Michael Sragow

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Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker
For 1,070 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Sragow's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 The Sea Inside
Lowest review score: 0 CJ7
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 623 out of 1070
  2. Mixed: 259 out of 1070
  3. Negative: 188 out of 1070
1070 movie reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Kissing Jessica Stein
    This movie is about the survival of the open-minded. As far as current American independents go, it's the fastest and the funniest.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    Seabiscuit
    Seabiscuit revives the sweeping pleasures of movies that address and respect the mass audience, raising the common denominator instead of pandering to it. This crowd-pleaser rouses honest and engulfing cheers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Michael Sragow
    Superman Returns
    Contains a dozen winning moments of humor, uplift or exhilaration. But are they enough to justify a 154-minute running time?
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Heist
    As a movie, Heist is merely an amiable time-killer. But it presents a terrific argument for federalizing airport security.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 59 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Sragow
    Deja Vu
    The film is tense and engrossing. But it lacks exactly what the title advertises: the sense of inexplicable familiarity that should haunt you as the story unfolds and leave you all a-tingle when it ends.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Priceless
    Tautou's kind of talent: priceless.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Gangs of New York
    Unfortunately, it lacks emotional lift or folkloric fervor.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Nowhere in Africa
    This picture is absorbing -- and eye-filling -- whether the prose and the passion are connecting or running on parallel tracks.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    District B13
    For better and worse, the entire film goes by like a theme-park cyclone ride. It makes as much sense as it needs to when you're on it. All it leaves in its wake is a residue of vertigo and speed.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    The Woodsman
    In real life, Bacon and Sedgwick are husband and wife. Their scenes mark one of the rare times an off-screen couple's intimacy enriches on-screen passion.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Brick
    A Big Sleep with underage bozos, a Maltese Falcon where the stuff that dreams are made of rests in the lockers of a well-worn high school, Brick is a remarkable oddity, audacious and engaging.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Ghost Town
    The astonishingly versatile Kinnear proves note-perfect as a huckster who slowly rids himself of slime.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    The Closet
    The movie's steady good humor and respect for character is pleasing - even energizing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    Walk the Line
    What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Match Point
    Johansson bequeaths the welcome sight of a talent in full bloom to this wilted, dark whimsy of a movie.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Step Into Liquid
    The movie has dual strengths that silence most objections. Even more than "X-2" or "American Splendor," it is, in a good way, the most comic-booky movie of the year. It's also the human Winged Migration.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    The whole film is about innocence and experience, and if it isn't a Blakean song, it is a sturdy and vibrant piece of prose.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Tadpole
    Has nearly perfect pitch.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    All the Real Girls
    The performers are tremendous, particularly Deschanel, who can travel to the end of an emotional tether and then suggest the mysteries of change and growth that lie beyond.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Holes
    Those who come to the movie cold will find it an exasperating assembly of brutal pedantry and whimsies, boasting far less charm or grace than even the first Harry Potter picture.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Intolerable Cruelty
    The fault isn't Clooney's alone. The Coen brothers contrive a few spectacularly funny bits and pieces but rarely get into a flow. Too often they mistake facetiousness for slapstick invention or wit, and they don't follow through on their best ideas.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Tropic Thunder
    At its best, Tropic Thunder wrings divine madness from wretched excess.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    Deep Blue
    Deep Blue is pure bliss. This documentary about ocean life in all its forms achieves its own tidal pull with visual marvels that conjure a Darwinian delirium.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Nicholas Nickleby
    Plummer's performance is a miracle: In a movie as flat as a tablecloth, he suggests dimensions as wide, deep and curved as Cinerama.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    The Score
    What's fatal to the film is that De Niro's character, though compelling, is so temperate and wise he gives no indication of why he was drawn to a life of crime.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Ghost World
    In his first fiction feature, Zwigoff doesn't forget to bring the funny. But he doesn't bring enough poetry.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Mad Hot Ballroom
    No great shakes as a documentary, but there are great shakes in the sight of 10- and 11-year-olds learning ballroom dancing in the New York City public school system.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Horton Hears a Who!
    Stays true to the spirit and characters of the book while embellishing it to overflowing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Sragow
    Separate Lies
    Fellowes sets the screen for a tale of subterfuge in the upper crust, a la Agatha Christie.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Where the Wild Things Are
    Jonze lets the magic ebb away in a sorry mesh of strained relationships.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Roman de gare
    By far the most purely entertaining of all his films to reach these shores, Roman de Gare is the rare trick film in which all the tricks reveal something amusing, involving or poignant about its characters.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 25 Michael Sragow
    What Happens in Vegas
    The one actor I wanted more of was Williams, who imbues Jack's dad with a robust, sometimes domineering wiliness that suggests a real person. Of course, these silly, inept filmmakers probably cast him because he plays a good guy and his first name is Treat.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Training Day
    Denzel Washington does a cocksure turn in Training Day -- That may be enough to transform a shallow picture with delusions of grandeur into a crowd-pleasing hit.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Tape
    Despite its adrenalized actors, Tape is a tired return to the roots of the American indie movement's popular surge a dozen years ago. It could have been called "sex, lies and audiotape."
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    The Boys of Baraka
    Overflowing with comedy and drama, The Boys of Baraka unfolds on the mean streets of Baltimore and in the wide-open spaces of Kenya.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Mrs Henderson Presents
    A humorous bounty of flesh and fantasy.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Batman Begins
    Batman Begins is obvious from the get-go - and almost no fun.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Charlotte Gray
    Director Gillian Armstrong drains all the emotional energy out of the people who dot her movie's lovely landscape.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Standard Operating Procedure
    Standard Operating Procedure says that human nature abhors moral vacuums - but sometimes humans get sucked into them.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    I Love You, Man
    This comedy of stereotypes pokes fun at poker buddies and coffee klatches only to make room for variations on more recent stereotypes. Some of the boldest 'types provide the funniest bits, such as Jon Favreau's embodiment of an upscale Stanley Kowalski who treats all-male card games as clan rites.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Sragow
    Swimming Pool
    A hollow excuse for an erotic mystery.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Vicky Cristina Barcelona
    It's a summery idyll: his most entertaining picture since "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994) or maybe "Sweet and Lowdown" (1999).
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Public Enemies
    Without ever telling viewers what to think or how to feel, it raises more questions about the corruption of crime and crime fighting than any expose or thesis.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    Brad Pitt's sensitive performance helps make 'Benjamin Button' a timeless masterpiece.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Big Fan
    Siegel takes us to the brink of operatic melodrama, then lands us in a tragicomic spot: a psychological landscape of alternate life and make-believe death.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Thirteen
    The movie doesn't complete itself, in the sense of filling in our knowledge of its people (who are more like passengers). It simply comes to a stop.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Matchstick Men
    Instead of exploding, it implodes.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Gunner Palace
    Although the acclaimed documentary Gunner Palace contains some electrifying vignettes of the Iraq war, its jaggedly elliptical and hopped-up style lands it in a limbo between ragged and slick.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Curse of the Golden Flower
    In Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou tries to top the breathtaking poetic spectacle of his masterpiece, "House of Flying Daggers," and instead plummets into self-parody.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Shall We Kiss?
    A sensational date movie.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 25 Michael Sragow
    The Science of Sleep
    You have to identify pretty strongly with suffering artistes to find anything to root for in The Science of Sleep.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 25 Michael Sragow
    Elephant
    The film itself is an exercise in frustration.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Doubt
    The problem with Doubt is its dramatic certainty.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    The Hoax
    Thanks to Hallstrom's slaphappy artistry and a sparkling ensemble, Hoax is a hoot.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Who Killed the Electric Car?
    Who Killed the Electric Car? makes you feel that no good idea, let alone good deed, goes unpunished. Only the exuberance of the moviemaking keeps your spirits high.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    My One and Only
    It's affable entertainment -- a road movie with a smart map and characters who are unpredictable human beings, not just billboard attractions.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    21 Grams
    Luckily, Penn, Watts and Leo carry more weight than that; they keep this movie's two hours and five minutes from seeming like lost time.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    L'Auberge Espagnole
    L’Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Hotel) is unexpectedly entertaining because it captures the point in young adulthood when life is unseriously serious, or maybe seriously unserious.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Pieces of April
    The highest compliment I can pay Pieces of April is that it brings to mind a Paul Simon lyric: "the mother and child reunion is only a motion away."
    • 69 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Sragow
    Cinderella Man
    There's no irony within the film, but there's a whopping irony surrounding it. Just as Star Wars has finally ended, Rocky seems to be starting all over again.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Bad Santa
    Gloriously funky in the good old meaning of the term. Its vulgarity may be offensive, but it's also pungent and real, and it fuels some ferocious humor.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    It Might Get Loud
    You'll never see a more tactile expression of the intimacy between artists and their instruments than in Davis Guggenheim's elating It Might Get Loud.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    I.O.U.S.A.
    Although the movie is unabashedly alarming, it's also intelligent fun.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    No Country for Old Men
    No Country for Old Men is about the kind of amoral madness that can sweep across a country and redefine a landscape. It's so admirably lean and sinewy that it deserves not merely a rave review but a Johnny Cash song about matter-of-fact killings in shady hotels and sun-scoured landscapes.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Sragow
    Inglourious Basterds
    The only hope for Inglourious Basterds is that audiences will embrace it the way the Broadway crowd did "Springtime for Hitler": because it's so bad they think it's good.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Girlhood
    In an era of exploding documentary innovation, Girlhood simply follows unfamiliar characters down familiar paths. It's not a negligible experience, but it's not an eye-opener, either.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Undercover Brother
    It has a premise that never stops percolating.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 69 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Sragow
    Revolutionary Road
    Revolutionary Road isn't just a failed literary adaptation. It's a failure of the worst kind: It doesn't even make you want to read Richard Yates' deservedly legendary book.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    The Cooler
    What's frustrating is that the movie should be so much better, or at least more entertaining. With Baldwin, Macy and Bello, director Kramer is holding three of a kind.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 0 Michael Sragow
    The Strangers
    All it offers is sadism, impure and simple.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Duplicity
    It's an odd duck: a labor-intensive piece of light entertainment.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    The Painted Veil
    No one has caught the pride, remorse and pain of an unloved and possibly unlovable husband better than Edward Norton in The Painted Veil.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Cold Souls
    Paul Giamatti - that huddle of broiling instincts, out-of-control impulses and aggravated ardor epitomized in "Sideways" - you feel his soul's absence as dearly as its presence.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    The Longest Yard
    The lack of condescension is the movie's saving grace, if grace is the right word. There's no snobbery to the low-blow humor, or to Reynolds' low-key, genial comeback turn, or to Sandler's more-ingratiating-than-athletic lead performance.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    Imelda
    Remarkable documentary.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    American Hardcore
    The triumph of American Hardcore is that it convinces general audiences that there were vast underground reservoirs of angst and anguish to be tapped.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
    A glorious medieval war movie. It's about war as the ultimate pitch of conflict that tries men's souls, and women's, too.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Tell No One
    The title Tell No One recalls the days when ads proclaimed, "No one will be seated after the first 15 minutes" and "Be considerate of your neighbors: Don't give away the ending of this picture." Both rules apply to this canny, refreshingly emotional and intuitive thriller.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    Foster is strident, Vincent D'Onofrio has little to do but chain-smoke thoughtfully as an accessible priest, and the physical atmosphere is hazy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Michael Sragow
    Gremlins 2: The New Batch
    This uninhibited and uproarious monster bash, directed by Joe Dante, is more quick-witted and ironic than the original; it sets forth a savvy, slaphappy agenda before the opening credits and follows it straight through to the end, and even beyond.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Sunshine State
    The only gold in Sunshine State comes from its three female stars.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    The Bank Job
    The gritty heist picture The Bank Job has everything adult action fans could want, starting with a grand, fact-inspired gimmick.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Talk to Me
    Kasi Lemmons' movie is called Talk to Me, but what it really does is sing to you, in the argot and cadences of soul, jazz, rock and rhythm and blues.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    25th Hour
    Norton is brilliant in Lee's so-so 'Hour.'
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Chicago 10
    The movie conveys the drama of the moment but eschews context. The result is an arresting yet frustrating experience.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Divided We Fall
    Divided We Fall has a lot going for it, but its Places in the Heart ending, sentimental and incongruous, helps ensure that it will not find a place in a demanding audience's heart or mind.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    Crazy Love
    The enthralling documentary Crazy Love is about how a high-flying lawyer's obsession with a young beauty blinded her, metaphorically and literally.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Changing Lanes
    For all its pretensions, Changing Lanes, ultimately, is about nothing more profound than one foul day.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Reign Over Me
    It's a courageous, moving, organically funny picture.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Infamous
    It bears roughly the same resemblance to the Bennett Miller-Dan Futterman-Philip Seymour Hoffman masterpiece as the now-forgotten "Valmont" did to "Dangerous Liaisons."
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Michael Sragow
    North Country
    At best, North Country just inspires you to read the book.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Valentino: The Last Emperor
    Light, engaging documentary.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Michael Sragow
    Apocalypto
    But even those who succumb to his primitive, survivalist vision may resent the way he presents every kind of atrocity at least twice without illuminating any of the exotic details once.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    The World's Fastest Indian
    Both handmade and souped-up, it beautifully renders two types of camaraderie: the bonds among eccentrics and the fellowship of speed.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
    The only thing that tops Cave here is Cohen himself at the end, singing "Tower of Song" with U2.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Monster House
    What's missing is what Pixar never fails to provide: The kind of storytelling heart that is inseparable from imagination.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    The Luzhin Defence
    Handsome and well-acted, yet it can't hold a pawn to Nabokov's harrowing and moving character study.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    The Illusionist
    This flight of fancy stays aloft on the power of its acting and its atmosphere.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    Charlotte's Web
    It's the whole constellation of relationships that Winick and company create in and around the barn that brings the movie its kaleidoscopic charm.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    For Your Consideration
    Emily Dickinson wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers." When Woody Allen published his second collection, he called it Without Feathers. Guest is as sharp and original as Allen, but he hasn't lost hope. For Your Consideration -- disillusioned but also fresh and ticklish -- is a thing with feathers, too.
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