Katie Rife

Select another critic »
IGN, IndieWire, Polygon, RogerEbert.com, The A.V. Club, TheWrap
For 544 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 35% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Katie Rife's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Little Women
Lowest review score: 0 The Haunting of Sharon Tate
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 362 out of 544
  2. Mixed: 160 out of 544
  3. Negative: 22 out of 544
544 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 96 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
    Where Summer Of Soul really distinguishes itself is in Thompson’s inspired filmmaking. Making his directorial debut, the Roots drummer and frontman approaches this condensed narrative with a musician’s sense of timing, expertly assembling rhythmic montages with editor Joshua Pearson that transcend flashy music-video devices to relay a sense of conversation, of voices reaching across the decades to be heard.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 88 Katie Rife
    Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
    Where Jude’s previous feature, “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” could be didactic at times, “Do Not Expect…” slips its knife between the audience’s ribs with such skill that the severity of the injury isn’t obvious at first.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 92 Katie Rife
    Petite Maman
    Petite Maman is the work of an unusually sensitive filmmaker, and it speaks to Sciamma’s skill as a director that she’s able to express the nuances of this complicated dynamic through such simple actions and words.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    Never Rarely Sometimes Always
    Abortion stories are real, and they take place every day, often so quietly that no one but those closest to the people involved even know they’re happening. The power of Hittman’s film lies in that combination of ordinary suffering and extraordinary strength.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    Burning
    Burning actually justifies its running time by slowly building paranoid atmosphere before an explosive, hauntingly ambiguous finale.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Katie Rife
    Little Women
    Little Women is the best kind of Hollywood film: thoughtful yet escapist, sophisticated yet accessible, expertly crafted and deeply felt. The performances are all top notch—Ronan and Pugh, especially, breathe new life into their characters. Gerwig’s direction is also first rate.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    The Favourite
    So it’s bit disconcerting, the unfamiliar sensation provoked by his new movie, The Favourite: Is this the first Yorgos Lanthimos film that can be called genuinely fun?
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Katie Rife
    The Perfection
    The Perfection takes deep, fetishistic satisfaction in pushing the envelope, then pushing it some more, building in seductive fits and shocking starts to an orgiastic frenzy of cinematic excess. Is it a progressive movie? Not especially, but that’s okay as long as you know what you’re getting into.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    The Power of the Dog
    The Power Of The Dog divulges its secrets in deliberate, measured fashion, growing richer with each new reveal.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    Can You Ever Forgive Me?
    Maintaining an audience’s sympathy for a character through their most fumbling, frustrating lows requires compassion and clarity of purpose, both of which McCarthy amply demonstrates here. It’s a career-best performance, the kind of nuanced turn we all suspected she could deliver, if only someone would give her a chance to do it.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    Nomadland
    Nomadland is, in some ways, a condemnation of a system that rewards decades of corporate loyalty with poverty and insecurity. But it’s also remarkably clear-eyed and honest about the pleasures and benefits of life on the road, its blend of documentary and fiction allowing those on the margins to tell their stories on their own terms.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Katie Rife
    On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
    Nyoni’s direction is brilliant, contrasting the chaos of Uncle Fred’s multi-day funeral with the stillness and solace Shula finds in her cousins’ company.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 58 Katie Rife
    American Underdog
    Levi has a smirking quality to him that sometimes reads as if he can’t believe he’s starring in this crap. He is credible as a clean-cut, all-American boy, however, and he and Paquin work as an onscreen couple. In fact, some of their banter is kind of cute. The supporting cast has its charms as well.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Good One
    Good One is beautifully observed, making its point without being too obvious, and perfectly judged in that it doesn’t waste a single shot. The beats of the film are simple and straightforward, but if you hone in on the details, every second is full of information.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    One Cut of the Dead
    It reinvents the zombie movie.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Katie Rife
    I Saw the TV Glow
    Astonishingly beautiful and vulnerable, I Saw the TV Glow's surreal art-horror speaks to lonely teenagers, past and present.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 86 Katie Rife
    Infinity Pool
    The squibs are juicy, the nudity is full-frontal, and the psychedelic orgy sequence is extended. But there’s a trenchant point to all the blood, sex, and urine.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    City of Ghosts
    There are many moving scenes in City Of Ghosts, but towards the end of the film one especially powerful sequence shows a RBSS member shaking uncontrollably as he thumbs through a stack of pictures of his friends, dead and alive.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    Fitting for a film backed by the groovy sounds of the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan, the biggest myth Crip Camp is out to bust is that disabled people aren’t sexual beings.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Varda by Agnès
    As a result, it isn’t as cohesive or inspired as her penultimate film, the Oscar-nominated Faces Places. But as a parting gift from one of the most singular creative minds of the 20th century, it’s as life-affirming as they come.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Pillion
    Pillion is a film about self-knowledge, and about asserting one’s needs and boundaries without shame.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Beanpole
    Even thought it’s a bleak and uncompromising film, it’d be unfair to call Beanpole “misery porn.” The questions it’s asking are much more complicated, and more cutting, than that.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
    Kikuchi’s strong, singular presence immerses the viewer in her character’s whimsical imagination and confusing emotions. She makes Haru a character worth rooting for — even, or perhaps especially, when she’s making all the wrong decisions.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Katie Rife
    The Lure
    For her debut feature, The Lure, Smoczyńska has very loosely adapted Hans Christian Andersen’s classic story — so loosely, you might not realize that’s what she’s doing until halfway through — into a genre-defying film that blends elements of musicals, horror, romance, and fantasy into a contemporary fairy tale that celebrates the animalistic, the feminine, and the intimate intersections between the two.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    The Truffle Hunters
    Ironically, this charming and visually ravishing film may further fuel the demand for white truffles, inflating the bubble and ultimately accelerating their decline. On one level, that’s understandable; we all want to be part of something rare and beautiful. But if you truly heed what the film has to say, you’ll go to the park and play with your dog instead.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Judas and the Black Messiah
    Although Stanfield and Kaluuya offer up two compelling—and contrasting—performances, Judas And The Black Messiah is an ensemble piece with no weak links, only secret weapons.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
    This is Tarantino’s Eden, the unspoiled garden when the things he loves don’t have to be sought out or championed because they permeate every aspect of life. The sense of blissful immersion extends to the film’s costuming and production design, both of which are as meticulous as one might expect.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    McQueen
    A film that’s refreshingly free of the gushing sound bites from sycophantic celebrities that too often dominate fashion documentaries.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Katie Rife
    Booksmart
    What good high school movies do is take the basics of the teenage condition and refocus them for a specific generation’s point of view. That’s where Booksmart excels.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Katie Rife
    Nancy
    In the end, Nancy is a bit too dogmatic in its refusal to provide easy answers, its emotional impact dissipating like dust in a sunbeam with every understated non-revelation.
prev
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »