Ben Kenigsberg

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For 1,131 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 29% higher than the average critic
  • 7% same as the average critic
  • 64% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Ben Kenigsberg's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Lowest review score: 0 Date Movie
Score distribution:
1131 movie reviews
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    If Durkin’s writing doesn’t always match his formal flair, The Nest has a bracing economy, cramming a lot into tight quarters.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Ben Kenigsberg
    An exploitation film that proceeds as if it were a solemn memorial, The Secrets We Keep doesn’t do right by the Holocaust history it invokes — or much else.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Uribe directs for sensory effect rather than context, which is minimal and parceled out as needed, and deals with the politics of the construction project glancingly, an approach that registers as alternately poetic and coy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    In a sense, it’s less a documentary for posterity than an urgent broadcast. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth hearing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    At its best, the movie is a vertiginous, head-slapping examination of the tangible, unpredictable consequences of making art.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    As potentially valuable as Robin’s Wish is for illuminating Williams’s death — initial reports noted his past struggles with addiction and depression — it is more affecting and appealing as a tribute. Stories of Williams as a matchless improviser, an unpretentious neighbor and a man who had a gift for consoling others suggest the world lost not just an uproarious presence but a kind one.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    As Shimu’s efforts ramp up and appear increasingly futile, Made in Bangladesh acquires a quiet power.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    While the film may speak to viewers with a spiritual investment in these events, it does little to bring them alive for others.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Whether Sauper’s travels delivered a cohesive movie this time is debatable, but what he does find is always interesting.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Mostly The One and Only Ivan consists of fairly standard Disney lessons, about the hardships of losing parents (real and surrogate) and how difficult it is to embrace change.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    Is Coup 53 trustworthy in every respect? Perhaps not. Both as a detective story and as a deep dive into a world event whose consequences linger, it is bracing, absorbing filmmaking.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Ben Kenigsberg
    The competing agendas surrounding the case would prevent anyone from making a cohesive Hawkins documentary, and Storm Over Brooklyn never settles on a satisfying point of view.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    There is less to The Bay of Silence than meets the eye.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    If Red Penguins doesn’t always strike a satisfying balance between the glib and the grim, the broader topic — the commercialization of hockey — affords it a novel lens on Russia’s economic transition.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Though it might seem generic in some respects, Rebuilding Paradise resonates with the moment.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    If the filmmakers succeed in wringing drama from decisions that have already come down, their efforts at character development are hit-and-miss.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    Mostly, Retaliation accords Bloom a chance to deliver some impressive, anguished monologues, although the scenes focusing on those around him (particularly a late conversation between Montgomery and Ferns’s characters) hint at a more expansive, unrealized complexity.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Despite stodgy trappings, Dateline-Saigon captures a swirl of personalities and conveys the excitement of reporting in a fast-moving, confusing and dangerous atmosphere.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    While Kosinski’s prose renders the grotesque vivid by understatement, this adaptation often seems to have little purpose beyond literal-minded visualization.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Ben Kenigsberg
    Jones’s former affiliation presumably helped with access; adherents seem to trust her, and some clips are credited to the church. It also gives her a complicated, at times surprisingly sympathetic outlook on the cult.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    At times, Mavromichalis himself seems starstuck, to the extent that he can’t distinguish the disarming from the banal.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    The movie is consistently seductive, and it makes lovely use of a composition by Shannon Graham that is woven into Veronica’s work as a music teacher. But several story shortcuts . . . ensure that the characters’ anguish feels more constructed than organic.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Ben Kenigsberg
    Seen with or without foreknowledge of its methods, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is only fitfully engaging — suspect as documentary, insubstantial as fiction.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Although the film uses a conventional format, it makes an urgent argument: that a new wave of voter suppression has threatened the rights that Lewis labored to secure.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    More than the informational nuggets the movie flashes onscreen, these scenes of personal interaction help make “Unsettled” distinctive.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    It proceeds dryly and largely chronologically through her life, sometimes with an awkward sense of proportion.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    This tender, detail-filled movie lives for the moment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Not all the misdirection is elegant, but the film’s tenderness flowers in a lovely, unexpected final shot.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Long stretches are not a personal reckoning but an overview; many details overlap with “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” from last year, although the clips here are at least as good. It is also more sympathetic to Cohn than either Cohn’s reputation or the familial animosity would suggest.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    My Father the Spy doesn’t have a tidy point to make, but it succeeds at bringing a turbulent reminiscence to life.

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