Village Voice's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Rudderless
    The result, despite a few stellar moments, is a not-quite-tragic-enough meditation on mourning and self-healing, crossed with a not-quite-gritty-enough portrait of indie rockers trying to break big.
  2. Housebound
    Housebound is a tad long, and its murder mystery a bit of a muddle, but that doesn’t matter. The final third is virtuoso.
  3. The Hacker Wars
    The documentary can sometimes feel like a video game, with cartoonish pinging graphics, but the real-life consequences of digital activity, from arrests to CIA monitoring and a total lack of privacy for ordinary citizens, heighten its stakes.
  4. The Good Lie
    Despite its weighty material and some moving scenes (much of the Sudanese cast are survivors of the war), this aggressive crowd-pleaser is slighter than its subject matter deserves.
  5. Felony
    The three lead actors are limited by their characters' kiddy-pool-shallow behavior.
  6. Eternity: The Movie
    The jokes are slow and obvious, and the editor lingers over every one like a sleepy drunk over a basket of tater tots, stoically holding the shot long after any reasonable person would have concluded that a punchline had occurred.
  7. Diplomacy
    Arestrup and Dussollier originated these roles on stage, but Schlöndorff (who directed the Hoffman/Malkovich Death of a Salesman) gives it the immediacy of a life-and-death encounter.
  8. Default
    It sacrifices its voice to the premeditated non-style of a first-person pseudo-documentary, a form that often has the paradoxical effect of making everything it shows us seem more fake than usual.
  9. Dear White People
    The small miracle of the movie is that Simien finds so many laughs in what are genuinely bewildering issues.
  10. Camp X-Ray
    For much of its running time, Camp X-Ray stands as the fullest on-screen imaginative treatment of two of the defining developments of the last 15 years of American life: the deployment of women in our volunteer army, and the indefinite detention of men we think, but can't quite prove, deserve it.
  11. Bitter Honey
    Lemelson's interviews can be repetitive in their direct staging, but there's inspiration in his conceit of using a shadow-puppet performance set to gamelan music as interludes.
  12. The Book of Life
    The film's rote right-makes-might fantasy wouldn't be so obnoxious if pandering to the lowest common denominator wasn't its default mode.
  13. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
    Birdman is a marvelously entertaining picture, a work of "look at me!" bravado that's energized every minute. Its proficiency, the mechanically fluid kind, works against it in some ways.
  14. Fury
    This is an ugly part of an ugly war, and Ayer wallows in it. Instead of flags and patriotism, Fury is about filth.
  15. I Am Ali
    It’s unfortunate that, even with this wealth of uncovered materials, I Am Ali still plays as a greatest-hits version of its subject’s life, offering little depth or insight into any one element of it.
  16. Evolution of a Criminal
    Vital, thoughtful, and deeply personal, first-timer Darius Clark Monroe's autobiographical doc stands as a testament to the power of movies to stir empathy.
  17. Botso
    Too bad the filmmaking never rises to the level of its subject.
  18. #Stuck
    Acher adroitly juggles all the gimmickry, using it to comment on Holly and Guy's burgeoning relationship.
  19. You're Not You
    The most interesting aspects of the film — the real pressures felt by caregivers; popular perception of the severely disabled — are obliterated by the heavy-handed script and Swank’s inspirational bromides.
  20. Whiplash
    If Whiplash doesn't quite hang together, Chazelle has still managed to pack it with some wonderful ideas.
  21. St. Vincent
    Some moments still work after the movie grows mawkish.
  22. The Pact 2
    The directors demonstrate confident technique in most of the scare scenes, but their uncertain touch with actors and dialogue makes a cock-up of the climax.
  23. The Overnighters
    Jesse Moss's documentary The Overnighters is a heart-wrencher about the clash between economics and ethics. Its story sounds like the sort of dry news blurb you'd skim over in the Sunday paper but unfolds into an epic tragedy.
  24. One Chance
    The film shoehorns Potts's life story into a familiar underdog template, populating the world with near-mythological threshold guardians who exist to assure the hero that he isn't good enough.
  25. The Houses October Built
    [An] uneven but intriguing found-footage horror flick.
  26. Meet the Mormons
    Meet the Mormons isn't substantial enough to screen on the first day of LDS 101; the church's most basic tenets — and controversial aspects — are elided completely.
  27. Kite
    In a film that pits the heroine directly against the sexualization of young women, the camera's gaze itself feels awfully exploitative.
  28. Kill the Messenger
    It doesn't entirely engage, in part because it's so determined to correct the story that it can't let us explore it ourselves.
  29. The Judge
    The Judge has its funny moments but is far more serious at heart, and much more of a slog, too.
  30. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
    In this unhurried full version, Benson allows grief to transform his characters, with few guarantees and plenty of regrets.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »