IndieWire's Scores

Select another publication »
For 5,163 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 59% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 38% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
Lowest review score: 0 Pixels
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,565 out of 5163
  2. Mixed: 1,332 out of 5163
  3. Negative: 266 out of 5163
5163 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
    As a documentary determined to damn the Democratic Party, “Hillary’s America” is a profound failure of unprecedented proportions, an embarrassment for Republicans, Americans and pretty much the rest of humankind. As a parody of right-wing conspiracy theorists, this knotted spiderweb of ideological garbage is practically “Citizen Kane.”
  2. Summertime
    Summertime owes less to its plot development than the credibility of its performances among this trio of women as they present a fascinating set of conflicting perspectives.
  3. Train to Busan
    For almost 45 minutes, Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan is on pace to become the best, most urgent zombie movie since “28 Days Later.” And then — at once both figuratively and literally — this broad Korean blockbuster derails in slow-motion, sliding off the tracks and bursting into a hot mess of generic moments and digital fire.
  4. Sand Storm
    Rather than proposing solutions or envisioning a tight happy ending, Sand Storm lingers in the crevices of a fascinating cultural challenge.
  5. Outlaws and Angels
    Between the setting, the production design and a majority of the cast, Outlaws and Angels has the individual pieces to be something of merit. This particular revenge tale isn’t an example of incompetent filmmaking, just sadly misfocused storytelling.
  6. Star Trek Beyond
    If Star Trek Beyond existed outside the arena of reboots and sequels that mandated its existence, the movie’s casual air might be downright radical for such an extensive production. Instead, it’s just a sturdy riff on the same old routine.
  7. Undrafted
    Undrafted is a baseball movie that never wants you to forget that it’s about baseball, even if that reminder comes with lengthy dugout anecdotes delivered to teammates who are surprisingly indifferent to the outcome of a game that’s supposed to mean so much.
  8. Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru
    Ultimately, Robbins’ domineering character is so well-calculated that it appears Berlinger couldn’t peer beyond the curtain even if he tried. That fascinating dilemma makes the movie worth watching even though it presents an incomplete picture.
  9. Lucha Mexico
    There’s just enough history about lucha libre to make you curious to learn more.
  10. Equals
    It’s hard to understand why Doremus, whose Sundance-winning “Like Crazy” was an effective reminder that emotion can be a narrative unto itself, would regress towards a story in which he renders that idea redundantly literal.
  11. The Infiltrator
    A stylish and well-acted espionage thriller, The Infiltrator is also naggingly familiar.
  12. Ghostbusters
    While the new Ghostbusters successfully empowers female movie stars, that’s not the movie’s selling point. However, it’s the only justification for its existence.
  13. Cell
    This is the undead equivalent of fast food. Some might find comfort in all these known quantities. Those looking for anything of substance would do better to wait for an upgrade.
  14. The Innocents
    As much a film about crises of faith as it is the powerful friendships between women, The Innocents steadily unfolds over its nearly 120-minute runtime, revealing new secrets and new surprises (most of them, but not all, appropriately gut-wrenching) at every turn.
  15. Life, Animated
    Life, Animated may be the best commercial Disney could ask for, but that’s only a side effect. The purity of Owen’s relationship to the material transforms it into something more powerful than the company itself could ever accomplish.
  16. Captain Fantastic
    Above all else, however, Mortensen gives Captain Fantastic its underlying credibility.
  17. Carnage Park
    You might as well be watching the last 15 minutes with your eyes closed, which is a shame, as the first half of Carnage Park makes a strong case that Keating is someone whose stuff is worth seeing.
  18. Under the Sun
    Commissioned as propaganda, Under the Sun instead documents life inside its grip.
  19. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
    Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates may not be the first Apatow-era comedy about twentysomethings coming to grips with the fact that they won’t live forever (and it’s certainly not the deepest, as it lingers in your memory for about as long as a Snapchat), but it might just be one of the funniest.
  20. Marauders
    Part of the problem is that films like Marauders have become so synonymous with cut-rate mediocrity that their awfulness is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  21. Microbe and Gasoline
    At nearly 105 minutes, Microbe and Gasoline runs out of steam in its second act, but the majority of this sweet, sensitive ride is a real treat.
  22. The Purge: Election Year
    In theory, Election Year offers a form of catharsis from contemporary anxieties by turning them into entertainment. Instead, this latest entry in a ridiculous franchise has become a victim of its own sick joke.
  23. The Legend of Tarzan
    Don’t be fooled by the lack of spandex: The Legend of Tarzan turns the Lord of the Apes into just another superhero, the newest movie about fiction’s greatest wild man memorable only for the dull irony of how housebroken it feels.
  24. Three
    Just like To’s characters all have a little something to learn from each other, Three is a master class in how movies can be as unique and infinite as the people who make them.
  25. Independence Day: Resurgence
    An immaculate case-study in how far blockbusters have fallen.
  26. Nuts!
    Brilliantly combining archival material, voiceovers, contemporary interviews and a variety of hand-drawn animation, the movie deconstructs the process of self-mythologizing from the inside out.
  27. The Phenom
    The Phenom wanders through a series of half-formed ideas. When Buschel narrows his focus and has a handle on these characters’ essences, there are flashes of greatness. All he needs is a tighter grip.
  28. The Shallows
    Collet-Serra ensures that we feel the risk of every stroke between his heroine and her safety. The action is visceral and immediate, but crucially contextualized by a helpful array of wide shots and bird’s-eye views.
  29. The Secret Life of Pets
    Moves like a bat out of hell from frame one, though if you’re looking for any kind of emotion you might be barking up the wrong tree.
  30. No Stranger Than Love
    By the time the entire town discovers that Clint is trapped in a weird hole and Lucy has fallen for Chatwin’s Rydell White, No Stranger Than Love picks up some serious steam, balancing its bizarre tone with actual charm. Sadly, however, it’s too late to pull the production out of its own gaping void: The inability to treat its characters with respect.
  31. Free State of Jones
    Too robust to sink into the rhythms of a character study, but too financially limited to tell a story that matches the sweep of its director’s vision, Free State of Jones is a film divided against itself, and it cannot stand.
  32. Cosmos
    It’s often hilarious, confounding and downright strange; if not the director’s most polished work, it nevertheless delivers a demented philosophical puzzle that’s fun to scrutinize in all of its baffling uncertainties.
  33. Central Intelligence
    Nearly (but not quite) redeemed by its good nature and the megaton charisma of its two stars, Central Intelligence is a dopey blockbuster diversion that will surely keep United Airlines passengers entertained during the dog days of summer.
  34. Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
    Here is a rare new entry in that smallest of sub-genres: Movies that don’t punish teens for f--king their brains out (surprise surprise: it’s French).
  35. The Childhood of a Leader
    With his unusually accomplished directorial debut Childhood of a Leader, Corbet delivers a strange and startling film that reflects the unique trajectory of his career, as well as the influence of the iconoclastic directors with whom he’s already worked.
  36. In a Valley of Violence
    It’s frustrating that West often scores with his few modest attempts to stamp his own imprint on the genre, as those flashes of fun hint at what this movie could have been.
  37. Tracktown
    It’s a coming-of-age tale for the stunted set, and one that deftly navigates conventions at every turn. Although Tracktown lacks edge, it’s just so relentlessly sweet and Pappas is so effervescent on screen that those missteps in tone are easy to forgive.
  38. Paint It Black
    The most impressive element of Paint it Black is the respect it shows for both women’s grief, even while condemning certain ways that they choose to compartmentalize.
  39. De Palma
    By sprinting through 50 years of features so fast that each of them ultimately feels like a single frame rattling through a projector, they blur De Palma’s body of work into a moving truth that none of his individual films has ever crystallized with such clarity: The movies are real-life; the great filmmakers are the ones who never let you forget that.
  40. From Afar
    The movie’s disquieting tone unfolds with a familiar kind of naturalism — devoid of soundtrack, it develops an engrossing reality filled with pregnant pauses and fragmented exchanges. There’s a palpable despair to this scenario rooted in the authenticity of its environment.
  41. Kicks
    Guillory’s ability to embody the intensity of his obsession, despite its simplicity, speaks the commanding screen presence he’s immediately able to establish.
  42. Finding Dory
    Finding Dory doesn’t feel lazy, cynical, or like a rehash. On the contrary, it does what a sequel should — it’s a compelling argument for why we make them in the first place.
  43. The President
    Even though The President lacks some of the subtlety that made Makhmalbaf’s previous work transcendent, this film is still a worthy testament to a fiery storyteller determined to use the medium as a necessary means of subversion.
  44. Now You See Me 2
    We used to watch movies and wonder “How did they do that?” The problem with Now You See Me 2 isn’t that we already know the answer, it’s that we’re not even inspired to ask the question.
  45. The Conjuring 2
    As scary as it is when something abrupt takes place, The Conjuring 2 generates its deepest sense of dread when nothing does, and anything could.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fire at Sea
    Opting for an observational mode that is nevertheless highly stylized, Rosi understands that an urgent frontline missive needn’t be ugly.
  47. Diary of a Chambermaid
    Benoît Jacquot’s The Diary of a Chambermaid is a gorgeously mounted and dramatically inert bit of fluff that drapes itself over a smoldering Léa Seydoux but never manages to catch fire.
  48. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
    Fortunately, Green’s sequel doesn’t have much interest in frustrations; this is a movie about unbridled joy, about transposing a cartoon veneer over a bleak human world.
  49. Me Before You
    Me Before You is such a wonderfully uncynical movie that it almost doesn’t matter that it isn’t very good.
  50. Tikkun
    It offers a striking contrast to other visions of modern Israel and Jewish identity. It may be the wildest vision of ultra Orthodox Judaism ever, but it’s not an empty provocation.
  51. King Jack
    King Jack, while unabashedly a coming-of-age story, is even better as a portrait of masculinity in crisis, of how its passed down from one generation to the next, and how that process might best be interrupted.
  52. Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You
    Lear remains a keen observer of his own ability to inject leftist politics into popular culture. The chief stylistic devices used to bring his experiences to life are a different story.
  53. The Witness
    Although The Witness functions just fine as a true crime documentary in the vein of such en vogue offerings as “Serial” and “Making a Murderer,” the film makes its mark when it leans in on the deeply personal connection between its subject and its storyteller.
  54. Warcraft
    This is truly a depressing experience. It’s rare to feel such pity for a major studio movie, but watching Warcraft bend over backwards to set up a sequel is like watching a desperate paramedic apply CPR to someone who’s clearly been dead for hours.
  55. Princess
    Princess is an arresting and taxing film experience, and although Ezer’s execution and vision are clear-eyed and she’s portraying experiences that still (tragically) occur in the real world, it’s difficult to wonder what the film itself is hoping to accomplish.
  56. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
    Watching “Popstar,” there’s no getting around one stubborn truth about this frequently hilarious movie: The incident that may have inspired it was also the incident that rendered it unnecessary.
  57. Gleason
    While fairly straightforward in its attempts to galvanize viewers around efforts to combat the disease, Gleason hits those familiar marks with superb aim.
  58. The Do-Over
    The Do-Over is atrocious, but it's atrocious in different ways than any of Adam Sandler's previous comedies.
  59. The Ones Below
    Although Farr layers on the creepy until the last frame of The Ones Below, the film's ultimate reveal is hardly shocking, and that the film spends a gratuitous amount time unspooling it long after it's clear what has gone down feels indulgent and unearned.
  60. Holy Hell
    There's an undeniable anthropological value to Allen's footage — imagine if one of David Koresh's most-trusted disciples had recorded every second of his time in the Heaven's Gate — but his film is far more compelling as an artifact than it is as a narrative.
  61. Unlocking the Cage
    Qhile the 90-year-old Pennebaker doesn't appear to deviate from the observational aesthetic that has defined his life's work, Unlocking the Cage is nevertheless an ill-fitting first for he and his partner: an issue-based film.
  62. The Wailing
    This is horror filmmaking that's designed to work on you like a virus, slowly incapacitating your defenses so it can build up and do some real damage.
  63. Presenting Princess Shaw
    Thru You Princess develops a fairy tale quality that calls into question the nature of its production. However, the air of manipulation throughout the story only helps to pronounce its themes.
  64. Blood Father
    By no means a great piece of filmmaking, Blood Father nevertheless recaptures some of the rough attitude of Gibson's "Mad Max" days, as he shoots, growls and head-butts through a routine tale of angry drug lords.
  65. Elle
    Elle doesn't always maintain the clever balance of naughtiness and dramatic confrontations that make it such an appealingly unconventional romp.
  66. Staying Vertical
    The film never quite flies off the rails so much as it careens from side to side on the same beguiling path, with the most remarkable outcome being that the enigmatic pieces fit together.
  67. Slack Bay
    Combining savage archetypes with spot-on wit, Slack Bay is a fun, peculiar romp with deeper conceits lurking beneath the surface.
  68. Sieranevada
    To the film’s immense credit, the performances drip with realism. The ensemble genuinely feels like a family, particularly as their conflicts bubble to the surface with continually awkward results.
  69. Risk
    Unlike "Citizenfour," there's not a whole lot here that hasn't already been revealed through the scrutiny of Assange's iconoclastic legacy, but the filmmaker's skillful treatment of the material yields another look at major historical events on an intimate level.
  70. The Red Turtle
    This is a quiet little masterpiece of images, each one rich with meaning, that collectively speak to a universal process.
  71. Paterson
    Carried by an appropriately low-key Adam Driver and Jarmusch's casual genius for capturing offhand remarks, Paterson is his most absorbing character study since "Broken Flowers" -- and far more grounded in real life. There's no context necessary to recognize it as his most personal work.
  72. Neruda
    Neruda turns all of the filmmaker's preceding statements on his native land into a unified whole. In essence, the film asserts that even as history passes into legend, it speaks to deeper truths.
  73. The Last Face
    Even without its mopey, painfully on-the-nose dialogue and ponderous story, The Last Face sets itself up for failure with its premise, and Penn's apparent inability to recognize it as such. It's his worst movie.
  74. I, Daniel Blake
    It's a touching story that would seem altogether familiar if weren't also loaded with urgency.
  75. The Handmaiden
    No matter its overarching ridiculousness, The Handmaiden remains a hugely enjoyable dose of grotesque escapism from a master of the form.
  76. Aquarius
    Though Braga's performance sometimes outshines Mendonça's leisurely two-and-a-half hour narrative, in its better moments the two work in marvelous harmony.
  77. It's Only the End of the World
    [Dolan's] crafted the semblance of a substantial movie that never quite gets where it was supposed to go.
  78. Hell or High Water
    Grounded in lively performances by Chris Pine and Ben Foster as a pair of bank-robbing brothers, with a capable assist from a no-nonsense Jeff Bridges as the sheriff on their tail, Hell or High Water tries nothing new but delivers a fun ride.
  79. Personal Shopper
    This is a measured, richly ambiguous work about the subjective process of grief — masquerading as a ghost story — that experiments with the minutiae of film language as only a master of the medium can do.
  80. American Honey
    It's the closest thing to a magnum opus in Arnold's blossoming career.
  81. Loving
    The movie's light touch at times makes it difficult to engage with the stakes at hand, and Nichols' reverence for his couple's deep bond is practically so sacred he seems resistant to show any of their flaws.
  82. The Neon Demon
    While always an amusingly twisted ride, The Neon Demon is marred by pensive stares and monotone monologues about superficial desires that drag on, and on. Fortunately, Refn treasures shock value over all else, and his movie delivers on that promise with a depraved third act.
  83. The Unknown Girl
    The Unknown Girl combines its naturalistic direction with a strong lead performance and topicality, although these ingredients are hobbled by their familiarity.
  84. Toni Erdmann
    the film isn't always successful at justifying its heft, repeating the central father-daughter tension innumerable times before the pair finally start to make some progress. It's only thanks to the two actors' extraordinary authenticity that the film continues to work as long as it does.
  85. Welcome to Happiness
    Oliver Thompson's spellbindingly awful Welcome to Happiness isn't much worse than most first features — and, in some respects, it's far more ambitious — but this star-studded mess is the rare film that confronts you with the helplessness of watching someone self-sabotage their own work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pervert Park
    With a solid execution of storytelling, combined with a powerful statement about how we perceive sex offenders, Pervert Park excels as a documentary that explores not only what it takes to be human, but also why psychological evaluations could be crucial in understanding the forces that bring human to commit crimes in the first place.
  87. ma ma
    Cruz is radiant in her role, finding inner strength even when the script pushes Magda towards blind hope, and finding pain even when Medem insists that cancer hits with all the force of a bad night's sleep.
  88. Manhattan Night
    Despite being rife with crime, sex and darkness, Manhattan Night feels increasingly like a cheap ripoff of the genre it so very much wants to fit into.
  89. A Monster with a Thousand Heads
    Rodrigo Plá's intermittently engaging A Monster With a Thousand Heads is unique for how it captures the urgency of a system that's designed to frustrate and confuse people into helplessness.
  90. Julieta
    It's one thing to make a minor, accomplished work after focusing on grander statements, but Julieta mainly disappoints because it feels like the kind of straightforward, unadventurous drama that the filmmaker generally excels at reinventing through his own peculiar vision. This time, he plays it too safe.
  91. Last Days in the Desert
    It's a shame that the divine and human elements of this story are put into competition, because either one might have flourished on its own.
  92. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
    One of the greatest comedy sequels ever made.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Almost Holy
    The film offers no answer, instead choosing to examine the conundrum of a man who repeatedly washes his face when things get too overwhelming, right before heading back out to the streets.
  94. The Nice Guys
    The Nice Guys delivers enough brilliant physical comedy to smooth over its blunter narrative devices.
  95. The BFG
    An eager crowdpleaser from one of the world's greatest crowdpleasers, it gets the job done and nothing more.
  96. Love & Friendship
    Love & Friendship may not be traditional Austen, but it's pretty stellar Stillman.
  97. Money Monster
    Foster's suspenseful treatment of the material is fun to watch but not the dramatic statement its blaring tone would suggest.
  98. Sunset Song
    As with most miracles, Sunset Song is more likely to evoke awe than any one particular emotion; it accumulates an immensely tender beauty that fills up your heart like water rising in a well during a rainstorm.
  99. Alice Through the Looking Glass
    As Alice runs from one hollow set piece to another, hitting every standard mark that a colossal movie like this must in order to pay for itself, her adventure grows less and less interesting with every turn. By the end, all that lessness is too much for the muchness to match it. Less is usually more, but when it comes to this franchise, none would be ideal.
  100. Café Society
    Cafe Society works about as a well as a decent-but-not-great Allen movie can.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »