Ian Nathan

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Empire
For 266 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Ian Nathan's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 The Big Lebowski
Lowest review score: 20 Billy Madison
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 124 out of 266
  2. Mixed: 138 out of 266
  3. Negative: 4 out of 266
266 movie reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    After Dark, My Sweet
    As the drama circles their inaction, this trio of excellent performances fills the screen with a form of spiritual exhaustion, and the film slumps into noir’s typically happy-clappy comeuppance of failure, betrayal and ruin. But the mood has caught on, and the film, stamped with a stunning visual emptiness, haunts the memory for long after its sour close.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    A Passage to India
    Perhaps, it was the choice of material, a much more internalised story despite its glossy Raj setting, or the absence of Robert Bolt as screenwriter (it was he who put the fire in Lean’s belly), but the film, for all Lean’s innate elegance, is strangely remote and unmoving.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Papillon
    One of the greatest behind-bars movies ever, the result finds director Franklin J. Schaffner making the most of both his sun-drenched locations and his leading man, who squintily acts even co-star Dustin Hoffman well off the screen.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Tracks
    However familiar the terrain, this is a vivid, heartbreaking and captivating character piece and travel movie in one, guided by an outstanding Wasikowska.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Moby Dick
    Who could ever buy Atticus Finch as the demonic Ahab driven by hellfire to hunt down that dreaded white whale?
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Southern Comfort
    A war film without the war but with some interesting observations nonetheless.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Dallas Buyers Club
    Get this — Matthew McConaughey is currently the most exciting acting talent at work in movies. Next up, the simple business of a Christopher Nolan.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Ian Nathan
    The Road Warrior
    It is the Road Warrior (as it was subtitled for the American release) that remains the definitive Max movie, hard as nails, hell for leather, it lands like a punch to the jaw. Don't drive angry? Yeah, right.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    The Face of an Angel
    On one level a fascinating refraction of the Amanda Knox trial into an examination of perception, on another an increasingly trying hall of mirrors.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Jane Eyre
    There's no question it's stunningly mounted, and Wasikowska makes a much stronger Jane than Alice, but the romance is overripe and the climax underdone.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Peter Pan
    Definitely a Disney classic but misses out much of the darker side of J.M.Barrie's fantasy tale.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
    Defying rote heroics and sidestepping those solemn Frodoisms lurking in the role, Lawrence seeks out the complex, human and earthy in Katniss, still the beating heart and total triumph of these movies.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Ian Nathan
    The Killing Fields
    A mighty accomplishment, and possibly the bravest Britflick yet made.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Patience (After Sebald)
    With so many films adapted from novels, it's nice to see cinema paying homage to unheralded greats of literature like Sebald. While this one often struggles to do justice to his sense of grandeur and poetry, it'll be manna for fans of the German's work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Risky Business
    It’s "Ferris Bueller" with an existential crisis. Very funny and very weird.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
    The sustained furore of humour, visual panache and headlong momentum makes for dazzling cinema.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Casualties of War
    Michael J. Fox is a revelation as the mouse that roared, whilst the score, the direction, and the rest of the cast turn a risky film into a solid addition to the Nam canon.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Trainwreck
    At times it feels as if five different films are going on at once, but Schumer’s whip-smart delivery and no-holds perkiness keeps it all in place. Just as her director wilfully mines his own life for laughs, there is a whole lot of Amy in Amy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Ian Nathan
    Manhunter
    Joan Allen, Tom Noonan and Dennis Farina contribute to the class in a truly underrated chiller.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
    Easily, almost nonchalantly, best in franchise, Rogue Nation dispenses with the dead weight of realism or relevance for state-of-the-art thrill-making in a classical mould. The series has finally found its voice.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Key Largo
    Perfectly tense atmosphere and performances, with the sparks flying between Bogart and Bacall.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Oliver!
    Even if you're not a 'fan' of the musicals, Oliver is so witty, so bright and so endearing that even the iciest viewer should start melting in it's corona.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    The Dark Crystal
    Well-paced and stunningly shot.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    13 Minutes
    Despite moody flashbacks to the Nazi takeover, Hirschbiegel draws a blank. Elser remains an enigma, a great what-if whose German torturers cannot comprehend acted alone.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    Robin and Marian
    Sedate and contemplative character piece but low on thrills.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Ian Nathan
    A Most Wanted Man
    For all its chilled intelligence and topical ambition this is a bloodless adaptation, but worth seeing for Hoffman’s deft and ghostly presence.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Queen and Country
    Less vibrant than the original, but equally thoughtful and funny.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    The Great Mouse Detective
    The genuinely witty and endearing Disney animation that everyone forgets.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    American Sniper
    Oscar heralds will no doubt dub it "The Hurt Locker" for snipers, but the fitting combo of Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper have created a thrilling Iraq war story that manages to both honour the necessities of heroism and ruminate on what heroism might cost a man.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 80 Ian Nathan
    Daylight
    In typical Rob Cohen fashion, it does exactly what it says on the tin. But that's all it needs to be the visceral rollercoaster ride we all expect.
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