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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    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is Not a Film
    It's a political statement, an act of defiance, a master class in one auteur's body of work and process, and a document of a life unseen. But above all, it's a gripping entertainment.
  2. Wanderlust
    Though Wanderlust finally laughs off the real discomforting conclusion that it's edging toward, it's gut-busting funny when mocking their hopeless options.
  3. How to Start a Revolution
    How to Start a Revolution plays like a Nobel Prize–campaign film and never once demonstrates an understanding of the distinction between encomium and inquiry.
  4. The Fairy
    While every scene is art-directed with zest and innovatively staged, The Fairy rarely inspires outright laughter. At least it respects its influences more than does "The Artist."
  5. Act of Valor
    The villains come across as individuals rather more compellingly than do the film's ostensible heroes, mostly mouthpieces for warrior credo recited in voiceover.
  6. The Forgiveness of Blood
    Marston nails the claustrophobia of small-town life and the turbulent emotionalism of teenagers, but what pushes the film toward sublimity is the way he delicately captures all of the characters' inner lives as their world slowly crumbles.
  7. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
    Cage-ophiles will find some delectable freakouts in Blaze's transformation - or near transformation - scenes. Otherwise, the committee-penned script combines yokel-friendly haw-haw irreverence (non-sequitur cutaways to the Rider pissing in a flamethrower pattern) and sweaty monologues about "controlling the Rider" (the character is basically a mean drunk's superhero).
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jess and Moss
    Achingly sad and surpassingly lovely.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Ice
    On the Ice is a marvel of concentrated, classical storytelling. The flat, snowy landscape strips away all but the essentials from its tale.
  10. Cirkus Columbia
    "No Man's Land" director Danis Tanovic, adapting a novel by Ivica Djikic, also returns to his roots with this decidedly old-fashioned, quasi-satirical drama that is a bit on the nose with its indictments of post-communist animosities and opportunism.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Putin's Kiss
    Though Masha's courage is considerable, her change of heart finally feels too nuanced for Pedersen's streamlined political-drama treatment, complete with persistent intrigue music and scenes of Masha restating her dilemma to friends that seem rather canned.
  12. Michael
    Not everything that is human is naturally interesting, and Schleinzer approaches his subject not as an investigator, but as though covering up a crime scene and scrubbing it of anything that might provide insight or empathy or psychological traction.
  13. Bullhead
    The sentiment, just like the repeated shots of Jacky lying in the fetal position in a tub, shadowboxing, and erupting into a bestial 'roid rage, typifies the film's habit of flattening an idea rather than developing it.
  14. The Forgotten Space
    Epic in scope, intellectual agility, and the potential to induce panic and despair, this documentary exploration of global trade as an emblem of economic apocalypse avoids (just barely) doom-mongering by virtue of its compassion and visual grandeur.
  15. Undefeated
    Honestly, Courtney and his crew all seem like nice people, but if there's an unironic audience for this kind of romantic jock-cup fondling, I'm not interested in knowing it.
  16. Thin Ice
    Working the long con and damn near getting away with it, this kissing cousin to "Fargo," "Cedar Rapids," and "Win Win" makes for a surprisingly entertaining and nonderivative February time-passer.
  17. The Secret World of Arrietty
    It's pure magic.
  18. This Means War
    The cocky presumption of charm that isn't actually there is precisely the problem with action-comedy This Means War.
  19. Hell and Back Again
    Working alone with a camera and his ingenuity, Dennis captured the surreality of firefights with an invisible enemy and the frustration of displaced civilians.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bombay Beach
    That it documents rural poverty in the American West without exploiting or sanctifying its subjects would be cause enough for praise. But this doesn't begin to approach what Alma Har'el pulls off with her hybrid documentary knockout Bombay Beach.
  21. Mammuth
    Too limp and scattershot to warrant anything stronger than indifference.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Swell Season
    To viewers without a preexisting emotional relationship to the couple and their saga, that everyday angst is just banal.
  23. Buried Prayers
    With the survivors' physical presence amongst Nazi slaughterhouses as its own powerful statement, Buried Prayers is a nonfiction work that confronts Holocaust atrocities from a piercing ground-level view.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Color Me Obsessed: A Film About The Replacements
    With so many voices, Color Me becomes a rock version of "Rashomon," and what the film lacks in music and live footage, it more than makes up for with obsessive detail and heated debate. Who's right? Everyone.
  25. Laredoans Speak: Voices on Immigration
    The movie's argument only occasionally transcends its oozy nonspecificity and feel-good bleeding-heart vibe.
  26. Kinyarwanda
    Cast with both professional and novice actors (which results in uneven performances), the beautifully shot film is filled with exquisite moments.
  27. Under Fire: Journalists in Combat
    Fascinating and often devastating.
  28. Grandma, a Thousand Times
    She might not be our kin, but filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour's anecdotal, warm-humored tribute to his grandmother - and, to a limited extent, to her cultural heritage - taps into the universal desire to hang onto loved ones in their waning years.
  29. Chronicle
    Chronicle, with its found-footage storytelling and superpowered teens, at least playfully transcends its "Cloverfield meets Heroes" pitch.
  30. Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission
    It should be mentioned that Garriott's father, Owen, was himself a Skylab astronaut, a fact of which much is made - but that only more obviously shows Man on a Mission for what it is: a puffed-up home movie.
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