Robert Abele

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L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Times, TheWrap
For 1,590 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Robert Abele's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Donbass
Lowest review score: 0 Detention of the Dead
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 824 out of 1590
  2. Mixed: 489 out of 1590
  3. Negative: 277 out of 1590
1590 movie reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Afternoons of Solitude
    In its graceful intertwining of meditation and obscenity, Afternoons of Solitude gives an ancient, controversial tradition the chance to shock and awe without hype or favor. It’s inhumane, it’s human and it’s a hell of a film.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Expedition to the End of the World
    Composed of breathtaking images and cheeky bits of humor, Dencik's travelogue reveals a journey with curious traces of the past, eye-popping encounters with a wild present and — in discovering an oil company's ship in the group's midst — a weighted reminder of our future as stewards of the Earth.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Look Into My Eyes
    Human connections are gifts, imagination is powerful and empathy isn’t a trick. These are the things Look Into My Eyes patiently communicates to us from its watchful perch.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    20 Days in Mariupol
    Acrid and harrowing, it’ll slap you awake.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    The Ground Beneath My Feet
    Kreutzer, who wrote the screenplay, proves especially adept, in conjunction with editor Ulrike Kofler, at the natural suspense of pinging between Lola’s professional and personal lives, and where the vulnerabilities in one bleed into the other. It’s a steady tension that’s greatly enhanced by Kreutzer’s spatially conscious visual style.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Wake in Fright (1971)
    As a strictly psychological portrait of destructive masculinity it's a gut-sock, vividly photographed, thrillingly edited and marked by performances (Donald Pleasence and Jack Thompson, most notably) that heave with strange complexity and dark camaraderie.Wake in Fright is true horror.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Enter the Void
    Suffice to say, unrelenting material like this isn't for everybody. That it is a gloriously filmic gesture - by turns jaw-dropping, elusive, silly, obnoxious, painful and beautiful - is celebration enough.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    A Band Called Death
    Joy and redemption aren't exactly punk mantras, but A Band Called Death might just give your heart a thrashing.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Lakota Nation vs. United States
    A lyrical, edifying and blistering plea for Indigenous justice.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Daughters
    While the dance is clearly intended to be positive and inspiring (we’re told 95% of the fathers who participate never go back to jail), the movie isn’t afraid to show just how much fragility and uncertainty goes into the buildup and its aftermath.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    In the Intense Now
    The combination of archival bounty with Salles' touching analysis has a hypnotic effect, serving up the past plus reflection, garnished with a resonant melancholy about the ebb and flow of uprisings.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
    Thanks to Crip Camp, we can all get a window into how a struggle is unified, people are emboldened, and differences are made.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Reality
    Garrone achieves something uniquely colorful, disturbing and trenchant about self-perception in an increasingly fishbowl-like society.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Ruben Brandt, Collector
    An acrobatic, larkish globetrotting adventure about paintings and psychotherapy that defies easy categorization save inclusion on any adult animation fan’s must-see list, its slinky, colorful pleasures and wittily referential joie de vivre are like a lifeline in a season when the art house is typically beholden to severe, award-seeking bids to depress you.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Jezebel
    Jezebel is a reminder that in everyday human stories is proof that the world is wide, and that in going behind the doors that movies rarely open, there are even more worlds worth discovering.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Let It Fall: L.A. 1982-1992
    This is history from the inside, told by people who don’t always look like they’ve gotten past it, and it’s what makes “Let it Fall” so memorable.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Oculus
    Less concerned with fake shocks and show-me violence than the grimly calibrated rotting of personalities, Oculus is one of the more intelligently nasty horror films in recent memory.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Robert Abele
    Two Step
    Giving flair to the inevitable and imbuing those stakes with emotional heft are key to this type of patiently nasty, slow-boil noir. That Johnson understands this makes his feature debut a particularly confident and enjoyable one.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Robert Abele
    Peterloo
    Though Peterloo brims with 19th century authenticity, from its hardscrabble interiors and stately halls of power to the quiet beauty of its rural scenes, it’s no costumes-and-decor drama — Leigh’s focus is on the rhythms of talk in all the ways it influences: as rant, argument, posturing, strained politeness, open skepticism, and full-on performance.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Robert Abele
    Minding the Gap
    Minding the Gap, which is brilliantly edited by Liu and Joshua Altman, has a floating, grab-bag style that collapses the time frame into a kind of momentum-driven arc, but while the pieces are often bite-sized, and not always delineated by a year or person’s age, the collage has a distinctive chronological feel.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    Wildlife
    In the hands of its filmmakers and cast is a rivetingly good, human journey, full of sparks, flame, smoke, containment, ash, and the terrible beauty that sometimes mystifyingly colors stories of desolation.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    Brad's Status
    With movies experiencing a glaring dearth in quietly human, perceptively satirical comedy, the appearance of Brad’s Status is something of a breath of fresh air. Even if that atmosphere is the occasionally sour odor of regret, the sharply drawn, considerate nature of White’s approach allows us to enjoy the tang and sweetness simultaneously.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    The Innocents
    Vogt, with his second feature, has crafted a disturbing and original heart-pounder all his own, uncommonly attuned to the perspective of unsocialized prepubescents: how their feelings work, what their minds process, and why their worst moments may bring catharsis to them, but can look terrifyingly wrong to us.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    Sully
    Sully, an honest, skillful rumination on what makes a hero, is just one more example of how Eastwood, having directed movies only slightly longer than his protagonist had been flying planes, is still a masterful pilot himself.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
    The prime takeaway is of an irascibly charming, wounded and forceful genius both having the time of his life and sensing the gathering dusk.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    Hold Me Tight
    Thankfully, Hold Me Tight, with Amalric’s alert, empathetic stewardship and Krieps’ gripping portrayal, sets aside the banality of grief’s burden for something more alive and elusive, but no less affecting.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    All the Money in the World
    Scott whips it all into shape: the tense action involving the kidnappers, the investigation’s twists, the maddening campaign to give Getty a financial incentive in freeing his grandson, and the emotional toll it takes on everyone (Getty included).
    • 78 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    High Flying Bird
    There is tons of game in this fleet, fast-paced modern sports story, which entertainingly substitutes lived-in wisdom for expert dribbling, skillful gambits for clever passing, and witty dialogue for points-racking shots.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    The Love Witch
    For fans of exquisitely conjured nostalgia, dosed liberally with a modern attitude, The Love Witch is a velvety melodramatic treat, and a real calling card for Biller’s playfully immersive gifts. Bring your gaze, whatever your gender.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 85 Robert Abele
    The Sound of Silence
    Chilly yet compassionate, anchored by both a characteristically deep-set portrait of off-putting intelligence from Peter Sarsgaard and a poignant turn by Rashida Jones, it’s a delicate oddity that won’t necessarily replace any of your favorite cinematic New York couplings, but it’ll remind you why we often respond to an unlikely pairing built around smarts, sadness and hope.
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