Rory O'Connor

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The Film Stage
For 264 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 66% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 30% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 12.6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Rory O'Connor's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 78
Highest review score: 100 Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Lowest review score: 0 The Last Face
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 241 out of 264
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 264
  3. Negative: 5 out of 264
264 movie reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Petrov's Flu
    Playing out at breakneck speed, it is awash with flights of fancy: outbursts of sex and violence; aliens and murder; sepia-dripped nostalgia; jarring temporal and spatial uncertainty; homoeroticism; etc. That sense of dizziness is only further confounded by Vlad Ogai’s shifting sets and richly detailed production design, and cinematographer Vladislav Opelyants’ long roving takes. Its cast has the sense of a troupe. The frame is always packed.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
    A great deal of Buster Scruggs might ultimately be a touch undercooked by the mercurial siblings’ standards, but dagnabbit if there isn’s a whole lot to like.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Fourteen
    A deep dive into the complexity and soft trauma of seeing those we idolized as kids through fresh eyes and what exactly to make of that new vantage.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Les Misérables
    Ly makes a concerted effort to go beneath the topsoil of conventional Parisian crime films. Indeed, his script takes the time to show seemingly inconsequential things that go on behind the suburb’s closed doors, moments of rich contextual value if not obvious narrative importance.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    BlackBerry
    Baruchel and Johnson, bouncing off each other in a classic straight man/loudmouth two-hander, are a fine double act. As their would-be foil, Howerton is even better, and I loved the contrast between the actor’s soft mouth and the foul-mouthed stuff spewing out of it. Michael Ironside and Rich Sommer are given welcome cameos.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Rory O'Connor
    After Yang
    Though ambitious in reach, its tone is one-note, stilted, and saccharine sweet; its ideas as disjointed as they are ultimately unsatisfying.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Diego Maradona
    Indeed, this is not just a sporting film but, like Amy or Senna, a film about the volatility of fame and genius and what those two things can do to humans. An interest in the game is probably as essential here as an interest in Formula 1 was for Senna. Which is to say: not a lot.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    I, Daniel Blake
    It’s often warm and quite funny, but is, at heart, a damning critique of the Tory government in Britain and their belt-tightening austerity measures, as well as a rallying cry for those who fall through the cracks.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The Blue Trail
    Credit to both Weinberg’s no-nonsense performance and the director’s surrealist instincts. There is a late sequence in this film, wherein Tereza visits a floating casino, that contains some of the most vividly beautiful images I’ve seen so far this year.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Rory O'Connor
    A Quiet Passion
    The great theme of Dickinson’s life, Davies argues, is finding solace — not in religion, but in art, and A Quiet Passion itself can boast such moments of quiet catharsis.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Have a Nice Day
    It might not quite end on a satisfying note, but Have a Nice Day remains an urgent, thoroughly entertaining, and inventive piece of filmmaking.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    Grass
    Are the grand and absurd moments of our lives perhaps more closely acquainted with one another then we’d like to admit? Grass seems to think so, and it delivers that assumption with a welcome–indeed, almost humane–dose of humor.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Babyteeth
    Like the ramshackle family it so fondly depicts, Babyteeth is not without its flaws but it does suggest a confident new voice in independent cinema.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Urchin
    In Urchin, Dickinson blends issue-driven social realism (a British staple) with the trendier look of a Safdie film: all medium shots, real streets, non-professionals, and the occasional trip down a colorful drain. These might not always blend smoothly (this is an uneven film at the best of times) but it is an interesting combination that even expresses a clear political perspective.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
    It’s a wonderfully distinctive debut by Arnow, who lays it all out in both her script and performance.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Beguiled
    Coppola and her production team — including The Grandmaster cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd — have created a fully realized world of eroticism, humidity, and Southern Gothic atmosphere. The characters are simply engulfed by it, almost to the point that even the twisted willow trees appear to be reaching out to grab them.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    On the Adamant
    Where the film succeeds in drawing you into all that life, however, it does so in a patchwork of moments that never quite suggest a whole.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    First Love
    The pacing is breakneck but the economy with which Miike establishes his various narrative threads and characters is astonishing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Father Mother Sister Brother
    This is a movie that exists for the sake of existing, art for the sake of art: the kind of thing that doesn’t need your attention and isn’t particularly eager to offer a huge amount in return.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Cloud
    A cold thriller with a dark, satirical edge that shows the master filmmaker at his leanest and meanest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Rory O'Connor
    The Whistlers
    To its detriment, this has the feel of a film that has been constructed in service of one absurd idea.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The Image Book
    There is something quite reassuring about the fact that — infuriating as it sometimes may be — he has not lost that particular passion nor that roving eye, and that maybe, though he might not admit it, that love of images, too.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Border
    Border is only really at its best when focusing on Tina’s rediscovery of her true nature.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Rory O'Connor
    Pacifiction
    Pacifiction draws you in with its sense of mystery and surrealism and leaves you ultimately agog.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Undine
    In taking a centuries-old piece of mythology as its source material, Undine ultimately forgoes the inventiveness and sensuality of its first half by slipping into relatively bland predictability. And for a filmmaker who thrives on disregarding narrative conventions, it feels a fatal error. “Relatively” is the key here. This is still Petzold after all, if not peak Petzold.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Benedetta
    Verhoeven, as always, is more interested in playing games and is always at his best when needling an audience’s ideas of good taste.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
    Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures provides a snappy, confidently explicit overview of the photographer’s work and life that chooses not to sugarcoat the man’s ruthless ambition or seemingly exasperating personality.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist
    The director’s charms and gamely energy make foreknowledge something of a moot point here. The passion has clearly remained, most keenly pronounced in the moments when the octogenarian reveals his own influences.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Unrest
    Unrest leaves the mind purring. How did we, you begin wondering, get ourselves into all this? Humans, the film argues, have only ourselves to blame for constructing a system that would eventually imprison us, yet Unrest is not short on levity, and not least in its beautiful closing image or in the energizing sensation it leaves in the nervous system. If a quieter work of agitprop exists, you might struggle to hear it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Infinite Football
    One of the most fascinating things about Infinite Football is that Porumboiu never feels the need to feed his pal any rope in order to get these moments on camera. The two men are close and the director pointedly takes the time to let us in on his friend’s life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Plagiarists
    Were The Plagiarists merely this observation of liberal minds in duress it would have made for a more than enjoyable watch but with credit to Kienitz and Wilkins’ terrific script, it becomes more nuanced and haunting only after that first act.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    DAU. Natasha
    It is a staggering film; one that defies categorization and a unique achievement that must be seen to be believed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    La Cocina
    Ruizpalacios’ film has style to burn but little interest in subtlety, and even the most high-grade hammers can lose their sheen after 139 minutes of hammering.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    A House of Dynamite
    A House of Dynamite is a ruthlessly effective thriller, nothing if not timely, and has the potential to be seen by a gazillion eyeballs. These are all good things.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Titane
    It is a boiling-hot provocation: funny, revolting, spicy as hell, and with a striking subtext of gender fluidity and sexual identity.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Romería
    Romería‘s exploration of closure and self-discovery makes for an absorbing watch.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo
    Haigh’s debut really nailed the insecurities of discovering a lover’s idiosyncrasies and flaws, those that grate and those that charm. Paris 05:59 manages to capture that as well, and in doing so creates a sense of ambiguity as to whether any sort of love between the men can last.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Rory O'Connor
    A Woman's Life
    While the viewer might appreciate Brizé’s lack of compromise, for such a stoic and rather long period piece, A Woman’s Life offers little else for the audience to cling on to.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Rory O'Connor
    A Couple
    I couldn’t bear another minute of A Couple, but I’m perfectly happy it exists.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Hollywoodgate
    All in, this is a brave piece of filmmaking that builds to a frightening climax: Nash’at creates an image of nervous ineptitude before pummeling you with the harshest of realities.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Suspended Time
    Assayas, who has dotted his ever-surprising career with brisk, self-aware, sophisticate-centered comedies, has rarely played things quite so close to home.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
    It is an incendiary, playful, and wonderfully exasperated piece of filmmaking that shows a director trying to draw some threads of sense from our current malaise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Rory O'Connor
    Bird
    The director has gestured toward magical realism in her work before (think of the white horse in Fish Tank or the elemental yearning of her Wuthering Heights) but this first foray into anthropomorphism feels strangely surface-level and does more to break the film’s spell than enhance it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    The Party
    Riotous, if undeniably stagey.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    The Tale of King Crab
    A rare and elusive sense of myth is captured in The Tale of King Crab.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The World to Come
    It is a thoughtful, unquestionably moving piece of work with much to say about the inner lives of the women at the center, but it could have used another gear
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Sorry Angel
    Shot in gorgeous turquoise and cerulean blues by that fine cinematographer, it is often a remarkably beautiful film and, with that suggestion of real experience, an inevitably sad one. Such qualities might not be enough to entirely disregard any feelings of familiarity, but they might just be enough to forgive them.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Uncle Howard
    A deeply personal piece of work that offers both an introduction (or re-introduction?) to the director’s uncle — a once-burgeoning independent filmmaker who died of AIDS in 1989 at just 31 years of age — and a somber meditation on talent lost.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Wet Season
    Chen is never blatantly forthright in showing the prejudice at work in Ling’s day-today, allowing it instead to subtly seep into the film; we need only sift the tea leaves.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Killer
    With The Killer, David Fincher returns to form in a film that plays to his directorial strengths and artistry.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Julieta
    Riffing on Spanish telenovelas, Hitchcock, and film noir, Almodóvar and his production team have put together a slight, but undeniably gorgeous bauble with a simple sort of story that nestles in somewhere between the high and lowbrow.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    Girl
    This effort to show Lara’s struggle like a coming-of-age story is what sets Girl apart. Dhont fleshes out his story with little growing-up moments everyone can relate to.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    The Square
    While The Square is not as slick and streamlined a film as Force Majeure it still hunts for that same meaty psychological game and is never afraid — no matter how close to the bone — to twist that knife.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Both Sides of the Blade
    It isn’t difficult to imagine Denis–one of the most cerebral, confounding filmmakers we have–constructing Fire, with its oddly trivial love triangle and omnipresent string section, as a duplicitous farce; a way to upend our expectations of how a film like this should look.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Renoir
    The result is a rich and gradually rewarding bildungsroman, a film that can be cold to the touch but leaves much to unpack.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Adults
    It’s coarse to the touch but The Adults is a tender film. That those moments come in flashes only makes them all the more profound.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Athena
    Gavras, for better and worse, is a creature of spectacle; not apolitical, per se, but more concerned with triggers and semiotics than manifestos.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
    Taormina achieves a singular tone.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Rory O'Connor
    The Untamed
    The Untamed does that very rare thing in cinema in that it blends mystery, horror and pseudo-reality with a kind of dark subconscious arousal.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    AGGRO DR1FT
    Shot entirely in infrared and using augmented reality effects and AI imaging tools, Aggro Dr1ft appears like the fever dream of a day spent drinking lean, watching music videos, and playing God of War and Grand Theft Auto. At times it’s funny, dazzling, almost beautiful; at others ugly, misogynistic, numbingly dull.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Die My Love
    I would say it’s this director’s weakest film, but when you’ve never made a bad one that probably doesn’t say a lot. Whatever the case, Die My Love remains worthwhile.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    The Day After
    With its drab interior settings, cinematographer Kim Hyung-koo’s uncharacteristically unforgiving black-and-white photography, brutally honest subject matter, and rare moments of catharsis, it’s not the easiest watch. Of course, it’s this very slog that makes bigger moments all the more powerful.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    The Shrouds
    Having returned to form with Crimes of the Future, it’s surprising that so much of The Shrouds falls flat: the awkward sex scenes, the general incoherence, the uncharacteristically unimaginative tech (though I did like the gothic vibe of the blanket of cameras used to cloak the corpses). That said, for a meditation on death, grief, cancer, and libido, The Shrouds is funnier than expected.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Suspiria
    It is a film of surfaces, admittedly, but one made by perhaps our era’s best director of surfaces.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Ema
    Ema is Larraín at his most freeform.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Wonderstruck
    Haynes fails to impart Wonderstruck with the sort of zip that gives young persons’ capers like these the pacing they require.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Hacksaw Ridge
    While derivative and endlessly cheesy, it’s a characteristically visceral return for Gibson, and one that confirms that little has changed in the man’s singular artistic psyche.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Hopper/Welles
    Perhaps the most interesting thing in Hopper/Welles is that you can’t quite tell if the battle-scarred veteran is looking to wrap an arm around the younger man or is trying to defeat him.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The Room Next Door
    It’s succinct, light on its feet, totally earnest, and––in spite of some indulgent conversations on art and writing––never feels like it’s trying too hard.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The Whaler Boy
    All that flare and stealthy humor give the familiar sense of a young director attempting to flex every creative muscle at once. Seldom is this advised, yet it’s nothing if not thrilling to watch.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Plan 75
    There are things to cherish: busily moving between sterile offices and boxy, lived-in apartments, the film keeps you guessing about the practicalities and implications of its central conceit to such an extent that its moments of real poignancy can catch you off guard. A lot of this comes down to Baisho’s heartbreaking central performance.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Final Portrait
    Rush is a joy to watch, no doubt, but the unavoidable sense remains that Tucci is stretching his material a little thin, restricting the narrative to the two-weeks-plus Lord spent in Paris with nothing on either end to really fill us in.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    A Ciambra
    One of the great achievements of A Ciambra is how it maps out the food chain of local authorities (both legal and otherwise).
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    A Traveler's Needs
    A Traveller’s Needs is just the tonic: a film that passes through you like a breath of fresh air.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The King
    If Jarecki struggles a little with this alchemy at times it is because Promised Land is essentially three movies in one: a detailed account of the King’s career; a loose account of the last 80 years of American politics; and a musical performance film.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Before, Now & Then
    Drawing a number of deeply felt performances from her cast, it is an aching period piece, if frankly staid, that comes complete with many of the genre’s most reliable tropes: sharp intakes of breath; glances stolen through laced curtains; and love, as ever, in opprobrium.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Knife + Heart
    It is a film that will entice the viewer’s senses, if not necessarily their brain activity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    The Last One for the Road
    Sossai’s movie (which is certainly not without sentiment) definitely follows through on the promise of its title. It might slip into Alexander Payne territory at times––there are a few moments when the trio drive in contented silence––yet if Last One is Sossai’s Sideways, it’s a version with two Jacks and no Miles.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
    Jia’s earnest approach has always been endearing and Swimming Out sees it in full flight.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Double Lover
    It’s difficult to know just how serious this is all meant to be. Then again, camp only really works when the level of intention is difficult to decipher.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    God's Creatures
    Making every moment grim is to risk over-saturation, but Davis and Holmer’s deft direction keeps things compelling here, skilfully leaving plenty of things unsaid and with the confidence to allow key events to happen offscreen or in the margins.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    You Resemble Me
    The worlds of contemporary geopolitics and narrative independent filmmaking collide in You Resemble Me, a movie that shape-shifts from a first act coming-of-age tale into something searing and provocative, and ripped straight from the headlines.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 25 Rory O'Connor
    22 July
    The director over-simplifies the killer, portraying a perpetrator of some of the most heinous acts imaginable as a basic fool with mommy issues. It’s crass and careless stuff in a crass and careless movie. Avoid at all costs.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Family Romance, LLC
    It’s as if Herzog has made a narrative film based off a documentary film that doesn’t exist, which is obviously an entirely Herzogian thing to do.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    Unclenching the Fists
    The experience is nothing if not grueling, and Fists‘ willingness to heap misery on characters who are already truly down ultimately leaves a callous taste in the mouth.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Chuck
    The Bleeder isn’t attempting to reinvent any wheels, but it is consistently gripping — slick as a skip rope and just one hell of a story.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Voyage of Time: Life's Journey
    This is not exactly landmark stuff. Many viewers may feel they’ve seen familiar things in the work of David Attenborough, or even in films such as Koyaanisqatsi or Samsara. However, Malick might be singular in his earnest search for the sublime.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Crimes of the Future
    It’s dazzling and uneven, seductive and flawed, and only [Cronenberg] could have made it. There’s no beating the genuine article.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Dead Man's Wire
    Van Sant imagines this tale in a way that echoes Dog Day Afternoon: an unhinged and stranger-than-fiction fable about good intentions gone wrong. It’s kind of a hoot.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Light of My Life
    Affleck has always been a wonderfully understated performer and he has taken that minimalist approach with him behind the camera.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    Vox Lux
    Corbet’s second feature owes a debt or two to filmmakers reveling in provocation, but it is no doubt the work of a daring original.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 91 Rory O'Connor
    Nocturnal Animals
    With everything going on, Nocturnal Animals is the sort of narrative and tonal minefield that a lesser director could easily have gotten lost in. Ford allows us to consider and cherish each unique thread and wonder just how it could all possibly come together.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Annette
    Carax has delivered something gloriously gnarled and uncomfortable: a bludgeoning rock opera that takes aim at the entertainment industry and the dregs of toxic masculinity; that flourishes just as it drips with self-loathing; and that gestures toward such far-flung places as Dadaism, A Star is Born, Pinocchio, and even the director’s own life.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    LOLA
    The most interesting thing about Lola is what Legge achieves with such economy—it feels kind of big at times.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Rory O'Connor
    The Surfer
    This is a film that knows what it’s doing and does it very well
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Love Life
    Amongst the stars, Love Life (named for an Akiko Yano song of the same name) is jarringly everyday in color palette and setting, but has just the right amount of scope, filmmaking nous, and unusual choices to hold its own and even stand out.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    Peterloo
    Leigh translates the defining moment–and those in the immediate lead-up–to the screen with tremendous weight and great clarity, making the sense of tragedy all the more potent.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Rory O'Connor
    The BFG
    Nobody could fault the detail of the art department’s work here, but there is an odd sluggishness to the imagery, as if the whole film is playing a half-measure behind. This proves troublesome for any of the larger-than-life action sequences, but even more so with the comic timing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Rory O'Connor
    Tommaso
    Ferrara has never been so concerned with making people like him–just wait for the audacity of the last 10 minutes. But given the brutal honesty of his latest, one of the most candid movies of its kind, it is difficult to not simply be happy for the man when Tommaso reaches its surreal point of catharsis.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Rory O'Connor
    A Skin So Soft
    Côté’s film does work very well for the most part as a somewhat cold, ornamental study of what our epidermal tissue looks like at terminal mass.
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