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. Kaili Blues
    First-time writer-director Bi Gan and cinematographer Wang Tianxing infuse the imagery with a feeling at once otherworldly and familiar — the kind of thing you can't put a name to but would swear you've already experienced.
  2. The Fallen Idol (re-release)
    The Fallen Idol has been overshadowed by the noir comedy, giddy style, and Cold War thematics of Reed and Greene's subsequent sensation "The Third Man," but (in similarly dealing with the nature of betrayal) The Fallen Idol is actually a superior psychological drama.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    Nicholas Jarecki's The Outsider is among the great docs about moviemaking.
  4. Gabrielle
    At once robust and ethereal, this is an existential ghost story, with fresh blood pulsing through its veins.
  5. Dancing in Jaffa
    Medalia, as an Israeli, knows this bumpy territory well and serves up her story sensitively, but with its difficulties unvarnished and unsolved. She focuses on a few children whom we get to know well enough to care very much about their progress.
  6. Above and Below
    The film is a wonder of desert skies, slick tunnels, bumptious fence- and wall-climbing, and occasional staged reveries.
  7. Happy as Lazzaro
    Lazzaro Felice has genuine sweep and grandeur, and Rohrwacher’s most impressive feat here might be her ability to find just the right narrative and emotional distance for each section of the story, as it moves from rustic drama to picaresque journey to more pointed social allegory; we’re always given just enough information to understand and appreciate the characters’ interactions and motivations.
  8. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
    Goldfine and Geller pace and structure The Galapagos Affair like the true-crime tale that it is, its mysteries rich and involving, its characters enduring in the imagination long after the film has ended.
  9. What Happened, Miss Simone?
    Garbus's film is a portrait of a soul torn apart by forces beyond it and within it.
  10. Shanghai Noon
    Unstintingly funny -- far more so than the wince-worthy trailer -- owing to Chan's pairing with droll indie eccentric Owen Wilson, as his would-be gunslinger sidekick.
  11. Heli
    A dead-eyed, lyrical art film that kicks you in the throat.
  12. Marooned in Iraq
    This lusty, heartfelt movie has a near Brueghelian visual energy and a humanist passion as contagious as its music.
  13. Seaside
    Compare it to what passes for sophisticated filmmaking in this country and the movie becomes a living instrument of cinematic humanism: lovingly intent on observing, not judging; concerned with sympathy, not control; accepting the inevitable ambiguities, not denying them.
  14. Heaven Knows What
    In the thinly veiled version of her life that appears onscreen, the actress unforgettably shows the deadening toll of always being on the move, only to return to the exact same place.
  15. Cinderella
    Like all of Branagh's films, even some of the bad ones, Cinderella is practically Wagnerian in its ambitions — it's so swaggering in its confidence that at times it almost commands us to like it. But it's also unexpectedly delicate in all the right ways, and uncompromisingly beautiful to look at.
  16. The Shape of Water
    It speaks both to del Toro’s confidence and generosity that, having designed this world so thoroughly, he essentially hands the whole thing over to Hawkins — not just so she can breathe life into her own character, but so she can conjure all the emotional connections required for any of this to work on any level. And my god, how she runs with it.
  17. Buster's Mal Heart
    It’s science fiction that’s complex, thoughtful and funny, like 12 Monkeys or Primer run through a Fargo filter.
  18. Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
    A film that's in perfect sync with its subject.
  19. I, Tonya
    Those expecting camp or catfights won’t find them in Gillespie’s movie, which instead offers thoughtful and somewhat objective critiques, plus much seriously dark humor that’ll elicit a lot of uncomfortable gasps of laughter — and invites you to ponder difficult truths.
  20. Adventureland
    I've seen Mottola's movie twice, and both times, it has inspired feelings of joy, sadness, and a profound yearning for the unrecoverable past.
  21. One Week and a Day
    Rambling in the best manner imaginable, it’s an amusingly heartbreaking (and hopeful) portrait of misery’s messiness.
  22. Children of Men
    It's a measure of Cuarón's directorial chops that Children of Men functions equally well as fantasy and thriller. Like Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and the Wachowski Brothers' "V for Vendetta" (and more consistently than either), the movie attempts to fuse contemporary life with pulp mythology.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Annie Hall
    Woody Allen and Diane Keaton sparkle like a Larry Hart lyric in this comical-lyrical reminiscence of a lost love. The one-liners are more brilliant than ever, and laid-back L.A. will never seem the same again. [04 July 1977, p.40]
    • Village Voice
  24. The Thin Red Line
    As mystical as it is gritty, as despairing as it is detached.
  25. Boxing Gym
    Boxing Gym is a companion piece of sorts to "La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet," Wiseman's previous doc that played Film Forum last fall. It's not simply that boxing and ballet are understood as kindred activities. Boxing Gym is itself a dance movie-which is to say, a highly formalized exercise in choreographed activity.
  26. Ascent
    In Fiona Tan’s glorious ode to a Japanese volcano, Mount Fuji is both geological marvel and malleable symbol, its solidity and grandeur inspiring conquest and contemplation.
  27. I Believe in Unicorns
    The performances are strong, the imaginary visions are suggestive and fleeting, and the film as a whole is swoony, tender, skittish, a little scary — in short, this is what young love feels like. More Meyerhoff, please!
  28. 42: Forty Two Up
    The 7Up series is thus one of the rare documentaries to have had a positive practical effect on the life of at least one of its subjects.
  29. The Sleepwalker
    Just in time for Thanksgiving, it's your yearly "hell is family members" film. However, The Sleepwalker distinguishes itself from most entries in this angst-ridden genre by way of superb writing, smoldering performances, and hauntingly beautiful imagery from first-time director Mona Fastvold.
  30. Baby Driver
    Baby Driver is an almost perfect pastiche, a thoroughly enjoyable object. But sue me, I kind of miss the losers of the Cornetto Trilogy.
  31. Set Me Free
    Karine Vanasse, as the protagonist Hanna, is perfectly cast because she has the body of a woman and the sweet, sexless face of a child.
  32. Moolaadé
    This has to be the most richly entertaining movie anyone has ever made on the subject of female genital mutilation.
  33. The Attack
    The Attack is most avowedly "about" terrorism. But that's a subject, not the subject. The film, an arresting and upsetting one, is also about love, trauma, and trust, both within one particular marriage and within entire cultures.
  34. Liv & Ingmar
    Liv & Ingmar is an anecdotal treasure chest for cinephiles, but more than that, it's a beautifully told love story.
  35. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    It's a baroque and intermittently brilliant brain twister so convoluted that it inevitably deposits the viewer in an alternate universe.
  36. Oceans
    Océans is a jaw-dropper as a visual travelogue--even its anthropomorphic indulgences (an ocean floor is turned into a rough neighborhood, complete with trespassers and shy weirdos) are winning.
  37. The Look of Silence
    If it's a far less flashy film than The Act of Killing, it's also a better and possibly more honest one.
  38. The Rage: Carrie 2
    A smart, realist drama -- I wouldn't be surprised if this one winds up on my 10-best list for '99.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cannibal
    Despite the film's leisurely pace, nothing is wasted -- no word, no image, no sound. Every element is blended together to create individual scenes that come to feel like stand-alone photographs, leaving viewers both captivated and even ultimately feeling compassion for the anti-hero.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bitter Money
    We are not, as in so many a contemporary documentary, made to merely identify with the position of cameraperson, but are forced to consider and find our own ethical and political positions.
  41. 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.
  42. Slow West
    Its central journey lives up to the title: Maclean finds time to savor rivers and starscapes and layers of light and mountainous land. The dialogue is flighty yet weighty, each line like some delicate woodcut.
  43. Borgman
    Van Warmerdam keeps such a calm, firm hold on the material that he practically hypnotizes you into following along to the end. The craftsmanship is precise; the result is enigmatic.
  44. Alive Inside
    Practically guaranteed to elicit tears within its first five minutes, Alive Inside... is nonetheless more than just a tearjerker.
  45. Happy Christmas
    The movie's packed with minor incidents, all fresh, compelling, and funny. It also boasts two lengthy scenes that are touched with something greater.
  46. Water Drops on Burning Rocks
    A movie of cutting humor, near-constant talk, and one show-stopping dance routine.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    After Innocence
    Both riveting and disturbing.
  48. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
    An explicit ode to mortality, not without a certain grim humor.
  49. Saturday Church
    With Saturday Church, Cardasis has crafted a beautiful story about young, queer people of color championing one another and finding themselves.
  50. Yi Yi
    Although dense with incident and motif, the movie has an effortless flow.
  51. Robot Stories
    A quietly impassioned, genuinely stirring indie rarity.
  52. Ain't Them Bodies Saints
    Lowery isn't a Malick and he's certainly no Kazan, but he's his own man, and a filmmaker to watch.
  53. Herb & Dorothy 50X50
    It's an absorbing document of an extraordinary act of generosity.
  54. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
    Generally grim, occasionally startling, and altogether enthralling sixth chapter in a movie franchise that keeps managing to surprise just when one would expect it to be puttering along on auto-broomstick.
  55. Kings & Queen
    This extravagant family melodrama, one of the highlights of last year's New York Film Festival, runs two and a half hours and never lags, so moment-to-moment enthralling are Desplechin's narrative gambits, as well as his reckless eccentricity.
  56. Walking Out
    It’s a beautiful movie about unthinkable things.
  57. The Inheritors
    Unadulterated labor is the focus of this blistering, beautifully modulated documentary from Mexican auteur Eugenio Polgovsky.
  58. Green Room
    Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room is an impeccably crafted cinematic torture machine — in the best possible way.
  59. The Woodmans
    Ultimately, The Woodmans is a haunting study in family dynamics.
  60. Goodbye to Language 3D
    To muddle through confusion, boredom, vaguely formed interest, brief elation, and confusion again is to experience the work as its creator intended.
  61. The Rover
    The Rover might not be about anything at all, but the dust it stirs up sticks to you after you leave the theater.
  62. Hunt for the Wilderpeople
    One of the most sincere and funny portraits of family life to come along in a while.
  63. Night of the Living Dead
    Up until 1968, horror had been escapist. But Night of the Living Dead made horror serious business.
  64. In the Mood for Love
    A wondrously perverse movie that not only evokes a lost moment in time but circles around an unrepresentable subject. Mood is the operative word. A love story far more cerebral than it is emotional.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Far Side of the Moon
    Reworking his own raw material, Lepage spins a rich, moving film that acknowledges humanity's power to break out of Earth's daily gravity; in the process, he leaves audiences floating.
  66. Informant
    Informant is riveting as it slowly assembles a damning profile of its subject. It's also timely.
  67. The Wonders
    The Wonders has an intimate, subtly buzzing power.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Smiley Face
    On the plus side, 100 percent sober when I watched it, I can say with some authority that Dylan Haggerty has written an eleventh-hour candidate for the funniest movie of 2007, that Gregg Araki has directed his finest film since 1997's "Nowhere," and that Faris, flawless, rocks their inspired idiot odyssey in a virtuoso comedic turn.
  69. Les Hautes Solitudes (1974)
    Les Hautes Solitudes is both ravishing portraiture and wordless biography, a life and aura distilled to glances and gestures.
  70. Raising Bertie
    Raising Bertie charts nothing less than what it’s like to try to grow up free in the prison capital of the world.
  71. The Phenom
    The Phenom unfolds as a series of quiet, incisive conversations that showcase subtle, insightful performances.
  72. Oldboy
    Whatever its oversteps and excesses (I do think Park ran a little amok with the computer gimcrackery), Oldboy has the bulldozing nerve and full-blooded passion of a classic.
  73. Shadow Boxers
    As smooth and powerfully packed as its protagonist.
  74. Overlord [re-release]
    It's still a feat of period filmmaking. More than that, Overlord's revivification of a wasteland Europe offers up a powerful whip lesson for the postwar complacent: that the waging of war, even this most romanticized of conflicts, means bringing a corpse-mountain hell to someone's home neighborhood.
  75. Memphis
    Sutton's Memphis framed in fascinating layers -- leaves and tree limbs, wig shops and overgrown gravel roads. It's a movie of a place and a character rather than about them.
  76. Daughters of the Dust
    Daughters of the Dust abounds with stunning motifs and tableaux, the iconography seemingly sourced from dreams as much as from history and folklore. But however seductive and trance-inducing, the visual splendor of Dash's film is never vaporous.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Centurion
    Up to now, writer-director Neil Marshall has specialized in horror movies (Dog Soldiers, The Descent), but here, he imagines and communicates a remote world with terrific energy and a passion for detail.
  78. Wild
    Both the material and the setting seem to have shaken something loose in Witherspoon (who is also one of the movie's producers): She's moved further away from those uptight, humorless romantic-comedy cuties she played in the mid 2000s and more toward the breezy, blunt, self- determined characters of her early career.
  79. Lost in Translation
    As bittersweet a brief encounter as any in American movies since Richard Linklater's equally romantic "Before Sunrise."
  80. Fireworks Wednesday (2006)
    It proves to be not just interesting in how it foreshadows the filmmaker's more mature works, but also a gripping piece of storytelling in its own right.
  81. Approaching the Unknown
    Approaching the Unknown is the best science fiction movie since Gravity, and certainly the most melancholy since Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 Solaris.
  82. Caché (Hidden)
    Binoche and Auteuil are both quietly sensational in their fracturing personae, but the film is Haneke's premier postmodern assault--less visceral, perhaps, than "Code Unknown" and the criminally underappreciated "Time of the Wolf," but more thoughtful and, in the end, deeper in the afterplay.
  83. Better Watch Out
    It’s only October, but Christmas has come early for horror fans.
  84. The Mafia Only Kills in Summer
    Diliberto has managed to make a political comedy that seems at once tremendously funny and intensely serious — a provocative, and perhaps even important, combination.
  85. Crazy Heart
    It's merely a well-done, adult American movie--that is to say, a rarity.
  86. The Fits
    For all the film's aestheticism, there's a clarity to this child's dilemma — conveyed ably by Hightower, who is a unique kind of actress.
  87. Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi
    Writer-director Rian Johnson has certainly made the busiest Star Wars film of them all, but he keeps it from becoming a slog by infusing it with humor, verve, and visual charm.
  88. Zero Motivation
    Zero Motivation opens as bleak, rebellious comedy but grows into a smart and moving story of entering adulthood.
  89. Let the Sunshine In
    An existential whirlwind even when it seems sitcom-flippant, Sunshine sees Denis continuing on an elevated cinematic plane.
  90. Superbad
    Superbad is duly ribald and often achingly funny, brewed from the now-familiar Apatow house blend of go-for-broke slapstick and instantly quotable, potty-mouthed dialogue.
  91. Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land
    There was no happy ending, but if Burma VJ's account of the efficacy of dictatorship threatens to crush you, the sight of a sturdy young back disappearing into the mountains, returning from a Thailand hideout for another round of bearing witness, should make your heart burst.
  92. The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest
    What could have been an impossibly bleak viewing is actually made more unnerving through DeFriest's droll humor and acceptance of his fate — rather than being Zen-like, he's prickly and dark, with such dazzlingly high native intelligence that you mourn for potential needlessly wasted.
  93. Cutie and the Boxer
    With an intimacy and empathy that's all the more powerful for its modesty, the film investigates the complicated feelings of resentment and affection between wife and husband.
  94. River of Grass
    Reichardt pays clear homage to Breathless and Badlands, but her movie, the title of which is a local name for the Everglades, operates in its own ecosystem, teeming with the droll, shrewd observations about downwardly mobile life explored more solemnly in Reichardt's next two films, Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy.
  95. Uncertain Terms
    The film is brisk, brief, well acted, smartly crafted, and shrewdly judged.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Family Plot
    Its visual wit and spiritual resonance are truly inimitable even in this age of merchandised mimicry. [19 Apr 1976, p.64]
    • Village Voice
  97. The Final Master
    Xu (The Sword Identity) may not be a household name, but The Final Master proves that he's the next big thing in martial-arts cinema.
  98. Fighter
    Probably more terse than it needs to be, but the dramatic line has an elegance and drive that reinforces the unexpected turns of the story.
  99. Violette
    Provost's film, like its heroine, is full of active, sparking nerves.
  100. Closed Curtain
    Possibly the Iranian new wave's last meta-man, Panahi is in an ideal position to make the unique methodology of his filmmaking merge with its substance. But he's always been fascinated by how a film's bell-jar bubble can be punctured, leaving a viscous interface between real and cinematic.
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