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. Nightmare Alley
    Del Toro is a world builder, but he can have a tough time bringing his creations to life, which is the case here despite the hard work of his fine cast. The carnival is diverting, and del Toro’s fondness for its denizens helps put a human face on these purported freaks. But once he’s finished with the preliminaries, he struggles to make the many striking parts cohere into a living, breathing whole.
  2. The Hand of God
    I wouldn’t say that this movie is a distraction from reality, any more than I would call it a work of realism. It’s a beautiful tautology: a true-to-life movie about a life made for movies.
  3. Joy Womack: The White Swan
    To a degree, Womack’s audacious career path has been shoehorned into a conventional profile format.
  4. The Lady of Heaven
    The film runs through plot points in appropriately spectacular, if mechanical, fashion. A shoddy script and an overwhelming reliance on clichés, however, make this would-be blockbuster feel incredibly cheap.
  5. Back to the Outback
    However generic this movie is in premise, there is wit to be found in its details, and warmth in its message.
  6. Mr. Saturday Night
    Maggio ends his story in the early 1980s, even though Stigwood lived until 2016. He is thinking small about a man who used to dream big.
  7. Encounter
    After setting up a potentially powerful study of damage and delusion, Pearce (whose 2018 feature debut, “Beast,” signaled an unusual talent) remains torn between science fiction and psychological fact.
  8. The Real Charlie Chaplin
    The tell-all promise of the film’s title dwindles away into predictable perspectives from members of his family. But this introduction to Chaplin shines whenever he performs, displaying his comic genius for doing everything wrong to absolute perfection.
  9. France
    While France remains interesting, thanks to Seydoux’s tough and resourceful performance, “France” loses its emotional force and its intellectual focus. A potentially insightful exploration of the loss of self in a media-saturated world amounts, in the end, to a series of shallow images.
  10. A Son
    As the tone, vibe and storytelling parts shift and shift again — the movie is by turns a hospital drama, a marriage melodrama, a black-market intrigue — Meriem and especially Fares draw you near, push you away and prompt you to choose sides.
  11. Last and First Men
    Johannsson’s stark, uncompromising passion project is always striking to the eye even in moments when the narrative lulls.
  12. The Unforgivable
    The screenplay, adapted by Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz and Courtenay Miles from a British mini-series, gifts Bullock a few big screaming scenes but mostly has her slouching around silently while it dithers over whether or not to root for Ruth to rebuild her life.
  13. Being the Ricardos
    The Lucy in Being the Ricardos is scarcely interested in messy politics. Mainly she plays the role of the jealous, suspicious wife and harridan star who everyone really does love even if she’s a bitch. That shortchanges and flattens Ball, despite Kidman’s efforts.
  14. National Champions
    The movie dilutes its impact with lackluster direction of samey scenes — people in hotel rooms speechifying — and a distracting nighttime soap subplot.
  15. Red Rocket
    It’s funny and abrasive, but also coy and, in the end, a bit tedious.
  16. Agnes
    There is a clear through line of faithlessness in the script by Reece and John Selvidge, but it is otherwise so aimless and underdeveloped as to turn this 93-minute film into a plodding slog.
  17. West Side Story
    It’s a dazzling display of filmmaking craft that also feels raw, unsettled and alive.
  18. Red Pill
    The main issue is the film’s trite commentary on America’s political and racial divides (see also: last year’s “The Hunt”), which is neither funny, frightening, nor provocative. Just numbing.
  19. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
    The movie, directed by Swinton O. Scott III, plays like an extended series pilot, built out of largely interchangeable episodes.
  20. Single All the Way
    The supporting cast compensates with piquancy in the side dishes, but the main course is a flavorless misfire.
  21. Listening to Kenny G
    As a music industry story, Kenny G’s rise, engineered by the mogul Clive Davis but at times bucked by the artist himself, is fascinating.
  22. Benedetta
    Verhoeven brings more vitality to his work than many filmmakers half his age, and his screenplay (with David Birke) is a tasteless hoot, gleefully cramming the frame with blood, fornication and flagellations galore.
  23. Wolf
    Wolf may lead with an open curiosity, but in tackling big ideas about identity, openness is not always enough.
  24. Silent Night
    The characters, despite their histrionic representation of the wealthy class, are not compelling enough to carry the movie, nor are the horrors of the outside world fleshed out enough to frighten.
  25. The Advent Calendar
    It is bizarre and dizzying and oddly beautiful in its fervor, as fantastical props and effects distract from the nonsensical plot. But this script also clumsily insists that its protagonist, a woman named Eva (Eugénie Derouand) who uses a wheelchair, is murderously obsessed with overcoming her disability.
  26. Flee
    Less a sociological case study than a psychological portrait, the film is both probing and tactful.
  27. Torn
    Though there are no real secrets to be uncovered regarding Alex Lowe’s motivations for climbing, nor his infectiously exuberant personality in life . . . the film unavoidably feels confessional and cathartic.
  28. Try Harder!
    Quiet yet assertive, Try Harder! itself succeeds at not trying too hard.
  29. Citizen Ashe
    Ashe’s story certainly has moments of great drama and high tension, but, as a sports figure, he inspired decidedly undramatic sobriquets like “the gentle warrior.” This documentary shows you a truer, sharper picture.
  30. 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible
    In widening its aperture — from the ascents to visits to Purja’s childhood home as well as brief dives into Nepal’s history — “14 Peaks” expands a genre often focused on the feats of individuals to celebrate lessons about vast dreams and communal bonds.
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