The New York Times' Scores

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For 20,271 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: 9,377 out of 20271
  2. Mixed: 8,430 out of 20271
  3. Negative: 2,464 out of 20271
20271 movie reviews
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  1. Nice Dreams
    If marijuana has a way of heightening the hilarious aspects of things that might not otherwise be funny, then this is very much a marijuana movie. But Nice Dreams also has a more general appeal than that. These are high spirits that don't have to do with being high.
  2. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
    Kristy McNichol and Dennis Quaid, as a mutually devoted sister and brother, are personable but idle in this largely uneventful tale.
  3. Polyester
    Polyester is not Mr. Waters's ordinary movie. It's a very funny one, with a hip, stylized humor that extends beyond the usual limitations of his outlook.
  4. Bustin' Loose
    Bustin' Loose is not unbearable, though a soft-hearted Richard Pryor is not a terribly funny Richard Pryor.
  5. The Four Seasons
    Mr. Alda's direction is particularly strong for bringing out his actors' humanity, and for developing a comic timing that helps unite the cast.
  6. Outland
    Outland is what most people mean when they talk about good escapist entertainment. It won't enlarge one's perceptions of life by a single millimeter, but neither does it make one feel like an idiot for enjoying it so much.
  7. Death Hunt
    Nothing in Death Hunt makes a great deal of sense, though the scenery is rugged and the snowscapes beautiful.
  8. Happy Birthday to Me
    As written by a gang of three totally confused writers and directed, without apparent style, by J. Lee Thompson, it's a mystery-horror movie with a fatal flaw - the denouement, in which a half-dozen grisly murders are explained, requires almost as much footage as the murders themselves.
  9. Second-Hand Hearts
    Second Hand Hearts needs far more than a change of title to save it from oblivion. It needs a screenplay that doesn't treat its characters as if they were waste baskets to be filled with prose that any self-respecting writer would hide from his best friend.
  10. The Burning
    The Burning makes a few minor departures from the usual cliches of its genre, though it carefully preserves the violence and sadism that are schlock horror's sine qua non.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Friday the 13th Part 2
    FRIDAY the 13th Part II will frighten you, at least for moments, although it will be a close-run thing whether it will be fright, nausea or simple distaste that gets to you first. The movie exists for no other purpose than to shock. The plot is an excuse for joining together horrors, all of the sado-masochist kind, and the acting is rudimentary at best. It probably will make a fortune. [4 May 1981, p.C1]
    • The New York Times
  12. King of the Mountain
    Much of the movie is occupied by people as they race one another down Mulholland Drive, but because most of the races are run at night, they aren't as exciting as they might be.
  13. Ms. 45
    Abel Ferrera...has a tin ear for dialogue and an evident penchant for ludicrous material. But beyond that, he is clearly a talented fellow. One can only hope he finds something else to make movies about very soon.
  14. The Hand
    A suspense-horror film of unusual psychological intelligence and wit.
  15. Caveman
    The movie is nicely whimsical, and elaborate in a way that no fantasy film this side of outer space has lately been. It's dopey, but it's also lots of fun.
  16. Knightriders
    Though Knightriders is absurd when you get right down to it, its absurdities are often fun and far less offensive than the solemnities that Mr. Boorman has dished up at far greater expense.
  17. Excalibur
    Mr. Boorman takes these myths very seriously, but he has used them with a pretentiousness that obscures his vision.
  18. Nighthawks
    We've seen movies like Nighthawks before, but we haven't seen one in a while. That may be why this police film, with an international cast and a plot about international terrorism, has so much punch. All of it is standard stuff, and yet Nighthawks has been assembled with enough pep to make it feel fresh. It is particularly helped by the performances of Rutger Hauer, a Dutch actor who makes a startling impression as a cold-blooded fiend, and Sylvester Stallone, from whom less is definitely more.
  19. The Howling
    It's also one of those movies that is itself so lethargic that one welcomes its so-called shock moments not because they are scary but because they indicate that not everyone behind the camera has been napping. You don't dread the possibility of something jumping out from behind the door. You long for it.
  20. This Is Elvis
    This isn't a particularly well-made film, or even a truthful one - as a matter of fact, its fraudulence is its one uncompromising aspect. And yet it is mesmerizing, if not as a drama or documentary, then as an artifact.
  21. Atlantic City
    A rich, gaudy cinema trip.
  22. Thief
    Mr. Mann may well become a very good theatrical film maker but, among other things, he's going to have to learn how to edit himself, to resist the temptation to allow dialogue that is colorful to turn, all of a sudden, into deep, abiding purple. Time after time scenes start off well and slip into unintentionally comic excess.
  23. The Postman Always Rings Twice
    Miss Lange is not a bad actress, but her miscasting is fatal to the picture and exemplifies its tiresomely genteel artfulness.
  24. The Final Conflict
    In the cast are many, many dogs, who are charmed by Damien in a way no audience is likely to be.
  25. Cutter's Way
    It's the sort of picture that never wants to concede what it's about. It is, however, enchanted by the sound of its own dialogue, which is vivid without being informative or even amusing on any level.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Funhouse
    Mr. Hooper almost persuades us that he is up to more than just gore, creepiness and trauma.
  27. Back Roads
    Less a movie than an extended sketch, and it's to the credit of Mr. Ritt, his stars and Gary Devore, the screenwriter, that the movie is so much fun, even given its occasional soggy patches.
  28. Permanent Vacation
    It's a must-see for anyone who shares the belief that Mr. Jarmusch is the most arresting and original American film maker to come out of the 1980's.
  29. Maniac
    William Lustig is the film's director, and Joe Spinell, who plays the maniac, also collaborated on the screenplay (with C.A. Rosenberg) and wrote the original story. He is terrible in all capacities, though his performance is more immediately objectionable. Watching him act like a psychopathic killer with a mommy-complex is like watching someone else throw up.
  30. The Dogs of War
    It demonstrates the kind of intelligence and thought one doesn't often find in a movie aimed at the action-adventure crowd. This is evident as much in what the film doesn't do and say as in what is actually seen on the screen.
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