Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes
Publications list

Christian Science Monitor

Tomatometer-approved publication.

Prev Next
Rating Title | Year Author Quote
The American President (1995) David Sterritt The American President isn't great cinema, but it has a foot in the real world, and that's more than I can say about most of the frivolities now passing for entertainment at the local multiplex.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
Young Mothers (2025) Peter Rainer The Dardennes’ mobile camera and exclusive use of natural light is sometimes indistinguishable from what often passes for docudrama-style “realism.” What rescues the film from such an undue comparison is the quality of empathy on view.
Posted Jan 16, 2026  Edit critic review
The Choral (2025) Peter Rainer Old-fashioned in the best sense. The period details are lovingly applied; the script, by the great Alan Bennett, is beautifully crafted; and the performances, led by the marvelous Ralph Fiennes as the town’s reluctant choirmaster, are all standouts.
Posted Jan 16, 2026  Edit critic review
Bite the Bullet (1975) David Sterritt Besides coordinating this cast into an acceptable entertainment, Brooks provides a few serious undertones, too.
Posted Jan 15, 2026  Edit critic review
Christine (1983) CSM Staff Based on a Stephen King novel and directed by shock specialist John Carpenter, who brings little verve to the predictable plot except for some carefully crafted scenes of teen-age life that recall his earlier ''Halloween.''
Posted Dec 17, 2025  Edit critic review
The Abyss (1989) David Sterritt It's big and fast-moving, and it has plenty of energy. But the plot is silly, and for a picture that claims to be out of the ordinary, a lot of its scenes look awfully familiar.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Big Top Pee-wee (1988) David Sterritt Endearingly silly, but nowhere near as original or amusing as "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" a couple of years ago.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) Peter Rainer The real miracle here is that none of this heavy lifting does much to bog down the proceedings. There are lapses and lulls in the storytelling. But to put it bluntly, you can be a Blanc or a Jud and still enjoy this movie.
Posted Dec 02, 2025  Edit critic review
Zootopia 2 (2025) Ken Makin Above all, what it shows is that our kids are capable of great things -- and nuanced ideas.
Posted Dec 02, 2025  Edit critic review
A Christmas Carol (1984) Christopher Swan Here is a ''Christmas Carol'' that broods with stormy anger over great social injustice, even as it celebrates the human spirit.
Posted Nov 26, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Nouvelle Vague (2025) Peter Rainer It’s not simply a movie about how a landmark maverick movie got made. Its true subject is the exhilaration that comes from being part of an artistic escapade. It’s about how art -- the making of it and the appreciation of it -- can free you.
Posted Nov 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Train Dreams (2025) Peter Rainer A beautiful tone poem of a movie. I hesitate to say that only because it implies something woozy and precious. “Train Dreams” is anything but.
Posted Nov 13, 2025  Edit critic review
4.5/5
Blue Moon (2025) Peter Rainer What gives the movie much of its poignancy and power is Hart’s realization, and ours, that the asperity and regret showcased in his famous lyrics are no longer in fashion. He knows his time has passed.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025) Peter Rainer It is by no means unprecedented that the life of a great performer can be so bifurcated. But to make us begin to understand the anguish on display here, the movie needed more emotional layers and fewer obvious signposts.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Dracula (1979) David Sterritt It's too bad that Badham's eagerly gruesome special effects tend to undermine Langella's subtle characterization.
Posted Oct 23, 2025  Edit critic review
4.5/5
It Was Just an Accident (2025) Peter Rainer The film’s moral issues don’t come across as tacked on. They arise organically and register as both intensely personal to the filmmaker and much larger in scope. The film even offers up, against all odds, a measure of hope.
Posted Oct 22, 2025  Edit critic review
4.5/5
Preparation for the Next Life (2025) Peter Rainer This is more than a simple exercise in semi-documentary realism. The performances have a vibrancy. Hechinger doesn’t play up the standard wounded soldier tropes. His Skinner seems both unreachable to us and tremblingly close.
Posted Sep 24, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
Boogie Nights (1997) David Sterritt This high-energy saga by Paul Thomas Anderson goes a long way toward exposing the greed and stupidity of the pornography trade, then loses its moral compass and steers toward a sadly superficial ending.
Posted Sep 23, 2025  Edit critic review
This Is Spinal Tap (1984) David Sterritt Cleverly directed by Rob Reiner, who energetically deflates an impressive number of musical, cinematic, and just plain human foibles.
Posted Sep 04, 2025  Edit critic review
4.5/5
A Little Prayer (2023) Peter Rainer A movie about a family in deep disarray. But the writer-director, Angus MacLachlan, is not one to exploit turmoil. He understands that people in distress are deserving of our fullest understanding.
Posted Aug 29, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
The Thursday Murder Club (2025) Yvonne Zipp The Thursday Murder Club, despite the best efforts of its truly superlative cast, is pretty much a Sunday night detective drama -- albeit one with spectacular production values.
Posted Aug 22, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
Requiem for a Dream (2000) David Sterritt Solid acting helps the story stay earthbound when Aronofsky's filmmaking gets addicted to its own flashy cynicism.
Posted Aug 20, 2025  Edit critic review
4.5/5
The Musicians (2025) Peter Rainer Modest in scope, it ultimately conveys, at its best, the unifying joy that great music-making can inspire.
Posted Aug 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Waterworld (1995) CSM Staff Rambunctious, exhausting, entertaining.
Posted Jul 28, 2025  Edit critic review
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) CSM Staff There's a lot of laughter to be found between the merely crude moments.
Posted Jul 24, 2025  Edit critic review
5/5
Sorry, Baby (2025) Peter Rainer The extraordinary tact and compassion with which Victor dramatizes Agnes’s assault and its aftermath allows us to see this story for what it truly is – a diary of personal reclamation.
Posted Jul 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Explorers (1985) David Sterritt For the first 90 minutes or so, filmmaker Joe Dante is on his best behavior, and the action is so controlled it can hardly breathe. Then he allows his native wit and imagination to blossom in a hilarious encounter with aliens.
Posted Jul 10, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
F1 The Movie (2025) Peter Rainer Their stated aim was to make the most authentic racing car movie ever made and, from a purely technical standpoint, they’ve succeeded.
Posted Jun 27, 2025  Edit critic review
Supergirl (1984) David Sterritt The plot is too slim and illogical.
Posted Jun 27, 2025  Edit critic review
Superman II (1980) David Sterritt ..."Superman II"... is a clone of the original "Superman," still taking most of its ideas from a venerable comic strip and adding little of its own except some welcome comedy.
Posted Jun 25, 2025  Edit critic review
The Gold Rush (1925) CSM Staff [Charles Chaplin] believes in providing a variety of mood as well as of action. In The Gold Rush he prys each spectator out of his customary mental rut and gives him a delicious emotional bath.
Posted Jun 24, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Materialists (2025) Peter Rainer Jane Austen it’s not, but it gets at the consequences of modern romance among the moneyed classes, where self-worth is bound up in one’s market value.
Posted Jun 13, 2025  Edit critic review
Night Moves (1975) David Sterritt Night Moves is rash and hard-edged, a remorseless gambit that seems to have been carelessly conceived from the beginning.
Posted May 29, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025) Peter Rainer We’ve seen Cruise do this sort of thing before, gripping the outside of planes and walking on wings and what not. But it doesn’t grow old.
Posted May 22, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (2024) Peter Rainer The tendency to overdose on literary preciousness is ever present. But first-time writer-director Laura Piani doesn’t push the Austen parallels. And the twist here -- Agathe is more of an Austen idolater than an Austen protagonist -- is fresh.
Posted May 21, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
Dirty Work (1998) CSM Staff Crass, juvenile, ribald.
Posted May 15, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
Dirty Work (1998) David Sterritt "Dirty Work" is far funnier than SNL's Weekend Update ever was with McDonald at the helm.
Posted May 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Starman (1984) David Sterritt "Starman" might have been a first-class fantasy if its screenplay were more clearly aimed.
Posted May 13, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/4
Mission: Impossible II (2000) David Sterritt Action-packed, entertaining, unoriginal, impressive stunts.
Posted May 08, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
Mission: Impossible (1996) CSM Staff Some of the suspense set-pieces are impressive, but the picture would pack a greater wallop if it were stitched together more tightly and consistently.
Posted May 03, 2025  Edit critic review
The Stepford Wives (1975) David Sterritt Something strange is going on in the town of Stepford... And something strange is going on in the movie business, too, when a second-class thriller like The Stepford Wives can parade itself as the natural successor to Rosemary's Baby.
Posted May 02, 2025  Edit critic review
Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984) Arthur Unger For me, "Ewok" only proves once again that too much of a good thing can be too much of a good thing.
Posted Apr 28, 2025  Edit critic review
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) David Sterritt Uncharacteristically for a Star Wars saga, [Luke and Vader's confrontation] is chilling psychologically as well as physically. For the rest, though, The Empire Strikes Back is good-natured hokum.
Posted Apr 24, 2025  Edit critic review
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) David Sterritt We've come full circle. George Lucas, one of Hollywood's current boy wonders, has launched space opera to exhilarating new heights in a speed-of-light epic called Star Wars.
Posted Apr 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975) David Sterritt The story gets stickier by the minute, and there are an awful lot of minutes as Sheila drags on interminably.
Posted Apr 09, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
The Friend (2024) Peter Rainer I don’t know if one can rightly call Apollo’s performance a performance. But whatever it is, it’s heartfelt.
Posted Apr 07, 2025  Edit critic review
2/4
American Psycho (2000) David Sterritt Bret Easton Ellis's novel is a manic blend of incisive satire and repellent violence. Harron and screenwriter Guinevere Turner reduce it to a standard-issue slasher movie.
Posted Apr 04, 2025  Edit critic review
Rancho Deluxe (1975) David Sterritt The writer has provided pithy parts for good actors.
Posted Mar 27, 2025  Edit critic review
5/5
The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) Peter Rainer The Ballad of Wallis Island is both modest and magical. One of its co-stars, Carey Mulligan, has described its tone as a “gentle euphoria.” That phrase perfectly expresses how this wonderful movie transports us.
Posted Mar 27, 2025  Edit critic review
At Long Last Love (1975) David Sterritt It all comes down to Mr. B's weary script (just filler between endless musical numbers) and tired direction.
Posted Mar 25, 2025  Edit critic review
Prev Next