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 Season of Men
    A very beautiful film, but its bleached desert colors and flatter perspectives are less inviting, and the back-and-forth between present and past can occasionally be confusing.
  2. 13th
    Few films shake and astonish like this one, even though nothing in it should be a surprise.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
    The film's both soothing--as an act of recording promise--and churningly emotive.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mademoiselle C
    Mademoiselle C, however, shows the reclusive style guru as the antithesis to the infamous fashion queen, and Roitfeld comes across as quite goofy and actually relatable.
  5. The Peanuts Movie
    What's surprising — even wondrous — is how often Schulz's precisely crooked line work informs the big-budget gloss.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Grand
    It has a lot of affection for its screwy characters, and it has a cast worth watching even when the plot's held captive by a bunch of boring cards.
  7. Resolution
    Ambiguity enlivens the smart, knotty Resolution, which routinely nods to its own artificiality while positing storytelling as a constantly evolving beast apt to save your life one moment and consume you the next.
  8. Hellboy
    To his credit, del Toro does not flinch from the ridiculous. But he is equally sensitive to Hellboy's pulp poetry.
  9. Two Men in Town
    Blethyn is wonderful as an all-too-rare character, a middle-aged woman who holds her own in a position of authority over violent men.
  10. East Side Sushi
    This lovely debut film contains all the ingredients of a culture-clash drama, which Lucero handles with a light touch.
  11. I Smile Back
    Silverman has taken serious, or at least semi-serious, roles before, but she's never had a part that demanded so much of her. She has been open about her own battles with depression, but what makes her turn here work is that it isn't nakedly expressive.
  12. North Sea Texas
    Director Bavo Defurne fills the frame with warm, bright color and the lovely austerity of the Belgian seaside, angling for a soulful, slightly hyperreal comedy rather than the pursuit of a political agenda or a boring awareness-raising endeavor.
  13. One Hour Photo
    Romanek's movie is a bit too pat and pleased with its undeniable ambitions, but the setup resonates with quiet desperation. There's not a single vicarious glorch.
  14. Life Partners
    Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz's script captures the girls' relationship in fine detail.
  15. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
    The third installment, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb may be the best, and even the generally wound-too-tight Ben Stiller — once again playing a bemused Museum of Natural History guard — is easy to tolerate.
  16. Supporting Characters
    Frequently funny, Schechter's movie is also shrewd in its handling of the tensions between longtime friends and co-workers as professional opportunities dwindle and off-the-job romantic drama trickles into the cutting room.
  17. About Scout
    Weltz presents events through the sunny filter of Scout's resourceful optimism. Every obstacle is viewed as a creative challenge.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dogtooth
    Director Giorgos Lanthimos lays out the rules largely through action rather than exposition, which allows Dogtooth to play as a richly satisfying, blackly comic mystery in spite of its delayed, horror-sourced housebreak plot.
  19. Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance
    A deeply archived and circumspect history of the Joffrey dance company, Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance does a perfect white swan but has trouble developing much of a personality.
  20. 24 Hour Party People
    As a historical document, 24 Hour Party People may be most meaningful to fans whose epiphanies were experienced at least one remove away -- at a different place or time.
  21. Cinemanovels
    Equally seductive as it is inert, Terry Miles' Cinemanovels manages to cast an alluring spell, despite not amounting to much. It sticks in the memory, mostly due to the playful lead performance by Lauren Lee Smith.
  22. Ouija
    First-time director Stiles White's effective use of long takes and director of photography David Emmerichs's wide-angle digital cinematography make an otherwise generic teen ghost story unexpectedly atmospheric.
  23. Becks
    With Becks, directors Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell have crafted an understated musical that really works, thanks to Alyssa Robbins’s heartfelt music and standout performances from the cast.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Stop for Paul
    Crisply shot on a lightweight camcorder, Last Stop for Paul leaves the prevailing impression of an amiable, homespun travelogue done in the style of Bruce Brown's "Endless Summer."
  25. Garbage Dreams
    With new problems come new opportunities, and Garbage Dreams smartly focuses on a younger generation of teenage workers who stand to benefit from the Zaballeen's new focus on education and updated techniques.
  26. The Strange Case of Angelica
    de Oliveira's film is a musical of a sort, its quietude occasionally lifted by work songs or chorales.
  27. We Are What We Are
    This promising first feature is nearly as apt to use the power of suggestion as to ladle up the gore, triumphantly creepy, and just arty enough to have secured a slot in last year's New York Film Festival.
  28. The Memory of a Killer
    Van Looy has created a fast-paced and stylish thriller. Declair's Ledda, marvelously suave and vulnerable, provides most of the pathos.
  29. Brother Nature
    There's nothing new in the friction between these characters, but it's fun to watch a couple of pros showboating on the field, even when the stakes aren't high.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Been Rich All My Life
    The Silver Belles are bold, brash, and gorgeously awake, and their willingness to live large is thrilling.
  31. Shah Bob
    Shah Bob may be languid, interrupted by Rockford-style freeze-frames, but it's also intimate and captivating, and it calls to mind indie films from before Sundance made them mostly another Hollywood commodity.
  32. Gilbert
    In Neil Berkeley’s documentary Gilbert, we’re gifted with intimate moments from the comedian’s life.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Paprika
    Paprika, based on a serialized novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, isn't a movie that's meant to be understood so much as simply experienced--or maybe dreamed.
  34. Weekend of a Champion
    The result is a pleasure, perhaps as much for audiences as for Polanski; it's a chance to luxuriate in the atmosphere of world-class Formula One, here a lavish free-love party interrupted now and again by a few laps on the track.
  35. Revolutionary Road
    Revolutionary Road isn't a great movie -- it lacks the full, soul-crushing force of the novel -- but what works in it works so well, and is so tricky to pull off, that you can't help but admire it.
  36. Midnight Special
    Nichols has a light touch when it comes to genre, which is Midnight Special's great blessing and curse.
  37. The Brothers Bloom
    Johnson has infused The Brothers Bloom with so much heart and beauty that one can and should easily overlook its discomfiting moments. The truth is, the film's even more profound and touching upon second viewing.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Written on the Wind
    Basically, this is slick magazine stuff, pretty trashy, but so entertainingly and professionally done that you can't help having one hell of a good time. [20 Feb 1957, p.6]
    • Village Voice
  39. The Keeping Room
    The film's frustrating, fascinating, at times too eager to shock. But it's also daring and eccentric.
  40. Nasty Baby
    Nasty Baby isn't satisfying. But on Silva's terms, it makes sense.
  41. Our Brand Is Crisis
    David Gordon Green's Our Brand Is Crisis is a horror film wrapped in fast-talking political comedy.
  42. Nana
    Nana’s most stirring moment comes when Dykman and her mother reveal the moment when they went from merely knowing about the Holocaust to truly understanding it.
  43. The Interpreter
    The Kidman character is an exotic--and even unlikely--creature, usefully fueling Penn's annoyed but fascinated incredulity.
  44. Free to Run
    The philosophical underpinnings of Swiss director Pierre Morath's well-paced documentary about the evolution of long-distance running evoke the motto of neighboring France: liberté, égalite, fraternité.
  45. Obscene
    Very fine documentary.
  46. The Secret of the Grain
    Escalates into visceral allegory with an abandon and cruelty that seem positively Romanian. The last 30 minutes more than redeem the preceding two hours.
  47. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
    Though it's a little slow to start and some of the humor clunks, the film features a wholesome charm, some truly dazzling effects (the Lincoln Memorial alone is worth it), and enough mild, parent-nip in-jokes to keep all but the stone-hearted happy.
  48. The Girlfriend Experience
    Grey isn't the first porn actress to go straight, but she may be the first to allegorize her own situation--projecting an on-screen self-confidence that’s indistinguishable from pathos.
  49. 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.
  50. Yarn
    The film offers fascinating insight into what yarn can do in the talented hands of those determined to elevate mere craft to high art.
  51. In Her Shoes
    The best moments belong to Shirley MacLaine, who makes the clipped script sing as Ella.
  52. The Other Dream Team
    Watching Sabonis and company deliver comeuppance to their former rulers on the hardwood, I fully expect The Other Dream Team to join "Do You Believe in Miracles?" and "Undefeated" in your inspirational-sports-doc rotation.
  53. This Ain't No Mouse Music
    Strachwitz's enthusiasm — "This ain't no mouse music!" he's given to shouting — and a brace of choice anecdotes prove compelling on their own.
  54. The Broken Circle Breakdown
    The Broken Circle Breakdown crashes as frequently as it soars, but the ache at its center feels real.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Kid Could Paint That
    What began as a human-interest story for filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev led down stranger paths than the Duchampian conundrums of modern art.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
    John and John, it cannot be denied, are charming, witty, adorable, and quite capable of rocking.
  57. American Teen
    Even when it's ripping off "Juno" and "The Hills," American Teen is fascinating in the way of every good documentary--the more time you spend with anyone, the more they surprise you.
  58. Home
    Ursula Meier's confident, appealingly bizarre theatrical debut.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    As I Open My Eyes
    This debut feature earns its grown-up wisdom without selling out its youthful idealism.
  60. Extraordinary Ordinary People
    Folklorist Alan Govenar has dedicated himself to exalting their work in dozens of books and films. His knowledge and affection are contagious, but this enjoyable documentary is a sampler plate crammed with bite-size pieces that only hint at the original fare’s distinctive flavors.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Only Human
    Intermittently hilarious.
  62. Echotone
    Too vital for elegy, Echotone tells an old story whose beginning - the inception of a vibrant creative hub - remains mysterious, although the end is easy to predict.
  63. The Waiting Room
    What makes The Waiting Room worth visiting is how well it does without the usual narcotizing documentary tactics.
  64. The Pearl Button
    The voiceover is lyric, the oceanscapes majestic, the anthropology fascinating, and the connections more quizzical and uncertain than in Nostalgia for the Light. This time you have to look harder to follow him.
  65. Make-Out with Violence
    The product of a genuinely unique sensibility, the sort-of-zombie-movie Make-Out With Violence is inventive without being twee, quirky without being overly Wes Anderson, and suffused with a late-adolescent sense of longing as palpably felt as it is understated.
  66. Contemporary Color
    The approach is experiential, a you-are-there-and-overwhelmed dazzlement, rather than a definitive record of each squad's big moment.
  67. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
    Without Segel bravely channeling "his own anxieties and obsessions into his clowning," as Pauline Kael wrote about Woody Allen 24 years ago, Forgetting Sarah Marshall would have been easily forgettable and, one might even say, limp.
  68. The Final Member
    the shock factor was to be expected from the get-go, and so it's not all that shocking. What is compelling, however, is the weird way this film demonstrates the supreme emotional effectiveness of a simple quest narrative.
  69. Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone
    As a visceral experience, it’s entrancing, especially during Shinji’s fight sequences, when his anxieties are cruelly exacerbated by having his body and mind symbiotically bonded to his father’s combat toy.
  70. The Secret Life of Pets
    The Secret Life of Pets is an ADD-addled mess of a movie — and that, amazingly, is its charm.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    L'ennui
    The plump, Rubenesque Guillemin steals the show. Her understated simplicity is her strength -- this is one of the major movie debuts of recent years.
  72. Planet of Snail
    An unadorned, unsentimental portrait of a marriage, Yi Seung-jun's documentary Planet of Snail celebrates the daily life of an exceptionally collaborative couple.
  73. Where Soldiers Come From
    Much of what's presented is familiar territory, but it's the moments that fracture prejudices and expectations that stick with you.
  74. Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer
    Yudin's surface-level portrait looks for deeper truths, but finds them in unexpected ways.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hip Hop Project
    From domestic strife to studio triumph, the most impressive accomplishment of Project is not the student-made album, but that when Kazi says cheesy things like "This is healing through hip-hop," you actually believe him.
  76. Life Inside Out
    Strong, understated performances from Baird and O'Connell bring real intimacy to their characters' sometimes-strained mother-son dynamic.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jar City
    Here, the movie's urgency lies mostly in its convincing cast, its varied urban-to-pastoral locations (in light that ranges from harsh to bilious), and its cold-pro handling of familiar genre machinery, made fresh by unusual detail--such as the investigator's fast-food predilection for sheep heads.
  78. Kong: Skull Island
    In the struggle between sober subtext and monster-movie goofiness, the goofiness mostly wins out.
  79. Finding Amanda
    By keeping the tone light, the players human (Steve Coogan has a nice turn as a greasy casino host), and never, ever romanticizing the addict, Finding Amanda comes by its heartbreak honestly.
  80. Come te nessuno mai
    For a quality horny-Italian-teen frolic, you need look no further.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Littlerock
    Atsuko the character doesn't speak English; Atsuko the actress, speaking mostly un-subtitled Japanese when she speaks at all, gives a performance that's a marvel of nonverbal reaction.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Herblock: The Black & the White
    Herblock: The Black & The White falters in cheesy dramatizations of young Herblock with his father, or the off-putting and confusing scripted—based on the real Herblock's speeches and writings—interview with older Herblock (Alan Mandell), but it makes up for it by showing history through Herblock's art.
  83. The Short Game
    The film works not just because it makes golf enjoyable to watch, but also because, by the end, you get to know these kids. It would be nice to see how they're doing in seven years.
  84. Sicko
    It’s as a rhetorician that Moore is most original and effectively demagogic.
  85. 3 Hearts
    The film is so unabashed in showing the place of passion in a bourgeois world, how a missed connection can screw up a life forever, that plot implausibilities are forgiven.
  86. Kaboom
    Kaboom does have an excellent punchline, although even at 86 minutes it feels too long-mainly because Araki can't help letting his camera linger over his performers. Hard to blame him-he's assembled the best-looking cast in town and it's largely his gaga appreciation that makes the movie so much fun.
  87. Incredibles 2
    Incredibles 2 is at its best — which is to say, its funniest and most exciting — when it tackles the internal dynamics of the family itself.
  88. Motherland
    Motherland opens with a 24-year-old woman already on her fifth pregnancy — just one of many such cases that director Ramona S. Diaz reveals in the vérité-style documentary, which recalls the observational techniques and insights of the films of Frederick Wiseman.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
    In briskly edited sequences peppered with fascinating found footage, each genre is tightly linked to a neighborhood.
  90. Art and Craft
    Despite some cutesiness, the film’s a fascinating portrait of loneliness, of talent undirected toward purpose, of the mysteries of the mind.
  91. The Astronaut Farmer
    This movie works precisely because it's bereft of modern cinema's cynicism.
  92. Foxcatcher
    Foxcatcher is merely a very, very good character study with acting so fine that it's frustrating it's not in the service of a real, emotional wallop.
  93. Water Lilies
    French director Céline Sciamma doesn't quite have the stun of discovery--mortified adolescent sexuality is something of a national specialty, after all--but she inexhaustibly endeavors after the indelible image.
  94. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
    A loud and frequently funny clown show, Full Throttle is less a grim demolition derby than a day at Coney Island, punctuated by the clatter and screams of the Cyclone.
  95. 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.
  96. Harmony and Me
    Slight, indifferently shot, and entirely lacking in ballast, Harmony and Me's sole justification for being is that it's consistently very funny.
  97. Ip Man 2
    A redundant if nonetheless occasionally thrilling follow-up bolstered by star Donnie Yen's precision combat skills.
  98. The Discoverers
    The dysfunction may be perfunctory, but in this gorgeous natural setting — Schwarz makes full use of the stunning woods — it feels like new territory.
  99. The Human Resources Manager
    Tender irony and dark humor abound in Israeli director Eran Riklis's latest account of bureaucracy colliding with burgeoning compassion.
  100. Master of the Universe
    Bauder's film is a diagnosis of a system that is hopelessly sick and not being treated. Bring a stress ball to squish up as you watch.
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