Stephen Dalton

Select another critic »
Film Journal International, The Film Verdict, The Hollywood Reporter
For 251 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 36% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Stephen Dalton's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 62
Highest review score: 90 A Hard Day
Lowest review score: 20 Unhinged
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 131 out of 251
  2. Mixed: 101 out of 251
  3. Negative: 19 out of 251
251 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 97 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Parasite
    Like much of Bong’s work, Parasite is cumbersomely plotted and heavy-handed in its social commentary. The largely naturalistic treatment here may also alienate some of his fantasy fanboy constituency. That said, this prickly contemporary drama still feels more coherent and tonally assured than Snowpiercer or Okja, and packs a timely punch that will resonate in our financially tough, politically polarized times.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    45 Years
    Do not expect blazing emotional fireworks, just finely calibrated performances and deep reserves of inner torment.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Irishman
    Scorsese's choice to make this a standalone feature and not a limited series seems mildly perplexing. Anyone hoping for the propulsive dynamism of, say, Goodfellas or Casino may be disappointed. But The Irishman is also on many levels a beautifully crafted piece of deluxe cinema.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 84 Stephen Dalton
    The Zone of Interest
    The Zone of Interest is a gloriously original work and a boldly experimental addition to the canon of high-calibre Holocaust cinema.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Drive My Car
    There are poetic and profound rewards here, even if Hamaguchi makes us wait too long for this quietly devastating emotional pay-off.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    Before We Vanish
    Perpetually shifting gears between playful sci-fi pastiche, quirky rom-com and apocalyptic thriller, Before We Vanish might have worked better as a single dedicated genre, but it becomes a little scrambled trying to cover several at once.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    They Shall Not Grow Old
    As a immersive primer on the first-hand experiences of British soldiers, this innovative documentary is a haunting, moving and consistently engaging lesson in how to bring the past vividly alive
    • 91 Metascore
    • 65 Stephen Dalton
    Anora
    An overlong runtime, underwritten characters and some uneasy tonal wobbles dampen the film’s punchy humour and propulsive energy.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    The Brutalist
    The Brutalist aims for symphonic grandeur and novelistic depth. It partially succeeds, though it too often mistakes pomposity for profundity, and bloated verbosity for literary nuance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Silence of Others
    There is no big redemptive payoff here, just a few small victories and hopeful pointers to the future. The struggle continues. But this is still a very necessary story, delivered with rigor and conviction.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 55 Stephen Dalton
    Killers of the Flower Moon
    Most strikingly, for a murder thriller, Killers of the Flower Moon is fatally lacking in dread or suspense.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Manuscripts Don't Burn
    An unflinching portrait of state-sponsored evil, Manuscripts Don’t Burn feels like the work of an angry artist who has been jailed, censored and harassed too long. This time it’s personal.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Infinity Pool
    The latest sci-fi horror fable from Canadian writer-director Brandon Cronenberg is his most deliciously dark, richly allegorical nightmare vision to date. A bleakly satirical, sexually graphic, hallucinatory thriller about wealthy tourists resorting to debauched savagery in a fictional foreign country,
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
    Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is full of understated, melancholy poetry.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Amy
    As a whole, Amy is an emotionally stirring and technically polished tribute, its sprawling mass of diverse source material elegantly cleaned up, color-corrected and shaped into a satisfying narrative.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Ilo Ilo
    Finely acted and minutely observed, Ilo Ilo certainly has the texture of real life. The performances feel authentic, the emotional shadings agreeably nuanced.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Night Will Fall
    Inevitably harrowing and sickening in places, but with tender and uplifting moments, Night Will Fall is a somber treatment of a serious topic which earns its place in the broad pantheon of Holocaust-themed cinema. It is just a shame that Singer's worthy memorial feels a little too small for its world-shaking theme and world-famous cast list.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Varda by Agnès
    The director is such an engaging presence onscreen — wry and humane, balancing sly social commentary with a playfully child-like attitude — that even a minor autumnal work like this is still a heart-warming mood-lifter.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Tales of the Grim Sleeper
    Tales of the Grim Sleeper is unusually somber and conventional by Broomfield's standards, relying more on slow accumulation of detail than caustic commentary or ambush interviews. But it has a quiet emotional force which pays off during the powerful final sequence.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Black Conflux
    Even if this deceptively artful debut feels a little muted and unpolished in places, it is plainly the work of a skilled filmmaker with ample future potential.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Aferim!
    Do not be fooled by the playful, irreverent tone. Behind its attractive surface sheen of lusty humor and ravishing visuals, this Trojan Horse drama makes some spiky topical points about the lingering scars of slavery, feudalism, misogyny and racism.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Stephen Dalton
    Universal Language
    Blending autobiographical elements with heartfelt homages to Iranian cinema, writer-director Matthew Rankin's charmingly surreal comic fable reimagines Canada as a Farsi-speaking dreamland.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Limbo
    Limbo is an appealing little gem overall, with a feel-good message about the kindness of strangers that is glib and simplistic but hard to resist.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Bait
    Jenkin's heavily stylized debut is a disorienting experience at first, but it ultimately creates a boldly Expressionistic mood of uncanny beauty and mesmerizing otherness.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Burning Bush
    A deluxe multi-character drama that blends real history with semi-fictionalized spy thriller and soap opera elements, Burning Bush feels in places like an extended Czech remake of the Cold War-themed German Oscar-winner The Lives of Others.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Red Army
    Red Army is a slick, witty, fast-moving blend of sports story and history lesson.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 78 Stephen Dalton
    Souleymane's Story
    The Story of Souleymane is more than its individual parts. Scenes fly by, prompted by the move-move-move! ethos of the hustling immigrant. This is a film told close in close quarters. On several occasions, the camera is so close to our hero that you can smell the desperation coming off his skin, which, as richly and darkly lensed by Tristan Galand, is mutedly lustrous.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Girl with the Needle
    Graced by a strong cast, visual poetry and great formal control, this brooding meditation on evil still resonates a century later.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Apocalypse in the Tropics
    Adding an extra religious dimension to an already densely packed sociopolitical soap opera, Costa tells a rich story here about the fuzzy line between democracy and theocracy, clashing spiritual values and inflammatory culture-war rhetoric.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Waldheim Waltz
    For all its narrow focus, this is a pleasingly personal breakdown of a fascinating episode in recent European history, tightly composed and crisply edited, with an appealing undertow of dry humor and some cautionary lessons for modern voters.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Bacurau
    Though handsome in style and admirable in ambition, this sprawling neo-Western never comes together as a satisfying whole.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 87 Stephen Dalton
    Everything Everywhere All at Once
    As its attention-grabbing title suggests, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a supercharged, sense-swamping, overstuffed feast of a movie.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
    I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians is a mature, ambitious work from a spirited auteur who has mastered the cinematic rules well enough to break them with confidence.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    White Lie
    Driven by nuanced, persuasive performances and shot with an urgent, jittery tension, White Lie is a compelling close-up character study of a recklessly needy anti-heroine caught in an impossible dilemma of her own making.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Stephen Dalton
    Under the Sun
    Both surreal and sinister, it feels like we are watching a real-life version of The Truman Show.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Uppercase Print
    This may be one of Jude’s minor works, but it delivers a quietly devastating emotional punch.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 68 Stephen Dalton
    Perfect Days
    Perfect Days turns out to be a surprisingly charming, haunting, moving work with deliberate echoes of Japanese cinema legend Yasujiro Ozu.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    The Strange Little Cat
    There are so many witty touches and sharp little observations here that The Strange Little Cat can be forgiven for ultimately making no dramatic statement.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    White Riot
    White Riot is a timely, engaging exercise in social and cultural history, but a wider focus might have given it deeper context and broader marketability.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    White God
    The premise of this Hungarian/German/Swedish co-production is solid, even if the execution feels a little slack and the running time too long.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Kill the Jockey
    This ebullient equestrian comedy thriller is effortlessly enjoyable as camp spectacle, with shades of Almodovar in the mix, even if its twist-heady screwball plot ultimately delivers more style than substance.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Stephen Dalton
    I Am Not a Witch
    A fable-like story about a young African girl banished from her village for alleged witchcraft, it blends deadpan humor with light surrealism, vivid visuals and left-field musical choices.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Endless
    The Endless is not just about latent power struggles within cults but also within families, and about how both are eclipsed by more ancient, malevolent cosmic forces.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    The Balconettes
    Despite a few bumpy moments, actor-director Noémie Merlant's gory feminist horror comedy paints a rowdy, richly imagined portrait of three ladies on fire.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Feeling of Being Watched
    Examining the idea of paranoia as an engineered reaction, a tool of control that inhibits potential activism and self-expression, it's more than a lesson in living history. It's a powerful argument for how necessary it is to watch the watchers.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Jodorowsky's Dune
    The tone veers into film-fan geekery in places, but Jodorowsky is such a natural showman and irrepressible egotist that his ancient anecdotes never become tedious.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Stephen Dalton
    For Those in Peril
    Haunting and atmospheric, For Those in Peril proves that creeping grief and guilt can deliver just as much dread-filled dramatic tension as a straight horror movie.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Another Round
    Another Round ultimately has little fresh or profound to say about intoxication and addiction, but it is an engaging tribute to friendship, family and bacchanalian hedonism in moderation.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    West of the Jordan River
    Clearly weighted towards Gitai's own liberal political stance, but incorporating a range of other views too, West of the Jordan River is a dry and sometimes depressing film, but informative and humane too.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Long Strange Trip
    Long Strange Trip is an affectionate and well-crafted documentary, but it would have benefited from a little more of this emotionally raw material and a little less fawning reverence.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    In the Fog
    The film repays patient viewing as it evolves into an engrossing, nuanced, philosophical drama.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Stephen Dalton
    Gloria Bell
    Crucially, like its predecessor, Gloria Bell maintains a warm but rigorously unsentimental tone despite material which could easily lend itself to mawkish sentimentality.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    The Last Man on the Moon
    Take a pinch of Top Gun, stir in a generous dollop of The Right Stuff, add a light sprinkling of Mad Men and you have the formula for this uplifting documentary portrait of former Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Diego Maradona
    The director's latest rise-and-fall chronicle suffers from a few structural problems that did not bedevil Senna or Amy. Most obviously, the subject is still very much alive, which may explain why this officially endorsed film feels more cautious and compromised than it might have been.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    Memories Look at Me
    The pace is gently hypnotic and the topic fitfully interesting, but the format will test the patience of all but serious art-cinema fans with its narrow focus and chilly film-school minimalism.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Ex Machina
    The story ends in a muddled rush, leaving many unanswered questions. Like a newly launched high-end smartphone, Ex Machina looks cool and sleek, but ultimately proves flimsy and underpowered. Still, for dystopian future-shock fans who can look beyond its basic design flaws, Garland’s feature debut functions just fine as superior pulp sci-fi.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Victoria
    It is a testament to the immersive immediacy of Victoria that the scale of its technical achievement only really dawns on you afterwards.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 30 Stephen Dalton
    Grace of Monaco
    The real problem here is not the shameless blurring of fact and fiction, but how unforgivably dull it all seems.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    First Love
    It offers little thematically or stylistically novel that devotees of Japan’s most prolific B-movie maestro will not have seen many times before. Even so, the Tarantino-style rollercoaster ride is as effortlessly enjoyable as ever, accentuating the director's lighter comic leanings over his bloodthirsty side.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    The Black Guelph
    As it gathers to its grim conclusion with the inevitability of Greek tragedy, The Black Guelph becomes a quietly furious critique of power, corruption and lies among Ireland’s elites, from the police to the church to the upper echelons of government.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Lady Macbeth
    Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 65 Stephen Dalton
    The Mother of All Lies
    As a piece of investigative journalism it feels a little too fuzzy, but as an imaginative exercise in non-fiction cinema, it is consistently interesting and often hauntingly beautiful.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Bethlehem
    Strip away the Middle East backdrop and Bethlehem is a fairly routine thriller about good cops, corrupt bureaucrats and armed criminal gangs.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    The Dance of Reality
    The Dance of Reality is a rich pageant of nostalgic narcissism laced with New Age mysticism and fortune-cookie wisdom.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 79 Stephen Dalton
    Asteroid City
    For Anderson fans, Asteroid City will be a pure guiltless pleasure, a full sensory immersion in his dazzling Day-Glo Pop Art toybox. For agnostics, this is still one of the director’s finer efforts, low on the childlike whimsy and forced eccentricity that mars his minor works.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Stephen Dalton
    A Hard Day
    A Hard Day offers a masterclass in throat-squeezing, stomach-knotting suspense.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 30 Stephen Dalton
    Absolutely Anything
    Absolutely Anything is a flabby misfire full of labored slapstick, broad caricatures and groaningly absurd plot twists.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    Yourself and Yours
    Hong has a distinctive voice and an interesting track record, but his latest exercise in flimsy whimsy is for indulgent hardcore fans only.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Border
    As a timely yarn about the mistreatment of minorities, both in Sweden and worldwide, Border is rich in allegorical layers. But as a thriller at least partially rooted in supernatural genre conventions, its relentlessly dour Nordic glumness drags a little. Social realism and magical realism make uneasy bedfellows.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    The Load
    This well-intentioned meditation of the banality of evil packs a modest emotional punch, but it might have been more powerful if it had shown us a little less banality and a little more evil.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    Junction 48
    While the fuzzy take-home message of peaceful coexistence is something most viewers can get behind, it is also too simplistic and banal to sustain an entire movie.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist
    Leap of Faith is an easy, entertaining watch, but it feels like a smaller film than its two predecessors, chiefly because it features just a single long interview with Friedkin rather than a rich chorus of insider insights.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    The State Against Mandela and the Others
    The State Against Mandela and the Others adds little essential to the vast library of documentaries about Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle. All the same, this is a heartfelt, humane and visually inventive tribute to a fading generation of giants whose principled sacrifices ended up changing history.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    DAU. Natasha
    Big on atmosphere but low on drama, DAU. Natasha is fascinating conceptually but weak cinematically.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Afterimage
    After 90 years and more than 50 films, Wajda has earned the right to make stagey period pieces like Afterimage, minor codas to a gloriously symphonic career.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
    British director Sophie Fiennes certainly finds Jones a spellbinding subject in Bloodlight and Bami, securing intimate access to the veteran diva over several years without ever quite managing to spill her secrets.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Okja
    Like the cumbersome hybrid animal at its heart, this beast is no beauty. But it is a technically impressive and boldly original statement.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 68 Stephen Dalton
    Restore Point
    Glossy and gripping, Czech director Robert Hloz’s ambitious and impressively polished debut feature boasts high-calibre production design and a dense, twist-heavy, techno-dystopian plot that feels at times like an extended episode of the cult Netflix series Black Mirror.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Mommy
    Dolan's fifth feature feels like a strong step forward, striking his most considered balance yet between style and substance, drama-queen posturing and real heartfelt depth.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
    The humor is broad, the satirical targets many, the overall effect mixed.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    The Party
    A charming little tragicomedy which flirts with savage social satire but never fully embraces it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    A Field in England
    A Field in England is a rich, strange, hauntingly intense work from a highly original writer-director team.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Crystal Swan
    Despite its relatively unusual setting, Crystal Swan is a largely conventional fish-out-of-water story at heart. But it is elevated above the routine by its excellent cast, especially Nassibulina, and plenty of visual flair.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
    A minor but touchingly human subplot to the financial crash, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is both an affirmation and an indictment of the American Dream.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    The World Is Yours
    The screenplay to The World Is Yours is sporadically hilarious though rarely subtle, relying a little too heavily on boorish stereotypes and slapstick violence for its broad humor.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Karl Marx City
    A key joy of Karl Marx City is its strong, arty aesthetic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Supernova
    Plenty to admire here, if only this tasteful tearjerker lived up to its title with a few more explosive fireworks instead of settling for timid twinkles, ending not with a bang but a whimper.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Hagazussa
    It looks and feels far more substantial than most indie debuts, confidently bending genre rules with its minimalist dialogue and hallucinatory plot, which owes more to David Lynch or Lars von Trier than to more orthodox horror maestros.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Exhibition
    Beautifully shot with an acute eye for crisp composition, this intimate mood piece explores the subtle intricacies and low-level power struggles of long-term love in forensic detail.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 65 Stephen Dalton
    Queer
    Guadagnino has remixed an imperfect, incomplete book into an imperfect, incomplete film.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Drones
    Drones is not exactly subtle, but it is a commendable attempt to dramatize a hot contemporary issue without resorting to clumsy didacticism or obvious political bias.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 65 Stephen Dalton
    The Shrouds
    The Shrouds feels a little unruly and unfocussed, with too many loose threads and undernourished side plots. Even so, this is still an absorbingly weird autumnal statement from one of the most consistently original screen voices of his generation, still probing away at some familiar psychosexual obsessions, this time under a gathering cloud of looming mortality.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater
    Klinger is clearly aiming at a hardcore of filmmakers and cinema students, but even that niche audience will only glean incomplete insights into the methods and motivations of his subjects.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Mogul Mowgli
    Handsome and intense, Ahmed is a reliably magnetic screen presence, while his punchy real-life chops as a rapper and lyricist also serve him well here. But his screenwriting skills are less assured, and Mogul Mowgli is strangely low on dramatic or emotional bite given its high-stakes storyline. Baggy editing, underexplained context and flat dialogue add to this muted effect.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Stephen Dalton
    London Road
    As gripping onscreen as it was onstage, London Road remains a work of great finesse and originality.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes
    Alexis Bloom's damning documentary is a competent but conventional affair, highly watchable but low on fresh angles or bombshell revelations.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Florence Foster Jenkins
    Florence Foster Jenkins is a modestly enjoyable crowd-pleaser, but it ultimately feels smaller than its subject, a deeply conventional portrait of a highly unconventional woman.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Cam
    Cam is a suspenseful mind-bender with plenty of timely feminist subtext. It takes viewers down some unexpected rabbit holes and commendably avoids pandering to male-gaze sex-thriller tropes, even if it ultimately fails to deliver on its grippingly weird early promise.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Stephen Dalton
    Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
    This haunting slow-burn psychodrama is superbly acted and quietly gripping, despite some minor plot wobbles and that cumbersome title.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 65 Stephen Dalton
    The Room Next Door
    As ever with Almodóvar, the healing balms of beauty, art, friendship, love and sex offer some consolation in the darkness, including a small but obligatory queer subplot.
prev
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »