Moira Macdonald

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The Seattle Times
For 619 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 71% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 26% 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 Inside Out
Lowest review score: 25 Fifty Shades Darker
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 509 out of 619
  2. Mixed: 74 out of 619
  3. Negative: 36 out of 619
619 movie reviews
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    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Moira Macdonald
    Haunted Mansion
    Ultimately, Haunted Mansion feels like the ghost of a movie — just a fleeting shadow, one you can barely remember in the morning.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Oppenheimer
    Oppenheimer is hard to watch, just as that life was surely hard to live; it’s a careful, deliberate stepping toward something unspeakable.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Barbie
    The Barbie world was a grown-up one — wildly sanitized and outfit-focused and unrealistic, but grown-up nonetheless — and, for a kid, an irresistible place to visit. Greta Gerwig’s exuberantly pink new movie “Barbie” both understands that thrill and has sly fun with it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Joy Ride
    Along the way, we learn that all four actors are not only charmingly believable as friends but also brilliant at physical comedy.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
    Cruise valiantly throws everything he’s got into the movie — including a lot of his trademark Very Intense Running — and the result mostly works, but it feels like a franchise that’s winding down. Here’s hoping a few thrills have been saved for “Part Two.”
    • tbd Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    I'll Show You Mine
    Megan Griffiths’ latest, I’ll Show You Mine, is impeccably filmed and thoughtfully written, but it doesn’t quite justify its running time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Asteroid City
    This is Anderson soaring a bit, playing with the very nature of storytelling and performing, unafraid to let us get a little lost in the process. What’s real, and what’s the play? I wasn’t always sure, but I look forward to watching it again, to get lost one more time.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Elemental
    So why does Elemental feel so flat for much of its running time? Here’s why: It just isn’t very funny. The best Pixar movies blend humor with pathos; having just half of the formula leaves us with just half of the impact.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    Past Lives
    It’s a film full of quiet magic; of the power of words not spoken, and the enduring strength of love.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    You Hurt My Feelings
    Louis-Dreyfus, making Beth neurotic and loving and devastated and furious all at once, is a joy to watch.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    The Little Mermaid
    Bailey gives a glowing performance of effortless starshine; her singing voice has both sweetness and power, and her smile is the sort on which dreams dance.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Fast X
    Though I’d have preferred Fast X to have a little more driving and a little less fighting, and was disappointed to realize that the film’s climactic moment is pretty much in the trailer, this movie is good, silly popcorn fun — with a couple of scenes at the end (stay put during the first half of the credits) indicating even better times ahead.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is both lovingly faithful to its source, and very much its own creation; how lucky we are to have both book and movie, preserved for girls past, present and future.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Chevalier
    History almost erased Joseph Bologne; this film lets him live again.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Renfield
    There are pleasures to be found in Renfield, particularly a stylish black-and-white sequence early on, and in Hoult’s wistfully debonair portrayal of a well-meaning chap trapped in a job he never applied for. But even with its brief running time, the movie runs out of steam too quickly, and Awkwafina’s character in particular seems like a first draft
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    The Lost King
    It’s a feel-good film about dreams, about obsession, about believing in yourself when nobody else seems to be doing it for you, and Hawkins carries it with effortless ease.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Moving On
    Ultimately, Moving On is about friendship, and who better than Grace and Frankie to show us that?
    • 53 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Inside
    How you feel about the psychological thriller Insider may depend on how you feel about spending the better part of two hours staring nonstop at Willem Dafoe.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Creed III
    You can see clearly in the final scenes where “Creed IV” might be headed; you can also see that Jordan as a director shows promise well beyond this film. “Creed III” works as well as it needs to, and for the umpteenth film in a franchise, that’s more than enough.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Emily
    This Emily is indeed unworldly, uncomfortable around strangers, struggling to comply with what society expects of her. And yet the artist bubbles up inside her, emerging at moments both inconvenient (there’s a harrowing sequence at a party in which Emily dons a mask and takes on a ghostly persona) and poetic.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Moira Macdonald
    Sharper
    Great acting is a con game, of the highest order, and it’s a pleasure to be Moore’s mark.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Moira Macdonald
    Living
    This quiet tale of an ordinary 1950s London man (Bill Nighy) facing the end of his life is a joy: elegantly written, movingly performed, evocatively filmed.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Corsage
    It’s a sly little film, playing with our expectations, keeping us guessing — and wondering if Krieps’ name might be as familiar as Streep’s, one day.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    The Eternal Daughter
    You watch it rapt, leaning in, wanting to know more; you leave it wondering if that shadow at the window was, maybe, yourself.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Babylon
    I can’t say I truly enjoyed watching Babylon, or that I’d ever want to see it again, but I definitely haven’t stopped thinking about it since screening it earlier this month.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams
    “Salvatore” is a pleasure for anyone who loves shoes and/or good movies.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Empire of Light
    Colman, on whose face the film frequently rests (does anyone in cinema have a more open, guileless smile?), quietly holds the drama in her hands. Her Hilary is fragile, yet touchingly determined to will herself toward the light.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Moira Macdonald
    The Fabelmans
    The Fabelmans is a movie about being seen — and about learning to see.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
    It’s an artful, moving and often beautiful film, but be careful about showing it to young children; nightmares could ensue. (It haunted me, and I’m quite grown.)
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Moira Macdonald
    Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
    You watch “Glass Onion” relaxed, feeling like you’re in good hands; everyone on-screen is clearly having a wonderful time, so you can’t help but join right in. The plot’s a clever, multilayered caper, echoing the elaborate structure the movie is named for, and Johnson fills the script with funny name-dropping . . . and lets the cast happily ham it up.
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