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. Above and Below
    The film is a wonder of desert skies, slick tunnels, bumptious fence- and wall-climbing, and occasional staged reveries.
  2. Barbershop: The Next Cut
    The film too often relies on rote sermonizing when tackling the city's scourge of shootings, a grave topic that The Next Cut is simply too feeble to examine with any real depth or meaning.
  3. Hardcore Henry
    You have a movie with everything it needs save one crucial element: emotion.
  4. The Jungle Book
    If only all blockbusters could be this exciting, engrossing, and beautiful.
  5. Louder Than Bombs
    The tale isn't new, nor are the characters, but director Joachim Trier's stylistic and narrative dexterity demands attention: He possesses that rare ability to deconstruct his material without denying us the simple beauties of a well-told story.
  6. Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt
    Insofar as Ushpiz succeeds in putting the most provocative, salient, and damning aspects of Arendt's work into a lucid context, she exposes the limits of her own approach.
  7. Mr. Right
    Clowning, bullet-riddled rom-com Mr. Right is awfully charming in the best and worse senses of the phrase. It's often kind of awful but also weirdly effervescent, a movie that salves, with its stars' radiance and charisma, even as it grates.
  8. Demolition
    Gyllenhaal and Watts's yin-yang performances help things along.
  9. 11 Minutes
    A low-bore DeLillo-ness plays at the movie's edges, but does it aggregate into a substantial something? Not really, but the traces of postmodern dread, however Haneke-lite it all may be (isn't everything Haneke-lite?), can tickle your short hairs if you're prone.
  10. Havana Motor Club
    The camera looks lovingly at the Fifties American muscle cars while also capturing the enthusiasm and hope in these men's stories.
  11. Temps
    The film's tone is all over the map, with weird bursts of casual racism toward its ethnic supporting cast and unnecessarily explicit sex scenes that approach a The Room level of ickiness.
  12. The Syndrome
    This well-researched investigation is loaded with credible facts and has a workaday, broadcast-newsmagazine feel.
  13. High Strung
    What it loses in thematic richness, the uncynical High Strung makes up for in pure joy.
  14. Look at Us Now, Mother!
    Gayle's good-natured fight to reconcile with a person who sees nothing wrong with her own behavior proves both a fascinating character study and an intimate portrayal of a mother's love turned hostile.
  15. Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe
    Vaxxed is, in the words of Sheriff Bart, the last act of a desperate man. It’s Andrew Wakefield’s Hail Mary, thrown — I hope — as his time in the public arena finally runs out.
  16. One More Time
    The characters are overburdened by backstories that constrict rather than inform their behavior.
  17. The Invitation
    The buildup stretches longer than it should, but the payoff comes with a satisfying bang.
  18. Neon Bull
    No matter how rigorously worked out each shot and its action might be, Neon Bull always honors the chaotic looseness of everyday living — the way that, unlike in the movies, few of the moments we inhabit seem to be about just one thing.
  19. The Boss
    The Boss is a better film than Tammy, but it still flounders, almost capsizing in its sloppy final third.
  20. Marinoni: The Fire in the Frame
    [Tony Girardin] ultimately focuses on Marinoni as a cranky workaholic driven to break a racing world record, but still paints a frustratingly vague portrait of the craftsman, husband and athlete.
  21. Catching the Sun
    Liberals and conservatives both make appearances, as do people of color and international activists. If we would only all work together, the film seems to suggest, we could enact a green revolution of global proportions.
  22. Standing Tall
    Paradot exposes every last nerve and manages to be appropriately sensitive and confused between outbursts of rage. He benefits, too, from direction (by On My Way's Emmanuelle Bercot) that's unafraid to make Malony look terrible.
  23. Sold
    All the characters are broadly sketched, though well acted. Beyond that, the innate tension of the subject matter — and the shamelessly manipulated emotions — carries the film to its uplifting ending.
  24. The Girl in the Photographs
    [A] grim, film-school-sloppy horror-thriller.
  25. Stealing Cars
    Emory Cohen's performance elevates juvenile-detention-center drama Stealing Cars above the level of disturbing cautionary tale.
  26. Darling
    There are distinctive touches to give this passing interest.
  27. The Flight Fantastic
    The Flight Fantastic is both a lively biography of the Mexican circus family and a primer on trapeze as both art form and joyous expression.
  28. Afternoon
    This is not a movie, really, but a back-rub and a cup of tea for Tsai purists, for whom the filmmaker's company, behind or in front of the camera, is all that's required.
  29. Notfilm
    [A] studious, rigorous, and surprisingly tender documentary.
  30. Francofonia
    Skipping across ages and genres, this cine-essay beguilement from Russian Ark director Alexander Sokurov considers the Louvre — and the miracle of the transmission of art and culture across its history.
  31. Miles Ahead
    Cheadle's tender eyes and scraped-raw whisper prove reason enough for Davis fans to give Miles Ahead a go: Just often enough, I thought, "Holy shit, this is what a day with Miles might feel like."
  32. Too Late
    Like the hardboiled detectives of yore, Too Late ultimately gets the job done — even if it's in its own off-the-books way.
  33. The Dark Horse
    James Napier Robertson's film combines several potentially tired subgenres — the inspirational-teacher drama, the mental illness drama, and the gang thriller — but, helped immeasurably by Curtis's performance, makes something new out of them.
  34. Sex and Broadcasting
    Sex and Broadcasting is at once heartfelt, gritty, and informative, and you don’t really want it to end.
  35. Kill Your Friends
    Steve's voiceover monologues and dealings with a detective investigating a murder are straight out of the Patrick Bateman playbook, but turning the sociopathic cynicism up to eleven tends to be ineffective unless wit and insight are included in the mix.
  36. Everybody Wants Some!!
    The experience of watching this film is one of reflective exuberance. It's a movie about people who arrive sure of themselves and depart in the quiet confidence that all they know is that they know nothing.
  37. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
    The movie's not bad but it doubles down on its least-interesting and potent elements at the expense of those that actually work. In the end, the film is as forgettable as the dime-store philosophy that fuels it.
  38. Jane Wants a Boyfriend
    Jane Wants a Boyfriend offers a sweet but slight look at the oft-misunderstood subject of navigating relationships with a person on the autism spectrum.
  39. Valley of Love
    Isabelle and Gérard's regrets and laments about their parenting skills betray no bone-deep rue or shame but are delivered with all the conviction of two luminaries merely running their lines.
  40. They're Watching
    Writer-directors Micah Wright and Jay Lender are kids'-cartoon vets and show a facility for comedy on a more human level here — as does the nimble cast, which ably handles the tonal shift from travel nightmare to actual nightmare.
  41. Fastball
    You wouldn't lose anything watching Fastball on ESPN rather than in the movie theater, but it does stand as further testament to baseball's status as our most chess-like sport, and one that, even when broken down to its tiniest component parts, never loses its magic.
  42. I Saw the Light
    I Saw the Light ignores Williams's composing, denies us his voice, and is too spooked by sentimentality to show us just what his music touches off in people.
  43. Get a Job
    A wretched excuse for a comedy.
  44. Born to be Blue
    Budreau's variation on the theme of Chet Baker doesn't play out as an inspired improvisation, settling instead into the familiar grooves of a redemptive melodrama
  45. Baskin
    On the evidence of the first half of Baskin alone, Evrenol seems to be a filmmaker who understands character, tension, and terror. Now all he needs is some follow-through.
  46. Office
    Wry and self-aware but never finger-wagging, Office looks back on an economic precipice and finds more humor and spirit than any other depiction yet made about it.
  47. April and the Extraordinary World
    An all-too-rare example of steampunk done right — which also acknowledges that, however pretty such industrial imagery might seem from afar, actually living in such a world would be kind of horrible.
  48. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
    There's little drama here, but there is a touching sense of reflection.
  49. The Divergent Series: Allegiant
    The actors still give it their all in Allegiant, but there's only so much they can do with such a clunky, verbose script. And on the rare occasion that the film actually quiets its characters down and delivers something resembling action, it's woefully inert.
  50. Pee-wee's Big Holiday
    Manically imaginative and very funny.
  51. Thank You for Playing
    Thank You for Playing transforms a father's confession into a revealing work of art.
  52. The Birth of Saké
    [Shirai] indulges his subjects' lack of introspection and focuses on the ephemeral beauty of the brewery's centuries-old sake-making method.
  53. Sweet Bean
    At first the stakes are as light yet rich as Sentaro's pancakes; then come marvelous cine-essays on bean-soaking and paste-prepping, plus — in the film's tragedy-tinged final third — a change-of-seasons montage for the ages.
  54. A Space Program
    The result is something like the best science-fair project ever, an inviting performance piece that tasks viewers with the pleasurable, imaginative engagement that more seamless special effects deny.
  55. Krisha
    Even the familiar elements of this particular family's drama are invested — through vigorous scripting, directing, and acting — with almost elemental power.
  56. The Preppie Connection
    Toby's eventual comeuppance feels as preordained and empty as the preppie/townie dichotomy regurgitated here from so many outdated teen-media artifacts.
  57. The Confirmation
    The movie's not just good but moving, funny and true to the way people actually live in hard-times America.
  58. The Brainwashing of My Dad
    The film so diligently eschews any tempered analysis that it eventually comes across as akin to the very thing it's decrying.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Clan
    Billed as a thriller, The Clan doesn't quite thrill but instead instills a slow-building dread of the inevitable.
  60. Midnight Special
    Nichols has a light touch when it comes to genre, which is Midnight Special's great blessing and curse.
  61. My Golden Days
    There is serious pain in this movie — pain that endures throughout the years — but also a sincere love for life lived, and life remembered.
  62. Fireworks Wednesday (2006)
    It proves to be not just interesting in how it foreshadows the filmmaker's more mature works, but also a gripping piece of storytelling in its own right.
  63. The Brothers Grimsby
    Mostly, The Brothers Grimsby simply wants to make you laugh. And it will. Whether you're laughing because the jokes are actually funny or because you can't quite believe that you just saw what you did...well, that's between you and your god.
  64. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
    Yang's anti-nostalgic slice of 1960s Taipei life suggests a Tolstoy-size expansion of the ballads from Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town.
  65. The Dog Wedding
    The film never reconciles the incongruities of its constituent parts, which hang together like toothpaste and orange juice
  66. About Scout
    Weltz presents events through the sunny filter of Scout's resourceful optimism. Every obstacle is viewed as a creative challenge.
  67. Lolo
    Lolo is a fun, airy movie, but it's also unafraid of complexity.
  68. Rise of the Legend
    Too artfully made for camp status but populated by characters too one-dimensional to stand alongside the likes of Once Upon a Time in China, Chow Hin Yeung's martial-arts epic, set in the late nineteenth century, is marked by blue-gray hues and some genuinely striking camerawork.
  69. Remember
    Though it dodders engagingly at its antihero's pace, Remember is not subtle.
  70. Here Come the Videofreex
    Can't-miss viewing for culture heads.
  71. Me Him Her
    The manic sex comedy Me Him Her has an admirably buoyant energy but a murky message and shortage of laughs.
  72. Eye in the Sky
    The problem with movies depicting the banality of anything, of course, is that they tend to be pretty banal themselves; in setting out to be the exception to that rule, Eye in the Sky only proves it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Marguerite
    It is Frot's performance — full of warmth, humor, and hope — that carries the story and even leads to some laugh-out-loud moments.
  74. Hello, My Name Is Doris
    Field can't make it all make sense, but she does make it diverting, even pleasurable.
  75. Creative Control
    This toothless, silken-looking satire takes aim at easy targets: white Williamsburg ennui, technology, yoga.
  76. Backgammon
    Backgammon may not be effectively provocative, but it is sometimes dumb enough to be offensive.
  77. 10 Cloverfield Lane
    As a gamelike, simulationist PG-13 horror chamber piece, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a success: well shot and -staged, arrestingly acted, edited with a crisp unpredictability. It's less compelling in terms of character and meaning.
  78. Boom Bust Boom
    Jones presents a stark picture of a bifurcated economic system: the real one, in which ordinary citizens struggle; and the financial economy, in which the livelihoods of citizens are leveraged by the wealthy for speculative bets.
  79. A Haunting in Cawdor
    Although the film attempts to be both a ghastly giallo mood piece and a bloodless teen ghost story, its themes of evolving identity and mental health care elevate it past some of its shock-and-awe trappings.
  80. Hyena Road
    This anti-war movie is more passionate about CB radio communication than the horrors of bloodshed.
  81. Ava's Possessions
    A concurrent plot involving Ava's family doesn't land quite as well, as it travels down some more familiar paths, but the twelve-step satire had me grinning like a fiend.
  82. London Has Fallen
    The action never stops once the first car bomb is triggered, but the second half of London Has Fallen takes place mostly in the dark, where nobody can see the budget.
  83. Emelie
    Emelie does create a menacing atmosphere and provide an interesting response to the "Final Girl" model that has long been the horror standard.
  84. The Final Project
    Slipshod in every way, The Final Project can't even be bothered to show the important stuff.
  85. They Will Have to Kill Us First
    As a look at geopolitics, the film is limited, but as a musical doc it's strong — and it's best as the movie to recommend old white Americans go see as a reminder that people everywhere remain people.
  86. Songs My Brothers Taught Me
    The performances are undeniably authentic, the cinematography could make Terrence Malick stand to give a slow clap, and sometimes a sensitive mood and evocative milieu are enough to sustain when there's barely a plot.
  87. 1982
    Written and directed by Tommy Oliver, 1982 is a ham-fisted morality tale about love, marriage and the fallout of the ‘80s crack epidemic as though told by someone whose intel on all three came primarily from pulp sources.
  88. Cemetery of Splendor
    As is his custom, Weerasethakul addresses his nation's martial history with the lightest of touches.
  89. Snowtime!
    Co-directors Jean-François Pouliot and François Brisson progressively heighten the scale of the battles, but the emotional tenor is pitched at innocence and fun. The filmmakers attempt a transition toward a more bitter rivalry, but they just don't have the heart to make this children's war ugly.
  90. A Country Called Home
    Poots, who's quietly distinguished herself in a number of supporting roles over the last few years, brings a documentary-like naturalism to the familiar plotting; you'll care about her even if you begin to lose interest in the movie as a whole.
  91. Colliding Dreams
    Admittedly, it's an awfully low bar that makes a film about the Middle East radical simply for taking into account the opinions and experiences of people of color. But it's really, wonderfully refreshing to find one that centers on storytelling like this.
  92. The Boy and the Beast
    Mamoru Hosoda's The Boy and the Beast works with many common anime tropes but doesn't find anything new to say about them.
  93. Knight of Cups
    Knight of Cups might be both the most intoxicating film he's ever made—a deluge of gorgeous, kinetic images and sounds—and, in some ways, the most perplexing.
  94. Zootopia
    Heavy with pop allusions and references to other crime underworld movies, including The Godfather and Chinatown, Zootopia is impressive in its visual conception and scope: At once straightforward and densely layered with wit and incident, it manages a lively clip and the odd fresh joke.
  95. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
    The mild Islamophobia and highly questionable casting choices in the film call to mind other texting abbreviations, namely AYFKMWTS and GTFOOH. In the end, though, it's an armed-forces acronym dating back to World War II that best describes this dismal project: FUBAR.
  96. The Mermaid
    For all its aspirations toward movie magic with an activist bent, The Mermaid’s potential implications for the film industry are ultimately more noteworthy than the movie itself.
  97. A Strange Course of Events
    Its emotions prove curiously inconsistent, hinting at darkness but never committing fully.
  98. Paul Verhoeven's Tricked
    As filmmaking it's drearily anonymous — proof, if we needed it, that writing a screenplay via referendum is not a great idea.
  99. Mavis!
    Edwards is content with presenting Mavis as she sees herself: as the conduit for a song's message, and a voice to uplift the weary.
  100. Risen
    Cliff Curtis is appealingly low-key as Christ, humble in a way that the film around him would have done well to emulate.
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