Moira Macdonald

Select another critic »
For 614 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 71% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 27% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Moira Macdonald's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Parallel Mothers
Lowest review score: 25 Fifty Shades Darker
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 36 out of 614
614 movie reviews
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Us
    In only his second movie as a director, Peele is already a master of tone, and Us is full of memorable, vivid touches.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Moore lets us see, through her quietly shining performance, that Gloria believes in love, in the way an old song can make you feel a little younger, and in the power of dressing up and hitting a dance floor by yourself, moving as if in a trance, letting the music take you to a better place.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    In other words: yes, it’s fun.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    There’s a lovely sense, throughout the film, of how real life sometimes interrupts things, the way a child’s prattling disrupts the pretty wedding ceremony, or how even in the midst of grief breakfast must be made.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Moira Macdonald
    Greta is a disappointment from Jordan, who’s made far better movies (“The Crying Game,” “The End of the Affair” and, more recently, the elegant vampire film “Byzantium”), but Huppert seizes hold of the film and chills it, in a way that’s both shiver-inducing and bracing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Take “Billy Elliot,” trade the refined world of ballet for the “soap opera in spandex” of professional wrestling, swap the preteen boy for a young woman, throw in The Rock — because every movie is better with The Rock, right? — and you’ve got Fighting With My Family, a shaggily likable underdog tale.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Isn’t It Romantic both spoofs rom-com conventions and embraces them; it’s a tricky balance, but it doesn’t fall off the wire.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    If tense man-against-nature arm-wrestling is your jam (think Robert Redford in “All Is Lost,” but with snow and Mads Mikkelsen) this film makes for a compelling hour and a half; you know where it’s going, but you never quite believe it’ll actually get there.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    It’s a bunch of plastic blocks that have an adventure, and it’s basically insane; not quite as pleasantly so as the first movie (the element of astonished surprise isn’t there), but hey, that’s a high bar. Everything is … oh, damn it, there I go again.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    What we have here is mostly a straight-up, mildly raunchy rom-com, where everyone learns lessons and gets a happy ending. But Shankman gives it all an agreeable bounce, and Henson (better known for dramatic roles, in “Hidden Figures,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and TV’s “Empire”) zestfully dives into the comedy.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Moira Macdonald
    Rodriguez does just enough to keep things mildly interesting.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Its primary tone is wistful; a slow, reluctant goodbye, not just to an act but to an era. By its end, all you want is to see that dance, just one more time.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 38 Moira Macdonald
    Let’s just say that things aren’t always what they seem, and that there is not enough popcorn in the world to make this particular twist go down.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Cold War seduces its viewer, in its brief running time. You might find, in the quiet of its poignant ending, that it has left its mark on your heart.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 50 Moira Macdonald
    The Aspern Papers, brief as it is, needed more of a lightness of touch; if you weigh down melodrama too much, it dies.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    While the structure occasionally feels a bit awkward, On the Basis of Sex has the kind of crowd-pleasing story that skims over any minor shortcomings; by its end, you’re ready to cheer.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    If Beale Street Could Talk is a film about injustice, about patience and anger, beauty and despair — but, ultimately, it’s about love.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    The film’s light, sardonic approach is a tricky match with its subject matter: 9/11; power-crazed, empty-souled politicians; dark ambitions. It’s entertaining, sure, but a lot of us might not feel like laughing.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    It isn’t “Working Girl” — Second Act is more earnest and less funny — but it’s a pleasant enough diversion, helped along immensely by Lopez’s warm screen presence and by a first-rate Sassy Best Friend performance by Leah Remini.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Most of all, you see Roberts, who takes hold of this movie like a lamppost in the winter darkness. That huge Julia Roberts smile turns up here, but it’s haunting.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    Mary Poppins Returns, made with palpable love for its predecessor, is glorious and gorgeous, and I adored it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    You find yourself focusing on the details of Alexandra Byrne’s flowing costumes, or on the wince-inducing meticulousness of Robbie’s post-pox makeup, rather than caught up in the story. Except when Ronan’s face catches the light; there, Mary Queen of Scots finds its fire.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    Just as it lulls you, it also devastates.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is a wondrously pure example of one of the great gifts that cinema can give us: to drop us into a time, a place and a life; immersing us in the sounds and the sights and the emotions, large and small, experienced by someone we’re not.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Does “Anna” deliver on its billing? Well, it does for a while. For its first half, the movie’s blend of earnest teen crooning and dismembered blood-geyser heads is pretty entertaining.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    The real fun here is in the three central performances, each of which threatens to steal the film (giving “The Favourite,” appropriately, its own balance-of-power issues).
    • 61 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner is so crowded with characters and overlapping conversations and crammed-full rooms that it’s easy to miss the quiet at its center: the enigma that is Gary Hart.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    The likable tale of a real-life friendship, Green Book lets us spend two hours in the company of two electric actors.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    A conventional but thoroughly entertaining film.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    “Turn off your brain, and let your heart do da talking,” advised Rocky, and he was right. This franchise just might go on forever, and my heart kind of hopes that it does.

Top Trailers