Stephen Dalton

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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
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    • tbd Metascore
    • 84 Stephen Dalton
    Citizen Saint
    As a piece of drama, Citizen Saint is opaque and cryptic, leaving many loose ends unresolved. Even so, it is never boring, holding our attention with outlandish plot twists and strong performances. But its key strength is as an exquisite visual artwork, largely thanks to Krum Rodriguez’s gorgeous high-resolution monochrome cinematography, which makes every shot an Old Master tableaux of fine-grained detail and chiaroscuro shadow.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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,
    • 58 Metascore
    • 66 Stephen Dalton
    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
    Harrison Ford's fond farewell to maverick tomb raider Indiana Jones balances formulaic blockbuster elements with soulful nostalgia and an audacious time-jumping plot.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Uppercase Print
    This may be one of Jude’s minor works, but it delivers a quietly devastating emotional punch.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Stephen Dalton
    Zeros and Ones
    The scrambled narrative, listless pace, clumsy stabs at profundity and severe lack of humor will limit the film’s appeal to existing converts and cult movie connoisseurs.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
    Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is full of understated, melancholy poetry.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
    The humor is broad, the satirical targets many, the overall effect mixed.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    In Full Bloom
    Of course, ravishing Malick-esque visuals cannot quite excuse muddled plotting, portentous dialogue and wobbly performances. But In Full Bloom is still an impressively polished debut feature, admirably ambitious and elegantly crafted.
    • 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.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Stephen Dalton
    Werewolf
    Even if Werewolf lacks bite as an allegorical horror thriller, it works pretty well as a psychological study of tender young minds struggling to relearn their humanity after years of brutal mistreatment by inhuman adults. The unschooled cast are unusually natural and convincing for child actors, and technical credits are generally superior.
    • 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.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    Pixie
    Pixie is a trigger-happy comedy road movie that relies more on boorish energy than wit or charm.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Stephen Dalton
    Lingua Franca
    While Sandoval's hard-working dedication is admirable, and her semi-autobiographical story full of latent dramatic potential, Lingua Franca is ultimately an underpowered, amateurish disappointment.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Stephen Dalton
    Unhinged
    Without Crowe's brooding performance, Unhinged would just be another forgettable, formulaic, functional B-movie. With the burly Kiwi on board, it is transformed into a forgettable, formulaic, functional B-movie starring Russell Crowe.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Stephen Dalton
    The Price of Desire
    The performances here are bloodless, the pacing listless, the dialogue witless almost to the point of deadpan parody.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Stephen Dalton
    Vivarium
    It is a superior genre piece at heart, but elevated by its high-caliber leads, Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg, plus a script rich in political and cultural resonance.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Stephen Dalton
    DAU. Natasha
    Big on atmosphere but low on drama, DAU. Natasha is fascinating conceptually but weak cinematically.
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