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. Elena
    A pained and gorgeous summoning, Petra Costa's haunted doc Elena dances with death, memory, and family, seducing viewers and then breaking their hearts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blue Valentine
    Even when transparently plumbing for depth, Cianfrance's film is frustratingly surface-bound in ways that reflect, if not out-and-out misogyny, then at least a lack of interest in imbuing his female character with the rich interior life and complicated morality he gives his male lead.
  3. Truman
    The film is restrained and observational, its impact cumulative.
  4. Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One
    However you enjoy its nearly four hundred minutes, I expect you'll be held rapt till the last second by a film of abundant wit and generous heart.
  5. Chocolat
    Denis quickly immerses us in her voluptuous, allusive mode of storytelling.
  6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
    This is an exercise in civility -- a tasteful "Boy's Life" adventure with plenty of boys aboard to express their appreciation.
  7. The Secret of Kells
    Gorgeously mounted tale of enlightenment through art and courage.
  8. Top Five
    Chris Rock couldn't have planned it this way, but his exuberant and wondrous comedy Top Five, opening at just the right time, is like an airdrop of candy over the city, if not the country.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
    Shallow, very officially sanctioned, and overly compressed, The Power of Song plays like a PBS infomercial for the inevitable DVD box set, which will surely include even more archival footage.
  10. A Simple Plan
    As straightforward in narrative as it is gut-wrenching in effect, A Simple Plan is a sort of slow-motion skid down an icy blacktop— it's a movie you watch with a mounting sense of dread...[It's] an extremely credible thriller and an affecting brother-story.
  11. Closet Monster
    [A] superb coming-of-age drama.
  12. Katyn
    While never less than fascinating, Katyn alternates between scenes of tremendous power and sequences most kindly described as dutiful. It's as if the artist is never certain whether he is making this movie for himself, his father, or the entire nation.
  13. Klute
    The dread and unease that suffuse the film — never has the peal of a rotary phone sounded more terrifying — seem rooted partly in anxiety over second-wave feminism, the cresting of which nearly coincided with the release of this movie, one that centers on its heroine’s profound ambivalence about growing emotionally attached to a man.
  14. Coming Home
    Coming Home obviously has historical and political significance for Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution, and for families that were torn apart by it. But Zhang tells this particular story in a deeply personal way — the time and place of its setting have a specific meaning, but its emotional contours spread out into something bigger.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Trouble with the Truth
    There isn't a false note in either the dialogue or the performances. The characters as written and played have such intricate backstories, such complicated mixtures of motive, that their evening grows uniquely, movingly suspenseful.
  16. Coco
    Yes, Coco thrills with its of-the-moment visual invention, but its core elements — dead relatives, family photos, the power of loving memory — couldn’t be more timeless. When Pixar made me cry this time, it wasn’t just for the characters on the screen. It was for the people I remember, and the ones I hope will remember me.
  17. My Joy
    My Joy is a maddening vision and one of the year's must-see provocations.
  18. Bridge of Spies
    What Spielberg seems to want most from this respectable lark is for audiences to notice the parallels between the 1950s and today.
  19. Shaun the Sheep Movie
    Like a great amusement park ride, Shaun the Sheep Movie is consistently enjoyable.
  20. White Material
    Claire Denis's strongest movie in the decade since "Beau Travail," her tense, convulsive White Material is a portrait of change and a thing of terrible beauty.
  21. The Station Agent
    Manages to explore the darker facets of friendship without being dark.
  22. Foxcatcher
    Foxcatcher is merely a very, very good character study with acting so fine that it's frustrating it's not in the service of a real, emotional wallop.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bamako
    Bamako brings relief from the latest round of Africa chic in the media, reversing "the flood of information that flows one way." It colors the Africa Problem from the inside out.
  24. Autumn Tale
    If the carefully planted romantic intrigue is serenely slow to ripen, the process is never less than intriguing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beginners
    So Beginners might sound insufferable, but it isn't - or at least not completely. Mills's second feature (after Thumbsucker) has way too many quirks for its own good, although it also flaunts a rare freedom to jump back and forth in time.
  26. Twinsters
    Twinsters is a heartwarming true story that might not have happened without social media, so score one for modern technology.
  27. Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
    The stories have an almost dreamlike sweep and imaginative energy, and the film never exhausts that exuberance. More extraordinary still is its emotional depth.
  28. Bright Star
    It's more conventionally romantic than wildly Romantic--but no less touching for that.
  29. The Headless Woman
    As dense and fluid as Martel's movie is, the viewer--like the protagonist--is compelled to live in the moment. And a rich moment it is.
  30. Jackie
    Every scene is visceral. Every note played tells a story.
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