Joshua Rivera

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Polygon, Slate, The Verge, Vanity Fair
For 76 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Joshua Rivera's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 95 The Matrix Resurrections
Lowest review score: 30 Space Jam: A New Legacy
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 55 out of 76
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 76
  3. Negative: 6 out of 76
76 movie reviews
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    • 63 Metascore
    • 95 Joshua Rivera
    The Matrix Resurrections
    It’s an agitprop romance, one of the most effective mass media diagnoses of the current moment that finds countless things to be angry about, and proposes fighting them all with radical, reckless love. On top of all that, it is also a kick-ass work of sci-fi action — propulsive, gorgeous, and yet still intimate — that revisits the familiar to show audiences something very new.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    Three Thousand Years of Longing
    The craft Miller brought to Fury Road’s relentless chases is now channeled into wondrous stillness, a canvas meant to capture the sheer yearning at the heart of a story. The desire to be known by and know others more fully. One could call that love.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    The Invisible Man
    The horror of The Invisible Man comes from the knowledge that not only would Griffin’s schemes work should such a technology exist, but also from knowing that they already do.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    You Won't Be Alone
    It’s very difficult to walk away from You Won’t Be Alone without wanting to fill a notebook with its words and recollections of its images. It’s a film of wonder, of watching, mimicking, and soaking in awe.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    Eileen
    In spite of its compactness and intimate focus, Oldroyd maintains enough ironic distance that the audience is never fully immersed in Eileen’s subjective viewpoint. In the way he lingers on details and nervous fidgets, the director invites the audience to speculate about what’s really going on with Eileen.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    In the Heights
    This is how In the Heights won me over. Because in spite of its flaws — like lopsided twin romantic subplots where the lead characters are overshadowed by their best friends, or cloying lyrics that play on both the literal and figurative meanings of “powerless” — it’s ultimately a work of affection for both its subject and its medium.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    Portrait of a Lady on Fire
    The conversations in Portrait of a Lady on Fire are among the most memorable people have had on a screen in some time, with each line a stanza in a poem, a reversal, a shift in perspective. With every exchange, the relationship between Marianne and Héloïse changes subtly.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    No Sudden Move
    It starts as a crime caper, makes a pit stop among the sitdowns and power-jockeying of gangster films, and somehow manages to tie its many disparate threads together in a period drama about the destruction of an American city. It’s all the more dazzling that it does all this while being slickly entertaining and assured
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    Calling Crip Camp a feel-good movie feels contrary to its purpose, even as it is tremendously inspiring. It’s more of a reminder that something that seems impossible can be done; it just takes an immense, downright unfair amount of work to will it into existence and support from others who may not be impacted but benefit from a more equitable society because everyone does.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Joshua Rivera
    We're All Going to the World's Fair
    We’re All Going to the World’s Fair isn’t just a movie about connecting, it’s about becoming. It’s a powerful acknowledgement of how confounding and frightening young adulthood can be. But it’s also a film about hope.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    She Dies Tomorrow
    She Dies Tomorrow is a house of mirrors, a film much more interested in the reflections it offers you than in conjuring anything overly specific for you to ruminate.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Mucho Mucho Amor
    Like learning how to cook a meal you grew up eating, Mucho Mucho Amor connected me with my past. It’s like the way air smells different and your heart feels a little bit bigger when you’re home with people you love and miss.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Evil Does Not Exist
    Hamaguchi slowly pivots away from dispassionate naturalism, building to an impressionistic, opaque finale.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Barbarian
    Cregger merely uses the premise as a foundation for something more ambitious, delivering a lean, surprising film with effective thrills, while also giving viewers plenty to contemplate afterward.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Red Rocket
    Simon Rex’s performance as Mikey sweeps up everything around it, including the movie’s audience.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Godzilla vs. Kong
    Godzilla vs. Kong is a gorgeous, kinetic spectacle that’s so effectively big in its loud colors and ridiculous choreography that any screen outside of a multiplex feels too small for it.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Babylon
    Babylon marries bombast and tragedy in one fell swoop, embracing Chazelle’s hubris as an artist by letting him insert himself into the cinematic canon, while he’s endeavoring to earn his place there at the same time.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    The Lovebirds
    While it’s not big on declarations of love, comic misunderstandings, or many of the genre trappings, it understands that the best romantic comedies are ones where the two leads are always talking, with each other, at each other, or past each other, constantly trying to sort out their relationship, despite whatever chaos is around them.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 85 Joshua Rivera
    Nightmare Alley
    Nightmare Alley is straight noir, a stylish and dark work about lies and liars. And in our current theatrical moment, its slow drama is a slightly harder sell than the latest Marvel movie, but no less of a dazzling spectacle.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
    These films use movie magic to make real humans look like they’re actually doing outrageous things, rather than using them as faces meant to humanize a digital creation being put through its paces. This is why Dead Reckoning Part One makes for an incredible blockbuster experience.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Napoleon
    Napoleon isn’t a movie about grand triumph, or about disastrous failure. It’s a story about masculine insecurity, and how it can reduce the world to violence.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Palm Springs
    While Palm Springs is a fun rom-com, it’s a story haunted by the idea that we’d secretly be tempted by a world where nothing really matters, to absolve ourselves of responsibility.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    A Quiet Place Part II
    The film is a horror story with the heart of a family drama, and for the most part, it works very well. But just like real families, it’s pretty consistent in both its strengths and its flaws — in other words, it’s the perfect sequel for fans of the original movie, while also being not that bad at welcoming viewers who might have missed the first go-round.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Bullet Train
    Cartoonish as it is, Bullet Train is committed to letting its core cast make as big an impression as they can through quirks and fights, as Olkewicz’s knotty script ping-pongs between past and present.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Marriage Story
    One of Marriage Story’s biggest successes lies in its straightforwardness. It’s not a story out to change how you think of relationships or marriage. It strives for honesty, even if it’s cliché.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
    Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a Marvel film of unusual conviction, where every character beat is given the same weight, whether it’s the climactic battle against the villain, or perennial goofball Drax quietly explaining that someone hurt his feelings.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Plane
    The movie’s drama efficiently ratchets up the tension for its action to hit hard and move on. Again: Like an actual plane, it’s a marvel of craftsmanship so unobtrusive that it’s easily mistaken for mundanity.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Joshua Rivera
    Maestro
    With Maestro, Bradley Cooper makes a metaphor of Bernstein through the lens of his tumultuous marriage. It’s less a portrait of a life than a depiction of the fulcrum creators pivot on, presented by a talented artist whose ambitions lie along similarly oppositional extremes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 79 Joshua Rivera
    Benedetta
    Provocative in every sense of the word, the movie is equally capable of drawing viewers in with its witty study of sexuality and faith, and turning them away with its unabashed titillation. In this film, as in many of Verhoeven’s previous works, those two opposing forces are very much the point.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Joshua Rivera
    No Hard Feelings
    Sometimes, for a good time, all you need is a great actor and a story that seems like a real bad idea.
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