Josh Larsen

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LarsenOnFilm
For 904 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 8.9 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Josh Larsen's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Son of Saul
Lowest review score: 25 Murder by Death
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 773 out of 904
  2. Mixed: 73 out of 904
  3. Negative: 58 out of 904
904 movie reviews
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    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    The Invisible Man
    Directed by James Whale, The Invisible Man is missing the gothic poeticism of his Frankenstein films, but offers its own sense of unease, especially when the invisible Griffin smashes another cop’s head with a bench. The effects in these trick shots are incredibly sophisticated for the era, as are the moments when Griffin unravels his bandages to reveal … nothing.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    The Long Goodbye
    The Long Goodbye is cheeky and often cheerily meta, but I certainly wouldn’t call it a lark.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Cairo Station
    What begins as a sympathetic, almost neorealist portrayal of a mentally and physically challenged newspaper peddler named Qinawi (played by Chahine) eventually warps its way into a slasher film, complete with sex-as-death overtones.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Pain and Glory
    Pain and Glory is one of Almodovar’s least exuberant productions. It’s also one of his best.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Familiar Touch
    When it remains focused on Ruth’s subjective perspective, it offers something special, and tough.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Mission: Impossible – Fallout
    While some are hailing Mission: Impossible — Fallout as something truly special, I wouldn’t go quite that far. It does, however, offer as many thrilling dance numbers—I mean, action sequences—as any of the other installments.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Josh Larsen
    Cléo from 5 to 7
    The movie stands apart from the French New Wave in that it is very much the story of a woman, not about a woman.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
    If both Ma and Levee are ultimately sympathetic, it’s due to the layered performances and the full stories that Wilson gives the characters.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Descendant
    Whenever someone wants to downplay historical atrocities, Descendant suggests, it’s because they’re also trying to cover up injustice in the present day.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Small Axe: Education
    Sandy is heartbreaking in the lead role, as his face registers surprise, then betrayal at the way the adults in his life—including, at times, his parents—fail him.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    About Endlessness
    It’s another astounding assemblage of dryly humorous, immaculately designed, fixed-camera vignettes, if an even more morose collection than the previous ones.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Nomadland
    By its bittersweet ending, Nomadland delicately suggests that Fern’s experience is a choice, but one born out of hardship. The “choice” represents the potential of the United States. The “hardship” is the nation’s capitalist curse.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    The Banshees of Inisherin
    It’s Farrell who truly makes the dialogue sing, polishing off the punchlines (or responding to them) with facial reactions that add a few more laughs to every scene. Then, as the seriousness sets in, Farrell brings a deep sadness to the performance that’s staggering.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Hereditary
    Collette anchors all of this supernaturality with a powerhouse performance.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    The Fugitive
    The definition of a satisfying Hollywood action drama.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Happy as Lazzaro
    It’s as if a mid-century work of Italian neorealism took a nap in a field and had a dream.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
    A work of astonishing tactility, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt reminds us that what we remember—what might matter most as corporeal beings—is not word or even story, but touch.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    The visual design is a trip, combining a comic-book aesthetic (not just the use of panels and dialogue balloons, but also digital tricks that mimic the hand drawing and paper printing of an actual comic) with the dynamism of state-of-the-art animation.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    The Tragedy of Macbeth
    So what is a Coen brother movie like? Imagine a work of German expressionism as filtered through the stark spirituality of Ingmar Bergman or Carl Theodor Dreyer.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Microcosmos
    Scales glisten, legs scuttle, antennae unfurl, all in a symphony of exquisite shapes and inhuman motion. Watching the movie is like peering into a living kaleidoscope.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Flow
    Harrowing, certainly, but also a beautiful promise of renewal.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Josh Larsen
    The Color Purple
    The best numbers in The Color Purple capture the anger and/or exultation of personal experience.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 38 Josh Larsen
    Dirty Harry
    The movie is both vile and risible.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Good One
    Good One is a crafty feature debut from writer-director India Donaldson, in that its unassuming air and “small” story create little ripples that eventually coalesce into something shattering.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    I Know Where I'm Going!
    The central romance of I Know Where I’m Going! may be a bit of a drip, but swirling around it are filmmaking flourishes of the sort that the filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger would lavish on the cinema throughout the 1940s, under the name of The Archers.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Diane
    Diane is brutally honest about the losses that can define this stage of life.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Josh Larsen
    The Remains of the Day
    The Remains of the Day belongs in the same conversation as Wong Kar-wai’s lush, masterful In the Mood for Love. Both swoon in secret.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Josh Larsen
    Anatomy of a Fall
    Perhaps the best lead performance of 2023 belongs to Hüller, who is achingly sincere as Sandra, while never pleading for an ounce of audience sympathy. It’s her purposeful performance, more than anything else, that opens the door to doubt.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Fallen Leaves
    The movie won’t change your world—but it’s nice watching two lost people experience a hopeful change in theirs.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Josh Larsen
    Ordinary People
    The film is an admirable argument for the legitimacy of psychotherapy, especially for the time, played out in an affluent Chicago suburb.
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