Derek Smith

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Slant Magazine
For 336 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 15% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 83% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 14.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Derek Smith's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 51
Highest review score: 88 Everything Everywhere All at Once
Lowest review score: 0 The Last Face
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 133 out of 336
  2. Mixed: 74 out of 336
  3. Negative: 129 out of 336
336 movie reviews
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    • 89 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Eyimofe (This Is My Desire)
    Arie and Chuko Esiri’s film is understated in its attunement to the challenges of trying to escape a stagnant existence.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Sweet Country
    The film is a meticulous examination of how the dehumanization of Australia's native population bred an environment of cyclical violence and mistrust.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    2000 Meters to Andriivka
    The interjections of quotidian reflection give a fullness and emotional resonance to a film that can, at times, be borderline oppressive in its depiction of war’s brutality.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Napoleon
    More times than not, the film’s bursts of humor clash awkwardly with the far more frequent attempts at gravitas that the filmmakers strive for when our protagonist is in battle or engaged in political discussions.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Hope
    Maria Sødahl’s considers the extreme emotions provoked by a medical emergency with an impressive force of clarity.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Derek Smith
    Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
    It achieves the rarest of feats of any tentpole Hollywood release, animated or not: gleefully matching exhilarating stylistic experimentation with a multi-tiered narrative of equal ambition.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    My Happy Family
    It casually lays out the domestic space where the story’s events takes place with acutely detailed cultural specificity.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Miracle in Milan
    This beautiful presentation of Vittorio De Sica’s fantastical portrait of poverty and human fortitude helps make the argument that the film is more than just a curio in neorealist history.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Happening
    This period drama manages the difficult task of speaking to our current moment without being didactic or preachy.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    My Father's Shadow
    Hope and fear are inextricably bound in Akinola Davies Jr.’s semi-autobiographical film.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Daughters
    The importance of touch between a parent and child—and, in the case of this film, specifically between a father and daughter—is rarely discussed openly in Daughters, but it looms large over nearly every scene.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Beyond Utopia
    The searing images of various gulags, public executions, and private beatings will not be easily forgotten.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Won't You Be My Neighbor?
    It captures the strength of Fred Rogers's convictions even as his gentleness and sincerity fell further out of favor.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    76 Days
    The documentary may be the defining portrait of the dawning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    On Her Shoulders
    The film is most interested in homing in on the ways Nadia Murad's fragility and self-doubt arise as collateral damage from her fame and steadfast activism.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Derek Smith
    The Disciple
    Chaitanya Tamhane gives full dimension to the rich, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of the relationship between disciple and guru.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    20 Days in Mariupol
    At its core, 20 Days in Mariupol is a testament to the citizens of Mariupol.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Predators
    Always exhibiting a deftness of touch and willingness to continue probing a cultural taboo that’s now, more than ever, a delicate and charged topic, Obit also challenges our preconceptions of a much-maligned group.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    The Reason I Jump
    The film weaves together the stories of five mostly nonverbal autistic teens to present a rich tapestry of the autistic experience.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Belle
    For all of the film’s visually striking action and musical set pieces, it’s the generosity of spirit with which it approaches the modern teenage experience that’s its most impressive attribute.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Driveways
    The film’s devotion to the belief that kindness can be a balm for almost any hurt is deeply moving.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    You Won't Be Alone
    Throughout You Won’t Be Alone, writer-director Goran Stolevski rejects the slickness that defines so-called elevated horror.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Sound of Metal
    Darius Marder’s film captures, with urgency and tenderness, just how enticing the residue of the past can be.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Derek Smith
    The Girl Without Hands
    The film creates a deeply rooted sense of realism that contrasts the austere, surreal illustrations.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 63 Derek Smith
    Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
    The film paints a vivid portrait of what life was like for Black South Africans under apartheid.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Derek Smith
    Everything Everywhere All at Once
    The film works magic by embracing excess, finding a kind of harmony and possibility within it, and reminding us of the beauty and lunacy of the human experience along the way.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    The Things You Kill
    Alireza Khatami’s third feature is a subtly enigmatic examination of the nature of masculinity.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 25 Derek Smith
    The Hustle
    Like other gender-swapped films in recent years, The Hustle plays the identity politics game as an end in itself.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Derek Smith
    Dreams
    A story of hazy memories that’s also a city symphony, Dreams elegantly captures the disorienting rush of first love and the frustrations and anguish that stem from romantic fantasies colliding with reality.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Derek Smith
    Devotion
    This unfocused, awkwardly paced film never quite gets off the ground and, as a result, will do little to change perceptions of the Korean War as the “forgotten war.”
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