Joe Williams

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
For 820 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 60% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 36% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1 point higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Joe Williams' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Samsara
Lowest review score: 0 The Divergent Series: Insurgent
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 597 out of 820
  2. Mixed: 156 out of 820
  3. Negative: 67 out of 820
820 movie reviews
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    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Still Walking
    A miniaturist's masterpiece, the ebb and flow of familial love distilled to its essence.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Chicken with Plums
    Although the story is mournful, the movie is buoyed by a heaven-scented surrealism.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    The Counselor
    In its cross-cultural breadth, director Ridley Scott’s smart and violent film merits comparison to Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic,” but the dialogue delivered by the stellar cast is incomparably McCarthy’s.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Marwencol
    Hogancamp's alliance with director Jeff Malmberg in this artful and poignant film marks a victory in the war against the self.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Mother of George
    Iowa-native Gurira has had roles in TV’s “Treme” and “The Walking Dead,” but Mother of George should be the birth of a brilliant film career.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    True Grit
    True Grit is just a couple bloody gunfights removed from an old-fashioned Disney yarn. Yet it's still unmistakably a Coen brothers movie, from the stray weirdness of a bearskin-clad dentist to the bulls-eye delights of the dialogue.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Invictus
    What makes it special is Eastwood's ability to artfully and concisely tell a story, and Morgan Freeman's wonderfully understated turn as South African President Nelson Mandela.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Soul Power
    Soul Power is both a funk-tastic time capsule and a timeless celebration of the human spirit.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    A Hijacking
    Director Lindholm is a graduate of the Dogma school, and he is able to maintain tension with a documentary camera technique, virtually no music and minimal on-screen theatrics.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
    Like the previous seven movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 obliviates the line between art and craft, but the witchcraft conjured for this satisfying finale is uniquely generous.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Police, Adjective
    Although it's sly and sardonic, Police, Adjective is as rigorous as a tea ceremony -- or a Stalinist re-education camp.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Cedar Rapids
    To ensure customer loyalty, Hollywood should promote more movies about workaday life in the provinces, but until there's a new wave of midcoast comedies, Cedar Rapids is the big kahuna.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Big Fan
    Near the two-minute warning, Big Fan becomes chillingly unpredictable.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Project Nim
    There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Blue Valentine
    It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Séraphine
    With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Perfect Blue
    It would be a disservice to describe "Perfect Blue" as a well-made cartoon. It is simply one of the richest and most suspenseful films of the year. [03 Aug 2001, p.E2]
    • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Somewhere
    A distinctly European exercise in observational nuance and tonal restraint in which Coppola stretches static images to the breaking point.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Monsieur Lazhar
    Until a devastatingly effective finale, Monsieur Lazhar is an exercise in delicacy, carried by Fallag's gentle performance and a fine cast of kid actors.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    The Hunter
    To keep serious cinema from going extinct, this could be sold as "The Hunger Games" cross-bred with "The Lorax," but it's better and more mature than either of those hit movies.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Vincere
    Vincere, which translates as the battle cry "Win!" is like invisible ink on the ledger of war, a secret record of love and loss.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Gravity
    Even as it looks to the heavens, Gravity is bound to earth, where the beauty is in the details.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    The King's Speech
    The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    My Week with Marilyn
    The performance is both an eerie imitation and a touching revelation. Oscar voters who overlooked Williams for her camouflage roles in "Brokeback Mountain," "Wendy and Lucy" and "Blue Valentine" should now throw diamonds at her feet.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Interstellar
    This is epic cinema that begs to be compared to "2001: A Space Odyssey." But unlike Stanley Kubrick's psychedelic joyride, this journey is powered by a human heart.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Declaration of War
    The tonal shifts, the "Amelie"-style voiceover and the punk-retro soundtrack may jar some viewers who expect uninterrupted violins, but Declaration of War is alternative therapy that really works.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    We Need to Talk About Kevin
    Refusing to hold our hands, director Lynne Ramsay ("Morvern Callar") pushes far beyond the boundaries of topical drama into the realm of the surreal.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    The Theory of Everything
    A brainy bio that exerts a gravitational pull on the heartstrings.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Argo
    Before it turns into a great escape flick, Argo is an amusing spoof of the movie biz.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Joe Williams
    Skyfall
    Ultimately Skyfall is rooted in tradition - and in British soil. A pastoral drive to Bond's boyhood home (in a kind of car that will delight purists) opens the gates to some psychological background, and given the true-love subtext of "Casino Royale," it's not surprising that there's an emotional payoff here.
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