Brianna Zigler

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Paste Magazine, The A.V. Club, The Film Stage
For 125 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 27% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 70% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Brianna Zigler's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 91 If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Lowest review score: 15 He's All That
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 57 out of 125
  2. Mixed: 40 out of 125
  3. Negative: 28 out of 125
125 movie reviews
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    • 95 Metascore
    • 85 Brianna Zigler
    Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
    Radu Jude’s literalized mouthful Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World depicts, perhaps, the most accurate representation of the dystopia we live in, and the supposed impending dystopia that we’re in the process of arriving at.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Brianna Zigler
    Petite Maman
    With a gentle touch, Sciamma crafts a profound, easily digestible film that takes heavy themes and makes them bite-sized. She looks at the way we speak to one another, and to ourselves, at every age, and how these conversations are inevitably dulled in the schism between a child and their parent.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    The Brutalist
    The Brutalist is operating in the shadow of a tradition of cinematic epics, there is an expected journey the film has the opportunity to stray from, and it doesn’t nearly enough.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 58 Brianna Zigler
    La Chimera
    The dreaminess, a clear evocation of Fellini, feels well-worn and contrived instead of exciting, coasting on aesthetics.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Brianna Zigler
    The Worst Person in the World
    Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is as indecisive as its endlessly curious heroine, but it is an invigorating, exceedingly kind portrait conveying that the journey is just as—if not more—crucial as the place we end up.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    The Power of the Dog
    It’s easy to find yourself so wrapped up in the austere unease of Campion’s first feature in over a decade that one might fully overlook the obviousness laden in Peter’s opening words, and uncertainty as to the film’s overt approach to its subject material is recurrent.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Brianna Zigler
    Napoleon
    It is less a rich, twisty drama than a journey through a historical figure’s greatest hits, punctuated by more engrossing moments of vulnerability and intimacy that only leave you wishing there were more.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Brianna Zigler
    The Velvet Underground
    The Velvet Underground will leave one less acquainted with the band with an incomplete picture in mind, but it’s unfair to say that the film is only for true enthusiasts. Instead, Haynes is interested in capturing a mood: A feeling of creative interconnectedness, of change, innovation and of a revolving door of people and art that will never again be replicated.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Brianna Zigler
    Showing Up
    In her fourth collaboration with Reichardt, Williams is better than ever. Possibly overdone in beleaguered, regular-woman makeup this time around, Williams still best showcases just how lived-in of an actress she can be in Reichardt’s work.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    April
    Aside from these weaker moments, April is overall equal parts disturbing and enthralling, arresting and miserable; a gorgeous slow-burn pressure cooker that culminates in a quiet condemnation of the powers complicit in women’s suffering while offering no catharsis.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    Sentimental Value
    Sentimental Value successfully synthesizes metaphor and nuanced character drama to convey the way suffering ripples outward—even if it’s hard to shake the feeling that, like its protagonist, it should let us in a little deeper.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 67 Brianna Zigler
    A Real Pain
    There is no simple catharsis to reckoning the horrors of the past with the eases of the present day; all you can do is choose how to live with it, and Eisenberg’s refusal to wrap his film in a neat little bow elevates his sophomore film into something almost as difficult as its subject material.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Brianna Zigler
    The Green Knight
    David Lowery’s The Green Knight is a modern reckoning with a medieval fable. It’s a haunting, confounding, surprisingly erotic fantasy epic; a confrontation between man and nature, nature and religion, man and himself.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 85 Brianna Zigler
    The Taste of Things
    The Taste of Things is, in basic terms, a very nice and sweet movie, although Dodin’s grief as the paramours suffer tragedy in their autumn years is emotionally punishing. But there’s not necessarily anything wrong with a movie being “very nice and sweet,” especially one as lovingly crafted as this.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 73 Brianna Zigler
    Decision to Leave
    While not Park’s best work, nor a masterpiece, Decision to Leave is an extravagant and hopelessly romantic thriller that weaves past and present into something entirely its own.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 45 Brianna Zigler
    Reality
    There’s a reason that Satter knew Winner’s transcript would succeed as a play, but she brings very little that’s new and exciting as a film director of that same narrative.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 76 Brianna Zigler
    Eephus
    The “Eephus” pitch is an apt characterization for the film that now shares its name, an odd, surprising story about a baseball game with seemingly little to no stakes, that continues on for long after it should’ve already ended.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    His Three Daughters
    His Three Daughters is an extremely effective tear-jerker.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 45 Brianna Zigler
    Antlers
    Antlers is a film that, not unlike most of its ilk, wants to be an overstuffed analogy for hot-button issues first, and a horror film second. Unfortunately, it can’t seem to get either right.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Brianna Zigler
    Self Reliance
    The premise is also genuinely neat, a fun, breezy little 90-minute high-concept that unfortunately sounds more propulsive and invigorating than it really is.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 55 Brianna Zigler
    Vortex
    Vortex, while visually captivating, only functions as a window through which to look at death detached from the beauty of life.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Brianna Zigler
    What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
    What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is an apt, simple fable that feels somewhat hopeful for our modern world—one where evil wins, but love overcomes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    Small Things Like These
    Small Things Like These instead functions as a parable about how minor acts of kindness can be the strongest defense against powerlessness in the face of corruption. It’s a moral poignant in its simplicity, if also a bit lacking in how utterly uncomplicated and even expected it is.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 85 Brianna Zigler
    Challengers
    Challengers surprised me. It’s a grandiose, propulsive, erotic follow-up to the dull, Tumblr-core emo of Bones and All, and I found myself enthralled by Guadagnino’s latest, in which three of our hottest young actors convincingly, tantalizingly explore alternating dynamics of power and sexuality
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Brianna Zigler
    Fingernails
    I found myself undeniably charmed by a lingering warmth in the coldness of Fingernails, no doubt helped along by the performances of Buckley and Ahmed.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Brianna Zigler
    Warfare
    Warfare is impressive, efficiently tense filmmaking.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Brianna Zigler
    Heel
    Heel wants to have its cake and eat it too, to present this darkly comic absurdity while dipping back into reality only when it suits the film.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 72 Brianna Zigler
    Perfect Days
    Perfect Days revels in its ambient minimalism as much as its own protagonist, though something is missing. One might ask for more from Perfect Days, a film that finds itself a bit too understated in its understatement.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Brianna Zigler
    The Eternal Daughter
    As a story about a mother and daughter trying to move on from old wounds and contextualize their relationship, the film is perfectly adequate. But as a film watched on a chilly, damp fall day—not unlike the day I write this review—with a mug of hot cider, the coziest pajamas and Halloween just a few weeks away, I could not ask for anything better.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Brianna Zigler
    A House Made of Splinters
    Since the quality of documentaries tends to hinge on how compelling its subject matter is, A House Made of Splinters is further complicated by the fact that Wilmont’s filmmaking is largely perfunctory. Thus its draw leans almost entirely on the children and their tattered lives. In this way it does feel a touch exploitative, even if the goal is to shine light on an overlooked, ongoing tragedy.
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