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. Once Upon a Time Verônica
    Guedes's complex performance leaves no doubt regarding the fragility of Veronica's psyche.
  2. Falcon Rising
    Beyond isolated moments of dickish charm — and his climactic four-way fight involving a sword, a crucifix, and two steel pipes — Chapman just comes across like another pseudo-heroic American behaving badly abroad.
  3. The Longest Week
    Lacking any significant character arc or motivation, The Longest Week is little more than a series of insipid conversations between bored aristocrats who snark at each other in monotone.
  4. Kelly & Cal
    Amy Lowe Starbin's script offers a welcome directness and some sly observations about acceptance and compromise.
  5. Wetlands
    Helen's extreme behavior is at once a reaction to, and rebellion against, her mother and father (and their separation), which, along with a captivating go-for-broke lead turn by Juri, lends the film a poignancy to help offset the juvenile shock-tactic impulses.
  6. No No: A Dockumentary
    There's enough diamond lore here to please baseball diehards, but Ellis's outsize life will grip even casual fans.
  7. Memphis
    Sutton's Memphis framed in fascinating layers -- leaves and tree limbs, wig shops and overgrown gravel roads. It's a movie of a place and a character rather than about them.
  8. Levitated Mass
    With a deft hand, Pray juxtaposes a history of Heizer's revolutionary career as a "negative space" sculptor with an insider's view of the insanely complex planning it took to move the two-story monolith.
  9. Last Days in Vietnam
    Vital, illuminating, and terrifying, Rory Kennedy's Last Days in Vietnam probes with clarity and thoroughness one moment of recent American history that has too long gone unreckoned with.
  10. Innocence
    Hilary Brougher's YA-ish horror satire/romance/whatzit Innocence, adapted from Jane Mendelsohn's novel, boasts a wicked setup, some strong performances, several gloriously bloody spook-out images, and a movie-wrecking hypoglycemic listlessness.
  11. The Identical
    A cardboard cutout of a movie.
  12. Gringo Trails
    Vail's film earnestly interrogates authenticity even as her camera lingers on a beach without footprints, inviting the viewer to walk.
  13. God Help the Girl
    Browning captures Eve's weariness and enthusiasm, and her lovely voice and crisp delivery gives Murdoch's labored lyrics a vulnerable immediacy.
  14. Frontera
    Berry isn't afraid to use melodrama as a tool to highlight injustice. It's his very un-flashiness that makes Frontera effective.
  15. Canopy
    Despite Wilson’s early control and aesthetic confidence, there isn’t a single scripted idea of weight or emotionality that pays off.
  16. As Above, So Below
    As Above, So Below is sometimes creepy but mostly silly, which is too bad because the film's cramped subterranean setting is inherently unnerving.
  17. Jamie Marks Is Dead
    There are too many vaguely defined interpersonal dynamics and marginal characters (hi, Liv Tyler and Judy Greer!) that distract needlessly from the earnest tone of an outrageous set-up.
  18. The Calling
    The Calling breathes new life into a moribund genre by touching oft-ignored themes and offering a bit of introspection to go along with the obligatory slashed throats and biblical portents.
  19. The Congress
    Like its actress, it's an ambitious knockout that doesn't quite live up to its potential. But its argument is worth hearing: Instead of crying for the collapse of one actress, Folman is crying for the collapse of civilization, the triumph of the synthetic over the real.
  20. Life of Crime
    The comedy's too broad to take the characters seriously, and the vibe is breezily aimless, a mistake in a story about anxious waiting.
  21. The November Man
    As far as escapist fluff laced with totally unnecessary real-world horror goes, The November Man isn't wretched.
  22. Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering
    Like many docs with activist undertones, Second Opinion tells a potentially interesting story in a bland way.
  23. Shadows from My Past
    The Kaufmans are amateurs, in the sense that this is a labor of love but also in that the film lacks the technical and storytelling caliber of more professional work. Many cuts are awkward and the sound is terrible. Still, it’s another full box revealing how people narrowly escaped brutalities, and how some didn’t.
  24. Patema Inverted
    Yoshiura keeps the story fairly linear, while playing with perspective and composing many stunning, vertiginous images that consider the different possibilities of being at war with gravity.
  25. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People
    Would that Harris had simply let the images and their historical context speak for themselves. His narration is simplistic and narcissistic... and the textual ideas he and his interviewees present about the intersection between race and imagery are hardly fresh.
  26. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears
    Without characters whose fates we care about, nor fully comprehend, even the most visceral shocks are just that: impressive moments with no lingering terror.
  27. The Prince
    Screenwriters Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore fail to conjure a single witty line. Nor is there any finesse to be found in director Brian A. Miller’s inept staging of car chases and shoot-outs.
  28. The Notebook
    Szász's harrowing film roots that coming-of-age process in suffering, depicting it with a grim solemnity that, by never wavering, ultimately leads to a tempered measure of unexpected hopefulness.
  29. Starred Up
    This is an unsparing picture, one whose violence, though deftly handled, is bone-crunchingly rough. Yet its emotional contours are surprisingly delicate, thanks, in large part to O’Connell’s performance.
  30. The Last of Robin Hood
    It's Kline who anchors the movie, swan-diving into Flynn's complexities without making excuses for him.
  31. Last Weekend
    Last Weekend is too enamored of this nouveau riche household to be satirical, instead offering unexpected moments of genuine warmth as a calling card for goodness.
  32. Kundo: Age of the Rampant
    With its harmonica-heavy score and rousing shots of these horse-riding antiheroes, Kundo's early and late scenes resemble a Western as much as the historical epic its middle section gradually turns into.
  33. The Damned
    It's all well acted and expertly crafted — quick edits that play mind and visual games with the viewer, music that heightens tension, some cool special effects — but most of the victims are people you want to slap even before their secrets are spilled.
  34. When the Game Stands Tall
    The movie is more effective as sports fantasy than as theology.
  35. Are You Here
    Writer-director Matthew Weiner, creator of the magnificent Mad Men, has made a feature film — theoretically a comedy — that's just shy of terrible.
  36. The Olivia Experiment
    There's a lot of potential in the idea of exploring asexuality in the modern world, but The Olivia Experiment loses it in a sea of clichéd characters.
  37. Winter in the Blood
    Every time a story thread seems to be getting somewhere, Winter in the Blood vaults to something else, with little regard for the tale’s rhythms — the movie doesn’t feel like a puzzle to solve; it’s a puzzle to assemble.
  38. Two Night Stand
    The problem isn't that these lustbirds suffer no delusions about their temporary affair. It's that Nichols and screenwriter Mark Hammer can't commit to the cynicism.
  39. To Be Takei
    To Be Takei is never less than joyful — much like the man himself.
  40. Salvo
    Viewers looking for a shoot-em-up will be disappointed, but those hankering for an old-school Italian broodfest will find plenty to soak in.
  41. The Possession of Michael King
    After a promising start, rote possession imagery eventually becomes the focus, culminating in a by-the-numbers ending.
  42. The One I Love
    Some of the surprise works, but the final gotcha won't getcha.
  43. May in the Summer
    May in the Summer's biggest obstacle is Dabis, who isn't a strong enough actress to sell the subtle humor.
  44. Kink
    The doc is often terrific fun. But it is a work of observation and advocacy rather than journalism.
  45. Kabbalah Me
    [A] sweetly odd documentary.
  46. K2: Siren of the Himalayas
    Its considered use of ice and snow-covered vistas against the expanse of blue sky offers great beauty while capturing something of what pulls the adventurous to try to reach the world's second highest peak.
  47. Jersey Shore Massacre
    Watching the hopelessly vapid get taken out, one by one, has never been more depressing.
  48. If I Stay
    [Cutler] approaches all these teenage hyperfeelings with respect and sensitivity. It doesn’t hurt that he has Moretz in his corner.
  49. 14 Blades
    Come for Ku's joyful choreography, stay for Yen's most memorable post-comeback performance.
  50. Expedition to the End of the World
    Dencik’s gorgeous, surprising, meditative film opens up one of the world’s last unknown places, and it will also make you want to befriend every Dane you can.
  51. Love Is Strange
    Sachs and his performers know that the perfect marriage is a thing of phantom beauty — it doesn't exist, yet we persist in believing that someone out there must have it.
  52. Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
    Green is sexy, funny, dangerous, and wild -- everything the film needed to be -- and whenever she's not on-screen, we feel her absence as though the sun has blinked off.
  53. Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery
    At 126 minutes, Weaving the Past is both engaging and indulgent, shifting between the personal and political, the historical and contemporary.
  54. Septic Man
    Just as dispiriting as its lack of scares (or sense of humor) is Septic Man’s lack of purpose -- devoid of any commentary, the film pointlessly wallows around in the muck, thereby making itself as valuable as those nasty things routinely flushed down the toilet.
  55. Step Up: All In
    Step Up All In cuts too fast, the way an MTV hack does when forced to disguise that a starlet can't move.
  56. NightLights
    There are moments in director David Midell's NightLights that play like PSAs, but that earnestness is paved over by wonderfully affecting performances.
  57. Mission Blue
    It helps that Earle and her oceanographer colleague at the Smithsonian Institute, Jeremy Jackson, are both scientists with unusual abilities to speak not just in understandable terms but also in eloquent ones. And it helps, too, that the music, images, storytelling, and editing are all so tight, and so enjoyable.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Let's Be Cops
    Though it charms, it's difficult to ignore how many times we've seen this story played out before.
  59. I Am Happiness on Earth
    I Am Happiness on Earth's script is mostly filler between explicit, intensely choreographed sex acts.
  60. Found
    Writer-director Scott Schirmer eschews the ironic approach, thankfully, and instead works to pull genuine tension from his material. He does that quite well, and any unintentional laughs (or eye rolls) are icing.
  61. Fort McCoy
    If the film has a major flaw, it's the profusion of subplots in a 100-minute running time. Still, it is a real accomplishment.
  62. 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.
  63. After
    The final revelation of the big secret that haunts the family -- hinted at throughout the movie -- is more than a little maudlin, and the dedication feels like nothing so much as ass covering. Until then, After is a frequently absorbing miserablist family drama shot in appropriately chilly winter tones.
  64. Jake Squared
    More enervating than it is ambitious, Jake Squared is partly a romantic comedy and mostly a pseudo-philosophical apology for self-absorption.
  65. The Word
    Attempts to offer the white-knuckle gratifications of a studio procedural with a conspicuous lack of production values, screen talent, plausibility, originality, or a lick of aesthetic flair.
  66. A Will for the Woods
    While the film also captures many private, sometimes heartbreaking scenes, it takes a lot of time to make its simple point.
  67. We Are Mari Pepa
    We Are Mari Pepa is a sweaty, urgent, beautifully honest bliss out.
  68. The Trip to Italy
    Now we know just what to expect from Coogan and Brydon, although as long as you're willing to settle in for the ride, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
  69. Life After Beth
    It's not quite as crazy as it needs to be: There's something listless about Life After Beth — it starts out as a reflection on the potentially morbid nature of grief and then doesn't seem to know where to go.
  70. Jealousy
    Vital and vigorous even when its characters feel scraped of vigor/vitality, Philippe Garrel's latest finds boho Parisians facing the ends of marriages, affairs, and the feasibility of bohemian existence itself.
  71. Frank
    The masterstroke of Frank, the film ex-Sidebottom collaborator Jon Ronson has now co-written, is that this time the man in the mask is a modern Mozart. And, unsparingly, Ronson has written himself as the jealous goober who risks everything, with the delusion that he's the smart one.
  72. Dinosaur 13
    Unfortunately, Dinosaur 13 never manages to display the story's many complex parts in a way that enables viewers to grasp the whole beast.
  73. Coldwater
    Coldwater is almost boastfully grim.
  74. Abuse of Weakness
    Breillat's impressive film is a study of bodies and how we carry them, and it explores the manner in which weakness seeks out strength on an almost primal level, bypassing the higher modes of human thought.
  75. What If
    In the highly imperfect world of contemporary romantic comedies, What If is as close to perfect as anything we've got, not least for the way it captures the abject hopefulness of young people who'd like to be in love but don't know how to go about it.
  76. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    This TMNT is bigger and emptier, a wasteland of pixels.
  77. Into the Storm
    Too cartoonish to be cathartic, and too ghoulish to be honest fun, Into the Storm is mostly a somewhat uncomfortable sit enlivened by occasional hilariousness.
  78. Around the Block
    Self-serious as an after-school special, subtle, and nuanced as a kick to the face, Around the Block is an exercise in banality -- remarkable only for the sheer number of hokey clichés that it fits in its 104-minute running time.
  79. Web Junkie
    The slow (albeit unevenly paced) unveiling of the boys' stories is persuasive and chilling.
  80. The Maid's Room
    Too low-stakes for horror, too lamebrained for satire, and too incoherent to be didactic, The Maid's Room simply uses Drina and then throws her away.
  81. Deepsea Challenge 3D
    Deepsea Challenge has too little interest in anything that's not Cameron's personal experience.
  82. Fifi Howls from Happiness
    The lovely ball-&-socket meeting of the two artists' sensibilities is what makes the doc sing, even if it is a chronicle of a death foretold.
  83. The Dog
    What makes The Dog so compelling isn't Wojtowicz's cinematic imprint but the place in history that was very likely denied him by chance and his own irascibility.
  84. About Alex
    A lightweight Big Chill reworked for today's young professional set, which proves too clumsy and self-conscious to live up to its weighty subject matter.
  85. The Hundred-Foot Journey
    Almost embarrassingly enjoyable, despite the fact that — or maybe because — it's ridiculous in a shiny, Hollywood way.
  86. Moebius
    Except for the presence of the Internet, the picture feels like a retelling of an ages-old fable. In fact, Moebius is almost weird enough to be a creation myth, and that's no small accomplishment.
  87. What About Me
    Come for the cult of personality, stay for the nostalgia of a dirtier, dodgier, far cooler scene.
  88. Slugterra: Return of the Elementals
    There's little in Slugterra: Return of the Elementals to interest nonfans of the show, and the sheer laziness would be more forgivable if not for the equally lazy use of broad ethnic stereotypes. But at least it's over in an hour.
  89. Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet of Eternity
    This film struggles to do justice to his many accomplishments, shortchanging his artistry.
  90. The Almost Man
    To his credit, even as his material begins spiraling into less amusing territory, Lund alleviates the growing gloom with goofball levity.
  91. War Story
    Jackson and co-screenwriter Kristin Gore prize ambiguity, allowing for cathartic revelations but no easy resolutions.
  92. The Strange Little Cat
    This odd little wonder captures the delicate textures and shadowy half-secrets of family life, mapping them out in a mosaic of fragmented dialogue and half-poetic, half-prosaic images.
  93. Rich Hill
    Rich Hill does not add up to more than a series of vignettes. What it offers is a compassionate look at the intricacies of American poverty, where joblessness is only one factor.
  94. Louder Than Words
    Louder Than Words obviously means well, but its brand of cheap uplift is the kind of cheese that actually breeds cynicism.
  95. Finding Fela!
    Once it gets going, it's fine, a somewhat scattered précis of the life and accomplishment of one of the 20th century's towering musicians, activists, and curiosities.
  96. Child of God
    As it stands, Child of God is brazenly, outstandingly bad, as vague, pretentious, and pointless as its sorry title. But it's certainly memorable, full of inadvertent howlers and destined to create a whole new subgenre of burlesque, audience-torturing cinema.
  97. Calvary
    Gleeson is one of the finest actors we have, and in casting him as the lead, McDonagh stacks the deck so that regardless of our own religious reservations, we're forced to care about Father James as a man.
  98. Cabin Fever: Patient Zero
    Vincent Guastini's makeup effects are the star here, a refreshing change from the inky CGI morphing of too much modern horror.
  99. Guardians of the Galaxy
    Gunn has to juggle so many plot elements — so many booming galactic battles, so many whisker-close brushes with death — that it's little wonder he loses his grip on the thing. He inserts occasional moments of wonder but doesn't bother to smooth over the seams.
  100. 4 Minute Mile
    The narrative is so formulaic as to feel immediately contrived, with seemingly every plot device taken from another film.
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