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 7.5 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. Found Memories
    Initially treated like the parasite she appears to be, over the course of this crisp, gracefully inflected meditation on time's passage, Rita develops the interest in her subjects that turns an image into more than stolen light.
  2. Dancing in Jaffa
    Medalia, as an Israeli, knows this bumpy territory well and serves up her story sensitively, but with its difficulties unvarnished and unsolved. She focuses on a few children whom we get to know well enough to care very much about their progress.
  3. Vince Giordano: There's a Future in the Past
    When the Nighthawks light into an arrangement, they're not aping a record you could spin or download at home — they're attempting to discover what it might have been like to hear those bands of back then blowing the doors off a joint.
  4. 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
    This doc could have been a mess, frankly. But Philippe has put the film together smartly, taking us from the general to the particular.
  5. I Kill Giants
    Walter is riding a tricky line, but it’s his mixing of fantasy and reality, making the edges between the two porous, that ultimately sells the film.
  6. Sicko
    It’s as a rhetorician that Moore is most original and effectively demagogic.
  7. Monster
    Theron's empathetic victim-wrath and elemental female outrage almost trump the otherwise cartoonish gender-bending and award-grubbing po' folk put-on.
  8. The Lady and the Duke
    If you can forget the world-historic significance of the mass revolution that overthrew Europe's oldest absolute monarchy -- or rather, subsume it in the mysteries of personality -- The Lady and the Duke is the stuff of human interest.
  9. Daddy Longlegs
    A funny, fantastic, genuinely alarming quasi-autobiographical cheapster by twentysomething New York brothers Josh and Benny Safdie.
  10. A Bigger Splash
    Guadagnino inserts a plot thread indicting Europe's response to the migrant crisis, shoehorning an issue of utmost gravity into a pulpy sex thriller. Not even this flamboyant project, however satisfying in its excesses otherwise, can accommodate the inept civics lesson.
  11. Tabloid
    Absurd as it sounds, Joyce's conviction is not only convincing but contagious. So, too, is her elastic sense of reality - a 90-minute immersion in her world is enough to make you question your own.
  12. What Maisie Knew
    The film is admirably committed to simulating the messy experience of life as a real Maisie might live it. But sometimes, as she's tuckered out on her exquisite linens beneath gorgeous exposed brick and shelves of handcrafted toys, Maisie's world feels easier to admire than it is to worry over.
  13. The Watermelon Woman
    Funny and smart, full of biting humor and astute observations about identity and history, Cheryl Dunye's audacious, joyous debut feature captures the process of falling hopelessly in love with the movies.
  14. The Women's Balcony
    This light and predictable movie, with its overwhelming box office success, still offers tremendous insight into day-to-day Israeli society.
  15. Augustine
    The film is something of a paradox, simultaneously passionate and dispassionate, its ending tethered to both bruised triumph and a sense of things falling apart.
  16. Janis: Little Girl Blue
    As the film heaps all its sadnesses on us, the rest of Joplin languishes unexamined.
  17. Frankenweenie
    Frankenweenie, scripted by John August, and based on a screenplay by Lenny Ripps from Burton's original story, is tight and brief, hitting all the marks you'd expect from an animated kid's film, and enlivened by Burton's visual style. The man should make more small movies like this one.
  18. Divine Intervention
    A movie of long, expressive silences, Divine Intervention articulates things that have never been articulated, at least on the screen.
  19. Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys
    Code Unknown is Haneke's most expansive and, oddly, hopeful work -- not a gaze into the void, but a fierce attempt to scramble out of it.
  20. Black Hawk Down
    It's a Jerry Bruckheimer art film, perhaps the most extravagantly aestheticized combat movie ever made.
  21. The Wise Kids
    The Wise Kids suffers from a theater workshop-y tendency to rest too long on pauses and silences to convey dramatic heft. But the blunder is ultimately overshadowed by Cone's excellent young actors, particularly Torem, burrowing deeply into her character's zealotry and anguish about being left behind.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Black God, White Devil
    The best parts of the film arise from the tension generated between the conventional use of myth and the simultaneous debunking of it. [16 Sept 1971]
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
    Shallower than the level of vermouth in a Claude Rains Martini, FMBD nonetheless has a wonderful breadth of characterization, delightful thrills, and philosophical speculations to boot. [30 Apr 1970, p.60]
    • Village Voice
  24. Southside with You
    Both actors occasionally hit stumbling blocks with the wordy script and Tanne's direction, neither of which allows quite enough room for the characters to think and feel onscreen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rize
    Highly entertaining but underdeveloped documentary.
  26. Wild
    Both the material and the setting seem to have shaken something loose in Witherspoon (who is also one of the movie's producers): She's moved further away from those uptight, humorless romantic-comedy cuties she played in the mid 2000s and more toward the breezy, blunt, self- determined characters of her early career.
  27. The Ground Truth
    The details are eye-opening (or ear-opening, in the case of marching songs taught to the new Marines about slaughtering Arab schoolchildren), but soon Foulkrod's film backs itself into a Support Our Troops corner.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bombay Beach
    That it documents rural poverty in the American West without exploiting or sanctifying its subjects would be cause enough for praise. But this doesn't begin to approach what Alma Har'el pulls off with her hybrid documentary knockout Bombay Beach.
  29. The Decay of Fiction
    The Decay of Fiction is less a narrative than a monument. In its abstract movie-ness, this 74-minute carnival of souls exudes a wistful longing to connect, not so much with Hollywood history as with the history of that history.
  30. Iron Island
    Depending on one's mood, the movie might seem boldly simplified and poetic--or boringly simpleminded and prosaic.
  31. Humpday
    Reuniting an uptight married man with a footloose old pal, Lynn Shelton's third feature offers a (much) more extreme version of Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy," also a sort of buddy movie, also shot in Seattle.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shakespeare Behind Bars
    Rogerson's structure is ingenious: He dilutes our initial skepticism by showcasing the prisoners' thoughtfulness and intelligence, and as soon as we've come to care for the men he shocks us with the details of their crimes.
  33. Wasted! The Story of Food Waste
    As with many recent environmental documentaries, the filmmakers’ call to action is simple and upbeat: This isn’t so hard, people, we can do it if we try!
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Heartbreak Kid
    May's second feature is a funny and sometimes side-splitting film whose whole never approaches the success of its best moments in which the two levels of romantic fantasy and satire are reconciled. [28 Dec 1972, p.53]
    • Village Voice
  35. My Mother's Smile
    "A very odd thriller" is how Italian director Marco Bellocchio describes My Mother's Smile, his uncannily beautiful and deeply humanist exploration of the nightmares that resurface from a Roman atheist's Catholic childhood.
  36. Porfirio
    Landes's tone is never salacious or exploitative, nor for that matter pandering or sentimental. This is a sui generis work—warm, sporadically funny, deeply human, and altogether beguiling.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Polisse
    The strange, unsettling juxtapositions, even when mashing up the mawkish and mockery, are full of life.
  38. The Sea Inside
    Unfortunately, Bardem is confined by more than Ramón's paralysis. He also must work within the limits of a partially numbed script.
  39. The Others
    This is one scary movie, not because we see ghosts or monsters, but because Kidman makes us feel her fear as our own.
  40. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
    Her (Davis) homage--tender, never hagiographic--also contains some biting analysis of the racism, both overt and insidious, that the artist was up against.
  41. Flushed Away
    What's not to love about a movie in which thousands of rodents stand together against a Big Wave generated by TV-watching soccer fans flushing their toilets at halftime?
  42. Mary and The Witch's Flower
    Mary and the Witch’s Flower and its eye-popping cavalcade of creations and colors speak not to the shock and awe of technology but to the can-do magic of human achievement.
  43. The Measure of a Man
    A feat of workplace naturalism.
  44. Liv & Ingmar
    Liv & Ingmar is an anecdotal treasure chest for cinephiles, but more than that, it's a beautifully told love story.
  45. McCullin
    Famous for his war photography, McCullin's gift is his sensitivity, a capacity to feel the pain of other people that informs both the images he produced and the ones he refused to take.
  46. Like Crazy
    Like Crazy seems content to coast on the contrast between Beatrice's abrasive energy and Donatella's quiet anguish, with neither character developed with depth sufficient to justify the time we spend with them.
  47. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    Aspiring to evoke an unreal city stranded in the autumn of the soul, the film succeeds only when it peers up from the intro-philosophy book for the occasional glimpse of everyday beauty.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Where Are You Taking Me?
    Takesue doesn't presume to tell anyone's story for him or her, but rather lets the activity on-screen speak for itself.
  49. The Cakemaker
    The Cakemaker is more of a petit four than a belly bomb, but it’s striking in its particularity.
  50. Duck Season
    Shot in silvery black-and-white, Duck Season is not charmless, just insubstantial.
  51. Inception
    It's obvious that Nolan either can't articulate or doesn't believe in a distinction between living feelings and dreams--and his barren Inception doesn't capture much of either.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Serenity
    Though richly allegorical, Serenity also works as a rousing and unabashedly manipulative adventure that never takes itself too seriously.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mysterious Object at Noon
    Far from an empty vessel, the film encourages an ever increasing proliferation of odd topics and perspectives.
  54. Computer Chess
    So far the funniest, headiest, most playfully eccentric American indie of the year, Bujalski's perceptive avant-garde comedy...teases out unanswered existential and behavioral questions about mankind's curious obsession with artificial intelligence and automation.
  55. Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo
    Recalling other cine-duets, both straight (Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise) and gay (Andrew Haigh's Weekend), Paris 05:59 distinguishes itself by seamlessly including a lesson on HIV post-exposure prophylaxis.
  56. Casting JonBenét
    Green's doc — like the case at its center — defies resolution or easy answers.
  57. The Last King of Scotland
    An adequate thriller redeemed by Forest Whitaker's sensational turn as Idi Amin.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    After Innocence
    Both riveting and disturbing.
  59. Cast Away
    While "Robinson Crusoe" was a paean to the practical middle-class virtues that allowed its industrious hero (and the nation he represents) to re-create civilization out of nothingness, Cast Away is a far less triumphalist peek into the nothingness at the heart of civilization.
  60. Caucus
    Caucus is a lively, hilarious, upsetting crash-course in recent history. It's also revelatory at times, especially as it reframes infamous sound bites in their of-the-moment context.
  61. Nostalghia
    Stick with it. There are shocking acts that rupture the stillness, and then there’s one of cinema’s great endings,
  62. Tomboy
    Tomboy astutely explores the freedom, however brief, of being untethered to the highly rule-bound world of gender codes.
  63. Farewell
    A homely bit of international Cold War cloak-and-dagger, starring badly dressed bureaucrats instead of chic spies, Farewell is based on a vital early-'80s espionage break involving the KGB, DST French intelligence, and the CIA.
  64. Le jour avant le lendemain
    But if the movie's documentary function tends to trump its narrative one, the directors nevertheless manage to locate great reserves of sadness in the material, tapping a particularly rich vein in the wrinkled look of resignation on actress/co-director Ivalu's face.
  65. Welcome to Pine Hill
    At times the improvised dialogue seems too schematic and superfluous, especially in view of such exploratory and observant handheld camera work. Otherwise, though, this is wonderful stuff.
  66. Cheatin'
    The early scenes, of the couple falling for each other, offer more inspired gorgeous wonder than late Malick films, and the emotions are more piercing.
  67. The Invitation
    The buildup stretches longer than it should, but the payoff comes with a satisfying bang.
  68. A Woman's Life
    The ending is a joy and a heartbreaker, but what lingers from this revelatory life is that compact world Jeanne inhabits, and how each tragedy, each happiness, and each everyday gesture together accrete into the woman we discover again and again.
  69. Roxanne Roxanne
    The film may not end on a tragic note, but in attempting a gritty portrayal of Shanté’s little-known private life, Roxanne Roxanne forgets her genius, as so many other people did back in the day.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    End of the Century
    Johnny's analysis and will carry the film. Of course they didn't get along--they were a rock group.
  71. Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
    Goodman and Anker adroitly shape a cohesive drama out of a complicated history.
  72. Joe Gould's Secret
    A quietly ambitious, well-wrought, and tastefully poignant treatment of two local literary legends.
  73. Red Lights
    A satisfyingly well-wrought, old-school thriller: Character drives the plot, literally.
  74. Ocean's Eleven
    The movie is slick and studiously cool -- with plenty of visual flourishes but not too much soul.
  75. Human Weapon
    Religious fanaticism gets even scarier in this hour-long doc.
  76. Raja
    It plays out as an unsettling solipsistic love story--an account of erotic obsession with a family relation to "Of Human Bondage."
  77. In the Shadow of Women
    In so shrewdly exploring the illusions — namely (self-) deception — required to keep a dyad functioning, Garrel shows just how much we all remain, consciously or not, in the dark.
  78. Wonder Boys
    Downey, who radiates more energy doing nothing discernible than most other actors do when they let it all hang out, takes the film to another level.
  79. Forty Shades of Blue
    It's Korzun's film, and she is in complete control of her character, never divulging too much of the haunted woman under the studied facade of American hotsiness.
  80. Mysterious Skin
    With remarkable directness and composure, it shatters the myth of childhood innocence and the deathless taboo of prepubescent sexuality.
  81. Rush
    It's both a perceptive dual character study and, that rarity of rarities, a large-scale action movie for grown-ups, one worth leaving the house for.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Time That Remains
    Suleiman's a more assured director than he is a comedian. But individual, Tati-worthy gags still have great power.
  83. Mean Creek
    As obvious in many ways as its title (and its poster), Mean Creek retains a gritty working-class ambience, but it feels over-rehearsed.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bully
    It has a clear and calm approach to storytelling and some interest in the quality of its handheld images.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Garden of Earthly Delights
    There is magic in these intimate passion plays, which are filled with sloppy, loving detail and are mounted without a hint of pretension. Each banal moment becomes achingly gorgeous, not least because of Spiteri's disarmingly straightforward performance.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan
    Last year's Academy Award nominee from Kazakhstan for Best Foreign Film, Mongol is purportedly the first in a multi-film saga on the wrath of Khan; as such, it's probably the last thing you'd expect--great fun.
  87. Winnie the Pooh
    At barely over an hour, the film still overflows with musical charm, nostalgic wonder, and visual wit (characters literally interact with the words on Milne's pages). This one will make you feel eight years old again.
  88. Munich
    The film is sluggish and repetitive, yet it exerts a certain clinical fascination.
  89. Lovesong
    Like its central not-couple, two women tongue-tied about their desire for each other, So Yong Kim's Lovesong frustrates with its lack of articulation.
  90. Thelma
    Yes, Thelma is a horror movie — a lovely, transfixing one — but don’t look to it for cheap scares. The terror here cuts far deeper.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Take My Eyes
    A disturbing take on domestic violence.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Workshop
    These scenes of debate (reminiscent of Cantet’s The Class from 2008) thrum with energy, thanks to the spontaneous and full-bodied performances of the nonprofessional cast, whose improvised dialogue feels casual, yet cuttingly profound.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Reviewed by
      Ed Park
    Millions
    Danny Boyle's Millions is not what we'd expect from the "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later" director. It's essentially a gentle, kid's-eye parable.
  94. Disobedience
    As a whole, the film is directionless, with few individual character-study scenes making it compelling enough. It’s almost as though there are miniature, worthy films within this film, and watching for those can be a thrill.
  95. Judy Berlin
    A bit precious, ultimately wearisome.
  96. East Is East
    Largely a showcase for Puri, and he rises to the occasion with a performance that bursts from the screen and tears into your heart.
  97. The Legend of Drunken Master
    The uncertain plot somehow concerns ginseng and stolen objets d'art; the main thrust is acrobatic slapstick with a decided antipatriarchal twist.
  98. Pin Cushion
    Pin Cushion has the visual cues of comedy, with its candy-colored kitsch and exaggerated signifiers of eccentricity and snobbery, but at heart, it’s a tragedy of naïveté.
  99. Commune
    Celebrating the desire to immerse oneself in a collective, world-changing enterprise, Commune is unavoidably nostalgic.
  100. Hidden Figures
    Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent), is a canny and necessary crowd-pleaser in which not one moment feels like life itself. But, together, in their superb Hollywood falseness, they accrete into a portrait of our best idea of our national character while still exposing bitter truths about who was allowed to be what back in that age of presumed "greatness."
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