Village Voice's Scores

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For 11,162 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 57
Highest review score: 100 Hooligan Sparrow
Lowest review score: 0 Followers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,708 out of 11162
  2. Mixed: 4,553 out of 11162
  3. Negative: 1,901 out of 11162
11162 movie reviews
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  1. Amour
    Haneke remains, by his rules, infallible. So what? A movie in which incident is as spare as it is in Amour can certainly be great; a movie in which ideas and feelings are so sparse cannot.
  2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
    Far too often, though, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly feels grotesquely calculated, especially the more Schnabel ratchets up the inspirational platitudes of exactly the sort that Bauby--who maintained an acerbic sense of humor about his situation until the very end--would have despised.
  3. Umberto D (re-release)
    It's too bad that the film is sporadically crude (a moment of suicidal angst is illustrated with a shove-zoom to the pavement), prone to mega-Italian extroversion, and far too in love with stupid pet tricks.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
    E.T. is a dog movie. Genre-wise, I mean. It's about a boy meeting a dog, naming it, taming it, learning from it, and growing up. Of course, the genre is superficially disguised as science fiction, as was the fashion at the time. [2002 re-release]
    • 92 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Beauty and the Beast (re-release)
    Viewers must get in touch with their inner child to fall for Belle's eventual love for Beast. The film seems somewhat aware of this, casting an ambiguous hue on its happily-ever-after conclusion.
  6. This Is Spinal Tap
    Begs the question: Did the lads from Squatney trail the zeitgeist at every turn, or were cobandleaders David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel simply in touch with their past and ahead of their time?
  7. Her
    Instead of just being desperately heartfelt, Her keeps reminding us — through cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema's somber-droll camera work, through Phoenix's artfully slumped shoulders — how desperately heartfelt it is.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Days and Nights in the Forest
    Whatever virtues Ray's defenders may claim for him, I find it difficult to get very far beyond the sylistic mess of this film. Ray's style ranges from half-baked artsiness to total artlessness without managing to find any real art in the transitions. [12 Apr 1973, p.91]
    • Village Voice
  9. The Conversation
    The Conversation could have used a great deal more vulgar curiosity about its own plot and its own characters. Coppola's good taste has been misplaced on this occasion, but he remains one of our most promising new filmmakers nonetheless. [20 June 1974, p.78]
    • Village Voice
  10. A Serious Man
    As usual, though, the Coens have more venal satisfactions in mind. "The fun of the story for us," they crow in the notes for this loathsome movie, "was inventing new ways to torture Larry."
  11. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    McDormand could have carried this film all the way through a minefield of touchy topics, singed but with all parts in the right place, primed for a painful laugh. But goddamnit if the cops in this story didn’t ruin all the fun.
  12. Chicken Run
    A combination of "Barnyard Follies" and "Schindler's List."
  13. The Long Goodbye
    The Long Goodbye rides off furiously in too many different directions with too many gratuitously Godardian camera movements to make even one good movie. [29 Nov 1973, p.84]
    • Village Voice
  14. Shakespeare in Love
    It soon becomes evident just how inane a film this is.
  15. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    For better or worse, the movie does for Chauvet what Baudrillard complained an on-site replica did for Lascaux-render the real thing false.
  16. In the Bedroom
    Increasingly unconvincing, In the Bedroom turns genteel rabble-rouser. Field's leisurely buildup forestalls but doesn't prevent his movie's mutation into a granola "Death Wish."
  17. Talk to Her
    Initial strangeness inexorably gives way to rote sentimentality and mystical tenderness becomes narrative expedience.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Is England
    Facile pop psychology is the real tragedy here, a double disappointment given the film's smart take on pop culture.
  19. Let the Fire Burn
    There's never enough information.
  20. Waking Life
    Waking Life doesn't leave you in a dream, specifically the dream of Linklater's previous films, so much as it traps you in an endless bull session.
  21. The Salesman
    Watching The Salesman, I can’t help but feel that this is the first time Farhadi’s mastery of the particular is undercut by the artificiality with which he’s treated the general. He remains one of the world’s foremost filmmakers, but this time around, his expertise and artistry are undone by phoniness.
  22. You Can Count on Me
    Seems like a TV movie. A well-written, sympathetically acted TV movie, to be sure, but so timid and clumsy in its deployment of picture, sound, and editing that you have to wonder if executive producer Martin Scorsese bothered to give notes.
  23. California Split
    California Split never comes to a very fine point in the psychological development of its characters. California Split is thus more about moment-to-moment living than momentous life. [03 Oct 1974, p.81]
    • Village Voice
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    The Endurance
    Still enigmatic is the figure of Shackleton himself. The film conveys his remarkable leadership without explaining (beyond a because-it's-there romanticism) what would compel such a journey in the first place.
  25. The Departed
    Neither a debacle nor a bore, The Departed works but only up to a point, and never emotionally--even if the director does contrive to supply his version of a happy ending.
  26. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    It's this strategy (however unconscious), and not simply a lack of directing talent, that makes Hedwig so relentlessly assaultive, heavy-handed, and emotionally monochromatic.
  27. The Wages of Fear (1953)
    Wages of Fear rides for a cheap fall. Clouzot has copped out with cheap irony. [25 May 1967, p.31]
    • Village Voice
      • Posted Jul 1, 2020
  28. Rachel Getting Married
    A middlebrow domestic drama beating its wings against an experimental frame.
  29. Juliet of the Spirits
    Juliet is never less than eye-catching, but is rarely more.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last Waltz
    Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz proves Andrew's point by gathering so much talent into one theater that the stage buckles and the subject drops out of sight.
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