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Boston Strangler
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Knightley, in a performance as crisp as the corners of an envelope, makes McLaughlin’s perseverance—and the pressures she faced as she also tried to be a good wife and mother—deeply believable.
Posted Mar 21, 2023
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Champions
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Champions is a forward-thinking film masquerading as a deeply conventional one. We can say we’ve seen it all before—but when, and where?
Posted Mar 10, 2023
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
(2022)
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Judy Berman
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It is Goldin’s courage and determination that make her an effective activist, and her empathetic eye that makes her a great artist.
Posted Mar 10, 2023
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The Dark Angel
(1935)
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TIME Staff
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It is notable for the fine acting of its three attractive principals, a superior screen script and a climax which deserves a place on that roll of honor...
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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One Sings, the Other Doesn't
(1977)
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Frank Rich
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A surprisingly lazy and self-indulgent work. Rather than trust her characters to convey the film's content, the director smothers the movie with a voice-over narration that lectures the audience on the Meaning of It All.
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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Blueback
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Manages to be pensive and breezy at once, a reflection on the way those who raise us sometimes impart their most noble values to us even as they’re driving us crazy—and their little ways of annoying us are often the things we miss most when they’re gone.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
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9 to 5
(1980)
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Richard Corliss
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Nine to Five thinks it's a suspenseful comedy with a mind of its own; it isn't and hasn't.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Sayonara
(1957)
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TIME Staff
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Brando has to pretend to take the situation seriously, and it plainly bores him.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Creed III
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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As both actor and director, Jordan pulls off some fancy footwork in Creed III.
Posted Feb 25, 2023
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Luther: The Fallen Sun
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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The mere presence of Elba’s Luther, with his haunted gaze, his voice as plush as the finest antique Persian carpet, is enough to keep The Fallen Sun from sinking. On him, troubled in tweed is a good look.
Posted Feb 25, 2023
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Safety Last
(1923)
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TIME Staff
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Harold Lloyd is one of the very few who can be laughed at in the same breath as the mighty Chaplin. So it is annoying to have him spoil it all in his first seven-reel picture by falling back on a succession of cheap spectacularisms for much of his effect.
Posted Feb 22, 2023
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Emily
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Paints a haunting and sympathetic portrait of the person she might have been.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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After that first 20 minutes or so, the picture has the clumsiness of a muffed backflip, and the letdown is hard to get over.
Posted Feb 08, 2023
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Requiem for a Heavyweight
(1962)
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TIME Staff
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Quinn, though his dese and his dose and his freeform nose get tiresome after awhile, nevertheless gives a heartfelt interpretation of a decent human being taken up by an inhuman racket as casually as if he were a cigarette...
Posted Feb 07, 2023
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80 for Brady
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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80 for Brady is brassy, ridiculous, and shameless. It’s also irresistible, maybe because watching older ladies having fun is almost embarrassingly seductive.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
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True Spirit
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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True Spirit makes freedom on the high seas look like fun, a far cry from staring at a screen in your bedroom, waiting for your life to begin.
Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Even by Shyamalan’s usual standard of reminding us that he’s a thinker of deep thoughts as well as an entertainer, the result is cumbersomely preachy.
Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Wild Things
(1998)
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Richard Corliss
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The Stephen Peters script is twisty but vacant of character, and John McNaughton's direction is coarse, slapdash, without the saving spark of low art or high camp.
Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Back to Bataan
(1945)
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TIME Staff
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Convincing as the story is, the picture is at its best in the faked but grimly realistic battle scenes.
Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Spirit of Youth
(1937)
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TIME Staff
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Spirit of Youth will certainly not be duplicated for many a moon.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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One Fine Morning
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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This is a big movie served up in a surprisingly small, intimate package.
Posted Jan 28, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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It’s both smart and entertaining.
Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Cat Person
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Takes everything that was admirable, or even just compelling, about Roupenian’s story and spins it into a scrambled, overloaded mess.
Posted Jan 24, 2023
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The Big Lebowski
(1998)
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Richard Schickel
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Even when they don't achieve the glorious farce of a Fargo, there is always something fascinating about following the Coens' rapt gaze as they peer into the American nut bowl.
Posted Jan 24, 2023
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When You Finish Saving the World
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Gentle, interwoven tensions... hold When You Finish Saving the World together, albeit just barely.
Posted Jan 20, 2023
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You People
(2023)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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You People stretches hard to make its points, but for the most part it’s terminally safe.
Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Eve's Bayou
(1997)
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Richard Corliss
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The poise and passion in Eve's Bayou leave one grateful, exhausted and nourished. For the restless spirit, here is true soul food.
Posted Jan 10, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Maybe, in truth, it never really does get going. But the story’s stately pace is part of the attraction, and perhaps key to its pleasurably somber tone.
Posted Dec 26, 2022
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Corsage
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Kreutzer gives Empress Elisabeth—often referred to, with casual affection, as Sisi—the sympathetic, imaginative and offbeat dream biography she deserves.
Posted Dec 26, 2022
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No Bears
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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There’s no way to watch this film without feeling mournful, or fearing for the man who made it.
Posted Dec 26, 2022
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Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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This is a story about the family you choose, versus the one you were born into. And for some people, the chosen family is the one that makes all the difference.
Posted Dec 26, 2022
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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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It manages, even while being unapologetically entertaining, to feel like an honest reckoning with all the things we didn’t want to know about Houston at her fame’s height.
Posted Dec 26, 2022
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Babylon
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Babylon is a manic sprawl that only pretends to celebrate cinema. It’s really about prurience, dumb sensation, self-congratulation and willful ignorance of history.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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The Janes
(2022)
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Judy Berman
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Through individual interviews, a composite image forms of a society touched on every level by half its population’s lack of bodily autonomy.
Posted Dec 14, 2022
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Avatar: The Way of Water
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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The Way of Water is the wave of the future, rolling in whether you like it or not.
Posted Dec 13, 2022
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Empire of Light
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Empire of Light spells out lots of things that it might have conveyed with a glance, or a line of understated dialogue. It stumbles under the weight of its intentions, and not even its majestic setting can save it.
Posted Dec 10, 2022
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Roughly two-thirds in, the movie begins to feel a bit cluttered and unwieldy. But it’s a pure vision nonetheless—del Toro’s fingerprints are clearly visible in this painstakingly carved creation.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
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Lady Chatterley's Lover
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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In a world where we always seem to be recoiling, where refusal and fear are always easier than saying yes, Clermont-Tonnerre and her actors strive for boldness.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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A breezy caper that mostly sustains its novelty, even if it stumbles a bit in the last third.
Posted Nov 22, 2022
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EO
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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EO may be one of the greatest movies ever made about the spirit of animals, as much as we can know it.
Posted Nov 19, 2022
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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Often, it’s exhausting. Iñárritu has a lot of thoughts and feelings, and he apparently sought to stuff them all into one movie.
Posted Nov 19, 2022
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She Said
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Regardless of this story’s ultimately explosive impact, She Said is simply a story of journalists at work.
Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
(1939)
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TIME Staff
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This new Capra fable is as whimsical, the Capra directing as slick, the script as fast and funny as in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The acting of the brilliant cast is sometimes superb. But Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is bigger than any of these things.
Posted Nov 08, 2022
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Ticking boxes isn’t the same as pulling magic -- or even just insight -- from thin air... The sad reality is that the show must go on, and without [Chadwick Boseman], it’s just more of the same. Our job is to pretend it’s enough.
Posted Nov 08, 2022
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Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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Even if you think you already know everything about Armstrong, Jenkins will show you more, or at least illuminate new facets of well-known facts.
Posted Oct 29, 2022
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Call Jane
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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The film, despite its heavy subject, has a bright, vibrant energy. It’s not so much optimistic as galvanizing.
Posted Oct 28, 2022
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Aftersun
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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The performances here are quiet marvels.
Posted Oct 22, 2022
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Prince
(2022)
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Judy Berman
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As hit-or-miss as the sketches can be, it’s these new interstitials that betray the show’s true aimlessness...
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Ticket to Paradise
(2022)
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Stephanie Zacharek
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If Clooney and Roberts are both wonderful actors, at this point they’re just not that good together, at least not in this setup.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Peter Pan
(1924)
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TIME Staff
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The direction of Herbert Brenon gave heart once more to those who still argue that there is imaginative intelligence in the picture industry.
Posted Oct 20, 2022
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