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. The Wait
    The pained, textured performances of Sevigny and Malone enrich their scenes, but when it ranges away from its leads, The Wait can seem like an anthology of moments rather than a narrative whole, although those moments do accumulate into a mood of chilly, gently surreal isolation.
  2. TRON: Legacy
    Given the movie's graphic pizzazz, the best hippie wisdom Bridges might offer the viewer is: Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gotta Dance
    Would be just another disposable, albeit touching, distraction if its subtext didn't hint that growing old in this ageist society is a bitch.
  4. Me and Orson Welles
    Deft, affectionate, and unexpectedly enjoyable.
  5. The Cartel
    The Cartel makes up for what it lacks in style and structure with selective but stone-cold facts.
  6. Rapture-Palooza
    Always amusing, if never screamingly funny.
  7. Papillon
    This new version, directed by Danish filmmaker Michael Noer, brings to the story a refreshing intensity and sweep, and even a sense of adventure.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sketches of Frank Gehry
    This enjoyably breezy portrait of genius architect Frank Gehry is drawn doodle-style by first-time documentarian Sydney Pollack.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beowulf & Grendel
    It's good, bloody fun that stirs the intellect whenever it feels like it, and as a swashbuckler, the dead-game Butler outswings just about anyone in Troy or Kingdom of Heaven or Tristan & Isolde.
  10. Tears of Gaza
    This is the very unsterile subject of the film: the unimaginable violence with which families were sundered, to which this film makes you a witness. The cameras linger on the faces of children as they tell their stories, unaffected and open.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Transformers
    Transformers is mercilessly inhuman and completely hysterical from frame one.
  12. The Parking Lot Movie
    Their sense of superiority toward the petty SUV drivers and rude midlife-crisisers who frequent the lot is matched by introspective considerations of traditional social contracts.
  13. The Foot Fist Way
    Truthfully, The Foot Fist Way is no different from an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm": This is irritainment, something you snicker at while covering your eyes, praying that this guy never gets loose in the real world, when, in fact, he's your next-door neighbor. Or you.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    While the evidence of his spotty post-1970s work is hard to refute, Gonzo proves what a vapid, overvalued commodity edginess is, championing Thompson's best work for brass-tacks insight more than brass-balled outrage.
  15. 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.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
    This impressionistic approach eschews traditional biography, instead giving the viewer the feeling of being inside a moment, without necessarily providing all the information we might need to contextualize what we're seeing.
  17. Animals
    Schiffli and Dastmalchian deliver a sweet, elegiac concluding moment that offers a measure of hope without making a lot of unbelievable promises.
  18. Results
    While the polish of good-looking Hollywood types shot in clean, well-lit spaces doesn’t quite connect with Bujalski’s writing style, the film's tone is honestly unorthodox, a quality missing from most mid-budget comedies.
  19. A Good Man
    Director Safina Uberoi struck gold with her title subject, a congenital joker with an implacable will whose load-bearing personality could prop up at least three documentaries.
  20. 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.
  21. Félicité
    Gomis’s handheld cameras work to keep up with the actors, who seem to move with rare freedom, but he also stages some exquisite and complex flourishes.
  22. How Do You Know
    Not that How Do You Know doesn't have its moments of shamelessly entertaining shtick, much of it furnished by Nicholson (watch for a very funny visual gag about his proclivities for much younger women) and by Wilson as Lisa's current squeeze.
  23. RBG
    As a work of feel-good advocacy, it checks pretty much all the boxes, making its way through the key cases of her career, while also offering a personal look at the woman herself. Yet it’s hard not to want more from RBG, precisely because its subject is so remarkable and her ideas so consequential.
  24. The Bookshop
    Though nearly nothing happens in this movie besides a woman opening a shop and beginning a standoffish friendship with a reclusive man, I still found myself drawn in, just as I was drawn to Iain’s discreet disaster of a baked Alaska (please check it out if you haven’t seen this TGBBS episode); sometimes the quiet is enticing.
  25. Dancer in the Dark
    This deliriously downbeat vehicle for the postpunk diva Björk has generated the controversy the Danish dogmatist has relentlessly court.
  26. The Apostate
    Ogalla makes it happen: Bedroom-eyed and shaggy, looking every inch like a reincarnation of dead-too-soon ‘70s French star Patrick Dewaere but without the haywire intensity, he's an amiable spectacle.
  27. Gringo Trails
    Vail's film earnestly interrogates authenticity even as her camera lingers on a beach without footprints, inviting the viewer to walk.
  28. Deathgasm
    Cawthorne's performance underpins the resulting power fantasy with genuine emotion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    After the Wedding
    What happens after the wedding comprises a full three-quarters of Bier's epic, whose near-Biblical twists and turns--I wouldn't think of giving them away--are enough to fill four weepies.
  30. Ocean's Eleven
    The movie is slick and studiously cool -- with plenty of visual flourishes but not too much soul.
  31. Hounds of Love
    Hounds may be predictable in plot, but it succeeds in making a psychological web of this troubled threesome.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jesus, You Know
    Complex and deeply moving documentary.
  33. Into Eternity
    It is meant to boggle the mind and inspire awe-and it does.
  34. A Letter to Momo
    The bickering goblins make a boffo comedy team, and while there's a recurring fart joke, it borders on classy. That's the power of good anime.
  35. Sister
    Writer/director Ursula Meier uses a stripped-down, naturalistic aesthetic full of well-organized compositions that pay close attention to shifts in character mood, comportment, and behavior.
  36. Dim the Fluorescents
    The film’s examination of the artistic grind is promising, but Dim the Fluorescents clocks in at over two hours, proving tiresome at times. Luckily, Skwarna and Armstrong’s quirky chemistry keeps the lights on in this overlong debut.
  37. Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury
    Writer-director Luiz Bolognesi's film doesn't push the envelope in terms of technique or style, but its fast-moving story roils with a righteous anger that is mesmerizing as Bolognesi whips up a Zelig-like overview of Brazil's tortured history.
  38. Priceless
    Priceless begins as standard, unconvincing, assembly-line French farce and ends as a cop-out, feel-good rom-com. In between, it develops into something considerably more interesting.
  39. The Boys in the Band
    Mart Crowley's brilliantly bitchy lines are worth standing on line for, and the original off-Broadway cast stands up well on the screen. [28 May 1970, p.53]
    • Village Voice
  40. That Evening Sun
    More than once, the director inserts a gooey flashback to a tender moment between the farmer and his late wife (Dixie Carter) that not only extends an already overlong movie, but also fatally undercuts the artful rigor of its leading man.
  41. The Ghost Writer
    Saved by often delightfully bitchy British dialogue.
  42. Morgan
    Even if his film's plot is predictable, the younger Scott is returning the ensemble thriller to its roots with something far more important than an airtight story: compelling, well-drawn characters and the talented actors to play them.
  43. Ashby
    It doesn't hurt to have excellent support from the likes of Emma Roberts (as Ed's love interest Eloise) and Sarah Silverman, surprisingly winning as Ed's affection-starved mother. But it's Wolff and Rourke who have to carry the load, and for the most part they do.
  44. The Cave of the Yellow Dog
    At times the film's Buddhist lessons feel a bit forced, but the naturalistic performances Davaa has coaxed from a real-life Mongolian family, and her intimate understanding of their culture and values, give this sensitive portrayal its heft.
  45. Whiplash
    If Whiplash doesn't quite hang together, Chazelle has still managed to pack it with some wonderful ideas.
  46. Lady Sings the Blues
    By any formal standards, it is a mess, but, surprisingly often, a moving mess. [23 Nov 1972, p.77]
    • Village Voice
  47. Some Velvet Morning
    Tucci and the English-born Eve make a riveting team, and although the film's final twist undercuts all that has come before, Some Velvet Morning is provocation of the most artful kind.
  48. Seabiscuit
    More mystical than mysterious, Seabiscuit is a proudly cornball sentimental epic -- a reverential paean to a vanished America that's steeped in inspirational uplift and played for world-historical pathos.
  49. Still Bill
    Withers gets a sleepily even-keel portrait that could use more on musical technique, though it is nice to see him get happy with singer-songwriter Raul Midón.
  50. Walking Tall
    Like it or not, Walking tall is saying something very important to many people, and it is saying it with accomplished artistry. [21 Feb 1974, p.61]
    • Village Voice
  51. Filly Brown
    Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos's variation on the too-familiar subgenre (the rising inner-city superstar here is a Latina tomboy) is more heartfelt, humanistic, and entertaining than such a clichéd showbiz cautionary tale has any right to be.
  52. The Stanford Prison Experiment
    Even simply sticking to the facts, the film is a painful watch.
  53. Mountain Patrol
    For all of its well-schooled orthodoxy and visual splendor, Kekexili remains somewhat off-kilter--the characters' passionate wartime camaraderie and doomed sense of martyrdom aren't quite reflected in the facts of volunteer service and devotion to a balanced ecosystem.
  54. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
    The film's Endsville, when we reach it, is almost an anticlimax, thanks to the masterfully orchestrated ensemble acting and the countless dramatic mini-explosions unleashed along the way.
  55. Piranha 3-D
    Irredeemable, and yet, the movie, written by Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg, is too funny and the filmmaking too self-aware to be truly offensive.
  56. Unsettled
    Adam Hootnick's burningly smart documentary, delves into this national crisis, which was a relative blip on the international media's radar.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
    A good deal livelier than the usual music-doc embalming.
  58. Lorna's Silence
    The Dardennes retain a company of returning players: Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, and Olivier Gourmet. Such loyalty is rare and touching.
  59. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
    Makes a few distracting embellishments--re-enactments (some shabbily animated), melodramatic cloak-and-dagger scoring--but in the main, it's a professional job, standing above the crowd of politico documentaries that proliferate like kudzu over arthouse screens.
  60. Araya
    Another stunningly photographed document of a singular culture.
  61. Wind River
    Sheridan’s feel for psychology and setting are in fine evidence here. Wind River’s landscapes are forbidding and beautiful.
  62. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
    Perhaps the richest of Resnais's recent efforts.
  63. Rhythm 'n' Bayous: A Road Map to Louisiana Music
    The performances are uneven, but the spirit never flags.
  64. Dirty Pretty Things
    Slick and sober, fiercely contemporary, and rigged by a fail-safe three-act structure, Dirty Pretty Things nimbly straddles the line between realism and popcorn pop, but it knows which side its bread is buttered on.
  65. The Namesake
    The Namesake carries faint echoes of the carnal physicality that makes Nair's more lightweight movies so much fun to look at--"Monsoon Wedding" was a dandy piece of froth, and "Vanity Fair" survives only on its looks--but it's a quieter, more mature work.
  66. Deadpool
    Deadpool might even stand as one of the strongest and most inventive films of the high-early-late superhero baroque — if we could just turn off its built-in commentary track.
  67. Nuclear Nation
    Employing straightforward, music-free aesthetics that express the grim realities of his story, director Funahashi captures both grief and outrage in equal measure.
  68. Jupiter Ascending
    The movie's a fascinating mess, grand and gaudy, often hilarious.
  69. Shaun of the Dead
    The actors are all on target (particularly Penelope Wilton as Shaun's relentlessly cheery mum), and taken on its own shaky legs it's a wittier genre coda than "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein."
  70. Aliens of the Deep
    Often thrilling almost-feelie.
  71. Up for Grabs
    Wranovics's entertaining documentary feels appropriately detached.
  72. Olvidados (Forgotten)
    In showing how some men derive primal, perverse senses of pleasure and power from their brutality, how small men make themselves feel large and invincible, the film distills the roots of terror (political, cultural, religious) to truths that are tragically evergreen.
  73. Kick-Ass 2
    The most welcome change is the tone. Wadlow has decided he's making a straight-up comedy, and he demonstrates a knack for it.
  74. Raising Victor Vargas
    Tender and funny.
  75. Surf's Up
    If you have to see another penguin blockbuster, you could do worse than this loose-limbed charmer.
  76. ABCs of Death 2
    Overall, it's a strong sampler, with surprising variety.
  77. White Palms
    The bulk of White Palms--and the more riveting, grim storyline--is seen in flashback to the early 1980s.
  78. Everybody Loves Somebody
    Everybody Loves Somebody won’t reinvent the (third) wheel, but the knowing dialogue and convincingly human characters are a refreshing break from the norm and worthy of your attention.
  79. Girl with a Pearl Earring
    Wide-eyed, open-mouthed, and silently beseeching, she's (Johansson) even more a screen for projection here than in "Lost in Translation"; surrounded by a gaggle of over-actors, she glows with understatement.
  80. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
    In the end, listing this sequel’s flaws and charms is a loser’s game, and I throw up my hands: I just had fun, maybe mostly because watching these actors brings me so much joy. There’s nothing second best about that, or about them.
  81. Whisky Galore!
    Instead of glorifying the amber liquid, Whisky Galore! is a love letter to an isolated community trapped in amber.
  82. Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
    I got a charge out of Going Upriver, but as more than one person has noted, the movie's ideal spectator would be Kerry himself.
  83. Ilo Ilo
    Small details and incidents accrete into a pointillist rendering of despair.
  84. Escapes
    When Fancher’s weathered visage finally appears, he recounts more regrets than triumphs, but in Almereyda’s affectionate biographical scrapbook, his accomplishments are small manifestations of an iconoclastic existence whose reward is a messy, cherished independence.
    • 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.
  86. Hotel Transylvania
    Although it doesn't worry itself with dialectic complexities, Hotel Transylvania succeeds on the level of entertainment.
  87. On the Job
    Matti sets a brisk pace, utilizing the squalor and desperation of Manila's slums and prisons as well as powerful, against-type performances by Torre and Pascual to give us a familiar yet engaging thriller (with more than a few surprises).
  88. #Stuck
    Acher adroitly juggles all the gimmickry, using it to comment on Holly and Guy's burgeoning relationship.
  89. Tricked: The Documentary
    The film is wisely sparing of melodramatic flair, allowing the inherent drama of the situation to horrify and harrow on its own.
    • Village Voice
      • Posted Dec 10, 2013
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Miss Bala
    The character is intentionally lightly drawn: Laura's suffering is symbolic, a surrogate for the suffering of a society helplessly caught in the crossfire.
  91. I Vitelloni [re-release]
    Moving from cafés to poolrooms to movie theaters, it's the prototypical male ensemble film.
  92. Final Portrait
    Final Portrait is, in the end, a cheer for craftsmanship.
  93. The Sons of Katie Elder
    The spectacle of people in Hollywood trying to do something different in a western at this late date is curiously reassuring. [09 Sep 1965, p.15]
    • Village Voice
  94. Danny Deckchair
    Weird, frivolous, and impossible to dislike.
  95. The Wailing
    That the film has so many partial reference points only makes the ultimate amalgamation stranger, as the chimeric whole can't be fully explained by its parts. The Wailing enters the world malformed and screaming, as powerless to stop itself as we are.
  96. The Kind Words
    The chemistry between the siblings carries the film; they share a rich banter and subtle physical affection that feels real, built on years of shared intimacy — and this new experience of ignorance.
  97. The Prey
    If the thrills it yields are expected ones, the pleasure in the formula remains.
  98. The Cider House Rules
    This adaptation of John Irving's novel--- is as paternalistic, puffed-up, and dull as a congressional debate about abortion rights.
  99. Brick
    The hair may thin considerably under Brick's hat after a while, and Hammett redone remains Hammett half done, but while the plates are in the air, it's a spectacle of nerve.
  100. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
    It's the latest installment in what now forms a lightly likable trilogy of films based on Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid books.
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