Noel Murray

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IGN, Los Angeles Times, Polygon, The A.V. Club, The Daily Beast, The Dissolve, The Playlist, UPROXX
For 2,356 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 10% same as the average critic
  • 39% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Noel Murray's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Black Narcissus
Lowest review score: 0 Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,214 out of 2356
  2. Mixed: 972 out of 2356
  3. Negative: 170 out of 2356
2356 movie reviews
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    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    13: The Musical
    The changes make this “13” look and feel more like a conventional Netflix teen movie — all about puppy love and jostling for popularity — rather than the one-of-a-kind theatrical experience it once was. But Jason Robert Brown’s songs are still incredibly snappy, turning common adolescent experiences like crushes, first kisses and going to horror movies with friends into up-tempo bops.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Galveston
    Director Mélanie Laurent and actors Ben Foster and Elle Fanning bring some seedy poetry to Galveston, a muted crime drama that runs out of plot too soon, but makes up for it with powerhouse performances and a finely shaded sense of place.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Cet amour-là
    Moreau is magnetic as the wise-but-neurotic scribe, though the same can't be said of Demarigny, whose timid portrayal of a reverent fanboy sucks the energy out of most of his scenes. Dayan's direction is even more problematic.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    You've Been Trumped
    Aside from the corny title, Anthony Baxter's You've Been Trumped is a fine, powerful piece of documentary filmmaking, using old-fashioned vérité techniques - and more than a little audience manipulation - to show how political influence and media savvy help the wealthy exert their will.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    City of Dead Men
    While City of Dead Men has an appealingly polished look and uses its unusual locations thoughtfully, it teeters on the edge of pretension.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Settlers
    The core question Settlers asks is who “deserves” to occupy this inhospitable planet. To Rockefeller’s credit, he doesn’t offer any pat answers.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Opal Dream
    The filmmaking here is flat, straight, and thoroughly lacking in poetry, and the script--co-written by Cattaneo, Rice, and Phil Traill--tells instead of showing.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Escape from Pretoria
    This procedural quality to Escape From Pretoria — combined with an accomplished cast that includes Ian Hart as the anti-apartheid prisoner most opposed to Jenkin’s plan — adds some oomph to a movie that features limited sets, a simple story and none of the Hollywood polish of The Shawshank Redemption.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Hidden in Plain Sight
    Nods at objectivity but announces its activist intentions throughout.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    I Am Michael
    Both of Kelly’s movies so far have shown the same strengths and weaknesses. He has an emotionally distant, observational approach, which makes the most outlandish behavior seem grounded and plausible, but which also makes moments of passion and confrontation come off a little flat.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    God's Time
    God’s Time has an endearingly scrappy vibe and a talented cast filled with unfamiliar faces. But it also feels cobbled together, as though Antebi had multiple ideas for how to approach this material.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    La Maison de la Radio
    Philibert allows even those who’ve never heard a second of Radio France to experience what the network is like, on both sides of the speakers.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    7 Chinese Brothers
    Bob Byington’s 7 Chinese Brothers is no "Listen Up Philip," but it’s an amiable enough slacker comedy, boosted by its star.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Ginger & Rosa
    The movie can be affecting at times, and might’ve been even more so if Potter hadn’t made its theme so explicit, via heavy “this is the point” speeches delivered during what’s otherwise a powerful climax.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Game 6
    Hoffman makes impressive use of his low budget, thanks to a talented cast, an atmospheric soundtrack by Yo La Tengo, and the general feeling of confidence that a veteran director can bring to a project. But too much of Game 6 is designed to seem deeper than it really is.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Harsh Times
    Ayer gets lost in a maze of ironies, and has to bulldoze his way to an exit. For a while, Harsh Times is thrillingly hard to predict. By the end, it becomes all too easy.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Us and Them
    The gimmicky structure and style is more distracting than effective, and it mostly fails to compensate for an underdeveloped plot.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Three Stars
    Three Stars works best as straight-up food-porn.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Bad Match
    Thanks to good performances by Cutmore-Scott and Simmons — and good writing by Chirchirillo — Bad Match effectively explores the everyday horror that comes from people treating their fellow human beings as interchangeable playthings.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Flesh+Blood
    Though Flesh + Blood tells a terrific story, written by Verhoeven with his longtime collaborator Gerard Soeteman, the presentation is rough, and not just because the film is packed with gore and rape. Verhoeven doesn't believe in tasteful framing that implies nudity; he prefers the bare-assed variety, the kind that makes the body's frailty plain.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Noel Murray
    Old Man
    This film is a superior example of how flavorful dialogue, talented actors and excellent staging can make something familiar really pop.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    On the Road
    Since there's no plot, just a series of anecdotes, much of the meaning in the movie version of On The Road is meta-textual, relying on the viewers' knowledge of who Kerouac was, and how the novel's vision of America differed from how most of the rest of popular culture documented the '50s.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Crush
    The movie’s aggressive hipness can be a turnoff at times. But once it settles down into a more typical coming-of-age story, Crush becomes disarmingly sweet and relatable.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Invaders from Mars
    But while it’s first and foremost a terrific showcase for some imaginative designers, Invaders From Mars also holds together fairly well as a movie—or at least better than the choppy Lifeforce does.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Noel Murray
    Antibirth
    Had the movie been just a little more thought through, it could have been a new classic. Antibirth is still quite good, though, with memorably surreal imagery and an abrasive texture that enhances Perez’s overall vision. As a portrait of a middle America full of forgotten people and ruined civilizations, this is one of the year’s scariest movies.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    68 Kill
    The story suffers diminishing returns as it unwinds with increasing violence and absurdity. Or maybe it’s just that “68 Kill” puts the best material upfront.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Douchebag
    At 70 minutes, Douchebag feels both rushed and way too slack, but the bigger problem is that the kind of characters and humor this movie traffics in can be found in a more compact, amusing package on the average FX show.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Casa Grande
    Barbosa skillfully skewers the presumptions of rich folks who presume they deserve all that they've gotten, even as they're squandering it.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    39 Pounds of Love
    As documentary drama, 39 Pounds Of Love is as ungainly, blunt, and icky as its title.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Miss Julie
    Ullmann’s Miss Julie is as dominated by long speeches and conversations as Strindberg’s, but those scenes don’t play as well when the two would-be lovers are sidling up to each other in close-up, practically panting.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Stella Days
    Stella Days' strongest asset is Sheen.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    After Midnight
    As a story, it never develops beyond the routine. Still, the aesthetic philosophizing works as a framework for daring visual experiments.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Phoebe in Wonderland
    There's too much "problem, solution" to Phoebe, although the movie's anxieties are believable enough to earns the moments of uplift. The film may be too concerned with being a crowd-pleaser, but it least it makes the crowd suffer a little along the way.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The End of Time
    Mettler is in no hurry to get to any particular point in The End Of Time. The film leaps from subject to subject—slowly, and somewhat haphazardly.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Angelica
    This is an alternately handsome and harrowing ghost story, about a civilized society haunted by its own unspeakable needs.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Senior Year
    Senior Year is not an ambitious movie, but it’s mostly a sweet one, and frequently funny.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Sangre De Mi Sangre
    The film seems even more one-note when compared to the recent indie feature "Chop Shop," which also follows young immigrant hustlers in NYC, yet takes the time to provide a fuller picture of the city and its opportunities. Zalla prefers to wallow in the dead-end, an approach that's initially powerful, then numbing.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
    At two and a half hours, Warriors Of The Rainbow has the shape of something weightier than the simplified good-vs.-evil movie it actually is.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Incarnate
    Dense with plot and mythology, the film is refreshingly unpredictable — if only because guessing what comes next would require understanding what the hell is going on.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Wassup Rockers
    It may be truer to the lives of his amateur cast to watch them engage in mumbly, inarticulate conversations between rounds of failed skate tricks, but it isn't especially cinematic.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Pyewacket
    Pyewacket's payoff is a bit too meager given the creepy build-up. But as a psychodrama about a troubled mother and daughter, this movie is gripping from start to finish. Like a lot of the best horror, it's about the hells people conjure for themselves.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    The Extra Man
    The Extra Man is kooky to a fault, and Dano is a major drag, with his soft voice and blank expression. But Kline gives a wild, wonderful performance, reminiscent of his work on "A Fish Called Wanda."
    • 56 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    The film is clumsily unfunny at times--particularly when Smith makes tone-deaf efforts at gay-and black-themed comedy--and it's occasionally gross just for the sake of being gross.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Finding Eleazar
    But compared to great documentaries about the process behind performance-"Last Dance" and "Original Cast Album: Company" spring to mind-Finding Eléazar is too choppy and fussy.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Touchy Feely
    Shelton seems so preoccupied with making Touchy Feely feel natural and real that she’s forgotten to add any incident.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    A Jihad for Love
    Even though the message that people should have the right to love whomever they want is hardy groundbreaking, Parvez captures some interesting conversations about what it means to be gay and Muslim.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    The Getaway
    Brutal but hugely entertaining.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Walt & El Grupo
    Hardcore Disney fans will appreciate how serious-minded and intimate this movie is, but for others, Walt & El Grupo might feel like an expensive vacation slide show, assembled by strangers.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Antiviral
    For all its preoccupation with disease, Antiviral isn’t especially visceral. The movie can be repulsive at times, but Cronenberg is more interested in ideas than in blood and guts.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Stray Bullets
    Plenty of first-time feature filmmakers have combined grubby genre kicks with more personal concerns; but there’s a confidence and energy to “Stray Bullets” that compensates for the rather rudimentary, over-familiar story.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Extraterrestrial
    There's a solid framework in place here for a fun, original twist on a conventional science-fiction premise, but aside from the occasional quirky touch - Vigalondo fails to fill that frame with a picture worthy of it.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Payback
    Payback attempts something impressively difficult, but it succeeds primarily in its individual moments.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    The Fog
    Removed from its context as the highly anticipated follow-up to a horror classic, The Fog lingers as a crafty and loving assemblage of pulp gimmicks, played out in a location that rivals Hitchcock locales for pure eye-vacation appeal.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    For a Good Time, Call...
    The notion of a love story that's really about two women becoming friends is gimmicky, I'll grant, but Graynor and Miller are so charming together, and the movie is so focused and funny.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Exporting Raymond
    At its most compelling when Rosenthal explores why the crassest entertainment is internationally successful, even in the home of theatrical naturalism.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Hunt
    Hunt works fine as a slam-bang action movie; but at heart it’s more of a cautionary tale.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    A Christmas Story Christmas
    Like its predecessor, it is enjoyably episodic, jumping from one comic vignette to another. Some of these connect, while others land with a thud. But so it goes with Christmas. Not every present is a winner.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Ultrasound
    The film’s overall tone is a bit dry, and the narrative lacks tension, aside from its central mystery. But the performances are strong, and the points the filmmakers are making about the slipperiness of memory do resonate.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    The Devil All the Time
    What’s haunting about The Devil All The Time — and, ultimately even a little hopeful — is this idea that there’s a world beyond this world, where perhaps not everyone is so cruel or intense. It may not be the biblical Heaven; but that’s okay. Sometimes Cincinnati will suffice.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Angelfish
    Lee coaxes moving performances from a young cast, and he beautifully captures the cultural nuances of the Bronx neighborhoods where his story is set. But he has a tough time finding much new to say with this tale of star-crossed lovers.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    I Love You, Daddy
    What makes I Love You, Daddy at times frustrating but ultimately enthralling is that the whole picture feels like an exploration — and one where not even C.K. knew where he was going when he started shooting.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    It's About You
    It's About You's sound is relatively clean and dynamic, but there's nothing remotely resembling a narrative here.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Ip Man: The Final Fight
    This is the rare martial-arts film where the martial arts are tedious and the conversations more compelling.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    We Summon the Darkness
    We Summon the Darkness is fine throughout; but it peaks in its first third, when nothing much is happening beyond some very good actors recreating the small-town rock ’n’ roll lifestyle of the recent past.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Union Square
    There isn't much to Union Square, but the movie does understand how people want to love their families on their own terms, forgetting that their families may be the only ones who really know who they are.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Hellion
    Hellion lingers for most of its running time in a betwixt-and-between place, never becoming either the sublime character sketch or the overripe melodrama it alternately promises to be.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    A Lot of Nothing
    There’s an earnest, yearning passion here that makes the film feel vital even at its clumsiest.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Legend
    When the two Krays are in the same room, circling each other with a mix of fraternal affection and deep loathing, Legend is as heady and unforgettable as it means to be. The rest of the time, it’s a movie with a lot of good points, but no connecting line.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Mr. Majestyk
    Bronson playing another strong man who would prefer not to have to kick as many asses as circumstances demand. Bronson is Vince Majestyk, a Colorado melon farmer who stands up against a criminal syndicate and the local law when he hires migrant day laborers to bring in his crop, rather than using the local mob’s drunken goons.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Arkansas
    While Arkansas is a promising and often very entertaining first feature, Duke doesn’t combine these borrowed ingredients—excellent though they are—into a fully realized original story, with its own personality.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
    As fascinating as Glass often is, it's simultaneously too conventional and not conventional enough.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Knuckleball
    For the most part, this is a tautly constructed exercise in suspense, set among striking-looking snowbound fields and farmhouses. It’s a vivid slice-of-life, even before the literal slicing begins.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Command
    This is a solidly gripping and at times heartbreaking study of ordinary guys, out on the water trying to support their families, while knowing deep down — just from the shoddy condition of their sub’s equipment — that any given voyage is likely to be their last.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Mr. Harrigan's Phone
    It’s not scary; it is instead an alternately touching and haunting story.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Rainbow Time
    It’s not exactly side-splittingly funny, and it doesn’t amount to much. The ideas are strong, but the storytelling’s practically nonexistent.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Minamata
    Like Smith’s pictures, this movie is direct, compelling and hard to dismiss.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Hobo with a Shotgun
    It's a hyper-violent, self-conscious throwback, with the sickly plastic aroma of a tape that's been gathering dust in the corner of a video store since 1984.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s American Pie
    Somehow, the more McLean explains the song, the more wondrous it seems.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    When You're Strange
    Director Tom DiCillo does his damnedest to make his documentary about The Doors unwatchable, but the subject matter is too compelling--and the vintage footage too electrifying--to be completely worthless.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Noel Murray
    Wings
    Wings is primarily a grand spectacle, with an ingenious piece of visual storytelling rolling along every few minutes.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Forsaken
    It's a treat to see Kiefer and Donald side by side, and both give fine performances. But a pairing this special deserved a story more unique than "reluctant killer reaches for his guns."
    • 55 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    The First Time
    In the first 15 minutes, viewers may be rolling their eyes at these kids; by the end, they might be eager to re-watch that opening scene, to get to know them all over again.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Tusk
    Even for a fairly low-budget movie, Tusk doesn’t feel thought-through, or focused enough.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Screamers
    The band is sincere, and many of its followers are just as sincere, but there's always a danger that too much "screaming" can turn a meaningful statement into an inarticulate din.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Hard Labor
    At its best, the film has the quality of a nightmare, one that keeps happening whether the characters are asleep or awake.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Dreamland
    A terrific cast...helps create a vivid world, on the fringes of showbiz. But Schwartzman’s observations about music and money mostly stay locked in his head. Dreamland isn’t hard to understand by any means, but it does seem fairly negligible from moment to moment. Neither the situation nor the stakes are exactly life or death.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    After Midnight
    For the most part Hank’s heartbreak resonates. By the end of After Midnight, he and the audience both may wonder whether the bogeyman and true love are equally mythical.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Blood
    Working from a Will Honley screenplay, Anderson here crafts a thorny horror film that’s unsettling even when Owen isn’t lunging at the necks of babies and old people — because, like King, Anderson and Honey are as interested in life’s everyday bruises as they are in gaping wounds.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    The Mind's Eye
    Begos gets the texture and atmosphere right, but there’s nothing beneath his cool ’80s fog.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Kindred
    In the end, what we’re left with is an exceptionally well-acted motion picture that mostly fails to move.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Hellraiser
    For all the flayed flesh and impaled skin in the picture, this Hellraiser isn’t sharp enough.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Noel Murray
    Empathy
    Somehow, all of these scattered pieces of film and video fit together, as do the ideas they represent.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Ping Pong Playa
    Something is missing here.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Diminished Capacity
    Broderick, Alda, and Madsen are all fine--and Alda has some poignant moments as he realizes the implications of his forgetfulness--but their presence in a movie like this reaffirms its conventionality.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    The Men Who Stare at Goats
    This is a movie about a “New Earth Army” full of misfit soldiers yearning for a chance to be non-conformists with a cause, which means it’s already two-thirds of the way to being awesome. Had Heslov eased back a bit, Goats might’ve made it the rest of the way.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    The Pact
    More horror movies set in the 21st century ought to integrate technology into their scares as well as Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Passion
    The movie is one long game of misdirection, playing tricks on viewers from scene to scene, and showing how easy it is to steer a crowd into missing something important. That’s the real De Palma touch, even more than the operatic overtones and excess.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Pledge
    The characters and premise of Pledge are over-the-top, but the movie understands that — whether comedy or horror — all these stories are really about a desperate yearning for belonging.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Cuba: Island of Music
    As one man's vacation video, it's outstanding, but as a documentary, it lacks verve, stylistically or journalistically.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Snow Cake
    If only Snow Cake had hewed closer to this idea of showing what an adult autist's life and experiences are like, rather than getting caught up in Rickman's rote re-awakening, it could've been as powerful as it strains to be.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Bee Season
    Everyone in Bee Season is chasing spiritual peace and falling behind, and McGehee and Siegel catch them at their most worn-out and static.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Son
    Kavanagh and Matichak do a remarkable job of capturing an amped-up version of everyday parental paranoia. This is ultimately a movie about a woman who loves her child so intensely that she becomes irrational — and dangerous.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Black Crab
    The movie is less successful at making its plot feel genuinely meaningful, rather than a simple delivery device for chases and shootouts. Still, for those who could use a break from real explosions on the news, the fake ones in “Black Crab” are well-crafted, exciting and mostly harmless.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Cracks
    Cracks stumbles down the stretch, when the melodrama finally washes in and the behavior becomes more extreme.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    SiREN
    For the most part this is a clever and confident expansion of a terrific short. It stings less but packs plenty of poison.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Sniper. The White Raven
    Bushan employs different styles throughout the film, revealing a knack for dynamic action that his more low-key first half-hour doesn’t suggest. He delivers the goods for anyone looking for an intense war movie — but he doesn’t let the shooting start until everyone understands the stakes.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Juggernaut
    DiMarco's noir-inflected family drama is confident and mature, but less involving than it could be, because the filmmaker and his star make their anti-hero stubbornly unappealing.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    F.I.S.T.
    F.I.S.T. is another in a long line of well-made films that excel in their particulars, even if they fall a little short as complete, complex pieces of cinema.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    The Big House
    The Big House is an MGM film, and while it takes on the problem of prison overcrowding, at times it’s more like a window into a secret society, with its own codes and concerns. It’s an outsized, abstracted version of everyday life circa 1930.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Pontypool
    Primarily though, the film works as a tour de force for McHattie--a veteran character actor making the most of his character’s long, fluid monologues--and as a sly commentary on journalistic responsibility.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Toad Road
    Toad Road is sloppy and under-realized, but it should connect with anyone who’s ever made terrible choices for no good reason.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Amu
    The flat, pat talk is symptomatic of Amu's overriding problem: It has no sense of personal style.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Uncle Kent 2
    A short running time and an amiable tone kept Uncle Kent from ever becoming a chore, but aside from one hilariously awkward ménage à trois scene and a poignant final shot, the film was so slight that it almost dared the audience to get anything out of watching.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    House of Darkness
    While the material here is thin and largely predictable (aside from one great jump scare), the cast is outstanding and the dialogue is snappy, delivered at a brisk pace.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Nr. 10
    Even if viewers can’t make sense of it all, they should be able to connect to the way Van Warmerdam revisits some of his favorite themes — including the idea that we’re all actors really, struggling to remember our lines and motivations.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Puccini for Beginners
    Maggenti is still trapped behind surfaces, enamored of the IDEA of making a buoyant, urbane romantic comedy, while falling short of anything really resonant or personal.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Dear Mr. Watterson
    Too much of Dear Mr. Watterson is taken up by Schroeder and an array of non-professional C&H-lovers offering vague praise, with little to no real analysis—aesthetic, historical, or cultural.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Whole New Thing
    Develops its story slowly and carefully, nearly always opting for the plausible over the sensational.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Fairhaven
    Fairhaven's location is lovely. Its actors are terrific. All of them beg for something better.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Escape from L.A.
    Escape From L.A. is a mild letdown. It repeats the basic plot of the original, with a lighter tone, cheaper-looking (yet actually more expensive) special effects, and a grunge soundtrack.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    The Exterminating Angels
    The problem with Exterminating Angels is that its explanatory side overwhelms its playfully perverse side.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    How to Please a Woman
    How to Please a Woman is overlong; and it runs out of plot well before it gets to its climax (so to speak). But while its premise is at times iffy, the movie as a whole has a refreshing randiness about it.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Anton Corbijn Inside Out
    It’s a pleasure just to spend 85 minutes looking at Corbijn’s photos and videos, but as a character sketch (which is really all this documentary is), Inside Out is, perhaps appropriately, pretty spare.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Orphan: First Kill
    The movie is equal parts clever and trashy, made for people who like to see very good actors play people who are very bad.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Boogie
    In basketball terms, it’s not just that Boogie’s a star player who never passes the ball. He also rarely shoots. He mostly just stands in one place, listlessly dribbling.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Luckiest Girl Alive
    Based on Jessica Knoll’s best-selling mystery novel, the Mike Barker-directed Luckiest Girl Alive — with a script by Knoll — falls into the trap of trying too hard to capture not just the book’s flashback-heavy plot but also its distinctive voice.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
    This is a movie about people trying to squeeze maximum recognition and pride out of the one thing they do reasonably well, and much of Blackballed's comedy comes from their attempts to maintain their dignity when they fail.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Bran Nue Dae
    The movie builds goodwill doggedly, and then pays it all off with a farcical finale with a rousing message: We're all Aborigines! Who knew?
    • 54 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    What We Do Is Secret
    The movie is exciting at times, moving at times, and watchable throughout, but fans of The Germs and L.A. punk may start to pine for what's missing around the time Michele Hicks shows up.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Thrashin'
    If a middle-American teenager in the late 1980s wanted to see good-looking young folks build a giant ramp in their backyard and do spectacular mid-air twists, then the local video store could satisfy that fantasy, too.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    The Policeman's Lineage
    The film’s exploration of crime-fighting’s gray areas is familiar; but strong performances, some stylistic flair and a matter-of-fact tone give The Policeman’s Lineage the ring of truth.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge
    Horror hounds should appreciate all the inside jokes and references — while also wishing the movie itself were as consistently good as its influences.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Giving Birth to a Butterfly
    More often, the weirdness and affectations seem gratuitous. Even for a movie meant to be offbeat, the rhythm is jarringly askew.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Some Velvet Morning
    Some Velvet Morning is absorbing and enraging, sure to spark debate both about its meaning and its method. More importantly, it’s a phenomenal performance piece, with LaBute capturing the incredible gifts of two masters of pretense.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 33 Noel Murray
    Good Dick
    Mainly, Good Dick just proves that TV actors like Ritter make good indie-film hires, because they'll go along with whatever ridiculous nonsense a novice filmmaker concocts.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    In Satmar Custody
    Given the complexity of this case and of the Satmar/Zionist feud, the documentary would've benefited from some dryly expert talking heads and a more conventional structure.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Stray Dolls
    Stray Dolls lacks some narrative momentum, as the characters drift from petty crime to petty crime and party to party. But the film has a remarkable sense of place.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
    A dry, dour film where the moments of poetic Americana barely cohere.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Wrinkles the Clown
    This movie’s a reminder that even abstract concepts can have a dark, persuasive power.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Prisoners of the Ghostland
    Prisoners of the Ghostland is less a movie than an environment — not always hospitable but distinctly bizarre.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Mister Lonely
    Has its moments of wonder and beauty, but the film is obscure by design, and meant to appeal to those who favor the alternative canon of directing greats: the one that includes the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Crispin Glover, John Cassavetes, Claire Denis, Abel Ferrara, and Vincent Gallo.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Corvette Summer
    Corvette Summer was originally billed as "a fiberglass romance," and that about sums up its thematic ambitions. Robbins cares about the automobiles much more than the drivers. From the jargon-filled car talk to the repeated shots of tricked-out machines, Corvette Summer is about hot wheels, not what they mean.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Swallowed
    Swallowed is slow-paced and often aggressively unpleasant — unless your idea of a good time is watching people moan in pain for minutes on end while clutching their stomachs. But it’s a memorably intense experience, with sharp points to make about how the lives of outsiders and outlaws can tip in an instant into sloppy chaos.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey
    It’s hard not to feel that there’s something missing from Don’t Stop Believin’, though. The movie doesn’t necessarily need to be dark, but Diaz barely touches on the downside of the Internet age — such as the nasty messages Pineda received from racist Journey fans — or how it feels to sing someone else’s words in someone else’s voice, night after night.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Delicacy
    The movie is caught between the poignancy of the everyday and the exaggerations of fiction.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Person to Person
    This is a terrific cast, appearing in scenes that have been beautifully framed and lit. Why weren’t they given anything memorable to do and say?
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    There's Something Wrong with the Children
    There’s something wrong with the children, all right. The filmmakers can’t figure out what to do with them.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Men at Lunch
    Just as the documentary doesn’t really have the goods when it comes to solving the photograph’s mysteries, it only skims across the surface of what the picture represents.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    The Emperor's New Clothes
    When a documentary feels obliged to spend a few minutes explaining what “300 years” means, it crosses the line from simple and straightforward to condescending.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    RocknRolla
    As is the norm for Ritchie, Rocknrolla is also too long, too coolly violent, and too populated by characters who all talk like they've been reading the same pulp novelist.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
    There's little here that's especially cage-rattling or side-splitting. Ultimately, Allah only made these guys mildly likable.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Monster Hunt
    Monster Hunt combines a lot of qualities from the other items on the all-timer’s list: epic action, elaborate special effects, broad comedy, and a style that could best be described as “exhausting.”
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    We Have a Ghost
    Landon gets a lot of help from Harbour, whose facial expressions alone capture this ghost’s wit, hopes, fears and heartbreak. He’s one lovable dead guy.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Apres Vous (After You)
    It's sweet, but way too silly.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 10 Noel Murray
    Bliss
    Madison’s work aside, this picture isn’t all that exciting. It’s 80 tedious minutes of shouting, swearing, nudity and gore, cut together with the deftness of a chainsaw.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Noel Murray
    The Better Angels
    Do the undeniably Malick-derived qualities of The Better Angels work against it, or is the film all the more special for being, essentially, a bonus Malick picture? To be fair to Edwards, a lot about The Better Angels sets it apart from Malick.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Finding Steve McQueen
    That diffuse focus — and a whimsical tone, bordering on the silly — work against the film. Perhaps the government intervened in this case yet again, making sure Finding Steve McQueen would be too muddled and goofy to be entertaining.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    The Killer Inside Me
    Affleck is the perfect actor for this role, though he’s a little too mush-mouthed to do the voiceover narration required of a noir.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears
    If The Strange Color Of Your Body’s Tears were Cattet and Forzani’s debut film, this might all feel fresher, and more revelatory. But as visually stunning as any given five minutes of this movie is, it doesn’t add up to much cumulatively.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter
    On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter is doggedly down the middle, mixing sports action with talking-head interviews, set to an eclectic soundtrack of rock and country music. The movie feels scattered, jumping too quickly from subject to subject, with little of the original’s visual poetry.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me
    This is an in-depth film about a person many presumed had no depth at all. It’s a cautionary tale — not just for future sex symbols, for those who write about them.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Wasabi
    Offers watchable light entertainment, even though the prospect of the most respected national cinema indulging clunky cop-movie stereotypes is, if not scandalous, then at least disappointing.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    A House on a Hill
    The energy of Workman's editing and the innate value of seeing the creative process play out makes House watchable.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Big Game
    Big Game tries a little of everything, but ultimately settles into being a scrappy, lower-budget spin on the Big Dopey Action Movie genre. And as with nearly every stab at the BDAM, the audience’s satisfaction will depend largely on just how dopey they expect it to be.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Body at Brighton Rock
    Though Benjamin struggles to fill her running-time, the movie mostly reaffirms that she’s a talented genre director.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Heart of Me
    A clean, tasteful drama (sex scenes aside) that's designed to attract Anglophiles who can't resist green lawns, falling leaves, precise diction, and a clean sound mix.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Luther: The Fallen Sun
    "Fallen Sun” is best described as a movie-size version of a “Luther” season — which, for longtime fans, is better than no “Luther” at all.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Redacted
    As an expression of from-the-gut anti-war rage, Redacted is admirable, but as art, it's undercooked.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Chongqing Hot Pot
    The twisty plot mostly comes together via flashbacks, following an opening armed robbery. Too often though, Yang opts for brute force over brains, defaulting to violent fights that don't quite fit with the film's overall lightness.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
    Between the punchy dialogue, the skilled cast (some comic actors, some genre stalwarts) and the impressive animation, “The Littlest Reich” is good, sick fun. It’s got puppets, it’s got gore. Who could ask for anything more?
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Monstrous
    For the most part this is a captivating mood piece, held together by Ricci’s take on a woman who is chasing an impossible idyll while being trailed by something dark and murky.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    LUV
    Candis and Wilson sandbag their actors with dialogue that's a mix of dull exposition and pulp clichés, and rarely natural-sounding or colorful.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    The Sons of Tennessee Williams
    The significance of that group anecdote - from the message of unity to the way Mardi Gras gave some gay New Orleanians a way to explain their lives to their parents - can't be overstated, either for its impact on human rights or its power to move.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    The Girl from Monaco
    Isn't slow-paced. It’s slick and audience-friendly.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Elsa y Fred
    It's hard to overlook how much of Elsa & Fred is rote and pre-chewed.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Mr. Right
    Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell have often been the lone bright spot in otherwise dismal movies, and it takes their combined charm to redeem Mr. Right.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Three Days of Rain
    Beautifully lit, with some inventive but unobtrusive framing, and the moody jazz score unifies the multiple storylines without overwhelming them. Yet while the movie never goes slack, it never really transcends its good intentions either.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Gone in the Night
    Even when the story doesn’t pop, Ryder is terrific.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Moby Doc
    For all its questionable creative choices, Moby Doc is at least more personal and daring than the typical music documentary. This is the movie equivalent of Moby’s discography, with highs and lows tied directly to its creator’s own embarrassing slip-ups and sublime moments of grace.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Who Do You Love
    Works best when it isn’t about freezing time and explaining moments in pop-music history, but is instead about guys playing music together.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Lodgers
    The Lodgers isn't especially frightening, but as the story of people weighed down by their legacies, it is genuinely haunting.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Deadfall
    The best parts of Deadfall are absorbed into a scenario that frequently ditches the cat-and-mouse routine and tries instead to be about three dysfunctional families working toward reconciliation.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    The Dark
    The Dark clicks (which is often), it’s a moving and poetic tale about how neglect and abuse can turn people into freaky beasts, and how love can bring them back.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Run Rabbit Run
    Sarah Snook gives a riveting performance as a mother going mad in Run Rabbit Run, a psychological thriller that’s mostly effective, even though its story is familiar and somewhat threadbare.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Three Amigos!
    Martin’s script—co-written with SNL producer Lorne Michaels and songwriter Randy Newman—is full of inspired bits of comic business, such as Martin making a “lookuphere!” bird call to get his chums’ attention, Chase pouring water all over his face while his mates’ canteens are dry, and the Amigos summoning an invisible swordsman whom Chase accidentally shoots.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Ghost River
    La Vie Promise's style is too slick for the subject matter.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Loot
    Undoubtedly, everything documentarian Darius Marder shows in his debut film Loot actually happened, but Marder’s approach to this “truth is stranger than fiction” story is so forced that the movie FEELS phony.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 33 Noel Murray
    American Animal
    Seen as some kind of absurdist, meta-textual horror story, American Animal almost works. In every other way? It's fuckin' poopy-loopy.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Windfall
    Windfall is, throughout, a top-notch actors’ showcase.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Sister Aimee
    The filmmakers sometimes fail to follow through on the more interesting parts of their story, but a novel approach to the material mostly compensates for the drier stretches.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Wildflower
    While director Matt Smukler and screenwriter Jana Savage deliver moments throughout the film that feel vividly real, too often they veer into the maudlin or cutesy, as though trying to soften this material for the broadest possible audience.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    National Champions
    This movie is all talk and no action. It’s a two-hour pregame show, with no game.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Tai Chi Zero
    The story's fundamentals remain solid, and the battle between the village of kung-fu experts and an army of 19th century technophiles is so cleverly staged and exciting that the inevitable sequel (already in the works) will be welcome, as will any future martial-arts movies that Tai Chi Zero may inspire.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Any Given Sunday
    After establishing the AFFA’s complex, corrupt social structure, Stone and Logan wimp out considerably in the second half of Any Given Sunday, piling on the sports-melodrama clichés.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    She's One of Us
    For all the smart visual design, though, She's One Of Us is frustratingly clinical.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Dead Man's Shoes
    For all Dead Man's Shoes' well-paced, well-observed boondocks melodrama, its premise seems simultaneously slender and overheated.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Carrie Pilby
    This “emotionally immature braniac” character is funny and heartbreaking in equal measure. Carrie Pilby is special. “Carrie Pilby” is less so.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Red Christmas
    Mostly, it’s a tightly constructed, unapologetically nasty little thriller, given depth and weight by Wallace’s interpretation of a sweet woman suffering for her past.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Drop
    Smith and Leonard spoof the presumptions and pretensions of people who like to outwardly project as kindly and enlightened; and they unsparingly illustrate how someone’s seemingly rock-solid reputation can be undone in an instant.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Bloody Hell
    Everyone involved with Bloody Hell is doing their jobs with creativity and gusto, even if it’s hard to discern any larger point.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Rick
    It's hard for Rick to maintain this jangled tone, which aims to be simultaneously heartbreaking and broadly satirical. The latter tack pushes Rick too far, and too soon.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    À cause d'un garçon
    Though its milieu is often ugly and its story fairly soft, You'll Get Over It gets by thanks to its cast. The French film industry has a knack for finding attractive, expressive young actors, and this movie is no exception.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Janie Jones
    Contrivances aside, though, Janie Jones is one of the more realistic depictions of what the rock 'n' roll lifestyle is really like.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    We the People: The Market Basket Effect
    There are good lessons to be learned from the Market Basket saga. "We the People" doesn't trust the audience to figure them out for themselves.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Kuso
    Kuso won’t be for everybody. It’s gross, it’s repetitive, and if it has a point, it’s hard to discern. But it’s not artless. Every densely layered image of oozing pus and gassy orifices is as imaginatively rendered as it is disgusting.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Zizek!
    It's a straightforward, relatively style-free piece, primarily of interest to those who want to hear Zizek's pronouncements. But what distinguishes the film is Zizek's peculiar self-awareness, which borders on paranoia
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Mammoth
    While Mammoth is frequently poignant and beautifully acted--especially by Williams, who’s so lost and lonely that she becomes casually cruel--the movie lacks the personal touch that’s distinguished even Moodysson’s “difficult” films.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Rabid Dogs
    Although the original sometimes looked like a bunch of loosely connected scenes, this Rabid Dogs feels more purposeful.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Eddie and the Cruisers
    Eddie And The Cruisers is a hodgepodge of seemingly unmarketable ingredients: a complicated flashback structure, oblique nods to Elvis Presley conspiracy theories and The Beach Boys’ unreleased opus Smile, and anachronistic Bruce Springsteen-style frat-rock.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Close
    Written, directed and produced by Vicky Jewson, Close works well when it sticks to the distinctive personal details of this kind of job; but it too often defaults to a run-of-the-mill international thriller.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Satanic Panic
    There’s something just a bit off about Satanic Panic, a knowing horror-comedy with some wonderfully wild moments, but with pacing too slack and choppy to give its best jokes their proper punch.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    The Slumber Party Massacre
    What Slumber Party Massacre lacks in style, originality, and satire, it makes up in entertainment value. It’s blessedly unpretentious.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Kids vs. Aliens
    While the script (co-written by Eisener and John Davies) is weak, there is an endearingly scruffy vibe here, goosed by some cool-looking costumes and effects.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Human Capital
    A magnificent cast only partially compensates for the fizzling narrative.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Susie Searches
    The insights into influencer culture and the thirst for fame in Susie Searches aren’t exactly fresh. But as a Hitchcockian thriller with a slippery hero, this film can be ruthlessly effective.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Taurus
    At its best, Taurus captures the tumult of the artistic process, where happy accidents and unpleasant truths are perpetually in conflict.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Wrath of Becky
    The Wrath of Becky delivers satisfying action, as this underestimated heroine — well-played by Wilson — makes some terrible people look like absolute fools.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    In a Relationship
    The cast is terrific, and kudos to Boyd for including some specifics about how 20-something Angelenos hook up in the 2010s. But there’s just not enough that’s new here — either in what’s being said, or how.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Song of Sway Lake
    Gold does an excellent job of evoking the past. But there’s nothing really holding the film’s most poignant moments together: no narrative drive, and no sense of a larger world. This song has a catchy melody, but the arrangement is a mess.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    In Our Nature
    Brian Savelson's small-scaled domestic drama In Our Nature evokes a specific, fairly common experience: when two young lovers expose a still-blossoming relationship to their relatives' stifling attention.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Creation
    What begins as a multilayered tale of scientific discovery and cultural history gets reduced to a single maudlin idea: that even Charles Darwin had to evolve.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Free Zone
    Like a lot of Gitaï's films, Free Zone is part history, part allegory, and part art. Both the history and art hold their fascinations.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    White Bird in a Blizzard
    Because the tone is so erratic, it’s hard to know whether its anticlimactic quality is a botch on Araki’s part, or a purposeful bit of genre subversion.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Shotgun Stories
    Well-plotted, with a strong lead performance by Michael Shannon, and a fair amount of authentic regional flavor. It isn't really meant to be a treatise on Southern life. At heart, it's a country-fried genre film, minus the peppery white gravy.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Run Sweetheart Run
    Feste handles the action and horror in Run Sweetheart Run well; and for those who can handle its more preposterous twists there are trashy pulp kicks to be had here. But given that this movie is also trying to say something honest and angry about how the powers that be protect abusive men, its silliness is a setback.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Ana Maria in Novela Land
    The major failing of Ana Maria In Novela Land is its unevenness. The comedy is never all that funny, and some scenes fall noticeably flat, either because the cast isn’t strong enough, or because the production as a whole lacks polish.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Monkey King 3
    The Monkey King 3 is more about eye-popping spectacle than narrative sweep, but it's generous with images that make audiences go, "Oooh!"
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Moscow Never Sleeps
    Moscow Never Sleeps is well made but stilted, following too many characters to give any their due.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Let It Snow
    With its cast of veteran child actors and its baked-in holiday warmth, Let It Snow has some baseline appeal. But like the formulaic Christmas movies that fill the Hallmark Channel this time of year, this film isn’t exactly a timeless classic. It’s more like something to put on in the background, while making cookies or wrapping presents.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Lou
    The plot races from one tense outdoor confrontation to the next, as “Lou” tells a simple but effective story about two women enduring the harshness of the elements and the machinations of violent men.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Soaked in Bleach
    There’s just not enough innovation or insight here to stretch a footnote to feature-length.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Homebound
    Homebound burns too slowly in the early going, but the tension and confusion in the first half eventually explodes into chaos. Throughout, Loftus gives a gripping performance as a woman desperate to make a good impression on a family that may be evil.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Disenchanted
    Adams is still an absolute dynamo as Giselle, fluctuating between preternatural cheeriness and storybook meanness. As in the first film, the actress strikes a graceful balance between the silly and the sincere, embodying and even humanizing everything people love about fairy tales.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Trespass Against Us
    While it’s tricky to pin down exactly what Trespass Against Us means to be, it’s easy to enjoy what it actually is.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Roger Dodger
    Flags as it heads toward a moralistic ending, complete with a couple of contrived (albeit charged) sexual encounters, but it's heartening that it soars as long as it does.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Vanishing on 7th Street
    Vanishing On 7th Street does work well as a kind of mood-piece, observing all the ways we surround ourselves with the illusion of warmth and security, before the shadows creep in.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    I Give It a Year
    The default middle ground between true-to-life and wacky in I Give It A Year turns out to be a place of dreary artificiality.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Holidays
    The film mostly feels perfunctory and awkward — like calling home at Christmas.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Roustabout
    Roustabout revels delightfully in the arcane details of carny life.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Bloodline
    Bloodline is meant to work on viewers’ nerves. For the most part, it does.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
    There are multiple reasons why Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is such an entertaining movie even now, but the biggest is that Matheson, Solomon, and director Stephen Herek found the perfect Bill and Ted in Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, two young actors with just the right boyish energy.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    True Spirit
    Give credit to Spillane for making sure that this movie isn’t just about the heartwarming highs, but about the hard work it took to reach them.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Here Comes the Devil
    Bogliano provides a steady series of jolts, all the way to an ending that’s twisty but ultimately unsatisfying.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Skiptrace
    Too much of this project feels like it’s been coldly calculated for maximum international box office.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Land
    The Cleveland locations — along with some memorable visual flourishes via skateboard tricks — show that Caple has a unique eye and a strong sense of place. Here’s hoping that next time he applies them to a fresher story.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Zus & zo
    Fast-paced, and entertaining in a soapy way, but plot demands require almost all of the dialogue to be flatly descriptive.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Marebito (The Stranger from Afar)
    Unlike the elliptical, often explanation-free "The Grudge," Marebito is wordy to the extreme. Konaka's near-constant narration underlines every point the movie is trying to make, ruminating bluntly on the meaning of fear, and how we suck on media violence like, yep, vampires.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Racer and the Jailbird
    Racer and the Jailbird remains absorbing throughout, thanks primarily to the two leads, who are both almost frighteningly believable as lovers willing to risk everything to stay together.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Into the Ashes
    While Harvey does a fine job evoking the violent, character-driven crime pictures of the 1970s, he can’t quite make Into the Ashes feel original enough to be vital.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Meet Cute
    Meet Cute falls into a rut fairly quickly, because it lacks the breadth of imagination that makes the best time-loop stories work.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 30 Noel Murray
    The Night Eats the World
    No matter how spare and arty The Night Eats the World is, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    How About You ...
    Nothing in How About You is the least bit surprising; the film hits its marks with dreary precision.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Love in the Villa
    Julie and Charlie make a winning couple, which goes a long way toward making Love on the Villa watchable. But they’re so boxed-in by the movie’s clichés, their love affair rarely gets the chance to breathe.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Trash
    But while once upon a time Daldry made a very good movie like "Billy Elliot", here he lets what should’ve been an efficient little thriller get stymied by an excess of style, and the weight of self-importance.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Newness
    At it’s best, Newness is about how nothing’s really all that new.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Look
    Aside from a smattering of irony and a resolution for one of the storylines, the security cameras aren't really threaded into Look's essential purpose. If the idea is that we're always being watched, why does it seem that in this movie, no one's really paying attention?
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    GameStop: Rise of the Players
    This documentary has its limitations, both as a piece of reporting and as cinema. Tulis and his editors rarely give the viewer a moment to breathe and reflect, as they race through a blitz of images from internet chats and cable shows. Their approach to the documentary form is merely functional at best, and sometimes is visually unappealing.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Case for Christ
    Give credit to the filmmakers for making a faith-affirming picture that aims to be more thoughtful than maudlin. But what they’ve ended up with is a fairly rote Christian redemption narrative — albeit with more charts and graphs.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    28 Hotel Rooms
    In its own small way, by documenting the petty panic of two people who want to be together but are otherwise entangled, 28 Hotel Rooms is often masterful.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    The Vault
    The Vault is a combination heist and horror picture; and it’s the rare genre mash-up where each element’s equally strong.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Line of Duty
    There’s scarcely a minute of the amped-up action movie Line of Duty that isn’t absolutely ridiculous … and scarcely a minute that isn’t mindlessly entertaining.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Violent Heart
    There’s a lot to like in The Violent Heart, with Adepo at the top of the list. But Sanga errs by giving his movie the deterministic structure of a potboiler and the muted tone of a slice-of-life indie drama.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Things Heard & Seen
    While the cast is great, the milieu is vivid, the images are polished and the atmosphere is effectively moody, Things Heard & Seen fails to connect on a visceral level.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Wilson
    This Wilson is sweet and pleasant and occasionally riotously funny. But it’s still the simplified version of a much more complicated work of art.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Blackout Experiments
    The emphasis on Blackout’s therapeutic qualities gets overly repetitive and banal — a little like listening to strangers analyze their dreams. But like Blackout itself, The Blackout Experiments is often chilling and hard to shake.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 75 Noel Murray
    Kidnapped
    What's missing from Kidnapped is a grander context - or richer subtext - to all the terror.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Night's End
    Night’s End takes a bit too long to build up momentum.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Lost Husband
    While nearly everything about The Lost Husband is pat and predictable, the movie’s easy to watch. Credit the charisma and polished professionalism of Bibb and Duhamel.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter
    The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter is more of a wistful character sketch than a fully realized wilderness comedy.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Bloody Birthday
    Between the placid suburban setting, the dogged ordinariness of the murderers, and the lengths these homicidal tots go to, Bloody Birthday is too goofy to be scary. But it’s thick with campy dialogue and memorable scenes.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
    It's just too bad that Legend Of The Fist breaks up that action with long scenes of well-dressed men and women sitting around in nightclubs, talking politics.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Shadows
    A respectable enough little ghost story, but it loses a lot of sparkle by being similar to such other guy-talks-to-the-dead thrillers as "The Sixth Sense" and "Ghost Town."
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Valley of the Dolls
    It's more in the so bad it's almost good mode.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Raymond & Ray
    Garcia holds back too much, perhaps trying to avoid any phony epiphanies. As a result, his two main characters are too preoccupied with re-litigating old grudges to do or say anything notable.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Tycoon: A New Russian
    While the players are circling and silently sizing each other up, the audience may find itself straining to look around them, to see the history they're blocking.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Rubikon
    The dialogue-heavy scenario robs the film of some tension, but the conversations are often quite exciting.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Krampus
    Dougherty's effects team is top-notch, and the movie takes unexpected chances with the style and the storytelling — including a beautiful stop-motion interlude.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Your Place or Mine
    What saves the picture is McKenna’s knack for finding something real and relatable within quirky comic characters like a hyper-organized overprotective mother and a swaggering cool guy who makes a living telling other people how to succeed.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 42 Noel Murray
    Gerrymandering
    At the start of Gerrymandering, Reichert quotes Thomas Pynchon, writing, "Nothing will produce bad history more directly nor brutally than drawing a line." The same could be said of documentaries.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
    For a movie about the unpredictability of life, Pippa Lee plays it awfully safe.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Darlin'
    The parallel story lines are both about a twisted sisterhood, and come together in a climactic church service sequence that’s equal parts disgusting and grandiose — and kind of awesome, for fans of bizarre, punky horror.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Boxing Gym
    Viewers' interest in Boxing Gym will likely wax and wane, depending on their interest in martial arts.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 83 Noel Murray
    Antichrist
    Antichrist is a boldly personal film, tossing all von Trier’s ideas about faith, fear, and human nature into an unfettered phantasmagoria, full of repulsive visions and fierce scorn. It’s also the most lush-looking movie von Trier has made in about 20 years.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Mobile Homes
    While the story’s a little shaky, Poots is outstanding; and de Fontenay has a terrific eye for the details of a drifter’s life, shuffling from hovel to hovel, never able to scrape up enough cash to sleep comfortably.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Cellar
    What does connect is Cuthbert’s anxious, guilt-tinged performance as a mom who spends her days as an in-demand marketing consultant, helping brands reach the coveted youth demographic.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Noel Murray
    Slumber Party Massacre II
    Surreal, silly, and blessed with decent rock songs by Go-Go’s-esque girl-group Wednesday Week, SPM II doesn’t make a lick of sense, but at least it’s memorable.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
    Jaud isn’t telling a story so much as he’s making a case, and while his case is persuasive, it doesn’t really work as a movie. The information in Food Beware could fit just as easily--and just as effectively--into a pamphlet.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 67 Noel Murray
    The Thorn in the Heart
    If he’d pulled back more, Gondry might’ve seen the real story here: how maternal figures often look better to people who don’t actually have them for a mother.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Look Both Ways
    It’s too facile to connect deeply. Everything in Natalie’s life is depicted on a surface level: motherhood, work, romance, friendship and even her passion for drawing. The differences between her two selves never seem too wide because both are barely rooted in reality.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    They Remain
    This movie remains subtle throughout, emphasizing the tenuousness of reality and the unmooring isolation of the bush.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Noel Murray
    Amaurosis
    While the “Wait Until Dark”-like suspense of the film’s climax feels a little rote, that’s OK, because the foggy depiction of a troubled marriage is plenty disturbing.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    Army of Thieves
    Schweighöfer does have a memorable screen presence, and this film is well made, as formulaic pictures so often are. But this one never fully justifies its existence, or its expense. It’s a big movie with skimpy ideas.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    A Tourist's Guide to Love
    Though the movie’s leads are undeniably charming, director Steven K. Tsuchida and screenwriter Eirene Tran Donohue don’t give them much to do that hasn’t been done many times before. What does distinguish their film is its setting
    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Beanie Bubble
    The Beanie Bubble eventually runs out of steam. The snappy pace and colorful style — so attractive at first — later become alienating, keeping nearly all the characters locked into one dimension.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Noel Murray
    Devil's Pass
    Harlan’s film—written by Vikram Weet—is a routine low-budget genre picture, with blandly attractive young actors overmatched by the freakiness lurking in the wilderness.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Noel Murray
    The Devil's Doorway
    Roddy and Bereen in particular give fully fleshed-out performances, playing agents of a religious institution they both disrespect in subtle and blatant ways. Clarke and company inject some old-fashioned scares into the context of a deeper moral rot.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Noel Murray
    Mercy Black
    The film's mostly about one grown woman’s lingering regrets over that one dumb adolescent mistake, although Egerton doesn’t let his more serious themes get in the way of scaring the bejesus out of his audience. The result is a movie that’s a much better riff on the Slender Man urban legend than the terrible 2018 thriller of the same name.
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