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Daniel Barnes

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Daniel Barnes is a Sacramento-based film critic and host of the Dare Daniel podcast, as well as a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle. His work has appeared in the Sacramento News & Review and other print and online publications across the country.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) 76% 2.5/5 EDIT “The blood finally starts splattering after nearly 40 minutes of recap and setup, but it's never more than a pale retread of the mildly entertaining original.” – Dare Daniel Mar 20, 2026 Full Review Project Hail Mary (2026) 95% 3/5 EDIT “A consistently entertaining, technically impressive, glibly effective crowd-pleaser with a hollow center.” – Dare Daniel Mar 20, 2026 Full Review Brief Encounter (1945) 94% 4.5/5 EDIT “A finely detailed, almost dream-like tragic romance that lives on the face of star Celia Johnson.” – Dare Daniel Mar 17, 2026 Full Review In the Blink of an Eye (2026) 17% 2.5/5 EDIT “Andrew Stanton's skills as a storyteller are still self-evident, but for all the existential ambition, this muddled mini-epic consistently settles for pap.” – Dare Daniel Mar 6, 2026 Full Review Hoppers (2026) 93% 4/5 EDIT “After a number of middling, navel-gazing entries in recent years, Daniel Chong gets Pixar back on track with this breathlessly weird delight.” – Dare Daniel Mar 6, 2026 Full Review Orlando (1992) 85% 4/5 EDIT “The audacious production and costume designs help create an aura of small-scale spectacle held together by Tilda Swinton's outstanding breakout performance.” – Dare Daniel Mar 3, 2026 Full Review Dreams (2025) 52% 1.5/5 EDIT “Devoid of energy and frequently embarrassing, Dreams fits the new moldy mold of the miserable indie in which 120 minutes of navel-gazing and chewing food are punctuated by two or three "shocking" moments.” – Dare Daniel Feb 28, 2026 Full Review Scream 7 (2026) 31% 1.5/5 EDIT “Even for a franchise that has been subsisting on callbacks and self-references for nearly 30 years, this is an utterly joyless death march of forced nostalgia. ” – Dare Daniel Feb 28, 2026 Full Review Young Mothers (2025) 95% 3.5/5 EDIT “While it doesn't have the crackling tension and overall impact of previous efforts from the Dardenne brothers, their observational empathy and refusal to sentimentalize or manipulate elevates even a relatively minor effort like Young Mothers.” – Dare Daniel Feb 20, 2026 Full Review Kokuho (2025) 93% 4/5 EDIT “Just one stunning sequence, shot and aesthetic detail after another. Even if Kokuho overdoses on backstage melodrama in the latter half, the sumptuous visuals, passionate performances and epic scope of the story sweep you up. ” – Dare Daniel Feb 20, 2026 Full Review A Woman Under the Influence (1974) 88% 5/5 EDIT “A searing, emotionally exhausting kitchen sink drama that's also bizarrely funny, with world-class performances from Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk. ” – Dare Daniel Feb 17, 2026 Full Review The President's Cake (2025) 99% 3.5/5 EDIT “Despite some truly disturbing scenes and quietly haunting images, director Hasan Hadi maintains a relatively light touch, letting the disturbing moments of everyday life under a brutal dictatorship speak for themselves.” – Dare Daniel Feb 14, 2026 Full Review Wuthering Heights (2026) 57% 3/5 EDIT “Rest assured this isn't one of those romances about a powerfully unconsummated love that echoes across time. These two are hornier than hoot owls, hosed off only by Fennell's uneven attempts to ride the line between prestige and camp.” – Dare Daniel Feb 14, 2026 Full Review Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987) 100% 5/5 EDIT “All the ambiguities and contradictions of life, the small and the large, the universal and the specific, all contained within this seemingly simple story of a young boy trying to protect his classmate.” – Dare Daniel Feb 3, 2026 Full Review The Rip (2026) 79% 2.5/5 EDIT “It all sits on the most medium level of meat and potatoes genre fare without ever doing anything good, bad or weird enough to risk that watchable yet forgettable status. ” – Dare Daniel Jan 30, 2026 Full Review Send Help (2026) 93% 3/5 EDIT “This self-conscious return to form for Raimi offers two excellent performances and plenty of sick fun, although a little more grounding in reality and a little less ripping out chunks of brain might have made it feel less one-dimensional.” – Dare Daniel Jan 30, 2026 Full Review Pierrot le Fou (1965) 88% 4/5 EDIT “Violent rejection of societal and aesthetic norms guided by a Looney Tunes logic, as Godard distracts himself from the familiar lovers-on-the-run story with experiments in color, composition, exuberance and incoherence.” – Dare Daniel Jan 28, 2026 Full Review Metropolis (1927) 97% 5/5 EDIT “Directly or indirectly influencing a century of pop culture from Blade Runner to Diamond Dogs, Lang’s masterpiece continues to amaze and inspire. ” – Dare Daniel Jan 28, 2026 Full Review Paisan (1946) 100% 3.5/5 EDIT “Rather than simple tales of heroes at war, Rossellini offers bitterness-tinged stories of tenuous brotherhood forged along the Allied path to victory. ” – Dare Daniel Jan 28, 2026 Full Review Mercy (2026) 25% 1.5/5 EDIT “Not a great idea to put an omnipresent countdown clock in the corner of the screen when the film is this tiresome. It’s a stark reminder of all the time you’re wasting.” – Dare Daniel Jan 23, 2026 Full Review Atropia (2025) 41% 2.5/5 EDIT “While a thematically ambitious effort, the disparate pieces never form a compelling whole, and it often comes off as glib.” – Dare Daniel Jan 23, 2026 Full Review Vagabond (1985) 100% 4.5/5 EDIT “A film of purest empathy driven by Sandrine Bonnaire's stunning performance as a drive-less drifter. Bonnaire offers no ego, no sentiment and no holds barred.” – Dare Daniel Nov 20, 2025 Full Review Predator: Badlands (2025) 86% 3/5 EDIT “An unwelcome dose of YA pap aside, Trachtenberg makes another solid entry into the Predator-verse.” – Dare Daniel Nov 6, 2025 Full Review Die My Love (2025) 74% 2.5/5 EDIT “This is Lawrence’s show, and she’s stunning, fearless, exposed, raw, real, unreal, supernatural. It’s powerful and potent stuff in an otherwise empty exercise.” – Dare Daniel Nov 6, 2025 Full Review News From Home (1977) 100% 4.5/5 EDIT “A deeply personal movie about real time and real space that makes you consider how frequently movie time and movie space are fudged.” – Dare Daniel Nov 5, 2025 Full Review
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