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. Home Again
    Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s cheeringly low-key debut, Home Again, offers proof that someone making movies understands what Hollywood has in Reese Witherspoon. I hope this star and this new writer-director make a habit of pairing up.
  2. Strong Island
    What emerges is a very close, tender look at the Ford family.... The film is unflinching in its portrayal of their devastation after the loss of their eldest son.
  3. The Teacher
    The setup may be as unsubtle as a metaphoric morality lesson about Europe’s not-too-distant past, or perhaps it’s politically timeless; it’s not a far leap to also think about a certain someone’s insane need for backscratching loyalty within the White House.
  4. The Layover
    It’s completely unfair to compare these characters to (say) Abbi and Ilana on Broad City, funny women who derive dignity from their friendship. But that’s a show written, created, and performed by women, while this film’s creative trust is a clueless, retrograde sausage festivus.
  5. Viceroy's House
    Using the trappings of old-fashioned romanticism, Chadha envisions the cataclysmic upheaval of millions in the traumatic lives of a few.
  6. Unlocked
    Unlocked feels like a 1970s-style conspiracy thriller, which makes it a perfect fit for the 76-year-old Apted, whose wonderfully varied career includes the James Bond flick, The World Is Not Enough.
  7. Kill Me Please
    Here adolescent wanderlust, powered by the characters’ persistent and confused arousal, continually edges against comedy and terror. Scariest as an examination of what fascinates us, this debut feature will annoy and alienate many, but it’s the work of a dynamic new talent.
  8. Jesús
    The tense final act...investigates its moral quandaries with a rigor this kind of bad-seed street-teen movie usually can’t manage.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Goon: Last of the Enforcers
    In some ways Goon: Last of the Enforcers actually manages to improve upon its forebear, connecting on jabs at a rate roughly equal to that of the earlier film but this time — if you’ll pardon yet more in the way of this figurative pugilism — mixing in some gut-punches, too.
  10. Lemon
    A grating protagonist alone does not a bad film make, but the episodic, unsatisfying Lemon revels in purposeful nails-on-a-chalkboard unlikability.
  11. Gook
    At Gook’s best, Chon captures, with sharply memorable dialogue, both the essence of his particular characters but also the broad drift of generations.
  12. Cinema Novo
    In the end, Rocha succeeds at communicating the restless spirit — if not quite the underlying substance — of the movement he documents.
  13. Bushwick
    Bushwick is a hollow, ultimately unsatisfying exercise in organized chaos.
  14. England Is Mine
    [A] muted, sometimes arresting drama.
  15. Unleashed
    Director Finn Taylor’s Unleashed is an inoffensive Hallmark card of an indie comedy, as indifferently intended by the sender as it is regarded by the recipient.
  16. Clash
    Unfortunately, Clash buckles under the weight of its many characters.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Polina
    Images planted early in the film betray the path Polina will take; when we watch her move freely in the woods and commune with a moose, we guess that ballet may not be the last stop on her professional train.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Ghost House
    Beyond the film’s ethnic stereotypes and flat characters, it needs to be scary, and it fails on that front as well.
  19. Beach Rats
    Hittman’s depictions of sexuality, emotional crisis, and parent-teen relationships are rendered here without sentimentality — and with the burning urgency of a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse.
  20. Tales of an Immoral Couple
    The film fails to sustain the exhilaration of its initial buildup.
  21. 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.
  22. The Villainess
    The Villainess is entertaining enough, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that we should be caring more for this character as the film goes on, not less.
  23. Marjorie Prime
    Leave it to Michael Almereyda (Experimenter) to make a science fiction movie that consists of little more than scenes of two characters talking in plushly appointed living rooms.
  24. Shot Caller
    Shot Caller is Coster-Waldau’s show, and he’s up to the task.
  25. Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey
    Smitten with his characters, Sanders takes the elements of teen exploitation films and fashions a simple, placid return to innocence.
  26. The Queen of Spain
    Sumptuous production and costume design coupled with José Luis Alcaine’s expert cinematography make it a feast for the eyes…but there’s not much more substance.
  27. Walk with Me
    Walk With Me (save for a few patronizing shots of nuns and monks with toys or in an amusement park) becomes a moving examination of mortality and life choices.
  28. Sidemen: Long Road to Glory
    Sidemen seems at first like a didactic cultural corrective. It’s only when Rosenbaum digs into the trio’s life stories that their historic impact becomes clear:.
  29. California Typewriter
    It’s a compelling look at a valuable contraption that’s slipping through our grasp, and will send many viewers to flea markets and eBay for one of their own.
  30. Patti Cake$
    “The white Precious,” as one rival calls her, may be trying to master a musical genre known for ingenious metaphors and similes, but Patti Cake$ rarely rises above the literal.
  31. Logan Lucky
    It’s a relief to watch a commercial movie from a director who trusts you to figure out plot points along the way.
  32. Whitney: Can I Be Me
    The film doesn’t use enough of Houston’s music.
  33. 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.
  34. Nocturama
    The film mesmerizes and alienates equally.
  35. In Pursuit of Silence
    Shen overplays his hand.
  36. Nowhere to Hide
    Both Sharif and Ahmed make sure audiences leave Nowhere to Hide well aware that Iraq remains a war zone — one where innocent people remain caught in the crossfire.
  37. Ripped
    Much of the humor in Ripped fails to inspire more than a mild chuckle at best, in part because Epstein’s deliberate pacing sucks the air out of countless scenes.
  38. Food Evolution
    Kennedy unabashedly admires scientists, and Food Evolution is his rallying cry to make advocacy as important as lab work.
  39. Good Fortune
    No doubt, these talking-head assertions about DeJoria’s charitable attitude toward work and life...are true. Alas, they’re delivered in a celebratory one-note package that feels like something cooked up by a publicity team.
  40. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press
    There’s no self-reflexive media criticism in Nobody Speak, only the simple plea for Americans to resolutely support journalism, in both principle and practice.
  41. Paulina
    The film is ultimately frustrating for the unending opacity of Paulina’s psychology.
  42. All the Rage (Saved by Sarno)
    Celebrity testimonials drown out the scientists, and Galinsky’s haphazard exploration of his own back pain is a major distraction.
  43. The Nile Hilton Incident
    The Nile Hilton Incident, despite a stylish, seedy coating, fails to even come close to the canon of greats that have influenced it.
  44. After Love
    I walked away from After Love feeling like I knew precious little about these characters. Lafosse gets so many critical things right about this decaying relationship that, at first, I did not wonder too much about the lack of specificity or detail about them as people. But later, it gnawed at me.
  45. The Trip to Spain
    It is at once a desperate echo of long-gone glories and a glory itself.
  46. Ingrid Goes West
    It is entertaining, and often touching, even if it pulls back right when it should be going totally nuts.
  47. The Only Living Boy in New York
    The boy is but a shell; it’s the men and women around him who truly come to life in this chaotic, awkward, and sporadically moving film.
  48. The Glass Castle
    Destin Daniel Cretton’s adaptation of Walls’s book of the same name just often enough bursts to raucous life.
  49. Machines
    Machines proves both uncompromising and unforgettable.
  50. The Dark Tower
    Outside of its actors, the film is unremarkable.
  51. It's Not Yet Dark
    It’s Not Yet Dark is an uplifting portrait of a debilitated man driven to excel by a relentless desire to live life and love those who surround him.
  52. Fun Mom Dinner
    A perfectly enjoyable way to spend 81 minutes.
  53. Wind River
    Sheridan’s feel for psychology and setting are in fine evidence here. Wind River’s landscapes are forbidding and beautiful.
  54. Brave New Jersey
    Lambert aims for gentle, Lake Wobegon–ish nostalgia, but the jokes never land, the undifferentiated small town confers no sense of location, and its eccentrics aren’t particularly weird.
  55. Chronically Metropolitan
    Director Xavier Manrique’s film fails to drum up more than clichés about rich-people problems.
  56. 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.
  57. Icarus
    A real-life absurdist thriller that, in its electric coverage of one Russian scandal, can’t help but illuminate another ongoing one.
  58. 4 Days in France
    Reybaud’s film similarly serves as a tonic lesson in physical specifics, each location populated with richly idiosyncratic conversation partners.
  59. Columbus
    An outwardly chilly, resolutely static film that nevertheless finds poignancy in the most surprising places, Kogonada’s directorial debut does a couple of important things so well that I can’t help but forgive the things it doesn’t.
  60. The Emoji Movie
    The film is boldly bad, yes, but also boldly boring.
  61. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World
    While overstuffed and scattershot, this episodic documentary makes a vital argument: That American popular music, especially the blues and rock ’n’ roll, owe much more to Native Americans than has been commonly credited.
  62. It Stains the Sands Red
    What could have been a wordless slog is inventive and even buoyant, as Molly crosses the baked Nevada landscape. And then, like a dog turd lurking in the middle of a jelly doughnut, a needless, brutal rape scene poisons the whole experience.
  63. 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.
  64. Water and Sugar: Carlo Di Palma, the Colours of Life
    It’s a vital and worthwhile project to unpack Di Palma’s career...but Water and Sugar misses the mark.
  65. Sled Dogs
    Levitt’s film assembles a devastating case against the practices of dog racers and trainers, who often conceive of their animals as tools to be discarded (read: shot) when no longer useful.
  66. From the Land of the Moon
    The film could be shorter and perhaps more logical, and as the soap opera drama builds, the timeline becomes muddled. Still, there’s something pleasantly old-fashioned about its commitment to grandiose emotion.
    • 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. Strange Weather
    In a quivering, bone-deep performance, Hunter takes Darcy from a mother encased in guilt to a woman who can acknowledge her shattering loss while still recognizing her right to be alive.
  69. 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.
  70. Brigsby Bear
    McCary and Mooney ground this story in sincere emotion and mostly avoid straying into easy-laugh SNL shorts territory.
  71. The Incredible Jessica James
    Strouse drops the ball with this meandering, flat film that shows few signs that he effectively coached his actors, as they rush to recite their dialogue.
  72. Atomic Blonde
    The most coherent moments of the simultaneously byzantine and dumb Atomic Blonde are its nimbly choreographed fight scenes, episodes that best show off the aloof appeal of Theron.
  73. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
    The film creates a conflicting impression: Here’s a committed wonk and public servant seizing every opportunity he can to combat what appears to be the greatest danger facing our planet. But here’s also a man who would sign off on a movie that so often sets aside his message so that we might admire him and his work.
  74. The Pulitzer at 100
    It’s nice to see everyone, but the analysis never runs too deep.
  75. The Midwife
    Not a whole lot happens in The Midwife, but there’s never a dull moment, thanks to the opposing yet equally stellar performances by the two Catherines in the lead.
  76. Killing Ground
    What the film doesn’t do, much to its credit, is make the killers into charismatically “cool” villains, à la Wolf Creek‘s Mick Taylor.
  77. The Fencer
    The Fencer is ultimately too staid: It’s at its best when Nelis shows the art of fencing to his students and the elegant yet dangerous swords are wielded.
  78. Amnesia
    Under Schroeder’s direction, Keller and Riemelt deliver wistful, earnest performances that almost make up for the script’s shortcomings.
  79. First Kill
    Christensen is impressive as a man who uses his wits and keeps cool. His straight-faced dedication is quite the contrast to the blatant disgust Willis reveals in his performance (and, really, for the whole movie). This actually makes First Kill a surprisingly fascinating study of two leading actors.
  80. Mister Universo
    His endeavor is one not of major strife but of minor flashes of magic.
  81. 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.
  82. Landline
    Few period pieces get our dynamic relationship with the now so right, or chart so smartly how the present shifts even under the feet of the youngish.
  83. Kuso
    Kuso is an astounding feat of animation, humor, and practical effects.
  84. Santoalla
    Becker and Mehrer’s film is more about place and silence than it is about tension or psychology.
  85. The Untamed
    The director’s strength is in crafting fully drawn, sympathetic characters you root for — a big accomplishment when they have to compete for audience attention with a sex monster.
  86. Our Beloved Month of August
    Transparently a movie about a group of filmmakers who attempt to possess a particular location, Our Beloved Month relaxes into a meditation on the mysteries of place, personality, and process.
  87. Dunkirk
    Nolan fully embraces the power of visual storytelling in Dunkirk.
  88. I Am the Blues
    Blues is mostly a spirited, rambling trip through the history of this American music, but that journey is under the cloud of a melancholy bleakness.
  89. Blind
    Moore’s and Baldwin’s forceful personalities power their performances, and these evenly matched partners have now invigorated both a convoluted thriller (The Juror) and a predictable romance (Blind).
  90. Footnotes
    Though it’s not without charming moments, this story of women standing up to the big bad guys is diminished by unimpressive song-and-dance numbers that feel like Michel Legrand throwaways.
  91. False Confessions
    In Luc Bondy’s largely inert False Confessions, the tedium is broken by the [Isabelle Huppert's] outfits, and by the way she moves in them.
  92. Birthright: A War Story
    The doc is thorough.
  93. Endless Poetry
    This self-reflexive ode to following muses, finding meaning in nothingness, and transcending the sensitive roadblocks between fathers and sons is loopy, irreverent, and more intensely personal than anything its mystic creator has invented before.
  94. 500 Years
    Yates’s films, like the world itself, have no template — they’re messy, rich with feeling, liberated from simple theatrical structures, always honest about what is possible. That one of hers ends with hope is a gift.
  95. 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.
  96. Chasing Coral
    The film is a devastating success, moving in its beauty and wrenching when that beauty withers: Acres of coral waste away to chalky ash before our eyes.
  97. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
    Valerian is at times so mind-meltingly beautiful and strange that I’m still not sure I didn’t just dream it all.
  98. Mali Blues
    First-time feature director Gregor never imposes a narrative arc on his subjects; instead, we meet them, hear their hopes and their fears, and then savor performances of singular beauty, power, and invention.
  99. Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry
    Here, as Berry warns, the imagination is limited by the camera. In a world in which I couldn’t buy Berry’s New Collected Poems, I might make an effort to see this again someday, with my eyes shut.
  100. The Skyjacker's Tale
    Canadian documentarian Jamie Kastner (The Secret Disco Revolution) has crafted an entertainingly kitschy version of an Errol Morris film.
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