Pauline Kael

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The New York Times, The New Yorker
For 828 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 26% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 72% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Pauline Kael's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 The Lavender Hill Mob
Lowest review score: 10 Revolution
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 372 out of 828
  2. Mixed: 406 out of 828
  3. Negative: 50 out of 828
828 movie reviews
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    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Pauline Kael
    Alice in Wonderland
    The film was lavishly produced, with great care given to the sets and costumes and makeup, but the spirit is missing.
    • The New Yorker
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Pauline Kael
    King Kong
    The movie is a romantic adventure fantasy--colossal, silly, touching, a marvelous Classics Comics movie (and for the whole family).
    • The New Yorker
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Pauline Kael
    Q & A
    Lumet wrote the script alone, and he's so busy laying on the rancorous, bantering atmosphere that he waits too long to get to the plot; the movie becomes torpid.
    • The New Yorker
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Pauline Kael
    Raggedy Man
    (Fisk) gives us flowing, expressive images that linger in the memory. What also lingers in the memory are some of the performances Fisk gets: Spacek in particular, who seems grown up, and Roberts, who is unexpectedly simple and open.
    • The New Yorker
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Pauline Kael
    Z
    One of the fastest, most exciting melodramas ever made.
    • The New Yorker
    • 41 Metascore
    • 30 Pauline Kael
    The Terminal Man
    One of those errors-of-science thrillers; it's an even worse error of moviemaking.
    • The New Yorker
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Pauline Kael
    Compromising Positions
    Susan Sarandon does inspired double-takes - just letting her beautiful dark eyes pop.
    • The New Yorker
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Pauline Kael
    A Tale of Two Cities
    It's a creditable though unadventurous film, handsomely staged in the M-G-M backlot style for classics.
    • The New Yorker
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Pauline Kael
    The Elephant Man
    A very pleasurable surprise. Lighted by Freddie Francis, this film is perhaps the most beautiful example of black-and-white cinematography in about 15 years.
    • The New Yorker
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Pauline Kael
    Coming Home
    Hal Ashby directed this intuitive yet amorphous movie, which falls apart when he resorts to melodramatic crosscutting.
    • The New Yorker
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Pauline Kael
    The Major and the Minor
    The farce situations are pushed too broadly, and have a sanctimonious patriotic veneer, but this first American film directed by Billy Wilder was a box-office hit.
    • The New Yorker
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Pauline Kael
    Splendor in the Grass
    The movie doesn't suggest that adolescents have a right to sexual experimentation -- it just attacks the corrupted grown-ups for their failure to value love above all else. It's the old corn, fermented in a new way.
    • The New Yorker
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Pauline Kael
    Stakeout
    For all the nippiness in the dialogue (the script is by Jim Kouf) and the comic interplay of the actors, the picture doesn't leave you with anything.
    • The New Yorker
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Pauline Kael
    A Cry in the Dark
    The film is like an expanded, beautifully made TV "Movie of the Week."
    • The New Yorker
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Pauline Kael
    The Rose
    Midler gives a paroxysm of a performance - it's scabrous yet delicate, and altogether amazing. The movie is hyper and lurid, yet it's also a very strong emotional experience, with an exciting visual and musical flow, and there are sharply written, beautifully played dialogue scenes.
    • The New Yorker
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