Brian Truitt

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USA Today
For 619 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 69% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 28% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Brian Truitt's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Lowest review score: 25 The Dark Tower
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 501 out of 619
  2. Mixed: 84 out of 619
  3. Negative: 34 out of 619
619 movie reviews
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    • 97 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Parasite
    The latest excellent effort for writer/director Bong Joon-ho (“The Host,” “Okja”) is a more entertaining version of “Roma,” an Oscar-ready, slice-of-life foreign film that challenges its audience to look inward.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Truitt
    Roma
    Roma is an elegiac and moving work driven by Aparicio’s understated and nuanced performance.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    Manchester by the Sea
    Manchester finds a way to weave together truly wrenching sequences with a clever sense of humor, and Lonergan pulls extraordinary performances from his entire cast, especially Casey Affleck.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 63 Brian Truitt
    One Battle After Another
    What’s explosive doesn’t always equate to propulsive, however, in a stuffed narrative with pacing issues and a plot that doesn’t need two hours and 40 minutes to make its point.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Dunkirk
    Dunkirk is also one of the best-scored films in recent memory, and Hans Zimmer’s music plays as important a role as any character. With shades of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the melodies are glorious, yet Zimmer also creates an instrumental ticking-clock soundtrack that’s a propulsive force in the action scenes.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    The Irishman
    What's wonderfully explored here, though, isn't the killer streak, but instead the gravity of taking a darker path and being left at the end with nothing but bloody memories.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Inside Out
    The main voice actors all fit their animated personas, especially Poehler and Black. Poehler brings a unshakably quirky optimism to Joy while Black takes his acerbic stand-up routine, makes it a smidge more family-friendly, and turns up the juice for Anger.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Call Me by Your Name
    The way it explores at length the sweet and sour aspects of first love is worth savoring.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    Marriage Story
    A highlight reel for everyone involved: career-defining work from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, astounding supporting turns courtesy of Laura Dern and Alan Alda, and a masterclass from Baumbach.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    La La Land
    La La Land is both delightful confection and life-affirming food for the soul.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Lady Bird
    Writer Greta Gerwig's witty and endearing solo directorial debut...navigates the absurdities and struggles of the transition into adulthood while striking an excellent balance between enjoyable quirk and touching emotion.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    TÁR
    Powered by Blanchett’s baton-wielding tour de force, the film is a modern tale about a cultural giant who uses her power in not-so-great fashion, so there’s shades of #MeToo at play. However, Tár has more of a timeless quality, playing out in the style of a Greek tragedy with the epic downfall of a woman behaving badly.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    Spotlight
    No need to bury the lede: Spotlight is a masterpiece.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Little Women
    The acting performances are stellar across the board, though the biggest joy of Little Women is Gerwig’s magnificent screenplay.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
    The Last Jedi tries to do a little too much in its overlong 2½ hours, yet writer/director Rian Johnson still turns in a stellar entry that owes much to George Lucas’ original films while finding a signature vibe of its own and unleashing a few welcome twists.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    The Favourite
    As hilarious as it is, The Favourite doesn’t skimp on impressive costuming and production design, and the film gamely tackles class and gender themes, as well as partisan politics, in its tale of women behaving badly and men being nitwits.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    The Brutalist
    The Brutalist is a toxic tale of the immigrant experience and a gripping narrative of love and hope tested through vice and struggle.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Licorice Pizza
    With Licorice Pizza, Anderson delivers a warm tasty slice of adolescence as well as two fresh-faced youngsters that will satisfy cinephiles for years to come.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    All of Us Strangers
    To call it haunting might be trite but also spot on: With a terrific performance from Andrew Scott as a queer screenwriter at a crossroads, “Strangers” is the sort of cinematic balm that not only touches your soul but takes up prime real estate.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Truitt
    Phantom Thread
    As Phantom Thread flits between complicated character piece and unusually funny romantic comedy, the movie becomes much more about Krieps’ Alma. The Luxembourgian actress holds her own with Day-Lewis and often is the best part of the movie.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Oppenheimer
    Murphy wonderfully inhabits the nervy intensity of a gaunt and troubled figure, who's deemed unstable and egoistical by his peers during the war and at wit’s end later, as he contends with politicos with a score to settle.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    Killers of the Flower Moon
    The villains are fairly obvious in “Flower Moon,” but Scorsese asks audiences to take a wider look at systemic racism, historical injustice and the corruptive influence of power and money, intriguingly tying together our past and present.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Minari
    In creating the film, Chung pulled from his own childhood growing up in Arkansas, and Minari works because it feels so personal as you root for a fragmented family weathering resentment and heartbreak in an uplifting and very universal tale.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    Marty Supreme
    Director Josh Safdie’s globetrotting, genre-busting comedy thriller is a proudly oddball period movie that boasts throwback elements but leans timeless in its unlikely hero’s journey.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Brian Truitt
    The Power of the Dog
    The period drama The Power of the Dog is a picturesque, enthralling exploration of male ego and toxic masculinity, crafted by an extremely talented woman and offering enough nuanced bite to keep it interesting till the very end.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Brian Truitt
    Anomalisa
    An artsy display put on by Kaufman and fellow co-director Duke Johnson that raises the level of the genre, though it sometimes tries to enjoy its individual oddity too much chronicling one night in a bored businessman’s life.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    Writer/director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) crafts an expertly structured, brutal, yet surprisingly rousing narrative around a woman who’s ready to torch her entire life if it means catching a killer.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    A Star Is Born
    Simultaneously an immersive concert film, enchanting romance and tear-jerking rock fantasy, A Star Is Born is a dynamic multifaceted showcase for Gaga and Cooper, who makes his directing debut a thing of melodic, masterful beauty. Together, they form an electrifying duo in one of the best movies of 2018 and the finest musical since 2002’s “Chicago.”
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    Hamilton
    Would it have been better to be in the room where it happened? Sure, the magic of watching excellent musical theater happening in front of you is impossible to re-create. But as the recent “Cats” movie proved, sometimes veering too off-course from the stage production isn’t great, either, so why not embrace a filmed version of this spectacular thing?
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Brian Truitt
    The Father
    Sneakily utilizing production design and uncanny good editing, The Father fascinatingly puts the viewer in the same state of distress as its main character. And in adapting his own play, the director’s carried over an intimate quality of a staged chamber drama to not just show a man dealing with dementia but also offer a way into his mind with a haunting, deeply affecting and quite memorable narrative.
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