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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    • 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
  2. Not a Pretty Picture
    What’s most unnerving about this four-decade-old film is how little has changed in the time since. We are still learning the same lessons Coolidge was trying to impart so long ago — nothing is different.
  3. Taxi Driver
    Taxi Driver was a powerfully summarizing work. It synthesized noir, neorealist, and New Wave stylistics; it assimilated Hollywood’s recent vigilante cycle, drafting then-déclassé blaxploitation in the service of a presumed tell-it-like-it-is naturalism that, predicated on a frank, unrelenting representation of racism, violence, and misogyny, was even more racist, violent, and misogynist than it allowed. [35th Anniversary Release]
  4. Barry Lyndon
    Barry Lyndon could be considered Kubrick’s masterpiece. At the very least, this cerebral action film represents the height of his craft.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Farewell, My Lovely
    By simply rack-focusing Mitchum in an occasional close-up, Richards evokes an entire biography, a sense of weariness and reflection. [25 Aug 1975, p.66]
    • Village Voice
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Drowning Pool
    The exception to a listless cast is Murray Hamilton as the oil-develper villain, an eloquently indirect Southerner with enough shifts in mood to make one whis he had a larger part, but not regret the movie's one payoff--his well staged and satisfactory demise. [14 July 1975, p.58]
    • Village Voice
    • 96 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Nashville
    I think that the power and the theme of the film lie in the fact that while some characters are more “major” than others, they are all subordinated to the music itself. It’s like a river, running through the film, running through their life. They contribute to it, are united for a time, lose out, die out, but the music, as the last scene suggests, continues.
  8. Tommy
    Tommy is turning out to be the kind of movie most people probably like more than they care to admit. Modest charm and unpretentiousness are hardly the qualities that I ever thought I would associate with Ken Russell, but there you are, and there Tommy is. [31 Mar 1975, p.68]
    • Village Voice
  9. Shampoo
    The parts are better than the whole. [24 Feb 1975, p.58]
    • Village Voice
  10. The Front Page
    It is refreshing to find a director who is still making talkies instead of gawkies, and who thus still believes in the spoken word as a vehicle of expression. [23 Dec 1974, p.83]
    • Village Voice
  11. Young Frankenstein
    Longer on charm and cheer than on humor of knee-pounding hilarity...the funniest film of the season by default.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
    Scorsese tries to balance tries to balance irony and lyricism, but it has no internal truth, it means nothing in terms of wht we know of Alice or what Scorsese feels about her. [6 Jan 1975, p.71]
    • Village Voice
  13. Murder on the Orient Express
    Murder on the Orient Express falls down so badly as escapist entertainment that it is as if it were designed to prove the proposition that movies and mysteries don't mix.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Woman Under the Influence
    Falk and the rest of the cast are exceptional—even the smallest roles feel spot-on—but Rowlands (who will be on hand for the opening-night screening) is the film.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Earthquake
    Halfway between a movie and a carnival huckster's gimmick, with the gimmick a great deal less interesting than the movie itself. [23 Dec 1974, p.89]
    • Village Voice
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Big Bad Mama
    Big Bad Mama is essentially a soft-core porno movie without the courage of Russ Meyer. [02 Dec 1974, p.90]
    • Village Voice
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Harry and Tonto
    Mazursky's difficulty in making the transition from dramatic middle-shots to long shots, with the accompanying impulse to "universalize" his theme, indicates that he has not yet learned to trust his material, or appreciate his own sublime gift of being able to approach the secret of life through comic misunderstanding rather than cosmic understanding. [15 Aug 1974, p.63]
    • Village Voice
  18. The Wicker Man
    Knowing something is up and knowing just what that is prove to be two very different things for both protagonist and viewer, however, and The Wicker Man is propelled by the thrill of not knowing.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Together Brothers
    Working with amateur material, Director William A. Graham coaches natural performances out of the band of black teenagers who organize the manhunt. [22 Aug 1974, p.77]
    • Village Voice
  20. California Split
    California Split never comes to a very fine point in the psychological development of its characters. California Split is thus more about moment-to-moment living than momentous life. [03 Oct 1974, p.81]
    • Village Voice
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Death Wish
    An enjoyable bad movie instead of a purely offensive one. [01 Aug 1974, p.67]
    • Village Voice
  22. That's Entertainment!
    After two hours of which I felt almost every minute, I could find only a handful of positive things to say about this production. [25 Jul 1974, p.67]
    • Village Voice
  23. Chinatown
    In 1974 a director, a screenwriter, and a producer (Robert Evans, who for once deserves a few of the plaudits he's apportioned himself) could decide to beat a genre senseless and then dump it in the wilds of Greek tragedy. [Review of August 8, 2003 re-release]
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Parallax View
    A movie of splendid bits and pieces disappointingly strung together. [25 July 1974, p.70]
    • Village Voice
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Terminal Man
    I'm not sure I can accept these chilling extremes of "sick" and "well," but Mike Hodges renders them with some of the same grim beauty and sense of absurdity he brought to Get Carter. [17 Jun 1974, p.82]
    • Village Voice
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
    Although it's unlikely that Englishman Hough has connected with the auto culture that has made his latest film the darling of the drive-ins, Hough at the same time has connected with the perfect vehicle for his mechanized, dehumanized concerns. [01 Aug 1974, p.70]
    • Village Voice
  27. The Conversation
    The Conversation could have used a great deal more vulgar curiosity about its own plot and its own characters. Coppola's good taste has been misplaced on this occasion, but he remains one of our most promising new filmmakers nonetheless. [20 June 1974, p.78]
    • Village Voice
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
    This Sinbad misses the verve, the exuberant high spirits, of the best of Fairbanks and Flynn, but it's wonderfully good-natured all the same. [16 May 1974, p.109]
    • Village Voice
  29. Zardoz
    Zardoz quickly degenerates from a voyage through a labyrinth into an ego trip round and round the inside of a goldfish bowl. [28 Feb 1974, p.62]
    • Village Voice
  30. The Sting
    The plot has many twists, few surprises, and one gaping hole, which becomes apparent only after you walk out of the theater and have a chance to think. But pure popcorn like this is hardly worthy of serious analysis...Fortunately, the stars have not lost their charm and authority.
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