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. The Light of the Moon
    The frank ways in which Thompson and Beatriz channel Bonnie make it clear that there’s a lot of respect for this complex character navigating life-altering trauma.
  2. Maya Dardel
    Is Maya Dardel serious? The regal Lena Olin plays her with frank ferocity and arrogant certainty, but so much about the grandiose poet borders on parody.
  3. Thank You for Your Service
    It’s not always effective drama, but as an example for thousands of struggling American families, it’s a serious breakthrough.
  4. Abundant Acreage Available
    After a lifetime of routine punctuated by loss, these aging adults fall back into roles as children and siblings. Treading common ground, they seek comfort in the suffocating succor of family, afraid to release the burdens that grief will unleash.
  5. Novitiate
    There’s a lot of great filmmaking in Novitiate, but there’s also quite a bit still missing.
  6. All I See Is You
    It defeats expectations, but it’s far more arresting and captivating a romance because Forster infuses it with suspenseful urgency. I have to admire the guts of a director who portrays the dissolution of a mismatched marriage with the dread of a murder mystery.
  7. The Square
    Östlund is specific and exacting as a writer and director, and within The Square’s empty spaces, we’re forced to confront our own values, and our own visions of ourselves.
  8. Deliver Us
    The filmmakers observe rather than interview or investigate, and much of the film is footage of actual church-sanctioned exorcisms.
  9. BPM (Beats Per Minute)
    Campillo’s focus on these charismatic characters, who bicker constantly but pick one another up the second they fall (sometimes literally), makes their present so thrilling that we don’t focus on what bleak future may await them.
  10. The Paris Opera
    Unfortunately, the film has nothing much to say other than that the enterprise is inherently complicated — which isn’t point enough for 111 minutes of screen time.
  11. A Silent Voice
    It has some interesting visuals, but A Silent Voice demands investment in the redemption of someone who’s impossible to root for.
  12. Never Here
    Up through the ambiguous ending, Thoman withholds the story’s bigger puzzle pieces, which is satisfying when the focus is on Miranda’s quietly traumatic unraveling. Yet as a mystery, Never Here teases too much naturalism to get away with the haunting abstruseness Lynch does in his masterful return to Twin Peaks.
  13. Killing Gunther
    It’s little more than a diverting sketch, but its characters justify its ninety minutes, and Killam’s unremitting enthusiasm is occasionally contagious.
  14. Jungle
    While the horror director successfully distills Ghinsberg’s spare prose into a succession of terrifying images, McLean can’t seem to help straying into the tackier elements of horror.
  15. Tragedy Girls
    If Scream and Heathers shacked up and had murderous, millennial offspring, it might look a lot like Tragedy Girls.
  16. One of Us
    The film is a nuanced and moving illustration of the dilemma facing doubting members of the growing Hasidic community in New York City.
  17. Tempestad
    Huezo’s approach situates us right there beside Miriam — it’s as if a new acquaintance is unburdening herself to trek south together.
  18. Tom of Finland
    The film is jammed with incident and detail but there’s little flow to the storytelling.
  19. Breathe
    The film lives up to its own characters’ thesis: that disability need not define a person — or even the film about that person.
  20. Wonderstruck
    There is so much packed in here; Wonderstruck is simultaneously the densest and loosest film Haynes has made. And, like many stories based on books for children, much of it makes more emotional than logical sense.
  21. Human Flow
    You’re right not to trust a film critic who calls a movie “stunning.” But let me say this about Human Flow, the epic new documentary surveying the scope of the global refugee crisis, from Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei: It stunned me, in the truest sense of the word.
  22. Jane
    There are no loose ends or wasted time; everything builds to a rising crescendo that makes you feel like your heart is going to burst. The immense strength of this remarkable woman is on such powerful display that, twenty minutes into the film, tears welled from my eyes and did not stop, even after I left the theater.
  23. 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!
  24. Te Ata
    Nathan Frankowski’s biopic has the saccharine, deliberate feel of a Hallmark movie, that doesn’t make the woman at its center any less inspirational.
  25. Monogamish
    Instead of finding one answer to his question, Ruspoli takes the film’s title to heart, ending Monogamish on a big ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
  26. Sylvio
    Birney and Audley have an impressive visual sense — the smart framing and thrifty, ingenious production design (by Peter Davis) at times suggest a Wes Anderson–directed installment of Between Two Ferns — and also the good sense to lean on Birney’s nuanced physical performance.
  27. Marshall
    Even in this glossy pulp fictionalization, Marshall is filled above all else with truths that still demand telling.
  28. B&B
    Ahearne deftly builds the suspense, raising the stakes before steering the story into surprising new directions. Despite its modern premise, B&B feels classic — a Hitchcockian nail-biter without a platinum blonde in sight.
  29. Diamond Island
    Maybe this is a mood more than a movie, but it is a haunting one.
  30. The Departure
    Wilson’s film, a quiet wonder, emphasizes the courage it takes to choose the hard work of living.
  31. Thy Father's Chair
    This immersive, richly detailed snapshot of hoarders undergoing a mandated apartment cleaning is equal parts horror film and existential howl.
  32. 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.
  33. For Ahkeem
    Levine and Van Soest (who are both white) deserve credit for eliding or treating obliquely a number of seemingly obvious narrative beats.
  34. Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
    The most exceptional element of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women might actually be its comforting, radical normalcy.
  35. Only the Brave
    Only the Brave is a visually splendid, spellbinding, and surreal movie that also happens to be an emotionally shattering, over-the-top ugly-cry for the ages.
  36. Lucky
    Lynch has crafted an almost proudly minor work, a hangout movie whose reason for being is Stanton’s presence.
  37. The Florida Project
    Though Moonee’s story may not have a Hollywood happy ending when she’s grown and the world has been cruel, Baker has created an indomitable character who’s at least got a fighting chance.
  38. Una
    There’s nothing wrong with stylization and opening things up (usually, these are good things), and Andrews has impressive command of his frame. But here, the extra-cinematic adornments seem somewhat unnecessary, as Una’s chief power lies in its two striking lead performances.
  39. The Mountain Between Us
    Despite some frightening (and effective) scenes of slippery slopes and aggravated wildlife, the film’s heart lies in watching these characters discover in themselves and each other the will to press on.
  40. Better Watch Out
    It’s only October, but Christmas has come early for horror fans.
  41. Walking Out
    It’s a beautiful movie about unthinkable things.
  42. Earth: One Amazing Day
    This is the type of lightly educational, aesthetically appealing, big-hearted nature film that makes for ideal family viewing.
  43. The Osiris Child
    Such is the case of The Osiris Child, a series of scenes that cut away from interesting developments to flashbacks with a vengeance, as though “interesting developments” killed director Shane Abbess’s dog.
  44. Brawl in Cell Block 99
    This film is unusually slow-paced for its genre, but Zahler’s screenplay is driven by a solid central character and dialogue that might have made Elmore Leonard sit up straight.
  45. Assholes
    What begins as revolting and off the rails peters out into a weak-sauce final payoff presented as an intervention-themed reality show, so tired and quaintly stupid it no longer offends.
  46. Super Dark Times
    Both a thriller and meditation on the loss of innocence, Super Dark Times is rich with the minutiae of a bygone era...but Phillips and screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski press hard against the instinct for nostalgia.
  47. Surviving Peace
    As amateurish as its 1990-grade VHS title graphics, Surviving Peace is possibly the clunkiest — and most one-sided — film ever made about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
  48. Take My Nose... Please!
    Take My Nose…Please! rescues plastic surgery from Hollywood’s “did they or didn’t they?” gossip and reality television’s odious voyeurism with a nuanced, empathetic (and often funny) introduction to a few women, mostly comedians, who’ve had work done or are considering it.
  49. AlphaGo
    The horror film of 2017 is AlphaGo, a documentary about an artificial intelligence program designed to play Go – the oldest and most complex board game in the world – that feels like it’s sounding the alarm for the human race’s impending extinction.
  50. Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
    Curiously drab and airless, tinted to a distracting bluish miasma that suggests an advertisement for antidepressants, Peter Landesman’s Mark Felt is the wrong movie at the right time.
  51. Dina
    Dina is a story about resilience and a woman’s indomitable will to seek out her best life.
  52. Blade Runner 2049
    Careful, dutiful, and beautiful, Blade Runner 2049 cannot achieve the sublime slipperiness of Scott’s masterpiece. Whether it even needs to is up to you.
  53. Loving Vincent
    An engrossing exploration of the artist’s final days rendered in his signature painting style.
  54. Realive
    Realive’s greatest strength is that it takes its premise so seriously, engaging with its moral and spiritual questions.
  55. Literally, Right Before Aaron
    The film ends with a riff on the final moments of The Graduate, a frustrating suggestion of a much better work.
  56. Gerald's Game
    With rasps and desperate eyes, Gugino communicates Jessie’s thinking and planning so powerfully that cutaways to that other Jessie, the chatty vision, egging her on, prove redundant.
  57. Bugs
    It’s gently comic, a touch naïve, and somewhat moving: These idealists are ready to fight to keep creepy-crawlies farm to table.
  58. I Am Another You
    An excellent, intuitive study of American wanderlust.
  59. American Made
    American Made is his first effort in a long while that feels like an honest-to-god Tom Cruise movie; suddenly, his smile means something again. But there’s one huge, beautiful catch: Doug Liman’s electric film is clear-eyed about the cynicism and corruption beneath its hero’s anxious grin. It voraciously breaks down both the star and the country he has symbolized for so much of his career.
  60. Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy
    Over the course of its simple, unadorned 82 minutes, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Hissein Habré: A Chadian Tragedy wrecks you in ways you might not have known were possible.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bobbi Jene
    Bobbi Jene gives you a taste of how a choreographer works, but mainly registers how she feels. The mostly-female production team stays rigorously focused on her effort to have it all, and on the price she pays.
  62. Battle of the Sexes
    Stone and Carell ace both the warmth and the competitive camaraderie of that relationship. But when Billie and Bobby interact with anyone else in this story — love interests in particular — woo, boy, does Battle of the Sexes whiff the serve.
  63. Shot
    The gun-control message is so rote that it’s of secondary interest to the film’s ambitious structure.
  64. Last Rampage
    Even though this dusty bit of true crime is limp and flimsy as hell, Last Rampage does give a few seasoned actors the opportunity to chew all the scenery they can in a 93-minute movie.
  65. Boston
    Boston, Jon Dunham’s film about that city’s marathon, is a contender — an emotional comeback story, interspersed with thrilling moments in its history, without gloss, cliche or even nostalgia.
  66. 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.
  67. Stronger
    It’s almost as if, in their fascination with trauma, the filmmakers have forgotten entirely what everyday life looks like.
  68. Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous
    It’s all a curious humanist experiment with anecdotal surprises and whimsy, but its motives aren’t in sharp focus like Doyle’s hotshot imagery.
  69. The Tiger Hunter
    Immigrant stories certainly don’t demand tragedy to be legitimate, but The Tiger Hunter, with its pastiche of fish-out-of-water comedy and pointy collared shirts, ultimately feels weightless.
  70. Elizabeth Blue
    Elizabeth inspires empathy, but it often feels like we’re being told to feel a certain way by being shown so much rather than being allowed to naturally warm up to her.
  71. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
    The movie has its moments, but the bloat and the blandness take their toll.
  72. 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.
  73. Brad's Status
    Brad’s Status remains grounded in reality — it’s gentle, human and unresolved. I loved it, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch it again.
  74. Rememory
    Palansky had the good sense to let the performances elevate the material, never letting this turn into another cheesy, predictably twisty yarn.
  75. Against the Night
    Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia is the unscary film’s only source of spookiness.
  76. Easy Living
    The film deserves some credit for not becoming a weepie or, conversely, making Sherry the butt of a joke, but while Dhavernas’s performance and director Adam Keleman’s penchant for soft colors in a harsh world add intrigue, it leaves a frustrating aftertaste.
  77. Red Trees
    In the end, this relentlessly scenic travelogue/valentine is Willer literally giving her old man peace of mind.
  78. Alina
    It’s all rather implausible, as is how all those cinema luminaries Barenholtz once nurtured seem to have no impact on his style-free storytelling.
  79. Woodpeckers
    An uncharacteristically melodramatic final act...betrays how grounded (and true to real life) the rest of the movie is.
  80. Wetlands
    A suitably haunted Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje can’t reconcile Babs’s impulsive actions with the character’s implied moral core.
  81. Dayveon
    Amman Abbasi’s lush and tender here’s-what-life’s-like debut, Dayveon, captures, in scenes of pained beauty, an adolescent wanderlust that Abbasi’s camera just seems to be observing.
  82. Rat Film
    What exactly does it all mean? I’m not sure, but it does make for a disturbing and occasionally absorbing watch.
  83. Strong Island
    For all its raw pain, Strong Island is also a scrupulously shaped work, one of striking compositions and juxtapositions, its faces and revelations presented with artful, thoughtful rigor.
  84. Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards
    Manolo might be a hard sell to moviegoers who aren’t already interested, but for fashion enthusiasts, it’s an enjoyable confection.
  85. The Future Perfect
    With unpretentious formal rigor and a lighthearted deadpan, the film tracks Xiaobin’s development through self-reflexive escalation.
  86. First They Killed My Father
    This is Jolie’s most accomplished work yet.
  87. Indivisible
    Indivisible is above all else a mood piece humming with energy and marked by wondrous moments.
  88. White Sun
    Adopting the philosophy of neorealism, Rauniyar reveals the overarching forces (religion, caste, patriarchy) that forge Nepali communities, but his characters are also profoundly shaped by individual decisions.
  89. 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.
  90. 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.
  91. Man in Red Bandana
    The short-subject treatment serves as a challenge that, in eighty minutes, writer-director Matthew Weiss doesn’t meet.
  92. Year by the Sea
    It’s less the story of a woman taking a year off from city life and her husband than it is a pleasant revue of sketches and scenarios on that topic.
  93. The Unknown Girl
    As we watch Haenel — whose piercing gaze is only one aspect of her luminosity — stride through these overdetermined scenes, clutching a medical bag to her side, we are reminded that even the most timeworn of conventions can be made electric and alive.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Limehouse Golem
    Director Juan Carlos Medina depicts a grim city perpetually shrouded in fog the color and consistency of pea soup. He makes the murders appropriately gory, but not over the top. Yet a storyline involving anti-Semitism threatens to upend the compelling detective tale.
  95. Rebel in the Rye
    This thanklessly watchable film, recut since its mixed Sundance premiere, may not warrant Holden Caulfield’s trademark judgment of phoniness — but, like any clichéd writing, deserves rejection.
  96. Nobody's Watching
    There’s nothing fussy about any shot of Nobody’s Watching, but there’s also no shot wasted, and no shot that doesn’t communicate something vital about the city or her protagonist.
  97. The Force
    The Force is hypnotic and eye-opening. Nicks has a style that is both experiential and ethereal: From its ground-level immersion in the minutiae of police work to its sweeping helicopter shots of the city at night, The Force has the texture of a Michael Mann film combined with the clarity of a Frederick Wiseman documentary.
  98. Spettacolo
    Is this art or is this prophecy? Is there even a difference?
  99. It
    The critic seems less interested in the scares and the suspense — a shame, since IT is filled with them — and more in the kids themselves.
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