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. From Selma to Soweto
    A triumph of maximalist filmmaking. And you won't look at your watch once.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Prairie Home Companion
    Keillor's modest subservience to Altman's group dynamic feels downright gallant, and in the context of the veteran director's most humanistic movie by a wide margin, it certainly has its rewards.
  3. The Boxtrolls
    The Boxtrolls is a kiddie charmer that makes you laugh, cower, and think of Hitler. That’s an unusual trifecta, but then again, this is an unusual film.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Argo
    A "gritty" historical drama overwhelmed by its love of Hollywood as an inventor of imaginary narratives with real consequences, a great generator of American bedtime stories whose magic works on suburban kids and foreign enemies alike.
  5. The Dance of Reality
    The Dance of Reality may be Alejandro Jodorowsky's best film, and certainly, in a filmography top-heavy with freak-show hyperbole and symbology stew, the one most invested in narrative meaning.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Band Called Death
    A beautiful tale of life, love, music, and family, of things not working out but also working out just as predicted.
  7. Melancholia
    Plenty of moments in Melancholia are painfully funny. Some moments are even painful to watch, but there was never a moment when I thought about the time or my next movie or did not care about the characters or had anything less than complete interest in what was happening on the screen.
  8. Birdboy: The Forgotten Children
    Birdboy: The Forgotten Children is its own unique, damaged creature.
  9. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
    The complexity of feminism for young girls today is displayed with rare hilarity and insight.
  10. Daisies (1966)
    A riot of technical tricks, Daisies shifts between color, black-and-white, and tinted images and includes a scene in which the two Maries, wielding scissors, essentially turn themselves into paper dolls.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Illusionist
    Beautifully acted and handsomely mounted, this gorgeous period piece is an intelligent and intriguing exploration of "the dark arts" -- less dependent on mere hocus-pocus than on the convincing journey of the soul undertaken by its hero.
  12. A Bug's Life
    There are big crowd scenes, intimate close-ups, and lots of bug’s-eye point-of-view shots. Call me gullible: I believed every second of it.
  13. Oculus
    Replete with superb performances led by a paranoid Sackhoff and unhinged Cochrane, it's the rare horror film to know how to tease malevolent mysteries and deliver satisfyingly unexpected, unsettling payoffs.
  14. The Servant
    Mixing techniques as surely as it mixes class (graceful dolly shots are placed side by side with the handheld photography), the picture's clever formalist juxtapositions evoke the hysterical confusion of a culture in upheaval.
  15. The Other Side of Hope
    For all the deadpan comedy and eccentric characterization, Kaurismäki anchors the film in Khaled’s story and his immigration anxieties, all depicted with quiet humanity that never feels exaggerated. It’s a beautiful companion piece to Le Havre, and a film that will gently warm your cold, cynical heart.
  16. Mary and The Witch's Flower
    Mary and the Witch’s Flower and its eye-popping cavalcade of creations and colors speak not to the shock and awe of technology but to the can-do magic of human achievement.
  17. The Lure
    The film's messages are cleverly wrapped in Smoczynska's entertaining, original vision. It's sexy, fearless, fun, and unrepentantly nasty.
  18. Grandma
    It gradually settles and deepens into something nuanced and moving, a character study that's not so much about aging, specifically, as it is about the great and awful process of getting to know yourself.
  19. The Mill and the Cross
    An extraordinary example of both art-historical interpretation and CGI as passport to unknown lands, The Mill and the Cross, based on a book by Michael Francis Gibson, is a moving-image tribute to the still image, with its ability to "wrestle the senseless moment to the ground."
  20. Wonder
    It tempers its fairly blunt narrative approach by constantly shifting its perspective. It starts off as the portrait of a troubled child, but expands to become a film about community.
  21. Decasia
    A fierce dance of destruction. Its flame-like, roiling black-and-white inspires trembling and gratitude.
  22. Caucus
    Caucus is a lively, hilarious, upsetting crash-course in recent history. It's also revelatory at times, especially as it reframes infamous sound bites in their of-the-moment context.
  23. Everyday
    Michael Winterbottom's wise and involving Everyday specializes in unscripted-feeling moments that ache of life.
  24. Piccadilly [re-release]
    Wong is sensationally expressive and projects a modern, coolly appraising sexuality. Visually eloquent and often dazzling, the movie is no less terrific. Piccadilly is both evidence of silent cinema at its rudely aborted peak and Wong's frustrated potential to have been among its greatest stars.
  25. Suspiria
    A veteran of Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, the deadpan Harper puts her training to good use, gracefully eluding the attacking furniture and skillfully dodging the imploding set, as she flees—arms protectively crossed before her face—out into the night.
  26. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
    It's an admittedly hagiographic film, an unabashed celebration of the man and his work and worldview. The few mild naysayers are largely set up to be knocked down, but as such the film is invigorating.
  27. Spring Forward
    The sense of continuing life is quietly remarkable.
  28. Una Noche
    The final, moving, nerve-wracking reels are all sea, sky, and desperation.
  29. Jules and Jim
    Jules and Jim is that rarity of rarities, a genuinely romantic film. [03 May 1962, p.11]
    • Village Voice
  30. The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
    Brian Knappenberger's The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz connects the dots of Swartz's past, assembling a vivid portrait of a sensitive genius with a strong moral sense.
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