Ben Kenigsberg

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The A.V. Club, The New York Times, Time Out, Time Out London, Variety, Village Voice
For 1,126 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 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Ben Kenigsberg's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 The Girl and the Spider
Lowest review score: 0 Date Movie
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 395 out of 1126
  2. Mixed: 595 out of 1126
  3. Negative: 136 out of 1126
1126 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    Mayor
    A disarming subject, Hadid comes across as a cleareyed, forthright leader. But Mayor also stands out because Osit has thought it through in cinematic terms: He knows when to dwell on a striking image (such as Hadid examining a painting of Jerusalem on his global travels) and when to let a counterintuitive soundtrack selection play through.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Heimat is a Space in Time
    Despite some tedious passages, Heimat Is a Space in Time takes an intriguing approach to history that remains refreshingly rooted in primary sources.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Vision Portraits
    Despite its focus on as fluid and mysterious a subject as art, Vision Portraits addresses blindness in concrete, comprehensible terms.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    The Image You Missed
    The Image You Missed is less compelling as an act of personal therapy than it is as filmed film criticism, but even if it doesn’t fully cohere, Foreman’s family stake helps keep it original.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Peace Officer
    While Peace Officer could offer more information, what is here is disturbing and sometimes eye-opening.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    Coexistence, My Ass!
    The film leaves the impression that, sadly, comedy may be one of the only paths to peace left in the region.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Ben Kenigsberg
    Omar
    Knotty and tense for most of its running time, Omar becomes muddled in its closing minutes, conflating personal and political treachery.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Joy
    Matching content with form, the movie is tight and merciless, even if parts play like a tract.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    In the Last Days of the City
    Whether In the Last Days of the City ultimately comes together as a feature is open to debate, but this is a film of beauty and skill.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Pump
    The movie goes beyond alarmism with solutions that on the surface would seem to find common ground between environmental advocacy and unfettered capitalism.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Bitter Money
    It’s not clear that the director quite found what he was looking for.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Ben Kenigsberg
    The Good Liar
    The real good liar is whoever convinced Mirren and McKellen to class up such thin and arbitrary material.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Oklahoma City
    Oklahoma City suggests that conspiracy theories today have consequences for tomorrow — a message with terrifying implications in an age of fake news.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
    Even moviegoers who know “Psycho” backward and forward...are bound to learn something new from the movie, which addresses the shower scene from critical, historical, theoretical and technical angles, down to the blinding white of the bathroom tiles.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Adam
    In Maryam Touzani’s Adam, certain stylistic choices — a muted palette, the absence of a melodramatic score, hand-held camerawork — help temper sentimentality with verisimilitude.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    The Mission
    The most barbed aspect of the movie, a National Geographic release, is its acknowledgment of the role that National Geographic itself has played in exoticizing groups like the North Sentinelese.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Ben Kenigsberg
    Jawline
    A “Grey Gardens” for Generation Z, Jawline underscores the contrast between Austyn’s optimism and his drab surroundings.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    McCullin
    McCullin is not a groundbreaking documentary, but it wears its conventional format well, taking its cues (and its power) from the photographs themselves.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Ben Kenigsberg
    The Armstrong Lie
    Those who want to see Armstrong sweat may leave disappointed. Calm and seemingly well rehearsed in interviews, Armstrong shrugs off years of public statements without ever seeming truly remorseful.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Ben Kenigsberg
    Rush
    Rush, in other words, is a foursquare sportsmanship movie, offering little in the way of surprises but plenty of earnest, satisfying thrills.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Ben Kenigsberg
    M.C. Escher: Journey To Infinity
    Whether anyone else, including Escher, would have done a more engaging job is debatable, but this movie, directed by Robin Lutz, offers an only intermittently satisfying look at his interests and methods. Don’t call it art; Escher felt his output hovered between art and mathematics.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Assassins
    Its main virtues are a wild story and a stealth sense of outrage. It argues that these so-called assassins became political pawns and had to face the courts without witnesses who might have aided their defense.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    A Gray State
    There’s a morbid fascination inherent to documentaries like A Gray State, which is engrossing for the reasons it’s also unsatisfying: As Adam Shambour, a friend of Mr. Crowley’s, says, it’s a mystery that answers all the major questions except “Why?”
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    A Couple
    Even at 63 minutes, A Couple is not an easy sit. It took me three viewings before I was able to become absorbed in it — to settle into the rhythms of Boutefeu’s performance, to find the monologues less monotonous, to admire the beauty of the garden that Wiseman uses so calmingly to counterpoint the anger of Sophia’s words.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Ben Kenigsberg
    Hollywoodgate
    The frustration of Hollywoodgate is that it could only ever feel incomplete.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    Lost in Paris
    Lost in Paris grows a bit tiresome at feature length, but it’s a winning divertissement.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    Involuntary
    The bitterly funny, multistrand Involuntary, from 2008, is a step forward in the director’s ambition.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Ben Kenigsberg
    Enemies of the State
    Kennebeck weaves uncertainty into the formal design, staging re-enactments mingled with original audio, for instance. The movie is a spoiler deathtrap, but the questions it raises are fascinating.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Ben Kenigsberg
    Youth (Spring)
    While the running time may be indulgent, the experience of feeling trapped in this world is difficult to shake.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Ben Kenigsberg
    As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial
    “As We Speak” makes a powerful case for the necessity of being free to make art, and for public awareness that art rarely qualifies as legal evidence.
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