David Sims

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The Atlantic, The A.V. Club
For 464 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

David Sims' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 One Battle After Another
Lowest review score: 10 Dolittle
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 313 out of 464
  2. Mixed: 102 out of 464
  3. Negative: 49 out of 464
464 movie reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    Janet Planet
    What impressed me most about Janet Planet is what a work of cinema it is, visually alive and inventive even with a small budget and fairly languid plotting pace.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    The Power of the Dog
    Campion never takes a side in the ongoing conflict between George and Phil, instead brilliantly capturing the purpose, and the futility, in each brother’s approach, making The Power of the Dog an inimitable viewing experience.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    The Northman
    The final act of The Northman is as violent and intense as a story that inspired Hamlet should be, but all the gore and swordplay would leave no lasting impression were it not for the sincerity of Eggers’s vision.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    The Matrix Resurrections
    Wachowski’s gamble is that viewers will enjoy a film that’s heavy on philosophizing and introspection as long as it retains the emotional, romantic hook that powered the first movie. Reeves and Moss sell their reunion as Neo and Trinity persuasively, glowing with the overwhelming chemistry and affection that Wachowski needed to push the film beyond cynicism.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    RRR
    The thrill of RRR is not the density of its storytelling, though—it’s the exuberance of it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    First Reformed
    The result is an embittered look at our world through the eyes of someone who’s increasingly horrified to be a part of it, and a film that’s one of the most searing cinema experiences of the year.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 95 David Sims
    High Life
    For all its body horrors and apocalyptic conclusions, High Life is one of Denis’s most loving and tender creations.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    High Flying Bird
    Soderbergh’s unorthodox film release and cheap, idiosyncratic shooting style are ideal fits for the director’s fascinating, speculative story about the future of the NBA.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    The Bone Temple is gnarly, challenging, and an incredibly impressive swerve, with Garland’s grim worldview beautifully captured by the director Nia DaCosta.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Sinners
    Sinners had me cheering for every thrill and spill, all while mulling the deeper concerns threaded through it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Showing Up
    Reichardt’s grasp of realism is peerless. She’s long excelled at building simple story lines toward profound revelations. Showing Up is a terrific example of how she documents low-stakes vagaries . . . What initially seems to be a slice-of-life drama eventually reveals itself as a paean to the difficulties, and rewards, of making art.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Nope
    Peele is not just making an inventive sci-fi thriller. Nope is tinged with the acidic satire that suffused his last two movies, as Peele examines why the easiest way to process horror these days is to turn it into breathtaking entertainment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Suspiria
    Above all else, it lodges itself into one’s brain and seems primed to reward repeat viewings. The biggest compliment I can give Guadagnino is that he’s made a Suspiria that appears destined for the long-lasting cult status already enjoyed by the original.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    If Beale Street Could Talk
    If Beale Street Could Talk is an impressive, mature, and determined work that ably reaches the great heights it sets for itself.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    The Souvenir: Part II
    It’s a specific character study told with the ambition that small, arty projects are rarely afforded—a complex and deeply realized story that not only demanded a second film but actually got one.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    A Star Is Born
    Cooper’s biggest innovation in this remake, which he wrote with Eric Roth and Will Fetters, is his emphasis on partnership. He interweaves Jackson and Ally’s relationship with the music they create together, so the audience’s investment in both is palpable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Blue Moon
    Despite the wistful tone, it’s a bitingly funny viewing experience. Shrunken to Hart’s height and given his balding pate, Hawke is transfixing in the role; as Hart, he holds everyone’s attention whenever he’s monologuing.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Call Me by Your Name
    Each element is carefully calibrated, but deployed with consummate grace—this is a film to rush to, and to then savor every minute of.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Knives Out
    The art of a cinematic murder mystery is to make the act of putting clues together seem suspenseful and worth watching. In the hands of Craig at his most gleeful, de Armas at her career best, and Johnson oozing love for the genre, Knives Out rises splendidly to the task.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Challengers
    Challengers is a great example of how a director can temper his preoccupations just a little in order to reach beyond the art-house crowd.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Uncut Gems
    Horrifying, transfixing, and ultimately, to use Tony Kushner’s immortal phrasing, intestinal.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Burning
    A meditative two-and-a-half-hour art film might not sound like a plausible candidate for the year’s best thriller, but Burning is exactly that—its story moves patiently, but engrossingly, before cresting with a shocking denouement that wouldn’t make sense were it not for Lee’s meticulous craft.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Warfare
    That Warfare is, in dramatically rendering a true story, visceral is hardly a surprise. What’s fascinating is how so much of the film commits to the waiting that exists during battle: the taxing, dull tension of knowing that something might happen any minute.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Mank
    Fincher didn’t set out to make a movie about today’s politics; he’s telling a universal story about trying to change an industry (and a world) in which every system seems freighted with inertia. Mankiewicz isn’t quite a radical, nor is he especially principled. Still, in trying to make sense of his experiences with Hearst through a Hollywood narrative, he transforms a familiar tale about shattered idealism into a revolutionary work of art.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    The Holdovers
    A few belly laughs abound, but it’s the deep care for its characters that makes The Holdovers really sing.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Dune: Part One
    Ferguson is the star of the show, imperious one moment and fragile the next, torn between nurturing her son’s purpose and protecting him from becoming a monster.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Oldboy
    Oldboy is mostly absorbing because of the intense anguish radiating off the screen at all times; Park’s ability to effectively communicate obsession, and put the audience in the head of someone who has almost entirely lost touch with his sense of self, feels unparalleled to this day.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Minari
    Minari is a tale that will feel familiar to many, but Chung grounds it in brilliant specificity.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Eephus
    Eephus is an elegy, but with just the barest hint of sentimentality—a shrugging send-off that simultaneously cares deeply about America’s pastime.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 David Sims
    Support the Girls
    It’s difficult to make a work that confronts, or even acknowledges, the rusting but seemingly immovable structures of institutional sexism. It’s even harder to do that and address how race and class are inextricably bound up in those oppressive systems, and it’s even harder still to accomplish that without delivering a hectoring lecture to the audience. Support the Girls somehow manages to do it all, and in the form of a breezy, heartwarming workplace comedy to boot.
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