Tomato B- |
A Scanner Darkly (2006) |
"A head-trip that never gets beneath the skin." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato B |
The Abandoned (2007) |
"Director Nacho Cerdà succeeds in pushing the haunted-house movie into an abstract realm where the past and present fold into each other." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
Across the Universe (2007) |
"Its crazed ambition. When it falls, it falls far, but at least that means it's reaching high." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato C+ |
Adam (2009) |
"The film is afflicted with a fatal case of the cutes: It’s never an encouraging sign when The Little Prince, that eternal touchstone of precious perma-children, emerges as a major motif for a romantic drama." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B |
Adam Resurrected (2008) |
"Even when it flies off the rails deep into its third act, Resurrected remains strangely hypnotic." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Adoration (2009) |
"Under the violin swells of Mychael Danna’s enveloping score, Egoyan weaves the personal, the political, and the technological into an immense yet intimate comment on our troubled times. In doing so, he stumbles back into relevance again." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato A- |
Adventureland (2009) |
"Adventureland refreshingly inhabits a world without clear-cut heroes or bad guys, just richly realized characters struggling to get by." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Afghan Star (2009) |
"If nothing else, Afghan Star offers a reminder of how much has changed in Afghanistan from the late ’70s -- when Kabul was a secular-oriented city with co-ed universities and a thriving nightclub scene -- to the rise of the Taliban." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato A- |
Afterschool (2009) |
"The passing of time and the evolution of technology may give it an expiration date, but more likely, Campos’ film stands to be an essential document of what it was like to be a young person in the late ’00s." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
Akeelah and the Bee (2006) |
"If [director] Atchison's well-acted, good-intentioned crowd-pleaser can trick even one moviegoer into thinking that knowledge and spelling are somehow cool, then his film will be performing a societal good that offsets its slack reliance on formula." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B- |
Al Franken: God Spoke (2006) |
"A fascinating combination of class clown and fact-happy debate-club president, Franken nonetheless makes for a compelling subject, but God Spoke veers uncomfortably into hagiography, especially as it winds down." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B- |
Alexandra (2008) |
"Aleksandr Sokurov's anti-war drama Alexandra opens with a curious image and spends 90 minutes squeezing it for all it's worth." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B |
Amazing Grace (2007) |
"Apted's unexpected crowd-pleaser is inspirational, but also surprisingly entertaining." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B |
The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela (2008) |
"A kind of postmodern, grown-up fairytale: a Cinderella story for the reality-TV age." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B+ |
American Cannibal - The Documentary (2006) |
"American Cannibal is ostensibly about the phony, exploitative nature of reality TV, and though documentarians Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro hit that point too hard by piling up interviews with TV experts who speak in exaggerated cautionary tones," |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B+ |
American Gangster (2007) |
"Normally, Scott loves his flash-bang setpieces, but he proves equally adept at low-key verisimilitude and long-form storytelling, the kind that sprawls out over years of incidents that only gradually add up to a powerful whole." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato B |
American Hardcore (2006) |
"American Hardcore is a raucous, relevant documentary, capturing the mood of the times and the participants' best anecdotes." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B |
American Swing (2009) |
"American Swing could use the flair of similar portraits of disco-era debauchery like Boogie Nights or Inside Deep Throat, but it’s even-handed in capturing the operation’s ambition and hubris. Just don’t bring an appetite." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B+ |
American Teen (2008) |
"It's easy for anyone who survived (or is surviving) high school to feel twinges of identification." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
American Violet (2009) |
"The film is more affecting than it ought to be, thanks to a loaded cast that includes Alfre Woodard, Tim Blake Nelson, Will Patton, Charles Dutton, and the rapper and sometime actor Xzibit." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato A- |
An Education (2009) |
"An Education shares with Hornby’s best work trenchant insight into the way smart, hyper-verbal young people let the music, films, books, and art they love define themselves as they figure out who they are and what they want to be." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Antichrist (2009) |
"Antichrist is a boldly personal film, tossing all von Trier’s ideas about faith, fear, and human nature into an unfettered phantasmagoria, full of repulsive visions and fierce scorn." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato A- |
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) |
"While Anvil! is frequently funny, it’d be a mistake to call the band a joke." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B+ |
Apocalypto (2006) |
"...beautifully rendered and convincingly exciting." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato B- |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"In the early going, Appaloosa does an efficient job of establishing the tense standoff between lawmen-for-hire Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, and a tyrannical rancher (an extravagantly sinister Jeremy Irons)." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B+ |
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres (2007) |
"Its absurdist scenarios serve as little more than a ramshackle frame for bizarre non sequiturs, stoned pop-culture riffing, and some of the weirdest gags ever to make it into a studio-released film." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B |
Araya (1959) |
"The movie is visually stunning, deploying fluid camerawork and stark black-and-white imagery to record the hardscrabble lives of Venezuelans living and working on a remote salt marsh." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato B |
Arctic Tale (2007) |
"...husband-and-wife directing team Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson , who shot much of the footage over more than a decade in the Arctic, are aiming for a playful, casual, child-friendly tone..." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato B |
Are We Done Yet? (2007) |
"It isn't gangsta, but it's winning all the same." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato |
The Aristocrats (2005) |
"Within a single joke, The Aristocrats unlocks an entire universe of comedy." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B- |
Art & Copy (2009) |
"Art & Copy is mightily diverting, for those who don’t mind being sold a slick bill of goods." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B- |
Art School Confidential (2006) |
"Art School Confidential constitutes two-thirds of a worthy follow-up to Ghost World, but it doesn't feel nearly as substantial." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B |
Ashes of Time Redux (1994) |
"Provides a fascinating glimpse down a path perhaps advisedly not taken." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato |
Ashik Kerib (1988) |
"[Paradjanov] recreates the past with an exaggerated sense of myth and magic." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato A |
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) |
"Pitt's subtle work -- relaxed and confident, yet seething with quiet menace -- is complemented beautifully by Affleck's enigmatic Ford, whose admiration for (and fear of) James distinguishes him from a run-of-the-mill scoundrel." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato B- |
At the Edge of the World (2009) |
"It’s frequently a rousing adventure." |
Scott Tobias |
Tomato A- |
Atonement (2007) |
"With the Ian McEwan novel adaptation Atonement, it's obvious that Joe Wright -- who made his big-screen debut with 2005's deft, affecting version of Pride & Prejudice -- knows how to shepherd a novel to the screen." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato B- |
August Evening (2007) |
"Although its plot has its share of melodramatic twists and tearful revelations, August Evening focuses on the moments between, the mundane interactions that make up a life." |
Sam Adams |
Tomato B |
The Aura (2006) |
"The Aura holds together as a dreamy variation on Reservoir Dogs' heist-gone-wrong fatalism and the know-thyself confrontations of David Mamet's Homicide." |
Noel Murray |
Tomato |
Autumn Sonata (1978) |
"Autumn Sonata can finally be seen as an austerely beautiful meditation on death and the not-always-realized possibility of reconciliation across generations." |
Keith Phipps |
Tomato |
The Aviator (2004) |
"It's a measure of The Aviator's complexity and ambiguity that it can be read equally as a celebration of rugged, capitalist individualism and as a leftist critique of cutthroat free-market competition." |
Nathan Rabin |
Tomato B+ |
Away From Her (2007) |
"Mostly, it's a subdued, well-shot character study that observes rather than dictates emotions." |
Tasha Robinson |
Tomato B+ |
Away We Go (2009) |
"Though Away We Go lacks the screwball unpredictability of something like Flirting With Disaster, it compensates with a unexpected depth of feeling, a novelist’s (or memoirist’s) sense of detail, and a panoramic view of what home means." |
Scott Tobias |
Splat C+ |
A/K/A Tommy Chong (2005) |
"What could have been either a scathing critique of the drug war or an intimate portrait of a stoner facing mortality instead comes off as a fawning infomercial for its subject." |
Nathan Rabin |
Splat B- |
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story (2007) |
"This is a fascinating, underreported piece of recent world history, but Patty Kim and Chris Sheridan's documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story doesn't do it full justice." |
Noel Murray |
Splat C |
Accepted (2006) |
"It isn't the predictability that drags [Accepted] down so much as the complete lack of spark." |
Noel Murray |
Splat |
Aeon Flux (2005) |
"A slick-looking action movie with too much exposition and a weighty, pretentious tone." |
Tasha Robinson |
Splat |
After Innocence (2005) |
"Taylor does her cause no real favors by trotting out only the most articulate, most clearly railroaded exonerees." |
Noel Murray |
Splat B- |
After The Wedding (2007) |
"After The Wedding could be the cinematic equivalent of a Coldplay song. And while that isn't necessarily a slam, it isn't a recommendation either." |
Noel Murray |
Splat C- |
Agnes and His Brothers (2006) |
"It says something about Roehler's vision for Agnes And His Brothers that he didn't think much about the movie's centerpiece character, beyond the simplistic irony of having the family transsexual be the most normal." |
Noel Murray |
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