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Review

  1. movie review
    In Once Within a Time, Godfrey Reggio Presents a Startling Vision of the WorldThe legendary, enigmatic director returns with what might be his most unusual film to date.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  2. theater review
    A Full, Fierce Day in Sean O’Casey’s DublinA six-hour, three-play DruidO’Casey marathon where the ’20s rhyme with ours, unsettlingly.
    By Sara Holdren
  3. theater review
    Gutenberg! The Musical!’s Broadway Dreams Mostly Come TrueBook of Mormon dynamos Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad reunite on Broadway with a new mission: to elevate a delightful yet padded-out show.
    By Sara Holdren
  4. movie review
    Fair Play Never Gives Itself a Fair ShotThe film is so unwavering in its black-and-white approach to sex and sexism that it restrains itself from delivering anything incisive or new.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  5. theater review
    A Long Hike in the Woods: The Refuge PlaysNathan Alan Davis’s three-part epic falls short of its big ambitions.
    By Jackson McHenry
  6. theater review
    Here’s to Them. Who’s Like Them? Damn Few.Turns out what Merrily We Roll Along needs most is three actors who can really bring it home, and here they are.
    By Sara Holdren
  7. movie review
    We Don’t Talk Enough About the Bizarre Exorcist FilmsThe franchise, including David Gordon Green’s Exorcist: Believer, is a case study in the perils of massive initial success.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  8. movie review
    Cat Person Is Cringe HorrorThe film adaptation of a famous New Yorker short story is appropriately grimace-inducing, but it can’t help overexplaining its terror.
    By Jen Chaney
  9. movie review
    The Royal Hotel Will Give You a Secondhand HangoverJulia Garner and Jessica Henwick are American backpackers working at a remote Australian bar in this thriller from Kitty Green.
    By Alison Willmore
  10. movie review
    Pedro Almodóvar’s Queer Cowboy Short Is Too Sumptuous for Its Own GoodIt’s a gorgeous but unsatisfying sketch of a thing.
    By Alison Willmore
  11. movie review
    Dicks: The Musical Is Never as Outrageous as It Wants to BeStill, the A24 musical comedy is determined to avoid self-importance or any greater meaning, which makes it admirable in its own right.
    By Alison Willmore
  12. theater review
    Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Where the Stories Intertwine TooAnd the wigs deserve an award all their own.
    By Sara Holdren
  13. theater review
    Melissa Etheridge Takes the Aw-Shucks Road to BroadwayMy Window is a night of songs and personal biography, loosely hung together.
    By Jackson McHenry
  14. movie review
    Todd Haynes’s May December Is a Deeply Uncomfortable MovieWatching it with an audience, I found myself cackling with delight. Stepping out into the rainy night, however, I felt like I needed to take a shower.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  15. movie review
    The Creator Is a Shockingly Good Sci-Fi Riff on Vietnam War MoviesThere’s a particularly American flavor to the violence done in the name of saving the world in Gareth Edwards’s tenderhearted The Creator.
    By Alison Willmore
  16. theater review
    A Vintage Satire That Still Has Sting: Purlie Victorious ReturnsOssie Davis’s plantation farce retains its wit and snap.
    By Sara Holdren
  17. movie review
    There’s a Simple Enough Conceit in The Wonderful Story of Henry SugarA quaint, optimistically naive short kicks off Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl film series.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  18. theater review
    Slapstick and Plague, in Mary Gets HersWacky fun with medieval horrors.
    By Sara Holdren
  19. album review
    Doja Cat Is Fighting Fires of Her Own CreationOn Scarlet, the rapper, singer, and internet terror channels negative comments into some of the best work of her career.
    By Craig Jenkins
  20. art
    A 19th Century Masterpiece That Scandalizes StillManet’s Olympia, now on view at the Met, remains as disturbing as ever.
    By Jerry Saltz
  21. theater review
    Little Shop of Blah-Blah: Theresa Rebeck’s DigA redemption play that betrays its own premise.
    By Jackson McHenry
  22. theater review
    Did a Bot Write This Review of Prometheus Firebringer? No, and Here’s Why Not.A script written and performed by AI in real time has unexpected effects on an audience.
    By Sara Holdren
  23. theater review
    Job Pays Off and Clocks Out“Like a good TV crime drama, it’s manipulative in a value-neutral sense: It knows the position it wants to put you in, and it puts you there.”
    By Sara Holdren
  24. theater review
    In Swing State, Bleak Politics in the Tall GrassRebecca Gilman’s story is hemmed in on all sides.
    By Jackson McHenry
  25. movie review
    A Luchador Sheds His Masks in the Triumphant CassandroGael García Bernal is exceptional as the exótico who became a wrestling star.
    By Jen Chaney
  26. movie review
    The Wry and Wistful Fremont Speaks Volumes With Just a StareFirst-time actor Anaita Wali Zada molds the film with her hushed agitation, breathing life and interiority into its visual extremes.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  27. movie review
    Kenneth Branagh Needs to Make 10 More of TheseThe creepy, moody Agatha Christie adaptation A Haunting in Venice is far from perfect, but it feels like the work of a man rejuvenated.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  28. comedy review
    Michelle Wolf Dodges SpecialnessTaping a stand-up set doesn’t have to look like a big important hour.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  29. theater review
    Rachel Bloom Sets Avoidance to Song in Death, Let Me Do My ShowA terrible March 2020, exposed but not too exposed.
    By Jackson McHenry
  30. tiff 2023
    To Its Credit, Nyad Makes Its Subject Look Like a Real AssholeNyad may be a frustrating biopic, but at least it doesn’t soften the self-mythologizing long-distance swimmer’s rougher edges.
    By Alison Willmore
  31. theater review
    The Mortal Truths of Annie Baker’s Infinite Life“This is part of Baker’s brilliance: to ruffle feathers with the calmest of breezes.”
    By Sara Holdren
  32. tiff 2023
    Paul Giamatti Is Never Better Than When He’s in an Alexander Payne MoviePrep school dramedy The Holdovers, the pair’s first collaboration since Sideways, showcases Giamatti’s capacity for the prickly and the heartbreaking.
    By Alison Willmore
  33. tiff 2023
    Is Taika Waititi Even Trying Anymore?The New Zealand filmmaker’s new film, Next Goal Wins, is so sloppily made that it might make you wonder why he even bothered.
    By Alison Willmore
  34. theater review
    Shadows and Seams, Both Visible: No Good Things Dwell in the FleshIn Christina Masciotti’s play about a Queens tailor facing her career’s end, the principal characters are everything.
    By Sara Holdren
  35. tiff 2023
    We’re Going to Be Talking About This Book-World Satire All FallCord Jefferson’s directorial debut, American Fiction, is a sharp comedy about racial commodification anchored by a terrific Jeffrey Wright.
    By Alison Willmore
  36. venice 2023
    The Most Terrifying Film at Venice Is Spiders All the Way DownThe first time an army of tiny spider-babies appeared, my body bent into a shape it has never taken before or since.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  37. venice 2023
    Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard Are So Weirdly Right Together in MemoryNot a lot of Michel Franco’s somber drama makes sense, but it’s a movie clearly meant to be carried by its leads.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  38. tiff 2023
    Miyazaki Didn’t Lose a StepBack from temporary retirement, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film, The Boy and the Heron, is a reminder of what makes him an animation legend.
    By Alison Willmore
  39. venice 2023
    Mads Mikkelsen’s Cold, Hard Stare Awaits Us in the Epic Promised LandI cannot adequately express to you how perfect Mikkelsen is in this role; that sensuous frown of his has infinite layers.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  40. movie review
    My Big Fat Greek MessThe third time is … whatever is the opposite of a charm.
    By Jen Chaney
  41. venice 2023
    If Glen Powell’s Not Already a Star, This Movie Will Make Him OneRichard Linklater’s Hit Man is a genuinely fresh and surprisingly gentle addition to the assassin genre.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  42. venice 2023
    Ava DuVernay’s Origin Devastates VeniceThe new film is both essay and melodrama, though neither description quite does it justice.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  43. venice 2023
    Sofia Coppola’s Elvis Movie Brings Priscilla Presley to TearsThe subject of the dark, complex biopic called Priscilla “amazing” and reaffirmed that the rock star was the love of her life.
    By Rachel Handler
  44. book review
    How Zadie Smith Lost Her TeethSince her audacious debut, she has been moving toward character-driven realism. In the process, she’s become the least interesting version of herself.
    By Andrea Long Chu
  45. venice 2023
    The Killer Could Be a Great Comedy If David Fincher Let ItThere’s a thin line between self-reflection and self-parody, and The Killer comes dangerously close to crossing it a few too many times.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  46. venice 2023
    Harmony Korine’s New Anti-Movie Aggro Dr1ft Looks Cool For a Few MinutesThe night-vision hit-man feature starring Jordi Molla and Travis Scott is a unique exercise in tedium.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  47. venice 2023
    Maestro Is a Masterful Reconstruction That Remains Just ThatThe Leonard Bernstein biopic somehow proves that Bradley Cooper is a director of genuine vision, even though it’s not a particularly successful movie.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  48. venice 2023
    Emma Stone Is Masterfully, Shamelessly Sexual in Poor ThingsHer character in Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest movie is her best role yet, one that is primed to earn her another Oscar nomination.
    By Rachel Handler
  49. movie review
    Denzel Washington’s Weird-Uncle Energy Remains Unmatched in The Equalizer 3This last installment feels tired, but Washington still brings the goods, i.e., the air of a local oddball who happens to be incredible at murder.
    By Alison Willmore
  50. tv review
    One Piece Is the Joyful Exception That Proves the RuleNetflix adapts Eiichiro Oda’s epic, silly, radical anime in live action and manages the impossible: It works.
    By Angelica Jade Bastién
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