Jeannette Catsoulis

Select another critic »
NPR, The New York Times
For 1,835 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jeannette Catsoulis' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 10 Cloverfield Lane
Lowest review score: 0 The Tiger and the Snow
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 801 out of 1835
  2. Mixed: 718 out of 1835
  3. Negative: 316 out of 1835
1835 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Sun Don't Shine
    This confident first feature from the actor Amy Seimetz is much more invested in atmosphere than in plot.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Curse of the Golden Flower
    Since his debut in 1987 with "Red Sorghum" Mr. Zhang has made more controlled films but never one that's more fun. With Curse of the Golden Flower he aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Rock the Bells
    A fascinating glimpse of a dreamer and a music culture that has always depended on dreams.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Strange Culture
    Somewhere between documentary and dramatization, fact and impression, Strange Culture molds one man’s tragedy into an engrossing narrative experiment that defies categorization.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    On the Job
    Even at its most incomprehensible, the propulsive thriller On the Job is never less than arresting.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Sidney
    The inescapable impression is of a picture buckling beneath the weight of its subject’s achievements. Yet there are moments when the focus shifts and the movie shrugs off its hagiographic shackles.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Sidemen: Long Road to Glory
    “Sidemen” is about more than just legacy. Blessed with extensive interviews with their buoyant subjects (all three of whom died in 2011 within months of one another), Mr. Rosenbaum and his producer Jasin Cadic shape a narrative of professional insecurity and personal resilience.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Loveless
    With its fastidious framing and angry-tough temperament, Loveless...earns its air of careful foreboding.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Song of the Sea
    Song of the Sea moves delicately but purposefully from pain to contentment and from anger to love. On land and underwater, the siblings’ adventures unfold in hand-drawn, painterly frames of misty pastels, sometimes encircled by cobwebby borders that give them the look of pictures in a locket.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Alone
    This minimalist survival thriller unfolds with such elegant simplicity and single-minded momentum that its irritations are easily excused.
    • 20 Metascore
    • 0 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Would You Rather
    By the midway point, viewers will be questioning whether they would rather remain in their seats or put their eyes out with a fork.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Fantastic Fungi
    A charming blend of science and conjecture, Fantastic Fungi wants to free your mind.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    The Ugly Stepsister
    The movie, adapted by the Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt from the Cinderella story, is the opposite of didactic: Slyly funny and visually captivating (the luscious cinematography is by Marcel Zyskind), its scenes move with ease from gross to gorgeous, and from grotesque to magical.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Jethica
    At once dryly funny and surprisingly poignant, Jethica uses the paranormal as a metaphor for abusive male behavior. The film’s deadpan perspective and unhurried pacing can diffuse its surprises, but Ohs has an offbeat style that’s fresh and fun.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Color Out of Space
    Using shape-shifting as a messy metaphor for sickness and childhood trauma, Stanley and Cage leap so far over the psychological top that they never come back to earth. By the end, my own eyeballs hadn’t changed color, but they must have looked like pinwheels.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Warlords
    Epic in scope but intimate in theme, The Warlordsheaves with spectacular battles and the relentless sway of self-interest over conscience.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Jeannette Catsoulis
    The Day Shall Come
    A circular firing-squad of full-on crazy, Chris Morris’s The Day Shall Come barges into American counterterrorism tactics with sledgehammer satire and a numbingly repetitive plot.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    I.O.U.S.A.
    Equal parts enlightening and alarming.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    At the Edge of the World
    This strikingly humane film may function as a prequel to Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars” but is light years ahead in visual clarity and narrative ambition.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Sicilian Ghost Story
    This beautifully realized movie casts a sensitive, secretive spell.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
    This pull-no-punches portrait shocks and amuses with equal frequency.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    I Will Make You Mine
    The movie accumulates a rueful nostalgia. Soft black-and-white cinematography (by Bill Otto and Carl Nenzen Loven) and low-key humor help offset the limitations of its partly crowd-funded budget, as does the naturalism of the partly improvised performances
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    In Pursuit of Silence
    Its arguments range wide without going deep, but its factoids about the medical benefits of hanging out in a forest — and the cognitive costs of a noisy school or hospital — are fascinating and persuasive.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Wetlands Preserved: The Story of an Activist Nightclub
    Crammed with colorful interviews, digital animation and live performances, this frisky and forthright film by Dean Budnick chronicles a vision of financing social progress with really great tunes.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Censor
    A homage of sorts to the low-budget trash of the period — and a mordantly humorous jab at its excesses — Censor gazes on movie history with style and commitment, but little apparent purpose beyond simulation.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 90 Jeannette Catsoulis
    The Strangers
    This is no splatter movie: spare, suspenseful and brilliantly invested in silence, Bryan Bertino's debut feature unfolds in a slow crescendo of intimidation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Jeannette Catsoulis
    The Little Bedroom
    The Little Bedroom is a gentle, melancholy drama so pale and tentative that its very colors appear washed away by grief.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Jeannette Catsoulis
    The Little Hours
    The Little Hours is saved from ignominy by two brief standout performances.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    How to Build a Girl
    Like a stone skipping on water, How to Build a Girl leaps from raunchy to charming, vulgar to sweet, earthy to airy-fairy without allowing any one to settle. Yet it’s so wonderfully funny and deeply embedded in class-consciousness . . . that it’s tonal incontinence is easily forgiven.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Jeannette Catsoulis
    Tuesday
    Without much to distract from the three central characters, Tuesday can feel overlong and a little claustrophobic. Yet this compassionate fairy tale works because the actors are so in sync and the imagery — as in one shot of the bird curled like an apostrophe in a dead woman’s tear duct — is often magical.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »