movie reviews critics ratings

Movie Reviews and Ratings

Not Another Church Movie Review: Thank You Perry Much

The Fall Guy Review: A Stunt-Filled Spectacular

Abigail Review: An Unforgettable Bloodbath

Latest news.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Review: Guy Ritchie’s Watchable Action Film

Civil War Review: A Thematically Hollow Political Thriller

Sting Review: Space Spiders Die Hardest

Monkey Man Review: Dev Patel’s Mind-Blowing Action Debut

Panic Fest 2024 – Cannibal Mukbang Review: Sticky Sweet Horror Rom Com

The First Omen Review: A Shockingly Gory Prequel

Hunting for the Hag Review: Urban Legend Hunt Gets Lost in the Woods

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review: Superficially Fun Entertainment

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Review: A Feel-Good Nostalgia Trip

ABC Renews 7 Shows, Cancels Not Dead Yet

Who Is Shaq’s Girlfriend in 2024? Annie Ilonzeh Age & Occupation

Ryan Reynolds & Hugh Jackman ‘Scared’ to Reveal Their MCU Futures Post Deadpool & Wolverine

Peacemaker Season 2 Cast Adds Frank Grillo

MCU Galactus Actor Found for The Fantastic Four Cast

The Fantastic Four Cast Adds John Malkovich to MCU Movie

• Tickets & Showtimes
• Trending on RT

• Best Movies/TV
• Fan Favorites
• Movies by Genre
• TV by Genre
• Past Winners

Best Movies 2021

The Best Movies category awards the best-reviewed film regardless of their release, whether they went straight to streaming or swung onto the silver screen. Spider-Man: No Way Home became the mega-cultural event that would entice moviegoers back into theaters, and it lived up to the hype for critics, as well. It was a music-filled year with In the Heights , West Side Story , and Summer of Soul . On the heavy side, some big tomatoes for Pig and a career-best Nicolas Cage, Jane Campion’s first-in-11-years The Power of the Dog , and A Quiet Place Part II , everyone’s collective exhalation through horror. Meanwhile, Raya and the Last Dragon , The Mitchells vs the Machines , and Coda brought representative, progressive ingredients to family storytelling.

The order reflects Tomatometer scores (as of December 31, 2021) after adjustment from our ranking formula, which compensates for variation in the number of reviews when comparing movies or TV shows.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) 93%

In the Heights (2021) 94%

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021) 99%

Pig (2021) 97%

The Power of the Dog (2021) 94%

CODA (2021) 94%

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) 93%

West Side Story (2021) 92%

A Quiet Place Part II (2021) 91%

The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) 97%

The Suicide Squad (2021) 90%

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) 91%

Shiva Baby (2020) 97%

The Velvet Underground (2021) 98%

The Truffle Hunters (2020) 97%

Quo vadis, aida (2020) 100%.

Luca (2021) 91%

Slalom (2020) 100%

Drive My Car (2021) 97%

Coded Bias (2020) 100%

The Sparks Brothers (2021) 95%

Parallel Mothers (2021) 96%

The Lost Daughter (2021) 94%

Mayor (2020) 100%

Two of Us (2019) 98%

Mass (2021) 95%

Luzzu (2021) 98%

Changing the Game (2019) 100%

Acasa, My Home (2020) 100%

Sabaya (2021) 100%

More golden tomato awards 2021.

Best Wide Release Movies 2021

Best Limited Release Movies 2021

Best Streaming Movies 2021

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

Rotten Tomatoes Predicts the 2024 Emmy Nominations

May 10, 2024

100 Best Movies on Tubi (May 2024)

The Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video to Watch Right Now (May 2024)

66 Best Baseball Movies of All Time

Top Headlines

• 100 Best Movies on Tubi (May 2024) –
• The Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video to Watch Right Now (May 2024) –
• 66 Best Baseball Movies of All Time –
• The 100 Best Movies on Amazon Prime Video (May 2024) –
• Planet of the Apes In Order: How to Watch the Movies Chronologically –
• Planet of the Apes Movies Ranked by Tomatometer –

IMDb vs. Rotten Tomatoes vs. Metacritic: Which Movie Ratings Site Is Best?

IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic are the three most popular ratings sites for movies, but they aren't all equal.

Thanks to online ratings, it's easier than ever to know whether or not a movie is worth watching. A quick Google search brings up plenty of websites offering their opinions on the latest films.

The three most popular are IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic. But how do these sites differ, and which should you trust for information on movies? Here's everything you need to know.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a gigantic compendium of movies, TV shows, and video games. Its primary use is to find detailed information about any actor, producer, or piece of media content.

When you pull up a movie, you'll see a synopsis, trailers, photos, a cast list, trivia, and much more. What makes IMDb so useful is its cross-referencing. Upon opening the page for an actor, you'll see their best-known roles. Thus, IMDb is great for those "what else have I seen her in?" moments.

The IMDb mobile app takes this a step further. If you create an account and give ratings to movies and other media, you'll see a You may know them from field on an actor's page if you've rated something they appeared in.

With a free IMDb account, you can also create a Watchlist of movies you want to see. Along with contributing to the 10-point rating scale with other users, IMDb has many other useful features to offer if you're interested.

Pros of IMDb

Unlike the other two sites, IMDb's reviews come solely from users. It only takes a minute to sign up for IMDb and leave a review, so there's little barrier to entry.

Thus, IMDb's biggest strength is that its scores gives you a good idea of what normal consumers think of it. Professional critics have no influence on IMDb scores.

IMDb has a weighted average system to prevent users from rigging the score, but the service doesn't make it clear exactly how this works. Click the review count next to the star icon on any movie's page to see a breakdown of how people rated it.

Below the overall star average, you can see how the ratings break down by a few demographics, including age and gender.

Cons of IMDb

IMDb's biggest problem is that like other platforms, most people only leave reviews if they love or hate a film. Thus, this skews the scores in favor of either fanboys or haters.

People who want to boost a movie's perception will likely rate the movie a 10, while those who didn't like it will give a rating of one. This means you should read a handful of reviews to get a full picture of the movie's quality.

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a trusted source for movie reviews sourced from critics. Every movie uses the "Tomatometer" to score the quality of a film. If the critic liked the movie, a red tomato appears by their review. When they don't like it, you'll see a green splat instead.

As long as 60 percent or more of critics like the movie, it earns an overall Fresh score with a red tomato. If under 60 percent of critics rate the movie favorably, it earns a Rotten score with a green splat.

Meanwhile, a Certified Fresh badge appears next to titles that are of particularly high quality. They must hold at least a 75 percent favorable score after 80 reviews, including at least five from top critics.

Open any movie's page, and you'll see the overall score plus its number of reviews at the top. Click See Score Details for a deeper breakdown. The Critics Consensus , present for most movies, is a great summary of why the movie received its score.

Rotten Tomatoes also providers a user score, shown by the popcorn bucket. When at least 60 percent of users rated it 3.5 stars (out of 5) or higher, it shows a full bucket. A tipped-over bucket represents that under 60 percent of users gave it under 3.5 stars. Since you can use half-star ratings, this is close to the IMDb score.

In 2019, Rotten Tomatoes made some changes to reduce "review bombing" of movies. There's no longer a Want to See percentage, and you'll also see a check next to user reviews where the site has confirmed that the person actually bought a ticket to the movie.

At the bottom of a movie's page, you can read excerpts from the critic reviews, filter by fresh or rotten, or only show top critics. Search for your favorite actors, and you can check the scores of films they appeared in.

Related: Sites Like Rotten Tomatoes to Find Average Ratings and Reviews for Anything

Pros of Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes has the advantage of sourcing its reviews from trusted critics. The Rotten Tomatoes criteria page explains that the site only takes reviews from trusted newspapers, podcasts, and websites. In theory, this means that only the opinions of the most-trusted movie critics influence the Rotten Tomatoes review.

The Top Critic designation lets you filter by the absolute best critics if you prefer. You can't get a more professional opinion than from these folks.

Overall, Rotten Tomatoes does a good job of letting you know at a glance whether or not a movie is worth your time. The easily identifiable icons, overall score, and consensus summary only take a moment to scan.

Cons of Rotten Tomatoes

The biggest issue with Rotten Tomatoes is that it breaks down complex opinions into a Yes or No score. It scores a critic who thought the movie was decent but had some flaws (say, a 59 percent rating) the same as one who thought the movie was absolute garbage (a zero percent score).

You'll notice this with the Average Rating under the score. Take Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle as an example. Of the 232 critic reviews, 177 of them are positive. This gives the movie a score of 76 percent. However, the critics rated the movie an average of 6.2/10---quite a bit under the 76 percent displayed on the page.

This doesn't mean the scores on Rotten Tomatoes are useless, of course. But it's important to remember that there's nuance in individual reviews, and the Fresh/Rotten system effectively turns every rating into a 100 or 0 score.

Metacritic aggregates reviews of movies and TV shows, plus video games and music albums. It's one of the best sites for gamers , but it can give you a good idea on the quality of movies too.

The site collects reviews from many sources and aggregates them into one "metascore" from 0 to 100. It displays a color and one-line indication of quality based on the overall score, with the following used for movies, TV, and albums:

• 81-100: Universal Acclaim (Green)
• 61-80: Generally Favorable Reviews (Green)
• 40-60: Mixed or Average Reviews (Yellow)
• 20-39: Generally Unfavorable Reviews (Red)
• 0-19: Overwhelming Dislike (Red)

Unlike Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic uses a weighted average system. Nobody knows the exact details, but the service assigns more importance to some sources than others. Like the other two sites, Metacritic also includes a separate user score, which does not influence the critic score.

The Pros of Metacritic

Metacritic avoids the Rotten Tomatoes problem of scoring every review as simply "good" or "bad." A review of 50 percent gets mixed in with the rest to create the metascore. Thus, the score you see on Metacritic is closer to the average review, as opposed to the percentage of critics who simply liked the movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

Additionally, among these three sites, Metacritic is the only one to feature full user reviews right next to critic reviews. This makes it easy to compare what the general public thinks compared to the professionals.

The Cons of Metacritic

While it's easy to translate a score from a five-star or 10-point scale, Metacritic's way of translating letter grade is questionable. We can see how this works on the About Metascores page :

While scoring an A as 100 percent makes sense, note the scores for B- and F , for instance. A 67 percent score for a B- seems a bit harsh. In most schools, a score of 67 percent is closer to an F than it is a B- .

And scoring an F as 0 percent seems unfair. Something like 20 percent for an F might be more appropriate. Because every site has different scales for scoring (some might not even use pluses and minuses), this could skew a reviewer's original meaning.

Also, unlike Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic seems to have few public standards. There's no detailed information on where it sources it critics from. Thus, the score potentially doesn't have as much weight behind it as Rotten Tomatoes does.

What Is the Best Movie Rating Website?

So we've now taken a look at IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic, and listed their major pros and cons. As you might have guessed, there's no one website that's best for everything.

However, we can recommend each of these sites for different reasons:

• IMDb is great for seeing what general audiences think of a movie. If you don't care what the critics say and want to see what people like yourself thought of a film, then you should use IMDb. Just be aware that fans often skew the vote with 10-star ratings, which may inflate scores somewhat.
• Rotten Tomatoes offers the best overall picture of whether a movie is worth seeing at a glance. If you only trust the opinions of top critics and just want to know if a movie is at least decent, you should use Rotten Tomatoes. While the Fresh/Rotten binary can oversimplify the often complex opinions of critics, it should still help you weed out lousy films.
• Metacritic offers the most balanced aggregate score. If you don't mind which critics' opinions go into the final score and prefer seeing a general average, then you should use Metacritic. Its standards are mostly unknown, but Metacritic makes it easy to compare professional and user reviews side-by-side.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with checking all three of these sites every time you're thinking of seeing a movie. Over time, you should figure out which site's tastes most match yours; then you'll know which is best for you personally.

Personal Taste Still Matters Most

Remember that movie scores aren't everything. All three of these sites don't, for instance, paint an accurate picture of movies that are so bad they're good. Because those movies are objectively terrible, they carry low scores even though they have ironic value.

Plus, it's impossible to sum up complex opinions from dozens of people into a single number. And no matter what the critics or general public think, your preferences might be totally different anyway. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a movie that most people find stupid. So while these sites are helpful, don't take them too seriously.

Movie Reviews

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

A complete list of movie reviews and ratings from the Screen Rant film critics and industry experts - helping movie lovers decide which films to watch for over 15 years.

The Last Stop In Yuma County Review: A Riveting Debut Crime Thriller That Is Full Of Great Tension

In his film debut, Francis Galluppi’s The Last Stop In Yuma County is nothing short of being a compelling 1970s inspired thriller full of tension.

Evil Does Not Exist Review: A Serene Japanese Drama With Violence Simmering Beneath The Surface

Mother of the bride review: brooke shields is having a great time in easy, breezy netflix rom-com, kingdom of the planet of the apes review: caesar's reign continues in exciting return to sci-fi roots, mind body spirit review: a found footage horror film with something to say about the influencer age.

Taking the found footage genre into the new age, Mind Body Spirit has a twist that's easy to guess, but enough thrills to be satisfying.

Tarot Review: Thin Characters & Intermittent Frights Make For A Dull Horror Movie Experience

There are just too many elements that ultimately hinder Tarot's execution, from its thin characterizations to its repetitive, dull plot.

Unfrosted Review: Lacking Style & Substance, Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedy Provides Few Lackluster Laughs

In his feature directorial debut, Jerry Seinfeld depicts an absurd competition, as dueling cereal companies race to create the Pop-Tart.

Prom Dates Review: Despite Some Good Jokes, Hulu's Teen Comedy Is Only Mildly Funny

Ultimately, Prom Dates is a good time, entertaining, with a few chuckles to be had.

The Idea Of You Review: Anne Hathaway & Nicholas Galitzine's Steamy Chemistry Elevates New Rom-Com

Showalter’s The Idea of You is a bittersweet tale of inconvenient love that emotionally pierces you in all the ways modern romantic comedies should.

Jeanne Du Barry Review: Johnny Depp Returns In A Compelling, Unfocused French Period Drama Film

Jeanne du Barry marks a solid return for Johnny Depp to the world of cinema in a period piece where he portrays King Louis XV of France.

Turtles All The Way Down Review: John Green Coming-Of-Age Adaptation Excels & Falters At The Same Time

Underneath its weaker spots, Turtles All the Way Down is bolstered by genuine heart and an excellent central performance from Isabela Merced.

Boy Kills World Review: Old-School Revenge Thriller Shows Just How Tough Bill Skarsgard Is

Skarsgård and Benjamin make for an odd pair that work well together. Mohr's vision is clear and realized, and the resulting work of art is exciting.

Cash Out Review: John Travolta Negotiates With His Ex-Lover In Funny Action Heist Caper Gone Wrong

John Travolta plays an international criminal taking up one last job, only to encounter his FBI agent ex-lover as the bank heist goes awry.

The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed Review: Loneliness Is Hilarious In Poignant Comedy

Through long pauses and awkward romantic encounters, Joanna Arnow creates a tragically hilarious comedy about the passage of time & loneliness.

Infested Review: A Horror Movie About Spiders Made Me Feel Like It Was 2020 Again

I'm hardly going to complain about a monster movie where the monsters, not the humans, feel underdeveloped. It plays so much better than the reverse.

Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths - Part Two Review - Disappointing Superhero Film Lacks Urgency

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two is missing what the first film had in spades - heart, great action, and a sense of urgency.

I Waited 25 Years For LEGO To Release A Disney Set Like Snow White's & The Seven Dwarfs' Cottage

LEGO's 2024 Snow White set hits a Disney Collectors milestone with considerable flair. Here's everything to know about it.

Review: Spy x Family CODE: White Offers a Fun Adventure Even New Fans Can Enjoy

With a fun script and an adventure made for the big screen, Spy x Family CODE: White is a film that will delight fans and newcomers alike.

Sasquatch Sunset Review: A Surreal Dialogue-Free Bigfoot Comedy That Must Be Seen To Be Believed

Silly, surreal, and sometimes insightful, Sasquatch Sunset has a lot to say about life, nature, and what it means to simply exist.

Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver Review - Zack Snyder Goes Big On Story That Rings Hollow

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver delivers on the action Zack Snyder promised at the end of the first movie, yet the same prior issues persist.

Blood For Dust Review: Kit Harington's Standout Performance Is Overshadowed By A Forgettable Plot

Rod Blackhurst's action thriller, Blood for Dust, certainly brings the thrills, but they are minimal, drawn out, and (for the most part) predictable.

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare Review: Exhilarating Action Comedy Needed More Henry Cavill

Though not Guy Ritchie's best film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare has enough slick style and exhilarating action to be a helluva fun ride.

Challengers Review: Zendaya's Sexy Tennis Drama Is As Thrilling As Any Action Blockbuster

Challengers is visceral, exhilarating, & sexy: power dynamics shift with the force of tectonic plates & tennis matches are staged like action scenes.

Blackout Review: Tedious, Muddled Werewolf Drama Is Wildly Messy

Blackout's noble message, interesting material, and ambition are masked by a muddled story that fails to engage the viewer.

May the 4th be with you! Here’s everything our critics have said about the ‘Star Wars’ franchise

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

With “Star Wars” Day looming, it’s an apt time to take stock of The Times’ reviews of each installment — movies and TV shows — in the ever-evolving, paradigm-shattering intergalactic franchise.

Updating our list from 2015 , which came before a new wave of “Star Wars” films and TV series endeared the franchise to a new generation of fans, we’re including our reviews of the latest theatrical entries in “Star Wars” movie canon, and some notable mentions of the TV, streaming and serial projects that gave us backstories for Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Mandalorian and his beloved Grogu.

Here, in the order of the action in the “Star Wars” universe, are the reviews and features (some from a long time ago) that appeared in a newspaper in a galaxy not so far, far away ...

‘Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace’ (1999)

Former L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan — who reviewed all three prequel films — didn’t love “The Phantom Menace.” His review said it was obvious that the new addition to the franchise was “aimed at younger audiences” and noted that it “delivers lots of spectacle but is noticeably lacking in warmth and humor.”

Review: The Prequel Has Landed

‘Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones’ (2002)

Turan was also not feeling newcomer Hayden Christensen and his sulky take on Anakin Skywalker: “Judging by his performance here (perhaps not a wise thing to do), young Canadian actor Hayden Christensen was picked for Anakin strictly on his ability to radiate sullen teen rebellion, something he does a lot. Anakin chafes like a grounded adolescent at the restrictions Obi-Wan places on him, grousing that the master is “overly critical. He never listens. He just doesn’t understand. It’s not fair.”

Turan dubs the relationship between Anakin and his beloved Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) “High School Confidential in Outer Space” and states that the two are less troubled by their forbidden love and more “burdened by a formidable lack of chemistry.”

Review: “When We Last Saw Our Heroes ...”

‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ (2008)

Times staff writer Michael Ordoña described the feature film that launched George Lucas’ computer-animated TV series as a “theatrical pilot for the upcoming animated television series” and wrote that “anyone older than 8 with the majority of brain functions intact will have a bad feeling about this.”

“But where new characters, plot threads and better dialogue might have made up for much, ‘Clone Wars’ simply doesn’t aim high enough,” he wrote. “For those who had expected improved writing from the last four films [‘Return of the Jedi’ to ‘Revenge of the Sith’], your hopes will be dashed on the ornately realized rocks of Tatooine.”

Review aside, the TV series ran for seven seasons — first on Cartoon Network, then Netflix and finally Disney+ — from 2008 to 2020. Not to mention, “The Clone Wars” (both film and series) introduced its share of key characters and lore that has been indispensable to the franchise in the Disney+ era.

Review: It’s a Weak Jedi Mind Trick

‘Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith’ (2005)

Turan came in with show-stopping pun: “‘Revenge of the Sith’ is a visual stunner, but beware of the talk side.”

Enough said.

Review: It Looks Hot ...

‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ (2018)

Former Times film critic Justin Chang took on the newer “Star Wars” installments after Turan left The Times in 2020. His duties involved reviewing the lesser-loved film “Solo,” whose rocky behind-the-scenes story involved the firing of original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and the hiring of their replacement, Ron Howard. The film details how fan-favorite rogue Han Solo scored the famous Millennium Falcon, met Chewbacca and came by his surname.

“[Howard] and his collaborators (including screenwriters Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan) have cobbled together a high-speed, low-energy intergalactic heist movie, an opportunity to spend too much time with people you don’t care about and too little time with people you do,” Chang wrote.

Review: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Never Gets Off the Ground, But Don’t Blame Alden Ehrenreich

Obi-Wan Kenobi has a deep history. Before the Disney+ series, here’s what to know

We look back at the Star Wars history of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, originated by Alec Guinness and played in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ by Ewan McGregor.

May 26, 2022

‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ (2022)

The titular former general and Jedi master, introduced in 1977’s “ A New Hope ” and whose backstory was expanded upon in 1999’s “ The Phantom Menace ,” got his own space adventure in this Disney+’s six-episode limited series starring Ewan McGregor.

Times staff writer Tracy Brown explained that for series co-write Joby Harold, part of the excitement of the Disney+ series was exploring what could have happened between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope” for McGregor’s Kenobi to become the version embodied by Alec Guinness. The series is also a touching tribute to everybody’s favorite princess: “Leia’s role in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ both expands her significance in the overall ‘Star Wars’ story and recontextualizes existing canon in a way that deepens Leia’s imprint on the saga,” Brown wrote.

Commentary: How Disney’s ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ changes Princess Leia’s legacy forever

‘Star Wars Rebels’ (2014)

Times television critic Robert Lloyd wrote that the 2014 expression of the “Star Wars” brand seemed “sent to hold your attention until the arrival of the seventh live-action film.” The cartoon series premiered on the Disney Channel and was “the first tangible fruit of the incorporation of ‘Star Wars’ into the Walt Disney empire, and a Disney cartoon is very much what this is.”

“Though firmly in the Lucas tradition, this is also a Disney cartoon, for a Disney crowd and a Disney corporation — watching, you can almost feel the plastic and the plush — and whatever the characters are up to, however cute or sentimental the business, it is smartly designed and cinematically staged, and not hard to enjoy.”

Review: Disney Is the Driving Force of ‘Star Wars Rebels’

‘Andor’ (2022)

The critically hailed Disney+ series “Andor ” tells the story of how Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) transforms from disaffected, self-centered thief to committed resistance fighter willing to die for the cause, Brown wrote.

“Eschewing many of the familiar tropes and set pieces associated with the franchise, the series has pushed ‘Star Wars’ storytelling to new heights,” Brown said, and its political proclivities made the series must-see TV.

Commentary: ‘Star Wars’ Has Always Been Political. ‘Andor’ Made It Must-See TV

‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ (2016)

Landing in theaters a year after “The Force Awakens,” the brisk and momentous story was actually set about three decades prior and is a “swiftly paced, rough-and-ready entertainment that, in anticipating the canonical events of ‘A New Hope,’ manages the tricky feat of seeming at once casually diverting and hugely consequential,” Chang wrote.

“With the Death Star undergoing its final quality assurance tests, the evil Galactic Empire is very much in the ascendant. The Rebel Alliance is fractious and disorganized. And what initially seems like a zippy stand-alone adventure soon reveals itself as a grimly exciting prequel to the first, or should I say fourth, film in the series, ‘Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.’ (Think of the new movie, if you must, as ‘Star Wars: Episode III.V — Dawn of a New Hope.’)”

Review: ‘Rogue One’ Adds an Uneven but Thrilling Wrinkle to the Mythology of ‘Star Wars’

Unlike ‘Andor,’ ‘Mandalorian’ is going all in on ‘Star Wars’ lore. Here’s what to know

Season 3 features protective space dad Mando (Pedro Pascal) and adorable Grogu (Baby Yoda) on yet another journey steeped in “Star Wars” allusions.

March 1, 2023

‘Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope’ (1977)

The first-ever “Star Wars” film from director Lucas — originally titled simply “Star Wars” — was heralded by the late Times critic Charles Champlin as “the year’s most razzle-dazzling family movie, an exuberant and technically astonishing space adventure in which the galactic tomorrows of ‘Flash Gordon’ are the setting for conflicts and events that carry the suspiciously but splendidly familiar ring of yesterday’s westerns, as well as yesterday’s ‘Flash Gordon’ serials.”

Review: ‘Star Wars’ Hails the Once and Future Space Western

‘Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)

Champlin really got into the spirit of the Force, praising both the first film and this one for their optimism and more: “‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ like all superior fantasies, have the quality of parable, not only on good and evil but on attitudes toward life and personal deportment and there is something very like a moral imperative in the films’ view of hard work, determination, self-improvement, concentration and idealism,” he wrote. “It does not take a savant to see that this uplifting tone only a little less than the plot and effects is a central ingredient of the wide outreach of the films.”

Review: In the ‘Star Wars’ Saga, ‘Empire’ Strikes Forward

‘Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi’ (1983)

We found someone who loved the Ewoks! The late Times movie critic Sheila Benson called the final film in the original trilogy “frankly irresistible” and heaped tons of praise on the furry fiends from the moon of Endor.

Review: ‘Star Wars’ Continues With an Inventive ‘Jedi’

‘The Mandalorian’ (2019)

The big-budget, live-action series launched Disney’s streaming platform (and gave us the adorable “baby Yoda,” a.k.a. Grogu). Lorraine Ali, who was then a Times’ TV critic, described the show as “‘Star Wars’/Disney right down to its weird sand creatures and blighted outposts, and a safe-but-entertaining start” for Disney+.

“The premiere episode of the first live-action series in the ‘Star Wars’ universe is a direct descendant of the big-budget film franchise in both tone and execution. It’s long on impressive special effects and alien shootouts, and short on a fresh story line beyond the usual unwitting hero with a mysterious family tree and a destiny that involves saving the universe (or part of it),” she wrote. “The feel of the series is blockbuster cinema — action-packed, predictable, entertaining — so it’s jarring when the first episode ends at around 35 minutes.”

Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Is ‘Star Wars’ to the Core: A Safe, Entertaining Blockbuster

‘The Book of Boba Fett’ (2021-22)

The first spinoff of “The Mandalorian” focuses on fan-favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett, who left a lasting impression despite only six minutes and 32 seconds of screen time and four spoken lines during the original trilogy, Brown wrote. (Hey, the action figure was cool.)

Picking up after the events of “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett” follows Fett (Temuera Morrison) as he establishes himself as the new crime lord in charge among the local scum and villainy on Tattooine, along with his faithful right hand, Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). The series also filled in some gaps about what Fett was up to between the events of “Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi” (1983) and his appearance in “The Mandalorian.”

Commentary: Boba Fett Had Four Lines in ‘Empire Strikes Back.’ How He Ended Up With His Own TV Show

‘Star Wars: Ahsoka’ (2023)

When Ahsoka Tano crashed into Anakin Skywalker’s life as his newly assigned padawan apprentice in 2008’s animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” she changed “Star Wars” forever.

Much like her master, the teen was reckless, impulsive, stubborn and didn’t always follow the rules. She was also the first female Jedi protagonist who audiences got to see in action onscreen in a franchise that until pretty recently held the lightsaber-wielding users of the Force in the highest regard.

The next chapter in the character’s 15-year legacy was “Star Wars: Ahsoka,” which similarly broke new ground on the live-action side of the galaxy far, far away. Starring Rosario Dawson, the series boasts the first nonhuman “Star Wars” title hero as well as a core cast primarily composed of women. Both are representational milestones and examples of how “Star Wars” has become much more inclusive than it was when the original film premiered in 1977.

Commentary: ‘Ahsoka’ Proves That ‘Star Wars’ Has Long Been a Galaxy Where Women Can Be Heroes

‘Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens’ (2015)

Turan wrote that the most hotly anticipated motion picture since “Gone With the Wind” had “an erratic, haphazard quality to it” but was “a definite improvement” on the franchise’s “abortive” second trilogy set, “The Phantom Menace,” “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith.”

“‘The Force Awakens’ is only at its best in fits and starts, its success dependent on who of its mix of franchise veterans and first-timers is on the screen,” Turan wrote. “But ‘The Force Awakens’ is also burdened by casting miscalculations and scenes that are flat and ineffective. Sometimes the Force is with this film, sometimes it decidedly is not.”

The Force was certainly with it at the box-office. The film grossed $120.5 million on its opening day, and in 2016 became the highest grossing movie in U.S. history (at the time), not adjusting for inflation.

Review: ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’: Was It Worth the Wait?

‘Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi’ (2017)

The series’ eighth official episode, directed by Rian Johnson, was hailed as “easily its most exciting iteration in decades” by Chang, who described it as “the first flat-out terrific ‘Star Wars’ movie since 1980’s ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’”

“It seizes upon Lucas’ original dream of finding a pop vessel for his obsessions — Akira Kurosawa epics, John Ford westerns, science-fiction serials — and fulfills it with a verve and imagination all its own.”

Review: ‘The Last Jedi’ Brings Emotion, Exhilaration and Surprise Back to the ‘Star Wars’ Saga

‘Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker’ (2019)

“The Rise of Skywalker,” the frenzied big-bang conclusion of the franchise’s third movie trilogy, “offers itself up in the spirit of a ‘Last Jedi’ corrective, a return to storytelling basics, a nearly 2½-hour compendium of everything that made you fall in love with ‘Star Wars’ in the first place,” Chang wrote in 2019.

“The more accurate way to describe it, I think, is as an epic failure of nerve,” he said. “This ‘Rise’ feels more like a retreat, a return to a zone of emotional and thematic safety from a filmmaker with a gift for packaging nostalgia as subversion. Still, let’s acknowledge [director J.J.] Abrams for the proficient craftsman and genre-savvy showman he is. Like some of his other major pop-cultural contributions (two enjoyable ‘Star Trek’ movies and the twisty TV series ‘Lost’ among them), ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ is a swift and vigorous entertainment, with a sense of forward momentum that keeps you watching despite several dubious plot turns and cheap narrative fakeouts.”

Review: ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Is Here to Remind You Just How Good ‘The Last Jedi’ Was

Former Times staff writer Meredith Woerner contributed to this report.

More to Read

‘The Phantom Menace’ dominated 1999’s box office. History has been kinder to it

May 3, 2024

The unmissable addition to Disneyland’s Star Tours ride? Space whales

April 9, 2024

Ahsoka, Andor and the Mandalorian are coming to Disneyland’s Star Tours

March 5, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Nardine Saad covers breaking entertainment news, trending culture topics, celebrities and their kin for the Fast Break Desk at the Los Angeles Times. She joined The Times in 2010 as a MetPro trainee and has reported from homicide scenes, flooded canyons, red carpet premieres and award shows.

More From the Los Angeles Times

‘The Lord of the Rings’ will return with two new movies. First: ‘The Hunt for Gollum’

May 9, 2024

‘Fallout’ is fun, but the reality of a post-nuclear apocalypse is nightmare fuel

‘Doctor Who’ is primed to be bigger than ever. How Bad Wolf is helping lead the charge

May 8, 2024

How the Cat King in ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ captures a familiar queer dynamic

April 27, 2024

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Consider This from NPR

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

Critics hated 'The Phantom Menace.' It might be time to reconsider

A Jedi and a Jar Jar walk into a movie... Maximum Film/Alamy hide caption

A Jedi and a Jar Jar walk into a movie...

The year is 1999. Fans are lined up around theaters. News stations are treating it like a breaking news event.

On May 19, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace hit theaters, the first movie of the franchise to be released in well over a decade. It promised to tell the origin story of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.

Fans were so excited some camped out for days, sometimes even weeks, to see the film on opening day.

It's Been a Minute

Suburban decay and choking on nostalgia in 'i saw the tv glow'.

"The original trilogy was so phenomenal," said one eager moviegoer. "People have been waiting for this for, like, 16 years." Another went so far as to say, "There are now eight wonders of the world, one of them being this movie."

When one reporter asked a crowd if there was any concern the movie might be bad, they responded with a resounding "No." Oh how wrong they were.

You're reading the Consider This newsletter, which unpacks one major news story each day. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to more from the Consider This podcast .

The consensus? It was a huge flop

NPR sent two critics to review the film. Neither had much good to say.

Here's how Tom Shales described the movie: "The new Star Wars movie Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace is a menace. It's not about storytelling and it's not about people ... it's about effects and technology. It's a computer movie through and through, by computers and maybe for computers."

NPR's Bob Mondello took issue with the infamous Jar Jar Binks: "'What could he have been thinking,' you say to yourself as [George Lucas] introduces a race of idol-worshiping primitives who speak with Caribbean accents and behave like refugees from Amos n Andy ."

The trailer for Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace

The backlash didn't stop there. People hated nine-year-old Darth Vader. They didn't like all the talk of taxes and trade embargoes.

Hating on The Phantom Menace has become somewhat of a punchline in Star Wars circles, says Erich Schwartzel, who covers the film industry for The Wall Street Journal and is writing a book about George Lucas and Star Wars.

He told NPR the hype only amplified the sting of disappointment: "It's really, looking back I think, the first example that I have, and maybe the film industry has, of the movie almost being beside the point."

25 years later, nostalgia has given the film new life

While the overwhelming consensus was The Phantom Menace was terrible, only a Sith deals in absolutes (sorry).

To understand how popular opinion on the film has changed, Schwartzel points to Jar Jar Binks. Schwartzel said most of the fans who grew up on the original Star Wars trilogy would have been in their late 20s or early 30s when they lined up to watch The Phantom Menace .

"[Jar Jar] represents the inherently childish nature of Star Wars, and how childish it can be," Schwartzel said. "I think Jar Jar is a bit of an affront to those fans, sort of being a reminder that this is also for kids."

Fans line up at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York on May 6, 1999 to be the first to see the movie, Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace . Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Fans line up at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York on May 6, 1999 to be the first to see the movie, Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace .

Now that those kids, whose introduction to the Star Wars world was The Phantom Menace , are adults, it's unsurprising the film is remembered more fondly. The "prequel kids," as Schwartzel puts it, hold The Phantom Menace as dear to them as older fans revere A New Hope .

After a recent anniversary screening of the film in D.C., All Things Considered host Scott Detrow met 29-year-old Eleni Salyers, who said she's been a fan of the prequels since she was a kid: "For me it's nostalgic. Growing up I always preferred the prequels, which is a hot take for many Star Wars fans."

Code Switch

Jerry seinfeld and the fraught history of comedians and 'political correctness'.

To fans like Salyers, some of the best moments include the lightsaber fights, which compared to those in the original trilogy, are faster and flashier. The Phantom Menace also introduced fans to podracing, with its now iconic visual and sound effects.

The prequel trilogy has played a foundational role in building the Star Wars franchise into a "multigenerational juggernaut," Schwartzel said. He notes that if you look at the fire hose of Star Wars content Disney has released over the last decade, you'll see much of the themes and characters come from the world the prequels created.

This episode was produced by Marc Rivers. It was edited by Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

• anniversary
• the phantom menace

‘The Last Stop in Yuma County’ Review: An Accomplished Pressure-Cooker Thriller That’s Like a Tarantino-Fueled Noir, 30 Years Later

In Francis Galluppi's lean, tight, and stylishly clever B-movie, two bank robbers take over an Arizona diner. Violence and greed ensue.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• ‘The Last Stop in Yuma County’ Review: An Accomplished Pressure-Cooker Thriller That’s Like a Tarantino-Fueled Noir, 30 Years Later 1 day ago
• ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Review: The Franchise Essentially Reboots with a Tale of Survival Set — At Last — in the Ape-Ruled Future 3 days ago
• Restored and Rereleased, the Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ Is Revealed to Be the Joyful Documentary It Always Was 4 days ago

Thirty years ago (in fact, it will be 30 years to the day this Sunday), Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, and cinema was never the same. Tarantino’s 1994 epic-crime-pretzel-meets-pop-monologue masterpiece smashed open one door after another, and an inevitable result is that we saw a great many movies in the ’90s that were Tarantino knockoffs — underworld capers of baroque violence and exuberant scuzz, movies that not only bent the dirty hedonism of film noir into new shapes but did it with a special brand of self-consciousness, a “Look at what we’re up to!” effrontery.

Popular on Variety

The man in the car is handsome in a nervous-geek way, with a very straight haircut, and he’s toting a small rectangular case. He’s got an unmistakable Norman Bates vibe (something the film makes reference to). While twiddling with the radio, he hears about the bank robbery (the fact that the men drove off with $700,000 in a green Pinto), and he then flips the radio onto a song that, to me, was needle-drop heaven: the 1968 Paul Mauriat version of “Love Is Blue.” I confess that this instrumental French ditty of tinkling rapture is one of my all-time favorite pop songs, and the film uses it in heavily ironic counterpoint, laying it over shots of an orange truck turned on its side, post-crash, dripping gasoline. Love is blue, and in this movie so are blood, guts, bullets, and octane.

The Norman Bates-in-the-’70s fellow is played by Jim Cummings , the gifted indie actor and filmmaker who is, among other things, a wicked chameleon. Even those who relished his performance as a trainwreck of a small-town cop in “Thunder Road” (which he also directed) might not immediately recognize him here. His character, it turns out, is a knife salesman (which evidently was a thing back then, sort of like selling encyclopedias), and he’s on his way to visit his young daughter. The audience thinks: neo-Anthony Perkins + knife salesman + divorced dad = big loser. But Cummings invests the character, who is never named, with a spooky awareness. He’s a scaredy-cat soul who absorbs everything.

Mostly, he’s trying to survive. So is Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue), the pretty waitress — this is back in the age when everyone refers to her as a “pretty waitress,” as if it were a job description — who says goodbye to her doofus Southern-hippie local sheriff of a husband (Michael Abbott Jr.) and then starts serving coffee.

That’s when Beau (Richard Brake) and Travis (Nicholas Logan) walk in. They’re the bank robbers, and it doesn’t take long for them to figure out that Charlotte has already made them. (Even in the ’70s, a green Pinto stands out.) Galluppi has an exceptional eye for actors, and he scores a real coup by casting Richard Brake as the alpha crook. As Beau, Brake is tall and gaunt, with burning eyes, a rotter who looks like Steve Buscemi crossed with David Byrne crossed with a human rattlesnake who’s a lifelong junkie. Yet he speaks in a voice that’s bone-dry with logic. He’s the one who’s going to keep this situation on the down-low. As for Travis, his partner, he’s the hothead, like Steve Zahn on steroids, doomed to make it all explode.

Reviewed online, May 8, 2024. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 90 MIN.

• Production: A Well Go USA Entertainment release of a Local Boogeyman, XYZ Films production, in association with Carte Blanche, Random Lane. Producers: Matt O'Neill, Atif Malik, Francis Galluppi. Executive producer: James Claeys, Brian Dahlin, Kyle Stroud, Jim Cummings, Nicholas Logan, Joe Heath,
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Francis Galluppi. Camera: Mac Fisken. Editor: Francis Galluppi. Music: Matthew Compton.
• With: Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Richard Brake, Sierra McCormick, Nicholas Logan, Michael Abbott Jr., Connor Paolo, Alexandra Essoe, Robin Bartlett, Jon Proudstar, Sam Huntingotn, Ryan Masson, Barbara Crampton, Gene Jones, Faizon Love.

More From Our Brands

Clarence thomas complains about ‘awful’ people after his ethics scandals, this new 400-foot gigayacht has 3 pools and an underwater lounge, financial services firm broadridge boosts us rowing with job pipeline, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, doctor who boss: you should be ‘very’ worried about maestro’s ‘very wrong‘ warning — watch, verify it's you, please log in.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Link to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• The Fall Guy Link to The Fall Guy
• The Last Stop in Yuma County Link to The Last Stop in Yuma County

New TV Tonight

• Doctor Who: Season 1
• Blood of Zeus: Season 2
• Pretty Little Liars: Summer School: Season 2
• Black Twitter: A People's History: Season 1
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Bodkin: Season 1
• Hollywood Con Queen: Season 1
• The Chi: Season 6
• Reginald the Vampire: Season 2
• Love Undercover: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• A Man in Full: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Hacks: Season 3
• The Sympathizer: Season 1
• Them: Season 2
• Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
• X-Men '97: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Doctor Who: Season 1 Link to Doctor Who: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

100 Best Movies on Tubi (May 2024)

The Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video to Watch Right Now (May 2024)

Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Rotten Tomatoes Predicts the 2024 Emmy Nominations

8 Things To Know About The New Season Of Doctor Who

• Trending on RT
• Furiosa First Reactions
• Streaming in May
• New Doctor Who
• Planet of the Apes Reviews

Where to Watch

Watch The Batman with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

A grim, gritty, and gripping super-noir, The Batman ranks among the Dark Knight's bleakest -- and most thrillingly ambitious -- live-action outings.

It's long, but The Batman looks and sounds great, and its grounded take on Gotham is a solid fit for this Caped Crusader.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Matt Reeves

Robert Pattinson

Bruce Wayne

Zoë Kravitz

Selina Kyle

Jeffrey Wright

Lt. James Gordon

Colin Farrell

The Riddler

Movie Clips

More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles..

Advertisement

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘A Prince’ Review: Let New Passions Bloom

Sex, death and domination fuel this beautifully enigmatic pastoral drama from France, which presents the gay coming-of-age of an apprentice gardener.

• Share full article

By Beatrice Loayza

It’s not immediately apparent how courtly intrigue figures in “A Prince,” Pierre Creton’s spellbinding French pastoral drama, though sex, death and domination hang palpably in the film’s crisp, Normandy air.

Creton, a veteran director working at the margins of France’s film industry, looks to the divine powers and chivalric codes that fuel swords-and-shields epics like “Game of Thrones,” but whittles these elements down to a mysterious essence. A subtly medieval score — distinguished by the thrum of a lute and composed by Jozef van Wissem — draws out a surreal dimension. Eventually, the film shifts into explicitly sexual and mythological terrain with a B.D.S.M. edge, and the score keeps pace, taking on a folk metal vibe.

The story is slippery by design, loosely tracking the gay coming-of-age of an apprentice gardener, Pierre-Joseph, played for the most part by Antoine Pirotte. Creton, who also works as a gardener in real life, plays the older version of Pierre-Joseph, so “A Prince” also reads as an autofictional memory piece.

Throughout the film, a series of wordless and seductively austere tableaux, Pierre- Joseph forms bonds with various individuals in his rural community. Multiple narrators, including Françoise Lebrun (“ The Mother and the Whore ”), speak in retrospect, as if looking back from the afterlife at the characters onscreen. These connections are tangled: for instance, Lebrun voices Françoise Brown (played by Manon Schaap), the head of a horticulture school. Yet Lebrun also plays the onscreen version of Pierre-Joseph’s mother.

The effect may seem frustrating at first, but it ultimately feeds into the kind of alternative, communal lifestyle that the film showcases so beautifully.

Pierre-Joseph eventually comes to form a throuple with Alberto (Vincent Barré) and Adrien (Pierre Barray), his mentors. The naked bodies of these much older gentleman appear suggestively weathered next to their younger lover’s sprightly form. Yet there is no mention of taboo. That passion could bloom in such spontaneous and unexpected forms is part of this enigmatic film’s potency.

A Prince Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misidentified an instrument used in the score. It was a lute, not a mandolin.

How we handle corrections

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help.a.

Andy Serkis, the star of the earlier “Planet of the Apes” movies, and Owen Teague, the new lead, discuss the latest film in the franchise , “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.”

The HBO series “The Sympathizer” is not just a good story, it’s a sharp piece of criticism on Vietnam war movies, our critic writes .

In “Dark Matter,” the new Apple TV+ techno-thriller, a portal to parallel realities allows people to visit new worlds and revisit their own past decisions .

The tennis movie “Challengers” comes to an abrupt stop midmatch, so we don’t know who won. Does that matter? Our critics have thoughts .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

In mainstream movies today, “dark” is just another flavor. Like “edgy,” it’s an option you use depending on what market you want to reach. And it is particularly useful when injected into the comic book genre.   

Darkness no longer has much to do with feelings of alienation the filmmaker wants to express or purge, as was the case with a film like “ Taxi Driver .” It’s not about exploring uncomfortable ideas, as was done in “ The King of Comedy .” Do you think Todd Phillips , who co-wrote and directed “Joker,” and references those movies so often you might expect that  Martin Scorsese  was enlisted as an executive producer here as a way of heading off a plagiarism lawsuit (he dropped out not too long after signing on, however), really cares about income inequality, celebrity worship, and the lack of civility in contemporary society? I don’t know him personally but I bet he doesn’t give a toss. He’s got the pile he made on those “Hangover” movies—which some believe have indeed contributed to the lack of civility in etc.—and can not only buy up all the water that’s going to be denied us regular slobs after the big one hits, he can afford the bunker for after the bigger one hits.

Which is not to go so far as to say that if you buy into “Joker,” the joke’s on you. (Except in the long run it really is.) If you live to see Joaquin Phoenix go to performing extremes like nobody’s business, this movie really is the apotheosis of that. As Arthur Fleck, the increasingly unglued street clown and wannabe stand-up comic down and out in what looks like 1980s Gotham (although who knows what period detail looks like in fictional cities), Phoenix flails, dances, laughs maniacally, puts things in his mouth that shouldn’t go there, and commits a couple of genuinely ugly and disgusting crimes with ferocious relish.

Much has been made, by Warner, and I guess DC Comics, of the fact that this is meant as a “standalone” film that has no narrative connection to other pictures in the DC Universe, but that’s having your cake and eating it too when you still name your lunatic asylum “Arkham” and your cinematic DC Universe is changing its Batmen every twenty minutes anyway. Maybe what they really mean is that this is the first and last DC movie that’s going to be rated R.

A rating it thoroughly earns. The violence in this movie means to shock, and it does. Fleck’s alienation in the early scenes evokes Travis Bickle’s, but this movie is too chicken-livered to give Fleck Bickle’s racism, although it depicts him mostly getting hassled by people of color in the first third. Fleck is also fixated with a Carson-like talk-show host played by Robert De Niro , reversing the “King of Comedy” player positions. He also likes the black woman down the hall from him, played by Zazie Beetz . The casting is not just meant to give the movie bragging rights on the zeitgeist curve, but to evoke Diahnne Abbott in both “Taxi Driver” and “Comedy.” Fleck’s seemingly successful wooing of the character is a jaw-dropper that had me thinking Beetz ought to fire her agent, but a late-game clarification makes it … well, forgivable is not quite the word, but it will do.

As Gotham begins to burn (the civil unrest starts with a garbage strike), Fleck, who has been taken as a vigilante by much of the city’s 99%, doesn’t quite know what to make of his underground cult stardom. (The city is beset by rioters in clown makeup and clown masks; because this movie is rather suddenly behind the curve in “clowns-are-scary” awareness—only Pennywise gets a special dispensation these days—these sequences look like “The Revolt of the Juggalos” or something equally laughable.) His mom ( Frances Conroy , the poor woman) has been writing letters to her former employer, the magnate Thomas Wayne, and Arthur opens one of the missives and reads them, learning something disturbing. 

The storyline in and of itself is not a total miss. But once the movie starts lifting shots from “ A Clockwork Orange ” (and yes, Phillips and company got Warners to let them use the Saul Bass studio logo for the opening credits, in white on red, yet) you know its priorities are less in entertainment than in generating self-importance. As social commentary, “Joker” is pernicious garbage. But besides the wacky pleasures of Phoenix’s performance, it also displays some major movie studio core competencies, in a not dissimilar way to what “A Star Is Born” presented last year. ( Bradley Cooper is a producer.) The supporting players, including Glenn Fleshler and Brian Tyree Henry , bring added value to their scenes, and the whole thing feels like a movie. The final minutes, which will move any sentient viewer to mutter “would you just pick a goddamn ending and stick to it?” are likely an indication of what kind of mess we would have had on our hands had Phillips been left entirely to his own cynical incoherent devices for the entire runtime. Fortunately, he gets by with a little help from his friends. 

This review was originally filed from the Venice Film Festival on August 31st. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Boy Kills World

Simon abrams.

Clint Worthington

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver

Girls State

Kaiya Shunyata

Terrestrial Verses

Godfrey cheshire, film credits.

Joker (2019)

Rated R for strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual images.

118 minutes

Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck / Joker

Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond

Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin

Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne

Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck

Douglas Hodge as Alfred Pennyworth

Shea Whigham as GCPD Detective

Marc Maron as Ted Marco

• Todd Phillips
• Scott Silver

Cinematographer

• Lawrence Sher
• Hildur Guðnadóttir

Latest blog posts

The 10 Most Anticipated Films of Cannes 2024

The Importance of Connections in Ryusuke Hamaguchi Films

Saving Film History One Frame at a Time: A Preview of Restored & Rediscovered Series at the Jacob Burns Film Center

The Beatles Were Never More Human Than in ‘Let It Be’