John DeFore

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The Hollywood Reporter
For 1,483 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 45% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

John DeFore's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Mandy
Lowest review score: 0 The Trouble with Terkel
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 703 out of 1483
  2. Mixed: 632 out of 1483
  3. Negative: 148 out of 1483
1483 movie reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 John DeFore
    The Fabelmans
    Immediately joining the first ranks of artists’ memoirs, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is both a vivid capturing of the auteur’s earliest flashes of filmmaking insight and a portrait, full of love yet unclouded by nostalgia, of the family that made him.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 John DeFore
    Cameraperson
    Personal footage interacts intriguingly with reportage here, sometimes making it more than the greatest-hits montage it initially seems.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 John DeFore
    Mandy
    Cosmatos' ability to put us in Red's head — overwhelmed at first with pain and fury, then saturated by the strange drugs he for some reason feels compelled to try — make this much more than the usual exercise in vicarious bloodshed.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 John DeFore
    Before Midnight
    The work Richard Linklater and company started in 1995's Before Sunrise retains a clarity of spirit undimmed by 18 years.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 John DeFore
    Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
    A smart-ass charmer, merciless tearjerker and sincere celebration of teenage creativity.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 John DeFore
    Everybody Wants Some!!
    It's as honest and clear-eyed about the past as its predecessor, another in a filmography of unpredictable gems. It may be most like Dazed in that the public could take a while to appreciate it for what it is.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Not Going Quietly
    Barkan proves a highly engaging man, impassioned but funnier than a terminally ill man should be. Intimate scenes with his young family are essential to the appeal of a film whose big issues remain as pressing now as they were during filming in 2018.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
    All but a must-see for anyone who knows enough to care about the way laws govern information transfer in the digital age, Brian Knappenberger's The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz is an inspiring account of the life of, and an infuriating chronology of the persecution of, one of the Internet's most impressive prodigies.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Série Noire
    An enticingly nasty little crime film in which all pleasures go sour before they can be enjoyed, it is ripe for rediscovery in Rialto's fine restoration, and will be many Americans' first encounter with star Patrick Dewaere, whose funny, bracingly strange turn here was among his last.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Falling
    Falling doesn't transform its emotional landscape into a simple question of rejection or forgiveness. It's comfortable knowing that meanness and affection can exist in the same person, and that tolerance, even when it only flows in one direction, benefits both giver and recipient.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Antlers
    Thoroughly successful both as icky art house horror and as an allegory of generational trauma, Scott Cooper’s Antlers continues the director’s hot streak while bearing the unmistakable mark of one of its producers, Guillermo del Toro.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Hesburgh
    Some would say the jury's out on that issue; but near-unanimous love and admiration suggests Hesburgh's stance was a great way to win friends and influence people.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Sanctuary
    Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott make an exceptionally good team here, in a film that requires a deep sexual chemistry but keeps sex itself almost entirely out of the picture. Careening from one kind of intensity to another, the encounter excites without prurience and, like the transactions it depicts, is more concerned with psychology than sex in any case.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Informant
    The force of Darby's personality -- a rich stew of righteousness, arrogance and self-delusion -- gives the doc a psychological appeal independent of politics.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    The Trip to Italy
    As funny as the first go-round, more beautiful to look at, and better conceived.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Apocalypse Now: Final Cut
    Final Cut will be screened theatrically ... and it demands to be seen there, both by longtime admirers and by young viewers lucky enough to have their first viewing be in a theater. ... This is an overwhelming sensory experience, with deep colors and nuanced sound amplifying the film's hypnotic effect.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    She Dies Tomorrow
    Movies like this are why arthouses exist, and why we'll seek them out again as soon as it's safe to breathe near our fellow humans.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny
    One of the most enriching and enjoyable docs about a filmmaker in recent memory.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable
    Alert not just to shifts in the critical zeitgeist but to accompanying changes in social mores, the fascinating film speaks to the most sophisticated students of fine-art photography without alienating casual buffs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Short Term 12
    A genuinely moving look at life in a group foster home that avoids most of the usual routes into viewers' hearts.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Rhino Season
    Haunting feature that crafts fiction from the inspiration of real-life Kurdish-Iranian poet Sadegh Kamangar. Co-star Monica Bellucci may attract much of the attention Stateside, but the film's ravishing aesthetic and multiple points of political interest will make it fascinating to many cineastes.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Other Music
    In their wonderful documentary Other Music, Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller come to both celebrate a place and lament its passing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    A Monster Calls
    The fact that not every terrible thing can be remedied or appropriately punished is a tough lesson even for adults to learn, but A Monster Calls helps find the sense in it.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Kaili Blues
    Dreamy, poetry-filled and prone to veering off on tangents, the picture teases viewers with such self-assurance it's difficult to believe the twentysomething director is a first-timer.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Babylon
    An English cousin to the earlier Jamaica-set films "The Harder They Come" and "Rockers" that is vastly superior in cinematic terms and just as valuable as a cultural document.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    The Forgiven
    Scripted, directed and acted with intelligence and panache, it’s a very grown-up film but never a bore, a morally alert drama that leaves the scolding to us.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Who Will Write Our History
    It uses historical artifacts to excellent, devastating effect.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Booksmart
    A hilarious, blazingly paced teen comedy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Spy
    Laugh-stuffed and making excellent use of its marquee-grade supporting cast, it promises to be a home run in its early summer release.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 John DeFore
    Mid90s
    A gender-flipped sibling to Crystal Moselle's Skate Kitchen (set in Los Angeles versus that film's NYC), its narrative of sudden belonging and onrushing perils mirrors that Sundance entry. But in emotional punch and shoulda-seen-this-coming skill, it is more like Hill's Lady Bird, a gem that feels simultaneously informed by its author's adolescence and the product of a serious artist's observational distance.
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