strongest selling point. Even more effective are the sense of a place and a way of life long vanished and the care and affection with which they have been summoned up.
  22. Little Shop of Horrors
    Little Shop of Horrors isn't uniformly entertaining, nor is its score always entirely audible; the musical dubbing is at times very awkward. But its best moments are delightful enough to make the slow stretches unimportant.
  23. Platoon
    Possibly the best work of any kind about the Vietnam War since Michael Herr's vigorous and hallucinatory book "Dispatches."
  24. King Kong Lives
    King Kong Lives, which was directed by John Guillerman, has a dull cast and a plot that's even duller, but the ape himself is in good form.
  25. No Mercy
    No Mercy is a passionate film noir that depends heavily upon Mr. Gere to give it credence, and Mr. Gere delivers.
  26. The Golden Child
    After his triumphant Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy could have done anything. Why, then, did he choose to head for the mysterious Orient to make a film as rich in mumbo jumbo as The Golden Child? Mr. Murphy's comic skepticism in the face of all this is the film's greatest asset. But it is worn thin by the awareness that not even he seems able to take the adventure seriously, and by the preposterousness and inconsistency of what surrounds him.
  27. Typhoon Club
    The narrative unfolds in a series of short, sometimes enigmatic scenes that have the effect of a series of simple declarative sentences. They describe the action without ever interpreting it. After a while, one realizes that there really isn't an awful lot to interpret.
  28. Heartbreak Ridge
    As the gritty, raspy-voiced sergeant, Mr. Eastwood's performance is one of the richest he's ever given. It's funny, laid-back, seemingly effortless, the sort that separates actors who are run-of-the-mill from those who have earned the right to be identified as stars.
  29. The Mosquito Coast
    In spite of its authentic scenery (it was filmed in Belize), this Mosquito Coast is utterly flat.
  30. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
    The technical minutiae, the solemn silliness and the preachy tone occasionally sounded here...are all essential to the Star Trek mystique. Whatever it is, it seems durable beyond anyone's wildest dreams. And Mr. Nimoy, by injecting some extra levity this time, has done a great deal to assure the series' longevity.
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