Adam Nayman
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
A 21 year old film critic at Eye Magazine in Toronto, Adam has been writing about movies for as long as he can remember, and just can't believe they're paying him for it.
Favorites:
2001: A Space OdysseyGrand IllusionManos: Hands of Fate400 Blows
Publications:
Boxoffice Magazine,
Cineaste Magazine,
eye WEEKLY,
Film Comment Magazine,
L.A. Weekly,
Sight and Sound,
AV Club,
Reverse Shot,
Little White Lies,
The Grid,
The Dissolve,
The Walrus,
The Ringer,
Cinema Scope
Location:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Movie Reviews Only
T-Meter | Title | Year | Review | |
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27% | Hillbilly Elegy (2020) |
Hillbilly Elegy communicates precious little about the culture it depicts - and exploits - with Oscar-baiting aspirations. - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 2, 2020
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80% | Casino (1995) |
Without stinting on the viciousness, Scorsese still conveys an element of nostalgia in Casino, although it's less because the movie is convinced by Ace and Nicky's vision of the good old days than it is skepticism over what will eventually replace them. - The Ringer
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| Posted Nov 20, 2020
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83% | Mank (2020) |
Mank has been luxuriously shot by Erik Messerschmidt in shadowy black and white, with scattered, affectionate visual references to Citizen Kane itself... - The Ringer
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| Posted Nov 13, 2020
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39% | Rebecca (2020) |
Ben Wheatley's remake of the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock classic simultaneously overcompensates and under-delivers. - The Ringer
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| Posted Oct 23, 2020
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90% | The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) |
There's a fine line between topicality and self-aggrandizing opportunism, and for all of the talent on display, The Trial of the Chicago 7 stumbles along it with two left feet... - The Ringer
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| Posted Oct 16, 2020
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82% | Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2021) |
Long after my memories of this socially-distanced, WiFi-dependent TIFF have evaporated, Horvat's exquisite enigmas will still be on my mind. - The Ringer
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| Posted Sep 21, 2020
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96% | Nomadland (2020) |
At its heart, Nomadland is a road movie, but too many scenes feel stuck in neutral... - The Ringer
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| Posted Sep 18, 2020
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98% | David Byrne's American Utopia (2020) |
American Utopia, from its slyly ironic title on down, has been devised as a dispatch from Trumpland, with Byrne positioning himself as a figure of gentle, principled resistance. - The Ringer
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| Posted Sep 18, 2020
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78% | Akilla's Escape (2020) |
Akilla's Escape is nicely photographed by Maya Bankovic... as the storytelling stays resolutely and ultimately boringly on beat. - Cinema Scope
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| Posted Sep 18, 2020
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95% | Beans (2020) |
An accessible, unsanitized drama foregrounding Indigenous experience - one that doesn't hedge on depicting embedded Québécois racism and discrimination - [director Tracey Deer] is staking out a fertile patch of filmmaking terrain. - Cinema Scope
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| Posted Sep 17, 2020
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100% | Inconvenient Indian (2020) |
A showcase for [Michelle] Latimer's own developing chops as a formalist, a journalist, and a polemicist, it's dazzling. - Cinema Scope
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| Posted Sep 17, 2020
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81% | Violation (2020) |
A well-made, full-frontal provocation pivoting on a literally tortuous act of vengeance. - Cinema Scope
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| Posted Sep 17, 2020
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97% | Shiva Baby (2020) |
[Rachel Sennott)] is more or less hilarious as a distaff failson trying to navigate murky social waters without drowning in situational self-loathing. - Cinema Scope
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| Posted Sep 17, 2020
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75% | The Rental (2020) |
Instead of trying to make a point, Franco just makes his movie, and that's just fine. It's not a backhanded compliment to say The Rental is worthy of its title. - The Ringer
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| Posted Jul 28, 2020
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98% | Jaws (1975) |
The beauty of Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic is that you can choose how to watch it: as a summery, shark-bitten thriller or as an allegory about the failed leadership of institutions... - The Ringer
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| Posted Jun 24, 2020
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74% | The King of Staten Island (2020) |
Judd Apatow has a history of hyper-reflexivity, turning his films into ruminations on his own world. His latest Pete Davidson-led project, though, suggests a conscious effort to change... - The Ringer
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| Posted Jun 12, 2020
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93% | Fail-Safe (1964) |
Fail Safe imagines a no-win situation backing a sturdy, dependable American president in the proverbial corner, where, in a bit of sentimental and masochistically crowd-pleasing fantasy, he manages to do the right thing. - The Ringer
EDIT
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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70% | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) |
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner toes the line between thoughtful, responsible social commentary and didactic messaging; their contents reflect a genuine national uncertainty... - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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88% | Bonnie and Clyde (1967) |
If it's possible for a film's ending to feel at once ambiguous and definitive, Bonnie and Clyde leaves the viewer feeling torn apart without necessarily knowing why. Its mix of lyricism, brutality, and ambivalence... - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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92% | The Assistant (2020) |
The Assistant is a top-notch American movie on the verge of becoming collateral damage in an endless spring that's rewiring our collective viewing habits. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 28, 2020
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85% | The Tree of Life (2011) |
Malick's earnest pretentiousness surely invites derisive laughter. But it also withstands it, and like the ancient evergreen of its title, it towers benevolently over less ambitious movies... - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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85% | L'Enfant (2006) |
L'Enfant deals in matters of (organized) crime and punishment without compromising its emotional acuity or spiritual purity. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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73% | Elephant (2003) |
...it remains one of the most unsettlingly accomplished American movies of the new millennium, and exactly as difficult to categorize or definitively interpret as its maker intended. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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92% | Pulp Fiction (1994) |
Quentin Tarantino's retro-fetishism was the future of American cinema. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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90% | Barton Fink (1991) |
Barton Fink is one for the record books. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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96% | The Conversation (1974) |
Coming after the dark, sumptuous classicism of The Godfather, The Conversation's choppy, elliptical style looked almost like the work of a different filmmaker, one willing to take risks with new forms and techniques. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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78% | Under the Sun of Satan (Sous le soleil de Satan) (Under Satan's Sun) (1987) |
There's a fine line between searing seriousness and po-faced self-parody, and Under the Sun of Satan walks it bravely, turning Depardieu into a vessel for pious pessimism opposite Sandrine Bonnaire... - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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92% | If.... (1968) |
From its title on down, If ... is a movie about the power and peril of imagination, and the seductive thrill of wishing that we might externalize our inner lives for all to see and fear. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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99% | The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) (1964) |
Charm may be in the eye of the beholder, but if you don't find this movie irresistible, you should get your eyesight checked. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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96% | Viridiana (1961) |
Viridiana's unblinking vision of a world without true innocence isn't misanthropic, but powerfully, unapologetically humane-a black comedy without pity or judgment. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 6, 2020
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99% | Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) |
It's as complex as its logline suggests, but far more deft and subtle. It should be seen. - The Ringer
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| Posted Apr 3, 2020
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96% | In Jackson Heights (2015) |
...improbably nostalgic, while also offering hope that the communities whose intricate maintenance we once took for granted can be more gratefully reclaimed in the future. - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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76% | Nymphomaniac: Volume I (2014) |
Nymphomaniac has an amazingly eclectic cast of weirdos and movie stars acting weird, and their stamina goes a long way toward keeping things sweaty, grotesque, and funny for more than four NC-17-rated hours... - The Ringer
EDIT
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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97% | Gangs of Wasseypur (2014) |
Gangs of Wasseypur isn't necessarily realistic-instead, it's a glossy, gory soap opera that goes over the top early and often, mirroring, realizing, and satirizing the outsized, outrageous gangster-movie fantasies of its characters. - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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98% | Hoop Dreams (1994) |
At once a rigorous exploration of the sports-educational industrial complex and an intimate piece of portraiture... - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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84% | JFK (1991) |
One of the most frenetically edited studio movies ever made, JFK is a paradox, a movie of unstoppable velocity that seems to drag on forever. - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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96% | The Right Stuff (1983) |
Where 2001: A Space Odyssey depicted astronauts (and mankind) as being at the mercy of some higher, alien intelligence, The Right Stuff finds its characters imposing their will on the unknown. - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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91% | Barry Lyndon (1975) |
The sense of torpor simultaneously helps to call attention to the painterly beauty of the images-widescreen compositions evoking the light and coloring of 18th century paintings-and the grim, fatalistic determinism of the narrative... - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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96% | Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) |
We become so familiar with Jeanne's daily routine that, as the movie goes on, even minor variations in what she does register as dramatic events, and major diversions feel like earthquakes... - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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95% | Giant (1956) |
The contrast between Hudson's stolid, genteel acting style and Dean's more electric approach gives Giant the energy it needs to propel its massive, decades-spanning narrative... - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 27, 2020
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95% | First Cow (2020) |
Reichardt delivers an expertly lush, languid tale about friendship, class, and yes, a very handsome cow... - The Ringer
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| Posted Mar 6, 2020
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38% | Downhill (2020) |
The Force Majeure remake starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus isn't an all-out disaster, just oddly disappointing... - The Ringer
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| Posted Feb 19, 2020
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47% | Underwater (2020) |
As for Stewart, she'll hopefully get a chance to carry something big and shiny that's also less perfunctory, because her boredom during Underwater is palpable. - The Ringer
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| Posted Jan 10, 2020
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77% | Richard Jewell (2019) |
Hauser is Richard Jewell's most persuasive asset, and Eastwood shows considerable trust in his star, letting him fully inhabit the contradictions of a man who performatively models a form of meek-shall-inherit humility... - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 16, 2019
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85% | Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019) |
If there's something potentially dangerous or reactionary about Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood's nostalgia for a bygone era and its trickle-down frontier heroism, it's a tension that Tarantino plays with thoughtfully... - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 9, 2019
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89% | The Souvenir (2019) |
Superbly crafted and acted on every level, The Souvenir is one of the best British films of recent years. - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 9, 2019
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82% | High Life (2019) |
Its brilliance lies in Denis's understanding that the difference between these two extreme polarities is really nothing at all. - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 9, 2019
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94% | Transit (2019) |
...it makes the case for Petzold as the decade's most exemplary foreign arthouse auteur. - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 9, 2019
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97% | Knives Out (2019) |
As a smartly crafted and shaped piece of entertainment, Johnson's movie comes off especially good in a moment when such mid-budget, story-driven movies have all but disappeared; it's a throwback that's also an outlier. - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 2, 2019
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96% | Atlantics (2019) |
...a movie that works to keep its audience suspended vertiginously between states of focus and drift, of realism and fantasy, of confusion and understanding. - The Ringer
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| Posted Dec 2, 2019
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