New York Magazine (Vulture)'s Scores

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For 3,960 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 64
Highest review score: 100 Hell or High Water
Lowest review score: 0 Daddy's Home 2
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,219 out of 3960
  2. Mixed: 1,378 out of 3960
  3. Negative: 363 out of 3960
3960 movie reviews
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  1. Bruno
    Is Brüno riotous? Yes, more so than "Borat," in which Baron Cohen's targets were ducks in a barrel and largely undeserving of ridicule. He doesn't aim much higher here, but his tricks are more inventive.
  2. Humpday
    Lynn Shelton's marvelous chamber comedy Humpday butts up against the same sort of taboos as "Brüno," and in its fumbling, semi-improvised way, it’s equally hilarious and even more subversive.
  3. Public Enemies
    Public Enemies has incidental pleasures (its hi-def video palette is fascinatingly weird), but it’s only Depp’s sense of fun that keeps it from being a period gangster museum piece.
  4. The Beaches of Agnès
    One job of memoir is to show the world through another's eyes and inspire you to live more alertly, and that is the glory of The Beaches of Agnès.
  5. The Hurt Locker
    The Hurt Locker might be the first Iraq-set film to break through to a mass audience because it doesn't lead with the paralysis of the guilt-ridden Yank. The horror is there, but under the rush.
  6. Chéri
    Michelle Pfeiffer is brittle in a way that's not especially French, but she's poignant and very lovely. Rupert Friend, on the other hand, is difficult to warm up to, especially with his features hidden behind all that hair. It's not a good sign when you have to take the movie's word for it that the lovers at its center are really, really into each other.
  7. Whatever Works
    It's hard to get past the primitiveness of Allen’s fantasies.
  8. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
    Watching this Pelham--a money job from its conception--you can believe that there's no other motivation on Earth.
  9. Food, Inc.
    The sheer scale of the movie is mind-blowing--it touches on every aspect of modern life. It's the documentary equivalent of "The Matrix": It shows us how we're living in a simulacrum, fed by machines run by larger machines with names like Monsanto, Perdue, Tyson, and the handful of other corporations that make everything.
  10. Away We Go
    Travel--finding the self by escaping the self--is central to the novels of Eggers and Vida, but Mendes knows where he's going before he gets there. And so the subject of Away We Go turns out to be not travel but child-rearing, which is at best well-meaning and anguished and at worst downright monstrous.
  11. Séraphine
    Séraphine is one of the most evocative films about an artist I've ever seen--and in its treatment of madness one of the least condescending.
  12. Up
    By all means, see Up in its 3-D incarnation: The cliff drops are vertiginous, and the scores of balloons--bunched into the shape of one giant balloon--are as pluckable as grapes.
  13. Drag Me to Hell
    Truly, this is manna from hell.
  14. Departures
    It will resonate with anyone who has ever buried a loved one and struggled to reconcile the myriad emotions--grief, anger, helplessness. Which is to say, everyone. And yet out of this premise comes glop. Departures needed a little more work in the morgue--like cutting to the bone.
  15. Pontypool
    Pontypool doesn't jell--its pretensions way exceed its reach--yet it's madly suggestive, and it rekindled my affection for the genre.
  16. The Girlfriend Experience
    Most of the dialogue is listless, and no matter how much Soderbergh snips and stitches, the movie is a corpse with twitching limbs.
  17. Terminator Salvation
    With McG's migraine-inducing jerky-cam and monochromatic palette (livened only by splotches of rust), Terminator Salvation puts the numb in numskull.
  18. Angels & Demons
    A shapely, stylish, white-knuckle horror-thriller that hits its marks with blood and thunder. It stinks to heaven, too, but it isn't lame. The streets of Rome haven't run this red since the Inquisition.
  19. Summer Hours
    Hats off to Olivier Assayas's plain yet hauntingly beautiful Summer Hours, a true--albeit nonsecular--meditation on art and eternal life.
  20. Star Trek
    Abrams and his writers (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) have come up with a way to make you dig the souped-up new scenery while pining for the familiar--a good thing.
  21. The Soloist
    The movie is a noble enterprise, and Downey is stupendous as usual, but Joe Wright's direction is too slick to elicit much feeling.
  22. Tyson
    No filmmaker I know has gotten as close to a professional athlete as James Toback gets to Mike Tyson in his new documentary.
  23. Treeless Mountain
    Delicate, wrenching, occasionally vexing.
  24. State of Play
    It's tricky, it's surprising, and it's largely faithful to the original mini-series, but in context it's a nonevent. It's like a time bomb that's never dismantled but never explodes. The movie is good enough that the ending leaves you … not angry, exactly. Unfulfilled.
  25. 17 Again
    What I can't accept is that the stringy, insipidly earnest teen idol Zac Efron would grow up to be the defensively ironic, twisty-faced Matthew Perry.
  26. American Violet
    If you're in the mood for a liberal message movie in which the only surprise is no surprise, American Violet is the ticket.
  27. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
    The documentary is solid as … as … an anvil. And if you can forget Spinal Tap (hard), it's also rather touching the way these 50-year-olds still have the forged-in-fire fortitude.
  28. Observe and Report
    Observe and Report is the rare "action-comedy" (almost always a muddled hybrid) that earns its cathartic climax. The blood is real because the psychosis is real. But somehow--the magic of comedy--it's also uproarious.
  29. Adventureland
    What makes the movie such an unexpectedly potent little number is that Adventureland comes to stand for Stagnationland; the real roller coaster (i.e., life) is just outside the park.
  30. Paris 36
    Hopelessly amateurish, the troupe is saved by a remarkably pretty young blonde called Douce with a sweet soprano to match her angel face. The gifted, unknown actress-singer who plays her, Nora Arnezeder, also saves the movie, which would otherwise blur into a mass of droopy, mustached, big-honkered Gallic character actors.
  31. Goodbye Solo
    Like his protagonist, Bahrani never gives up on William; his camera never stops probing. He loves West's face, and he honors its mystery.
  32. Guest of Cindy Sherman
    The documentary has its roots in a monologue in which the "guest of Cindy Sherman" (what H-O's place-card read at a gala) stood up for his personhood and made himself the center of the story—only there's NO STORY, not even insight into what made this unlikely couple click. Remove the boldface names and there's no movie; that center does not hold.
  33. I Love You, Man
    I Love You, Man is totally formulaic, but the formula is unnervingly (and hilariously) inside out.
  34. Duplicity
    Duplicity is deeply shallow--cheap reversals all the way down. But it's a passably amusing brainteaser.
  35. The Last House on the Left
    There's a huge change that turns the nihilistic carnage of Craven's original into something suffused with old-fashioned family values, so that we can relax and enjoy watching the bad guys get beaten, skewered, dismembered by garbage disposals, and tortured with microwave ovens.
  36. Watchmen
    This kind of reverence kills what it seeks to preserve. The movie is embalmed.
  37. Everlasting Moments
    Troell’s entrancingly beautiful Everlasting Moments uses surfaces--light, texture, faces--to hint at another world, a shadow realm.
  38. Crossing Over
    There are a bunch of other clunky immigrant subplots (the Jews get a comic one, the Turks a scary one), but it isn't until the massacre–cum–civics tutorial in the liquor store that Crossing Over crosses into the mythic realm of camp. What a waste. I still say it's better than "Crash," though.
  39. An American Affair
    The reason to see An American Affair is Gretchen Mol. She has a mild, natural way of holding herself that's likably unactressy--in every film, she seems both smart and grounded.
  40. Katyn
    It is filmed with simplicity, a purity of intent, and I wanted to watch the faces of these men in their last seconds of life--not for the sake of history, but because of Wajda's imperative to put his father's death onscreen. He needed to do this. And somehow, sanity is restored.
  41. Friday the 13th
    You really have to screw it up to dishonor the memory of a movie as shitty as the original "Friday the 13th." Heads should roll.
  42. Gomorrah
    Gomorrah isn't memorable. The structure feels random, and the characters remain at arm's length. Next to HBO's "The Wire," which depicted an enormous financial ladder and also brought to life the characters on every rung, the movie is small potatoes: excellent journalism, so-so art.
  43. Two Lovers
    Although Paltrow is radiant (and she nails the character’s ditzy sense of entitlement), it's Phoenix's movie. He is, once again, stupendous, and stupendous in a way he has never been before.
  44. Coraline
    Selick has a great fantasy filmmaker's artistry, but he lacks that overflowing Geppetto-esque love that brings puppets to life. In Coraline, he's woozy with his own lyricism.
  45. Confessions of a Shopaholic
    If the movie didn't pander so madly to the audience for "Sex and the City" and "Legally Blonde," it might have been a comedy touchstone instead of a cringeworthy footnote.
  46. The International
    It's good enough that you forget how much better Brian De Palma could do it. The rest is a slow road to nowhere, less clunky than "The Interpreter" but bogged down by its own cynicism.
  47. Taken
    Taken--in the hands of director Pierre Morel (District B13), with Neeson in nearly every shot--works like gangbusters. The Frenchies have made the filet mignon of meathead vigilante movies.
  48. Notorious
    Juicy, revved-up, semi-satisfying biopic.
  49. Silent Light
    This director is too calculating to hold our trust for long, and skepticism will kill transcendence every time.
  50. Good
    As a film, it's overly tidy, and the surreal concentration-camp climax gave at least one viewer an inappropriate fit of giggles.
  51. Revolutionary Road
    There isn't a banal moment in Winslet's performance--not a gesture, not a word. Is Winslet now the best English-speaking film actress of her generation? I think so.
  52. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    Attains a level of quiet grace. It's too bad that I can barely remember the movie after only a week. Nothing lasts, indeed.
  53. Valkyrie
    Directed by Bryan Singer in a break from his gayish superhero movies, it's a low-key procedural with a dollop of suspense--although perhaps not enough to make up for the foregone conclusion.
  54. Waltz with Bashir
    It has taken an animated film to go where live-action dramas and even documentaries haven't--to tickle our synapses and slip into our bloodstream.
  55. Theater of War
    As a onetime dramaturg and Brechtian, I enjoyed the chin-wags and the glimpses of Streep in rehearsal--especially her quivering admission that she can't bear the thought of anyone seeing her process.
  56. The Class
    Cantet's real-time classroom scenes are revelations: They make you understand that teaching is moment to moment, an endless series of negotiations that hang on intangibles—on imagination and empathy and the struggle to stay centered. This is a remarkable movie.
  57. The Wrestler
    The movie isn't as world-shattering as those bouts: It's a regretful-old-warrior weeper.
  58. The Day the Earth Stood Still
    Klaatu is a dream role for the beautifully blank Reeves, since he doesn’t even have to pretend to emote.
  59. Doubt
    Doubt is still overpowering; it took me a while when it was over to stop shaking. It's the dramatist’s business to sow doubt, to set down points of view that can't be reconciled, and Shanley makes visceral the notion that one can be right but never absolutely right, that doubt might be our last, best hope.
  60. Gran Torino
    The movie is ludicrous, but Eastwood’s consistency is poignant. He has an agenda and sticks to it.
  61. Where God Left His Shoes
    The acting, the on-the-fly atmosphere (the film was shot quickly), and Leguizamo's increasingly urgent hustle are deeply evocative, but parts of the movie are almost too painful to endure.
  62. Che
    Che is an impressive physical feat, but especially in the second part, which gives you day after day of rebels being killed and indigenous poor people not joining the good fight, you start to look forward to Che getting riddled by bullets. The whole movie is a forced march.
  63. The Reader
    It appears that the filmmakers have taken Hannah Arendt's notion of the "banality of evil" way too literally.
  64. Frost/Nixon
    Unsatisfying even if, like me, you're a lifelong aficionado of Nixon-bashing.
  65. Cadillac Records
    The ensemble is stupendous--howlingly great--and the music goes deep.
  66. Hunger
    The movie is a political remake of "The Passion of the Christ," only more aestheticized: It's rigorous, evocative, and, in spite of its grisly imagery, elegant. It's a triumph--of masochistic literal-mindedness.
  67. Milk
    Milk is one of the most heartfelt portraits of a politician ever made--the man himself remains just out of reach.
  68. Bolt
    As Bolt, John Travolta is inspired: His voice still cracks like an adolescent’s, and he has the perfect dopey innocence.
  69. Twilight
    The best thing in the movie is Stewart. She was the leggy hobo-camp teen in love with Emile Hirsch in "Into the Wild," and she's better at conveying physical longing than any of the actors playing vampires.
  70. The Betrayal - Nerakhoon
    The film is lyrical, expansive, unbearably beautiful.
  71. Australia
    Jackman has musical-theater chops and knows how to sell material this ham-handed; Kidman isn't quite as deft. I've always admired her gumption in working so hard to overcome a certain temperamental tightness--but that tightness has now spread to her skin.
  72. Quantum of Solace
    If the staging were as witty as the plotting, Quantum of Solace might have been a corker like "Casino Royale." But when the action starts, art-house-refugee director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball) mashes together close-ups in the manner of "The Dark Knight," and every big set piece is borderline incoherent.
  73. A Christmas Tale
    Is A Christmas Tale a masterpiece? Maybe. I have to play with it longer. It's certainly Desplechin's most accessible film, in part because its dysfunctional-family-holiday-reunion genre is so comfy and its palette so warm.
  74. Slumdog Millionaire
    The whole thing is irresistibly preposterous.
  75. JCVD
    At one point, Van Damme delivers a long, tortured soliloquy about his alienating stardom to the camera in a single take. It's the most amazing piece of acting I've ever seen by a martial artist. But the film itself doesn't rise above the level of a good try.
  76. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
    Among the most enraging (documentaries) I've ever seen, and while it's fine and heartfelt and I commend it to those of you with strong constitutions, it is the film that has finally broken me.
  77. Splinter
    The result, however clichéd, is spectacularly unnerving: hair-trigger horror.
  78. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
    It's written and directed by Kevin Smith--and hats off to him for being savvy enough to go for a piece of the Apatow action! Too bad he doesn't rise to the occasion.
  79. Changeling
    It would be a horrific story even if underplayed, but Eastwood shoots it like a horror movie.
  80. I've Loved You So Long
    Philippe Claudel's direction is both probing and delicate, and Scott Thomas's face, even immobile, keeps you watching, searching for hints of her character's past, unable to blink for fear of missing something vital.
  81. Let the Right One In
    It's a genuine genre vampire picture; and it's Swedish, winter-lit, Bergmanesque.
  82. Synecdoche, New York
    It's heartbreaking how rich this failed project is, with enough poetry for several great movies, but not enough push for one.
  83. W.
    W. isn't gripping enough as drama or witty enough as satire. It's neutered.
  84. Body of Lies
    The film has one indelible asset: Mark Strong, who plays the Jordanian spymaster Hani. He's sleek and lounge-lizard sharp like a young Andy Garcia, and he could be bigger than Garcia. The Jordanian holds all the cards, and opposite two superstars, Strong is the only actor who holds the camera.
  85. Happy-Go-Lucky
    Leigh has been giving actors their tongues for decades, and of all his films, Happy-Go-Lucky is the easiest, the least labored.
  86. Religulous
    As he delivered his climactic sermon in the Israeli desert, I murmured, "Amen, brother." Religulous is a religious experience.
  87. Rachel Getting Married
    I've never seen a movie with this mixture of fullness and desolation. Rachel Getting Married is a masterpiece.
  88. Miracle at St. Anna
    When Lee isn't doing cinematic somersaults or mining for injustice, he doesn't seem to know where to put the camera. The logistics of the plot make no sense, and he has nothing to sell but the theme of our common humanity--in which, on the evidence, I don't think he believes.
  89. Choke
    Sam Rockwell strips himself down to pure appetite and has a buoyant spirit. But the film sure doesn't. It's bizarrely flat--it has no affect.
  90. Elite Squad
    The captain narrates in a punchy, journalistic style that gives Elite Squad an air of sociological realism--it bears a resemblance to viscerally exciting seventies urban thrillers like "The French Connection."
  91. The Duchess
    An uncommonly well-crafted historical feminist tearjerker--both anti-patriarchal and a monument to motherhood.
  92. Hounddog
    Fanning is a child actor with a grown-up soul, and every move, every breath, seems mysteriously right.
  93. Burn After Reading
    Burn After Reading is untranscendent, a little tired, the first Coen brothers picture on autopilot. In the words of the CIA superior, it’s "no biggie."
  94. The Women
    It's fascinating trying to separate the thirties material from the mostly maladroit additions.
  95. Moving Midway
    Moving Midway is thrilling.
  96. Towelhead
    The film is superbly acted (especially by Macdissi, who makes the father a borderline hysteric), but it's hard to know what to feel except, "How can any girl navigate this oversexualized culture?"
  97. I Served the King of England
    Menzel’s touch is sprightly, lyrical, mischievously understated.
  98. Hamlet 2
    Coogan's mopiness is oddly riveting.
  99. Trouble the Water
    You can't make this stuff up. You can, however, capture it on film for all time. Trouble the Water is ineradicably moving.
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