Peter Debruge

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Miami Herald, Premiere, Variety
For 1,770 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Peter Debruge's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Josephine
Lowest review score: 0 Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,028 out of 1770
  2. Mixed: 593 out of 1770
  3. Negative: 149 out of 1770
1770 movie reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Peter Debruge
    Me and You and Everyone We Know
    Every so often, a movie blindsides you, leaving you feeling different, enlightened, possibly even improved. Me and You and Everyone We Know is such a movie.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    The Kingmaker
    Marcos’ print-the-legend philosophy has particular resonance in a post-truth world, although such sinister undertones sneak up on audiences in a movie that begins, innocently enough, as the latest of Greenfield’s astonishing portraits of wealth run amok.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Cassandro
    In Williams’ hands, the laughs never come at Saúl’s expense, ridiculous as this arena might seem to audiences. Luchadores are entertainers, first and foremost, and “Cassandro” celebrates that while taking Armendáriz’s achievements seriously.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Peter Debruge
    September 5
    In this case, revisiting it half a century later, knowing what happened doesn’t preclude us from wanting to get a better understanding of the specifics. But this movie’s insights are limited to the newsroom.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Obvious Child
    The humor springs either from real-world recognition, as Robespierre and her co-writers go where others fear to tread, or in response to the cast’s lively, eccentrically lived-in characters.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    Tim's Vermeer
    The result is just about the most fun you can have while learning, partly because it strips away any tangents beyond the task at hand, offering a lean, 80-minute account of how this crazy guy erected his own Everest and then proceeded to climb it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    King Richard
    The beauty of Zach Baylin’s script is that while the arc is familiar, hardly a single detail could be described as clichéd, seeing as how the specifics are virtually unprecedented.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Shirley
    Rather than presenting another puzzle with important pieces missing, with this project, Decker provides more material than we know what to do with, and the resulting prism feels intellectually rewarding, no matter the angle from which we choose to approach it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    Jeune Femme (Montparnasse Bienvenüe)
    Serraille studied literature before switching to cinema, and her sharp attention to the detail distinguishes Jeune femme from so many first-time indie features.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Peter Debruge
    Holler
    The film’s texture is in the details. There’s nothing glamorous about this kind of subsistence, and nothing invented.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Peter Debruge
    Tigers Are Not Afraid
    For a film bursting with so many ideas, only a fraction of them seem to work. And yet, as an artistic statement, “Tigers” proves as fearless as its kid characters, and an indicator of incredible things to come from its creator.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Mud
    Mud poses as a mere adolescent adventure tale but explores a rich vein of grown-up concerns, exploring codes of honor, love and family too solid to be shaken by modernizing forces.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Peter Debruge
    The Woman King
    It’s stirring but slightly stodgy, designed to stand the test of time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
    [Francis] Lawrence and his team have calibrated the entire experience for maximum engagement. And while its pleasures can’t touch the thrill of seeing the Death Star destroyed — not yet, at least — the film runs circles around George Lucas’ ability to weave complex political ideas into the very fabric of B-movie excitement.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    Marguerite
    This splendid satire benefits...from “The Singer” director Giannoli’s gift for striking just the right tone with such tricky material.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Peter Debruge
    Into the Inferno
    Into the Inferno proves most fascinating when documenting the ways in which primitive peoples invest these angry craters with spirits and gods.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Peter Debruge
    Pearl
    Its distinctive look and oddly appealing antihero (picture Norman Bates as Shelley Duvall might have played him) could actually make this the more popular of the two films.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Paris, 13th District
    A silky, soulful black-and-white tapestry of single millennials seeking connection.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Peter Debruge
    Absolutely Anything
    It’s devastating to think how far Jones has fallen in the four decades since “Holy Grail,” in which he got more laughs banging a few coconuts together than he musters from his entire movie.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 38 Peter Debruge
    The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    The movie is a leaden, slow-moving beast.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
    It can take a TV series an entire season to establish a political intrigue as elaborate as the one Cedar devises here — and even longer to flesh out such a fascinating protagonist, when all Cedar had to do was give this archetype a name.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    The Hottest August
    Story’s an original, and the film is a revelation — a movie that’s as deep as we’re willing to read into it, and an invaluable time capsule for summers far in our future, assuming we ever get there.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Frank
    Helmer Lenny Abrahamson (“Garage,” “Adam & Paul”) puts the pic’s eccentricity to good use, luring in skeptics with jokey surrealism and delivering them to a profoundly moving place.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Peter Debruge
    Love Me
    The Zucheros’ creation is audacious and original, but also suffers from some of the same ADHD issues that afflicted “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (both are movies made for multitaskers with brains wired for constantly switching between screens).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Peter Debruge
    Martha Marcy May Marlene
    The largely elliptical script feels a few drafts shy of focus, with the thriller elements undermining the juicier questions of why one joins a cult and how life can go back to normal later.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Peter Debruge
    La Belle Époque
    In the end, the story’s custom reenactment gimmick may not even have been necessary, so well-written and executed is the personal journey that underlies it.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Peter Debruge
    Extraction
    Extraction isn’t the smartest movie you’ll see during lockdown, but it’s liable to be the most kinetic — assuming you have Netflix, since it’s the service’s big tentpole of the season, a dumbed-down bit of blow-uppy distraction that’s every bit as entertaining as the equivalent pyrotechnic offering from a theatrical motion picture studio might have been.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    Dina
    The connection they share isn’t the kind that would pass for conventionally romantic, and yet, theirs is a compelling love story all the same — one the filmmakers follow with open minds, focusing on the lead-up to and days immediately following their wedding.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Peter Debruge
    My Dead Friend Zoe
    Hausmann-Stokes’ message is simple, and his movie is a perfect place to start: Take an interest in our veterans.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Peter Debruge
    Undine
    There’s a stylistic and narrative elegance to Petzold’s approach, with its clean lensing and repeated use of a single piece of music (the rolling piano Adagio from Bach’s Concerto in D Minor, BWV 974), that suggests restraint, where a queer filmmaker might have propelled things into camp territory. In a way, it’s a shame that Undine stops short, since the material feels thin, and the statement as murky as the lake to which the camera ultimately returns.
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