IndieWire's Scores

For 5,164 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:
5164 movie reviews
  1. The movie is every bit as bloated as his last few, but its charms remind us of his great potential (and potential greatness).
  2. More than the fervid cartoon violence and Cage’s rococo line readings, the film’s greatest asset lies in its simple, cold-blooded premise.
  3. While it doesn’t quite justify the sprawling courtroom antics or the blunt metaphor they entail, the movie nevertheless provides a profound look at the effect of historical trauma on modern Lebanese society.
  4. Eventually so generic that it might as well be about anyone, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool creates a foul tension between the paint-by-numbers quality of its approach and the uniqueness of its affair.
  5. This is a proudly traditional oater that travels down old trails with new sadism, as though the Western genre only died off because the movies weren’t cruel enough.
  6. Maoz maintains such a riveting formalism that everything seems to fit together.
  7. Robbie, for her part, has never been better. Making the most of her first leading role since Z for Zachariah, she does a brilliant job of skating along the thin line that runs between glory and the gutter. Sympathetic but not too sympathetic, her performance is all that allows the film to maintain its tenuous hold over its queasy tragicomedy.
  8. The Rape of Recy Taylor works as both artifact and indictment.
  9. If The Villainess sounds like derivative junk, that’s because it is — but rarely is derivative junk executed with such panache and personality.
  10. We simply couldn’t get invested in this film, despite our very best efforts.
  11. REC
    “REC” delivers a steady stream of frights because its camera man never knows quite where to look — and by the time he figures it out, it might be too late.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Though it’s admirable that Sayles shows so much ambition to change his style and to give his film such a weight of unpredictability, he doesn’t really succeed at matching the depth of the film’s first half.
  12. August 32nd on Earth takes way too long to get going, but the chemistry between its leads helps things along. More than anything, however, it’s the incredible economy of Villeneuve’s images that keeps things together, his shots becoming tighter and more expressive as the story falls apart.
    • IndieWire
  13. For a biblically-scaled film cycle so rich with irony that it seems to be chipping off the walls of the brutalist apartment complex where most of it takes place, perhaps the greatest irony of them all is that Dekalog is ultimately defined by its humility.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Its broad, slapstick send-up of human foibles prefigures Takahata’s more pointed My Neighbors, the Yamadas (1999). At 119 minutes, the film feels a bit long and the story rambles, albeit genially.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    One of the more original horror creations of the last few decades.
  14. Fire Walk with Me isn’t what many wanted it to be, it’s easy to accept the film for what it is: a bracing look at incest and rape.
  15. The first two-thirds of Brian Yuzna's Society are admittedly lackluster. Starring Billy Warlock as Bill Whitney, the Beverly Hills-set tale of a rich kid beginning to distrust the world he grew up in takes more than an hour to figure out its footing. But once that happens, Society assumes an unshakable vise-grip that's nearly impossible to look away from.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    It’s a pretty intense film at times, and it may be too earnest for its own good; but it’s a finely acted film and one that also firmly makes a connection between the Civil Rights movement and the beginning of the women’s movement, as Spacek begins to find her spine and come out of her protective “good wife” shell.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    That it manages to end a note that’s both deeply sad and sardonic only further makes its case as one of the finest forgotten films of its time, and one of the best, period.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Much of Kiki’s charm comes from Miyazaki’s understated approach to the material. Instead of grabbing the viewer by the lapels and insisting everyone’s having a great time, Miyazaki leads the audience into the story with unobtrusive grace.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fireflies is, at times, unbearably sad, a eulogy for a bleeding nation but also a hugely imaginative tale that reminds us of art’s power to lift us from the ramparts of our own devastation.
  16. Like all of the best comfort food, Tampopo tastes familiar but not derivative, something more than the sum of its ingredients. If Tampopo resonates with you in ways you might not expect or be able to name, it’s because Itami also engenders the same respect for everything that goes into the making of a movie.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Wraith is hardly more than it’s surface. The synopsis says it all and there’s very little character development outside of gang leader Packard (Nick Cassavetes, making his parents so proud) being motivated to pound on or murder other guys because they talk, let alone make love, to a girl he likes (Sherilyn Fenn).
    • 32 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Wiped from the eyes like so much sea-wash, his 1986 disaster Pirates is considered a rude, humiliating smear on an otherwise thematically sophisticated, if uneven body of work that, yes, occasionally courts the vulgar.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Wise Guys proves that a tone deaf, dumb-ass comedy with a bunch of nifty split diopter shots is still a tone deaf, dumb-ass comedy, and for all its frenetic energy it can’t muster much enthusiasm in those watching.
  17. Subway is a rush of youthful energy so raw and well-realized that it steamrolls any of the director’s attempts to cohere it into an actual story.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    It doesn’t make a lick of sense, and all of the supernatural gobbledygook definitely slows things down. But as an early indicator of the director’s ability to conjure forth wide-eyed wonder, Making Contact is a delightful little romp, and at only 79 minutes, it won’t take up too much of your time.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    It has everything a growing horror freak needs: extreme violence, tons of nudity, vampires, mummies, and apocalyptic bedlam. The movie is slyer and smarter than people give it credit for, and absolutely gorgeous-looking.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Beyond Walken and Jones’ considerable contributions, A View to a Kill also contains a robust assortment of action sequences.

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