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For 82 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 12% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 86% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 61
Highest review score: 90 Sirât
Lowest review score: 20 Alpha
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 82
  2. Mixed: 40 out of 82
  3. Negative: 4 out of 82
82 movie reviews
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  1. The Secret Agent
    Elegant, moody, and intense The Secret Agent mines through the rubble of the past, reconstructing the beauty and terror of a time long gone but still haunting the present.
  2. It Was Just an Accident
    In many of Panahi’s past films, along with many Iranian artists working within the confines of a brutal regime, his cinema has been coded and metaphorical (though clearly not enough to avoid extreme censure). But this time, there’s no doubt with this explicit critique, which utilizes a familiar narrative formula but has the potency of a poison pen letter aimed to slash through the debilitating censorship demanded of auteurs expected to exist as prisms of propaganda.
  3. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
    The inextricable union of victim, victimizer, and witness becomes a metatextual balancing act in Jane Schoenbrun’s formidable third film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a gonzo pop art slice of catharsis which works as both a recovery and discovery of the queer gaze in horror cinema.
  4. Minotaur
    Minotaur is a familiar story, to say the least, but a fitting continuation of the director’s clear-eyed deliberations on how intimate relationships present a sordid microcosm of the world at large.
  5. Fatherland
    There’s little by way of excitement, and Pawlikowski adeptly conjures a world reviving from paralysis. But the family at its center isn’t able to redefine themselves like a phoenix from the ashes, their pasts, despite the privilege of being ‘on the right side of history’ as ‘good Germans’ whose hands are clean, still nipping at their heels like a curse they will never exorcise.
  6. Silent Friend
    With a vibrating audio palette and crisply edited finesse, Silent Friend becomes a sensuous immersive experience, flitting between observational instances of periods and characters, pollinating the audience with characteristics of its players with just enough information to keep desiring more.
  7. Sound of Falling
    Hypnotic and transfixing, it’s a film experience demanding marination, only bothering to explain itself in stops and starts, like an amnesiac slowly puzzling together constantly shuffled memories.
  8. Rose
    Hüller is quite exceptional as the disfigured human grimly determined to succeed, sacrificing pleasure and comfort for control.
  9. All of a Sudden
    Warmly empathetic, it’s also a graciously staged and subtle romance between two women played superbly by Virginie Efira and Tao Okamato, building a connection despite destined brevity.
  10. Pompei: Below the Clouds
    Rosi approaches obscured angles of Naples, going above and below, inside and out.
  11. Sentimental Value
    Where Sentimental Value tends to feel somewhat overwhelmed is with an extensive amount of running time spent on the fussiness of Borg’s production with Rachel, treating us to publicity (the film is being financed by Netflix), which sometimes bogs down the pace and distracts us from the beating heart of the film.
  12. No Other Choice
    Chan-wook takes his time in unwinding his devious tale, a masterful neo-noir about following dangerous fantasies to their logical conclusion in job markets further compromised by a dependence on AI.
  13. Yes
    Destined for instant controversy and an eventual time capsule documenting Israel’s normalizing of barbarism, Lapid’s latest is an admonition of almost shocking import, an increasingly rare example of modern art speaking truth to power.
  14. Two Prosecutors
    At a point in time, a film like Two Prosecutors would seem like an old fashioned recapitulation of a dark, disastrous period we’d safely moved away from. However, it’s difficult not to see crystal clear parallels, on an operational level at the least, with NKVD, an agency operating with complete autonomy, and something like the newly minted monstrosity DOGE in the US.
  15. Pillion
    Although Pillion ends on a hopeful note for Colin’s progress towards sexual self-actualization, the film’s resonance isn’t really about him at all. Rather, it’s a blazing reminder of the inherent power in going one’s own way, even when that way isn’t understandable or decipherable to anyone else.
  16. The Black Ball
    With segments spanning Granada, Cantabria, Santander, and, of course, Madrid, it’s a topographical and historical saga dialed down to intimate dimensions. In a world currently backsliding into chaos, The Black Ball reflects on the importance of authenticity as the legacy to be inherited.
  17. Cactus Pears
    In essence, Cactus Pears is about taking the time to search for meaningful fulfillment, which means not holding your discoveries hostage to a future no one can predict.
  18. Sirât
    Layered, almost kaleidoscopic metaphors evolve through religious and politically minded themes, and the end result feels like a Gaspar Noe adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
  19. The Stranger
    Lifting directly from Camus’ prose in the final throes, Ozon’s take on The Stranger effectively administers the source’s intentions—and clearly, there is a point, even if Meursault himself would reject it.
  20. Little Trouble Girls
    Djukić is profoundly interested in capturing the tormented process of women’s sexual experiences, shaped by the restrictions imposed upon them by society, religion, and each other.
  21. The Things You Kill
    Dedicating the film to his sisters, Khatami dives into the toxic attachment styles fostered and reinforced through repressive gender roles in a traditionally heteropatriarchal culture, where the absorption of oppression cements endless intergenerational trauma. But Khatami explores the aftermath of a reckoning, the consequences of which prove to be significant.
  22. Closure
    Marczak is clearly a talented filmmaker, but his instincts seem better suited to narrative than documentary; his eagerness to flourish prevents a true marriage between form and direction.
  23. Young Mothers
    Arguably, there’s nothing innately wrong with Young Mothers, other than it feeling like a return to safer socio-cultural predicaments which characterized the directors’ earlier output, which often involved children.
  24. The Testament of Ann Lee
    Ultimately, The Testament of Ann Lee feels like Willa Cather’s version of The Witch (2015).
  25. The Mastermind
    Compared to Reichardt’s greatest hits thus far, it’s her least compelling presentation of a solitary, melancholic character to date.
  26. The Ice Tower
    Hadžihalilović’s undeniable command of tone and directorial vision remains impressive. The Ice Tower depicts a cruel, unhappy realm and successfully elicits a corresponding emotional response.
  27. Timestamp
    While it contains powerful imagery, Gornostai isn’t digging too deeply into the mechanics of the education system, more so showcasing the resilient evolution of a besieged population.
  28. The Man I Love
    Despite displaying a reverence for queer personas and artifacts, this is the first time Sachs has directly recuperated elements of the AIDS crisis, and it serves like an homage for the countless gay men who lost their lives during their prime.
  29. Kontinental '25
    Guilt certainly becomes her, and the narrative, which consists mainly of a handful of one-on-one interactions, yields often funny, sometimes surprising results.
  30. The Dreamed Adventure
    The Dreamed Adventure is, ultimately, not an easy or altogether conformable viewing experience. But Grisebach’s penchant for unfussy storytelling lulls us into such complacency with Veska that even the subtlest hints suggest the hard won comfort of the present is on the verge of crumbling at any minute. Perhaps the dreamed adventure is, rather troublingly, our ability to believe in stability or comfort because powers beyond our control can pull us into depths we pretend aren’t there.
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