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 Promise
    As drama and spectacle, it’s not quite first-rate — I rarely feared for these characters or believed that I knew their souls, and George is too much of a humanist to wring real-life tragedy for cineplex suspense. But as a moral corrective and a call to decency it moved me.
  2. Wakefield
    Swicord turns what could be a dark or one-note premise into a sometimes charming, sometimes heartbreaking meditation on a man’s loss of self after having set out to conquer the job, wife, house, and kids he thought would make him happy.
  3. Blue Jay
    Lehmann shot Blue Jay in a gorgeous black-and-white that looks like silver gelatin prints (a photographic process that captures boundless gradations of gray), which complements the story's heartfelt simplicity.
  4. Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
    The perfect storm of homophobia, racism, and moral panic that sent the San Antonio four to prison is almost too much to cover in a ninety-minute documentary, but Esquenazi paints a tragic and humane portrait of the women who ended up in its center.
  5. A Good American
    The movie is slow, quiet, and infuriating, as Binney and his small group are undermined by Gen. Michael Hayden's NSA and inept private contractors.
  6. The Whole Truth
    This engaging courtroom drama aces the trick of grounding its ludicrousness in a convincing facsimile of reality.
  7. The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith
    The film is a treasury of photographs and anecdotes, of fleeting peeks at the celebrities (Carla Bley, Steve Reich, Jimmy Giuffre, Dalí) who passed through, but it too rarely slows down and really lets us listen — Fishko is always on to the next striking image that will too quickly pass.
  8. Tommy's Honour
    Golf's become such a ridiculously well-heeled pastime that it's refreshing to see it portrayed in its infancy, when clubs were carried like a bunch of kindling and the desolate greens of St. Andrews were more like the hazards of today's game.
  9. The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
    Palast slices through all the B.S., and while he may be over-the-top in his presentation, keep in mind, he’s got just the facts, ma’am.
  10. The Autopsy of Jane Doe
    Without the serious acting talent of its leads, this color-saturated gross-out horror could have devolved into a mess, but The Autopsy of Jane Doe proves imperfect fun even when it starts to play like CSI: Salem.
  11. Harry & Snowman
    The engaging Harry & Snowman shows the impact of a rescue animal on the man who saw his neglected qualities. It's also a succinct demonstration of the difference between a livelihood and a life's work.
  12. Asura: The City of Madness
    Winningly over-the-top Korean gangster drama Asura: The City of Madness is what you'd get if you combined The Wire with a really good soap opera.
  13. My Scientology Movie
    The film's a little choppy as Theroux takes side trips to interview other former Scientologists, but it comes together as a chilling look at America's most famous 20th-century homegrown religion.
  14. Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened
    Sondheim, Prince, and Furth discuss their creative processes and why they think the show failed. These stories make up the bulk of this film, which is sure to satisfy theater wonks, Sondheim fans, curious moviegoers and lovers of Broadway. All others need not apply.
  15. Theo Who Lived
    This film is valuable on account of its singular vantage point, and not just because of the firsthand description of the jihadist group’s brutality, which is unsurprising.
  16. National Bird
    National Bird shows that war will always be hell, even for those who aren’t on the battleground. Kennebeck directs with a cold, distant eye, almost giving her subjects the same treatment they gave all those poor souls they targeted.
  17. Disturbing the Peace
    Directors Stephen Apkon and Andrew Young reverse the usual act of border-crossing, and they do not differentiate between Arabic and Hebrew, allowing their subjects to switch between the two and subtitling both in English, signaling that the film is a space for listening, for trying to understand.
  18. Michael Moore in TrumpLand
    The biggest surprise: Older, un-messianic, and mostly eschewing cute stunts, Moore somehow makes his one-man show seem almost humble. It plays less like "I'm still here!" attention-seeking than it does a concerned citizen's act of hope.
  19. XX
    I’d rather see these shorts included in a co-ed anthology, which would allow each director’s piece to gain resonance via proximity to works of shared themes. Still, if it takes segregating the sexes to climb up to gender parity, I can overlook a slightly mismatched directing combo.
  20. Seasons
    The movie starts in an ice age, as I've said, so you can guess where it's all heading, but what you'll remember from it is the vision of a plump ol' bear snoozing in a tree in the rain.
  21. Uncle Howard
    A bit disjointed but also vibrant and loving.
  22. Finding Babel
    This lit-doc travelogue gains in power, insight, and urgency as it journeys.
  23. SiREN
    Bishop isn't afraid to leave the club behind, confidently expanding beyond the seedy premise to become a three-way chase among the bachelor party guys, the club management, and a ferocious supernatural force.
  24. Blood on the Mountain
    As consistently depressing as this movie is, it thankfully shows you that before you dismiss the denizens of an entire region as poor white trash, you should listen to their story.
  25. Don't Call Me Son
    A hazy drift through vast subjects — the fluidity of adolescence and the fragility of family — Anna Muylaert's Don't Call Me Son works best when it goes small.
  26. Apparition Hill
    It is fascinating seeing people come to a holy place — a place that's more about love and spirituality than religion — with their hearts and minds open, just looking for guidance. And whether you believe in God or not, isn't that what we all want?
  27. The Duelist
    What's most arresting is the way Mizgirev's vision of 1860s Russia shines through in the perspiration on Champagne goblets, the flicker of candlelight on faces, and the sheen of polished-steel dueling pistols.
  28. The Illinois Parables
    Stratman often juxtaposes static, serene landscape footage with an increasingly agitated soundtrack, arriving at an odd consonance amid so much dissonance.
  29. Ne Me Quitte Pas
    Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden's documentary Ne Me Quitte Pas is a grimly funny deep dive into sustained alcoholism with a classical three-act structure.
  30. Magnus
    Ree makes things easy for people who don't play chess, deftly pacing Carlsen's triumphs and failures and milking the suspense as "the Mozart of chess" employs his intuition to win, in an age when many players depend on computers to hone their skills.
  31. A Wrinkle in Time
    I was transported by DuVernay’s adaptation to the mind-set of my girlhood — embarrassing insecurities and all. This is not a cynic’s film. It is, instead, unabashedly emotional.
  32. On the Map
    The film mounts a competent offense as it shows how the Israeli squad overcame superior foes on the court and prejudice off of it.
  33. My Life as a Zucchini
    Though never sentimental, the picture is hopeful about breaking the cycle of violence.
  34. Contemporary Color
    The approach is experiential, a you-are-there-and-overwhelmed dazzlement, rather than a definitive record of each squad's big moment.
  35. The Sense of an Ending
    Batra kills the mystery part of the story and instead pushes the adaptation toward that humanism, which renders a good chunk of the plot a wash. Good thing Batra’s really adept at the human portraits, though.
  36. Alone in Berlin
    While not the most formally adventurous or action-packed picture, it is a film of compelling urgency.
  37. Manifesto
    The actress is equally committed, regardless of whether content and context click, but she soars when they do.
  38. Short Stay
    The longer exposure to this universe opens up its cruelty and indifference.
  39. Youth in Oregon
    Oregon is more than a bittersweet look at a man deciding to end his life before he’s too invalid to have a say in the matter: It’s a study of how plain ol’ stubbornness can keep a family forever brimming with dysfunction.
  40. 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.
  41. 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.
  42. Suntan
    Structurally, there’s little that’s new in Suntan. The tale of a middle-aged man delusionally pursuing youth and beauty reaches back to Thomas Mann and beyond. But Papadimitropoulos has a feel for the physicality of this world, for contrasting postures and gestures.
  43. American Fable
    The film beguiles more than it thrills, its plotting never quite measuring up to its atmosphere or its suggestions of deeper meanings.
  44. Girls Trip
    Malcolm D. Lee’s comedy, written by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver — the same creative team behind last year’s uneven Barbershop: The Next Cut — pops with next-level ribaldry and smack talk, especially in its first half. But in the remaining hour, the laughs arrive less often as the gender politics grow weirder.
  45. The Hitman's Bodyguard
    It’s exactly the movie it promises to be, but more so. It’s wilder, more hilarious, more giddily irresponsible — it’s the hard R action comedy that kids sneaking into it might imagine it’s going to be, minus Seventies- and Eighties-style nudity.
  46. Murder on the Orient Express
    Despite the bright cinematography, there’s something quaint and comforting about this film and its brand of old-fashioned storytelling, where coincidences are extremely likely, everyone somehow knows a countess, and a man puts honor above all else.
  47. German Concentration Camps Factual Survey
    German Concentration Camps Factual Survey may not teach us today much that Schindler's List, your local rabbi, or a quick Google search can't, but it remains a vital artifact of a time when Dachau and Auschwitz were not synonymous with "genocide."
  48. Reset
    Reset often seems like Demaizière and Teurlai's attempt to indoctrinate a new generation. Their glorious recruitment film espouses individual expression and athletic grace, while also pinpointing the limits of star power.
  49. We Are the Flesh
    Filmgoers who brave We Are the Flesh may regret seeing it. Forgetting it is another matter entirely.
  50. Kung Fu Yoga
    Kung Fu Yoga is a proudly silly cultural melting pot in which kung fu and Bollywood meet amicably.
  51. Sophie and the Rising Sun
    Greenwald and cinematographer Wolfgang Held linger on the idyllic beauty of the salt marsh and trees draped with Spanish moss, using the vivid cerulean of native blue crabs to link her characters.
  52. Saving Banksy
    Saving Banksy, in documenting the struggle of art consultant Brian Greif to preserve a single Banksy painting — one of the artist's trademark Che Guevara rats — inadvertently demonstrates that nearly every response to Banksy's work is wrong.
  53. Megan Leavey
    Megan Leavey is a rarity in Hollywood: a true story of a woman in combat, directed by a woman. This representation, combined with the undeniably lovable canine at its center, elevates it above the typical war film.
  54. My Name Is Emily
    My Name Is Emily gets lighter as it goes along, releasing tension and pretension for a pleasant, routine ride.
  55. The Wedding Plan
    What makes the film work is Koler's magnetic performance as Michal, who has screwball energy and a mind of her own.
  56. 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.
  57. Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends)
    This poignant documentary champions the curative powers of rock 'n' roll — and also reminds us: Always know your exits.
  58. The Little Hours
    This isn’t a laugh-a-minute movie; it’s more a succession of snickers, punctuated by genuine emotion.
  59. I don't feel at home in this world anymore.
    Lynskey’s shivering rage and Wood’s Zen incompetence play off beautifully against each other, and Blair deftly juggles the suspense, humor and social overtones of his script. Until, that is, the film’s final 30 or 40 minutes, when he settles for genre schlock and the revelatory film we thought we were watching devolves into a less interesting, more familiar one.
  60. Detroit
    Bigelow has crafted a portrait of the 1967 Detroit uprising that manages to be both history lesson and incendiary device, even if it sometimes sputters.
  61. The King's Choice
    The film is handsomely mounted, traditional in its scenecraft, superbly acted, and much less ham-handed than you might expect from a historical drama about a great man’s great moment.
  62. The Incredible Jessica James
    The Incredible Jessica James strikes me as little more than an extended sketch – somewhat formless and repetitive. But its saving grace is that, unlike a lot of sketch movies, it doesn’t rely on shtick or wink-wink contrivance.
  63. Ingrid Goes West
    It is entertaining, and often touching, even if it pulls back right when it should be going totally nuts.
  64. Wind River
    Sheridan’s feel for psychology and setting are in fine evidence here. Wind River’s landscapes are forbidding and beautiful.
  65. Beatriz at Dinner
    Beatriz, a person committed to doing good in the world, can be obtuse in reading social cues and fatiguingly sanctimonious, her wearisome traits finely calibrated by Hayek.
  66. Crown Heights
    As Colin, Stanfield is exceptional, his visage a mixture of bewilderment, humiliation, and simmering rage. His performance grounds the film, and keeps it going through its less confident patches.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Menashe
    Weinstein, who is neither a member of a Haredi community nor a speaker of Yiddish (on set, he used a translator), has created a work of interest partially because he is aware of his own distance from his subject matter.
  68. Person to Person
    Person to Person is a gently comic slices-of-life drama, the kind where a variety of people’s conflicting, occasionally overlapping experience of the city comes together into a messy whole.
  69. To the Bone
    Though To the Bone isn’t quite enjoyable to watch, it’s acted well and is, in its depiction of this all-too-pervasive disorder, essential.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Long Strange Trip
    If the story is known, this telling is lusher than any before, the film stuffed with rare archival footage and performance clips. The effect is one of coasting along amid a vast, noisy, variegated parade, vividly rendered. And that works just fine.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Age of Consequences
    Scott's filmmaking does a smooth job of linking A to B to Z, with slick, studiously understated montage and an effective music score, although some of the arguments made seem a bit of a stretch, as if climate change is being shoehorned into things artificially.
  72. Brigsby Bear
    McCary and Mooney ground this story in sincere emotion and mostly avoid straying into easy-laugh SNL shorts territory.
  73. Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back
    Wu and Lin have great chemistry, but only because Chow was smart enough to reimagine Journey to the West as a rare character-driven big-budget action-adventure — the kind of thing Americans might love if they knew it existed.
  74. Marshall
    Even in this glossy pulp fictionalization, Marshall is filled above all else with truths that still demand telling.
  75. Bokeh
    Toward the end, the filmmakers relent on all the grieving sightseeing and offers up a couple plot developments, plus colloquies on matters geo- and theological. None of this proves as arresting as Iceland’s cliffs and horses, or those first moments of a city depopulated.
  76. This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous
    Anonymous haters on YouTube can say Gigi is fake, but her enthusiasm here, and the enthusiasm her teen girl fans have in meeting her, is totally genuine.
  77. Punching Henry
    Well observed and sometimes hilarious, Punching Henry stands as a better film than The Comedian, but many fewer people will see it. That might be its truest punch line.
  78. Final Portrait
    Final Portrait is, in the end, a cheer for craftsmanship.
  79. As You Are
    Constructed as a mystery, As You Are offers glimpses into intense adolescent bonds, just enough to remind baffled onlookers that they don't have a clue.
  80. The Void
    The twisty story and imaginative monsters are enough to overcome the relatively humdrum leads.
  81. 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.
  82. The First Purge
    The First Purge actually pulls back somewhat on that sense of bloodthirsty anticipation. The violence here feels more tragic than ever, and it’s also some time coming; when Purge Night does start, the killing doesn’t begin immediately.
  83. Have a Nice Day
    The surprisingly vibrant, hand-drawn images of Have a Nice Day revitalize the story’s more tired elements. It may not give us anything new, but Jian Liu’s film looks lovely and, at 77 minutes, doesn’t overstay its welcome. And sometimes that’s enough.
  84. Nakom
    Nakom is sometimes slow-moving and occasionally succumbs to heavy-handed symbolism, contrasting images.... But the movie is commendable for centering on an atypical hero.
  85. The Freedom to Marry
    Rosenstein makes this a suspenseful legal yarn and an essential history lesson.
  86. Here Alone
    Although writer David Ebeltoft's post-apocalyptic story feels familiar at times (reminiscent of parts of Stephen King's The Stand), the scenery and Blackhurst's direction make Here Alone a verdant, suspenseful treat.
  87. War Machine
    It’s a complex subject, to say the least. And the film struggles at times with trying to make parodic jabs at a serious topic – it never quite seems to go far enough with its satire. But Pitt’s ridiculous, wildly over-the-top performance somehow keeps it all together. Whenever he’s onscreen, the film finds its soul, its heart, and its funny bone.
  88. Like Me
    Timlin so fully embodies the role of the sociopathic Kiya that this often-gruesome buffet of wild imagery bathed in hot pink impresses even with a thin, nearly nonexistent story. And Mockler’s and Jessalyn Abbott’s artfully chaotic editing style...elevates Like Me to video art.
  89. The Last Laugh
    [An] insightfully open-ended inquiry into the role of humor as it relates to unspeakable tragedy.
  90. Radio Dreams
    The film examines, with wit and patience, the hard work of community-building — and the toll on someone far from home, doing work that’s not his calling.
  91. School Life
    The central couple’s unforced benevolence is hard to resist; the bespectacled John, in particular, exhibits remarkable comfort in front of the camera, his frizzy white hair and knowing reaction shots lending him a kind of quizzical charisma throughout.
  92. Betting on Zero
    The situation is heartbreaking and frustrating. But the film is so persuasive that it could help finally tank Herbalife's shares and validate Ackman's gamble — possibly preventing thousands of others.
  93. The Transfiguration
    The Transfiguration gradually reveals itself to be a coming-of-age tale, one whose central figure reaches a point at which he’s forced to reckon with the evil lurking within himself.
  94. Hounds of Love
    Hounds may be predictable in plot, but it succeeds in making a psychological web of this troubled threesome.
  95. The Death of Louis XIV
    Delicately balanced between grandeur and absurdity, Serra's film maintains this tricky equilibrium largely thanks to the icon whose face fills the screen.
  96. Tout Va Bien
    Fonda is a co-conspirator with the filmmakers, slyly tweaking her own offscreen activities.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I, Olga Hepnarová
    A top performance for this year so far, Olszanksa's Olga is standoffish, frequently smoldering, rarely smiling, and she toes the line between intelligence and insanity.
  98. Mean Dreams
    For better or for worse, Paxton's performance will be the focus of viewers’ attention, so it is decidedly to the good that he doesn't just deliver. He gives a sort of master class on why we've loved him: Paxton was amazing in the role of regular guys, and equally compelling as the subversion of same.
  99. Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
    Tyrnauer transforms what could be a staid profile film into an urgent story about the dangers of “urban renewal,” something Jacobs herself would admire.
  100. Tickling Giants
    Tickling Giants comes off as both a fact-based look at fighting fire with funny and a prescient cautionary tale.
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