Alissa Wilkinson

Alissa Wilkinson
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
Alissa Wilkinson is Vox.com's film critic. Formerly, she was chief film critic at Christianity Today. Her writing has appeared at Rolling Stone, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, Pacific Standard, Books & Culture, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Paste, and others. She lives and works in New York City, and you can find her <a href="https://twitter.com/alissamarie" target="blank">@alissamarie</a>.
Publications: Christianity Today, RogerEbert.com, Paste Magazine, Movie Mezzanine, Vox, Flavorwire

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
4.5/5 96% Soul (2020) It's funny, and it's imaginative, but it's also just very, very real. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 22, 2021
4/5 98% One Night in Miami (2020) The film has the feel of theater, focusing on conversation and subtle power dynamics rather than a lot of movement and action. But some nimble staging and stunning performances from all four of its lead actors make One Night in Miami pulse with energy. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2021
98% The Reason I Jump (2021) While it's tricky for a neurotypical person (such as myself) to know how well it succeeds - as Mitchell says, "neurotypicals are rubbish at understanding anything that is not neurotypical" - I do feel like it reaches its aims. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 12, 2021
No Score Yet Her Socialist Smile (2020) The film is fascinating - a portrait of a woman who has little to lose and is willing to give her all for what she believes in - and an important addition to Keller's legacy. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 5, 2021
4/5 98% Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) Boseman plays Levee with an electricity that feels urgent. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2020
4.5/5 93% Another Round (Druk) (2020) Another Round is a truly wonderful movie about trying to come to grips with life, anchored by terrific performances, infectious music, and a real understanding of the humming discontentment that all adults must learn to navigate in their own ways. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2020
4.5/5 99% Wolfwalkers (2020) To watch Wolfwalkers is to dive into visual splendor. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2020
88% Sing Me A Song (2021) Each frame is pristine, peaceful, and stunning, which only underlines the sharp changes in the young monks' lives. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 3, 2020
4.5/5 88% The Nest (2020) It's pure pleasure to watch a film like The Nest, which is scary for all the right reasons and leaves you feeling unsettled at the end. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2020
4/5 79% I Am Greta (2020) Grossman's fly-on-the-wall approach is a perfect match for his subject. Thunberg is not unselfconscious, but she has very little to prove, and so her single-minded passion for her activism comes through in every word she says. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 13, 2020
1/5 26% Hillbilly Elegy (2020) An elegy is a mournful poem of reflection. Often, it's a lament, a song sung for the dead. But Hillbilly Elegy is no elegy. It's not reflective enough to even understand the living. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2020
86% White Noise (2020) White Noise is a great and illuminating film, far more engaging and smart than most journalistic profiles of each of these people. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 29, 2020
85% Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) Bakalova plunges into it with aplomb and steals the show from Baron Cohen, who mostly reprises his old shtick, tricking people into saying things they probably wouldn't want to be seen onscreen saying. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 23, 2020
98% David Byrne's American Utopia (2020) I dare you not to dance while watching it. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 21, 2020
3.5/5 90% The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) The movie is effective in spite of its foibles. It's an ensemble piece that tells a complex story cleanly. And even its missteps hint as to why Sorkin chose to return to this historical moment now. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 21, 2020
97% What the Constitution Means to Me (2020) The filmed version of What the Constitution Means to Me (with direction from Won't You Be My Neighbor's Marielle Heller) captures that moving, angry, heartbreaking, and strangely inspiring Broadway show. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2020
98% Time (2020) Heartbreaking and passionate, Time is the chronicle of a love deferred and the life that hope can provide. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
100% The Truffle Hunters (2020) It's a sweet and simple movie with a healthy dose of bittersweet wistfulness for a fading world, and it's beautiful. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
85% Notturno (2021) It's a sweeping work of care and one that is often piercing in its painful beauty. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
100% No Ordinary Man (2020) The film contains interviews with a number of trans artists who find Tipton especially meaningful in their lives; the moment when Tipton's son discovers that his father is important to many people is worth the price of admission. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
99% MLK/FBI (2021) How should we think about his legacy? The answers aren't easy, but MLK/FBI doesn't try to pretend they are; it's a film that leaves you thinking. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
100% Inconvenient Indian (2020) Inconvenient Indian counters the "savages" mythology with the truth of Indigenous life, targeting the narratives that colonizers have internalized and lived by and showing how they've been used to reify power, over and over again. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
97% Gunda (2020) There's no dialogue; we just watch the animals go about their lives while we experience the quietly dawning recognition that these animals have real lives. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
100% City Hall (2020) The result is not a portrait of a city, really. Refreshingly - and maybe even a little surprisingly - it's a portrait of a government that actually seems to be working for its citizens. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
100% 76 Days (2020) Even with the nurses and doctors in full PPE and patients struggling to survive from hospital beds, 76 Days manages to be funny and heart-racing, heartbreaking and humanizing - and it ends, improbably enough, on a note of hope. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2020
98% The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) Blank killed it. The Forty-Year-Old Version is pointed, satirical, and sharp as a rapier, and it hits every beat perfectly. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2020
89% Kajillionaire (2020) Kajillionaire is a movie about love, and loneliness, and it's funny and bittersweet and beautiful. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2020
3/5 70% Tenet (2020) It's the first Nolan movie in a long while that I've left feeling disappointed. And yet there is enough good stuff buried beneath its antiseptic, perhaps overly showy technique, once you get past the clankier bits, that is worth exploring. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 4, 2020
96% The War Room (1993) The film offers an inside look at a campaign through the eyes of those who lived it with the intimacy that we've come to expect from our campaign documentaries. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2020
93% Best Of Enemies (2015) The result is exciting but also chilling - an origin story for a long national nightmare. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2020
100% Primary (1960) Primary wasn't just illuminating, it was groundbreaking. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2020
94% Boys State (2020) The film is uplifting, funny, thrilling, and revealing... their experiences provide both a microcosmic look into the political process and a hint of the way future politics might unfold, in dismal and strangely hopeful ways. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2020
83% She Dies Tomorrow (2020) She Dies Tomorrow is designed to infect you, too, at least a little - colored lights, unidentifiable soundscapes, a heavy pace, and the never-ending strains of the Requiem cast a spell of existential dread. It's catching. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 6, 2020
75% The Rental (2020) The Rental has a familiar plot with familiar story beats, but it is so well-paced and deliberate, and its cast so good, that even though you know where it's going, it's still immensely satisfying to take the journey. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2020
70% Amulet (2020) Creepy, bloody, and flat-out weird in places, Amulet is a bold directorial debut for Garai and a disquieting reminder that getting rid of the past is never very easy. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2020
91% Father Soldier Son (2020) It's an observational documentary that doesn't push any one perspective too heavily; it's possible to watch it as a straightforward tribute to American soldiers and their families. But there often seems to be something darker lurking beneath the film. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2020
90% We Are Freestyle Love Supreme (2020) The film itself may not be groundbreaking, its subjects certainly are. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2020
35% The Sunlit Night (2019) There's enough charm and whimsy for the story to escape coming across as too predictable... The Sunlit Night is a light and occasionally messy story of discovery, and Slate's performance anchors it all. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2020
78% Flannery (2020) For those who've read O'Connor and those who haven't alike, it's a strong entry point. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2020
91% Relic (2020) Relic is a slow movie, and a quiet one; director Natalie Erika James is in no hurry to explain to us what's happening. But that's what makes it so effective, so chilling, and so unsettling in the end. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2020
100% Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (2020) The film is a fond farewell to Mercado and a celebration of his life, and enlightening both for Mercado newbies and those who grew up at his proverbial knee. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2020
79% Greyhound (2020) It's a simple and straightforward movie - rather than relying on thrills and scares, Greyhound is interested in the intricate work of fighting on the high seas - but if that's what you're in the mood for, it's thoroughly satisfying. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2020
80% The Old Guard (2020) The Old Guard asks some existential questions that leave the audience wanting more. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2020
3.5/5 94% Palm Springs (2020) Zinging between humor and poignance with a lot of charm, it achieves in its most insightful moments what comedy does best: Let us laugh at the world a little, by way of learning something about ourselves. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 10, 2020
98% Hamilton (2020) I wonder if the revolutionary undertones of Hamilton will sing in a new way for those who watch it at home now. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 2, 2020
63% Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) After years of watching mediocre studio comedies, I am happy to declare that I love this movie. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 26, 2020
100% Miss Juneteenth (2020) It's a moving, sensitive drama about growing up, dealing with disappointment, and cultivating hope for the future. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 19, 2020
74% Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019) Meeropol paints a portrait of Cohn as a despicable liar who was nonetheless very complicated. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 19, 2020
94% Babyteeth (2020) Death and friendship, addiction and love, and the immense gallows humor that comes with just living are all knocking around inside Babyteeth, and the result is fresh, hilarious, and heartbreaking. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 19, 2020
92% Da 5 Bloods (2020) It's a bloody, screwy, incendiary piece of work, and I loved it, especially when it goes flying off the rails near the end. - Vox EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 12, 2020