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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    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Lions for Lambs
    The problem with Lions for Lambs isn't its political engagement but its cinematic disengagement. Robert Redford directs and stars in this ambitious talkathon, which would have been more effective as a radio play.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Brideshead Revisited
    Jarrold's reduction of the story is so archetypal that it's indistinguishable from soap opera.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    It rises, all on its own, to the realm of masterwork.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Saraband
    Bergman's creation of family banter that turns irredeemably cruel remains without peer.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Michael Sragow
    Little Miss Sunshine
    You won't see a brighter, truer affirmation of the All-American messed-up improvisational family than Little Miss Sunshine.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Sexy Beast
    Kingsley gives the movie a jolt and blows the rest of it to pieces.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 46 Metascore
    • 63 Michael Sragow
    Deliver Us from Eva
    It lands the characters in a shambles of farce, melodrama and forced chivalry. For all its promise and accomplishment, the screenplay, like Eva, needs a knight on a white horse.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 25 Michael Sragow
    Collateral Damage
    Collateral Damage isn't jingoistic; it also isn't exciting. It's a depressed rabble-rouser.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Transamerica
    Until it detours into dysfunctional-family comedy-drama, Transamerica rides cross-country without ever running low on bracing, cactus-spined surprises.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Michael Sragow
    The Hoax
    Thanks to Hallstrom's slaphappy artistry and a sparkling ensemble, Hoax is a hoot.
    • 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.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
    No matter how "mock" this epic gets, it isn't mock enough. The "D" in the title must stand for dead weight.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Michael Sragow
    The Wanderers
    What revs up the movie and keeps it humming is the driving energy of early rock, with its innocent/rebellious spirit, and its theme that teens must find their own ways to love and fight.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Michael Sragow
    Traitor
    It's Cheadle's rich emotionality and sense of humor that have gone seriously missing in Traitor.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Lucky You
    Even the title is off. I haven't heard an honest "Lucky You" since I was in sixth grade. For most people it registers as a sneer.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Michael Sragow
    Charlie Wilson's War
    Philip Seymour Hoffman steals the movie.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    The Son's Room
    The Son's Room is the anti-"In the Bedroom." I mean that as a compliment.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Michael Sragow
    The Magdalene Sisters
    The picture has immediacy, force and humanity. It's a muckraking work of art.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Hannibal Rising
    Most of the movie makes too much sense and is no fun at
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Spider-Man
    When the cast and their director are really cooking, they conjure a bipolar sense of high school-age emotion -- and use it to fuel outrageous fantasy.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 42 Michael Sragow
    Mamma Mia!
    Like a party where everyone is so desperate to have a good time that it makes you miserable.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 38 Michael Sragow
    Stealing Harvard
    Like Adam Sandler's "Mr. Deeds," this is a hybrid, hipster-cornball movie that wants to celebrate common folk but unapologetically uses words like "trailer trash" to describe them.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 42 Michael Sragow
    The Heartbreak Kid
    This Heartbreak Kid makes the mistake of trying to be semi-heartwarming.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Osama
    A harrowing depiction of a woman's plight under the Taliban.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Sahara
    Sahara doesn't waste time on introductions. It wastes time in other ways.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Michael Sragow
    Death at a Funeral
    The movie maintains its comical, rocky equilibrium as long as the screenwriter, Dean Craig, sticks to domestic disasters and a Monty Python parody of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Moulin Rouge!
    It wants to be like no other movie you've ever seen. It's more like every movie you've ever seen.
    • Baltimore Sun
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Michael Sragow
    Be Kind Rewind
    This movie doesn't have a mean bone in its body; the problem is, it doesn't have any bone in its body.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Sragow
    Bad Education
    The movie gets as overblown and masochistic as the worst Joan Crawford vehicle. Its saving grace is that Bernal really does have his own deep-set, smoldering variation on Bette Davis eyes.
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