Andrew Sarris
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Publications: | The Atlantic, Film Comment Magazine, Observer, Village Voice, New Yorker |
| Critics' Group: | National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 83% | Barefoot in the Park (1967) |
The movie is full of physical details that I found impossible to believe.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 30, 2018
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| 27% | Casino Royale (1967) |
Things pick up a little bit when Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen stumble into the scene, but the total experience remains boringly incoherent.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 30, 2018
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| 87% | Five Easy Pieces (1970) |
A very modern film. Elliptical, absurdist, harshly humorous, convulsively lyrical.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2017
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| 100% | Lola (1961) |
There is something gentle and elusive going on here, and you should catch the movie at long last even if you've seen it before.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Mar 1, 2017
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| 67% | Ha-Sodot (The Secrets) (2007) |
One of the most remarkable movies of the year.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2017
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| 91% | To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) |
"To Kill a Mockingbird" relates the Cult of Childhood to the Negro Problem with disastrous results.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2016
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| 55% | Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) |
Mr. Lucas is not without a certain technocratic sagacity, but I don't think he's communicating even with the young as astutely as he once did.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2015
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| 89% | The Warriors (1979) |
If the movie is not as dangerous as its detractors claim, neither is it as glorious and memorable as some of its less discriminating admirers would have it.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2015
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| 95% | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) |
Nichols has actually committed all the classic errors of the sophisticated stage director let loose on the unsophisticated movies. For starters, he has underestimated the power of the spoken word in his search for visual pyrotechnics.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 10, 2015
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| 100% | The Last Picture Show (1971) |
At first glance, the movie is a faithful and skillful adaptation of the source, but a second look at both the film and the book reveals some interesting divergences.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Mar 2, 2015
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| 68% | Public Enemies (2009) |
The desperate times in which we suddenly find ourselves ... make Public Enemies seem especially timely.‐ Film Comment Magazine
Read More | Posted Sep 24, 2014
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| 17% | Wild Wild West (1999) |
Forget all the ruinously expensive special effects. They're not worth a minute of your time, much less two hours of mind-boggling mediocrity.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Jun 17, 2014
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| 25% | Pearl Harbor (2001) |
The best way to see the movie is as I did: expecting nothing and being pleasantly surprised, and strangely moved, by Mr. Bay's audacity in filming his lovers in end-of-the-world close-ups, however briefly.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted May 28, 2014
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| 79% | Politist, adj. (Police, Adjective) (2009) |
The film proceeds at Detective Cristi's pace, stopping and starting, hiding and emerging, scanning and staring, as the languid camera surveys the dismal neighborhoods with undisguised ennui.‐ Film Comment Magazine
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2013
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| 92% | Vincere (2010) |
Bellocchio encapsulates the long-running mass hysteria of a nation enthralled by the demagogic antics of a now-seeming buffoon.‐ Film Comment Magazine
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2013
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| 73% | Octubre (2011) |
It is through its loving attentiveness to words and silences that the movie draws us closer and closer into its universal theme. ‐ Film Comment Magazine
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2013
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| 84% | The Ghost Writer (2010) |
In the total context of Polanski's hard life and grim ordeals ... The Ghost Writer constitutes a miracle of artistic and psychological resilience.‐ Film Comment Magazine
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2013
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| 89% | A Clockwork Orange (1971) |
A painless, bloodless, and ultimately pointless futuristic fantasy.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Feb 6, 2013
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| 95% | Patton (1970) |
George C. Scott's performance cannot be praised highly enough for capturing both the violence and the vulnerability of the Patton personality without degenerating either into vulgar caricature or cardboard sentimentality.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Feb 6, 2013
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| 96% | The Birds (1963) |
Drawing from the relatively invisible literary talents of Daphne DuMaurier and Evan Hunter, Alfred Hitchcock has fashioned a major work of cinematic art, and "cinematic" is the operative term here, not "literary" or "sociological."‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2013
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| 92% | Nashville (1975) |
I hate to go out on a limb after only one viewing, but Nashville strikes me as Altman's best film, and the most exciting dramatic musical since Blue Angel.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2013
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| 90% | The Candidate (1972) |
Redford fancies himself so superior to the electoral process that he ends up with a completely fatuous characterization of a politician.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 14, 2013
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| 89% | The Graduate (1967) |
The emotional elevation of the film is due in no small measure to the extraordinarily engaging performances of Anne Bancroft as the wife-mother-mistress, Dustin Hoffman as the lumbering Lancelot, and Katherine Ross as his fair Elaine.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jan 14, 2013
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| 97% | Psycho (1960) |
Hitchcock is the most-daring avant-garde film-maker in America today.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2012
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| 98% | The Godfather (1972) |
Brando's triumph and fascination is less that of an actor of parts than of a star galaxy of myths. ‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Sep 24, 2012
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| 95% | L'Avventura (1960) |
A graduate of Screenwriting 1-2 might dismiss this method as casualness or even carelessness, but every shot and bit of business in L'Avventura represents calculation of the highest order.‐ Village Voice
Read More | Posted Jul 6, 2010
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| 89% | Séraphine (2009) |
The film is a commendably worthy endeavor, and I am almost ashamed that my ingrained hedonistic attitude toward movies prevents me from recommending Séraphine more enthusiastically.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Jun 10, 2009
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| 70% | Tetro (2009) |
Despite all its longueurs and extreme aggravations, Tetro deserves to be seen as the late work of one of the cinema's most accomplished masters of mise-en-scène.‐ Observer
Posted Jun 10, 2009
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| 96% | Herb & Dorothy (2008) |
Herb & Dorothy describes and amply illustrates the extraordinary saga of the Vogels, who double-handedly built one of the most important collections of Minimalist and Conceptual Art in history with their modest salaries.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Jun 3, 2009
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| 79% | Okuribito (Departures) (2009) |
The ultimate beauty of the film rests in its symbolic details that bridge the abyss between the living and the dead. As the French might say, it is to make one cry.‐ Observer
Posted Jun 3, 2009
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| 80% | Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight (2009) |
What elevates the film to something more than a talking-heads documentary is the rapport established between Mr. Glaser and Ms. Keys on a project they both saw as a visual and verbal love letter to New York City.‐ Observer
Posted May 20, 2009
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| 33% | Terminator Salvation (2009) |
I cannot completely condemn a movie that has been very competently written, directed and acted, any more than I can blame Mr. Schwarzenegger for all the woes he has encountered while trying to govern California.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted May 20, 2009
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| 46% | Management (2009) |
In this Springtime of our Discontent, Management offers a bit of sunny but not entirely silly escapism.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted May 13, 2009
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| 62% | Adoration (2008) |
As for Mr. Egoyan, he remains an auteur at the highest level of cinematic creation, and even one of his lesser films, like Adoration, deserves to be seen.‐ Observer
Posted May 6, 2009
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| 92% | La Ventana (The Window) (2008) |
The Window is not without a certain visual spell that makes it a first-rate artistic achievement.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted May 6, 2009
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| 22% | Jazz in the Diamond District (2009) |
The music, with its infectious energy, together with Ms. Cameron's onstage charisma makes Jazz in the Diamond District well worth seeing.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Apr 29, 2009
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| 40% | A Wink and a Smile (2008) |
A Wink and a Smile struck me as 90 minutes of narcissism with a hyper-feminist slant, and no erotic charge whatsoever.‐ Observer
Posted Apr 29, 2009
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| 96% | Revanche (2009) |
One of the most compelling assemblages of character studies I have seen so far in this too-often-dismal year of moviegoing.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Apr 22, 2009
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| 57% | The Soloist (2009) |
Mr Downey and Mr. Foxx both turn in Oscar-worthy performances in their very strenuous and detail-drenched roles.‐ Observer
Posted Apr 22, 2009
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| 91% | Etz Limon (Lemon Tree) (2009) |
Lemon Tree is well worth seeing as a first-class artistic achievement bridging two civilizations.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Apr 15, 2009
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| 84% | State of Play (2009) |
It is Mr. Crowe who lends State of Play a sense of perpetual urgency as he traverses the corridors of power in search of massive wrongdoing at the risk of his own life.‐ Observer
Posted Apr 15, 2009
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| 94% | Goodbye Solo (2009) |
A darkly poetic parable of the solitude of human existence, somewhat ameliorated by the occasional generosity of the human spirit.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Apr 8, 2009
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| 63% | Lymelife (2008) |
The sterling ensemble portrayals of Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Hutton and the Culkin brothers on the male side and Ms. Hennessy, Ms. Nixon and Ms. Roberts on the distaff side make Lymelife worth seeing, especially in these dire times.‐ Observer
Posted Apr 8, 2009
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| 37% | Gigantic (2009) |
The various twilight performances of the veteran players deserve a look, as do the always interesting appearances of Mr. Dano and Ms. Deschanel. Only the sparks are missing this time.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Apr 1, 2009
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| 47% | The Education of Charlie Banks (2009) |
I fully recommend The Education of Charlie Banks to anyone looking for something truly and subtly different.‐ Observer
Posted Mar 25, 2009
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| 78% | Un Baiser s'il vous plaît (Shall We Kiss?) (2009) |
The French cinema continues to be the source of our most timelessly enchanting romantic entertainment.‐ Observer
Posted Mar 25, 2009
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| 90% | Hunger (2009) |
A harrowing yet lyrical account of the fatal hunger strike of Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, in 1981.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Mar 18, 2009
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| 65% | Duplicity (2009) |
Mr. Gilroy has outsmarted himself by pulling too many switches in his narrative. He then fails to recover by coming up with a smash ending that pulls all the scattered pieces together.‐ Observer
Posted Mar 18, 2009
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| 94% | Tokyo Sonata (Tokyo Sonata) (2009) |
Tokyo Sonata speaks to us, with feeling and passion, as one of the most eloquent statements on the world today that we are likely to see in this moviegoing year.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Mar 11, 2009
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| 90% | Carmen and Geoffrey (2009) |
Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob's Carmen & Geoffrey is one of the most revelatory dance films I have ever seen.‐ Observer
Read More | Posted Mar 11, 2009
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