Stephen Dalton

Stephen Dalton
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications: Hollywood Reporter, Sight and Sound, Times (UK), Scotsman, Uncut Magazine [UK]

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
4.5/5 98% David Byrne's American Utopia (2020) Spike Lee's film of Byrne's sold-out Hudson Theater run is respectfully faithful to the stage performance, with a few deft embellishments. - Uncut Magazine [UK] EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 14, 2021
No Score Yet The Last Ones (Viimeiset) (2020) A flawed but compelling psychodrama set in Europe's wild north. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 12, 2021
No Score Yet Gorbachev. Heaven (2020) A poetic portrait of a poignant political afterlife. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 19, 2020
No Score Yet In the Mirror (2020) A lively, witty fairy-tale remix. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 8, 2020
60% A Christmas Carol (2020) Technically impressive but dramatically flat. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 4, 2020
100% Radiograph of a Family (2020) Immersive and lyrical. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 1, 2020
95% Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020) A richly detailed portrait of a self-destructive talent. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2020
93% O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds) (2012) It is a rare film that makes open-ended ambivalence so explosively gripping, but Filho pulls it off with great panache and even greater promise. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 3, 2020
93% Pixie (2021) Pixie is a lively caper, and intermittently good fun on a trashy escapism level. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2020
80% Ultraviolence (2020) Ultraviolence is only a small contribution to a huge ongoing debate, but these unresolved tales of injustice deserve to be amplified and interrogated... - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2020
89% Supernova (2021) Plenty to admire here, if only this tasteful tearjerker lived up to its title with a few more explosive fireworks instead of settling for timid twinkles, ending not with a bang but a whimper. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2020
93% Another Round (Druk) (2020) It makes for an appealing ensemble piece overall, as well as a great vehicle for Mikkelsen's vulpine beauty and nimble dance moves. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 13, 2020
89% Limbo (2020) A timely feel-good fable about the kindness of strangers. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 12, 2020
48% Unhinged (2020) Unwatchable. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 30, 2020
No Score Yet Dark Fortune (Finsteres glück) (2016) A classy and engrossing package overall, Dark Fortune reels viewers in with slow-burn suspense and psychological complexity... - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2020
100% Dede (2017) Feminism meets fatalism in this starkly beautiful Georgian melodrama. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 11, 2020
91% What Richard Did (2013) If What Richard Did is sometimes a little too understated for its own good, this is still a classy piece of work which convincingly captures the emotionally complex, morally murky texture of real life. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 30, 2020
85% DAU. Natasha (2020) A disappointingly conventional, small-scale, low-voltage character study at heart. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2020
No Score Yet High Ground (2020) A gripping, visually spectacular revenge thriller that makes superb use of stunning landscapes while also addressing the lingering scars of colonial-era racism. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2020
50% Uppercase Print (Tipografic majuscul) (2020) Austere but affecting. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2020
95% Mogul Mowgli (2020) Thoughtfully crafted and thematically rich, even if it feels a little too opaquely personal in places. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 21, 2020
No Score Yet The Steed (2019) Classy ingredients are not enough to save The Steed from its overly sentimental, heavy-handed elements. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2020
No Score Yet Kontora (2019) Its sluggish tempo and bloated running time undermine the intrigue-driven plot in places, but there is enough offbeat charm here to reward patient viewers. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 30, 2019
100% Zana (2020) Matoshi's impressively internalized performance conveys a lot with very little, her impassive features telegraphing submerged grief with scant trace of melodrama. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 30, 2019
100% Muscle (2019) Fruitfully blending thriller, comedy and horror elements, Muscle is essentially a two-hander set in a claustrophobic, ultra-masculine world. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 25, 2019
No Score Yet Truth and Justice (Tõde ja õigus) (2019) Truth and Justice is deluxe period soap opera at heart. But young writer-director Tanel Toom's handsome adaptation is also finely crafted and superbly acted, a fatalistic meditation on the human condition splashed across a broad historical canvas. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2019
75% The Gentlemen (2020) Ritchie's homecoming is a fairly familiar affair, but also refreshingly funny and deftly plotted, with more witty lines and less boorish machismo than his early work. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 19, 2019
No Score Yet Isaac (2019) A visually dazzling, Kafkaesque murder mystery. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 11, 2019
100% Looted (2019) Pannevis combines elements of social realism, crime thriller and coming-of-age character study in this lyrical low-budget drama. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 4, 2019
100% White Riot (2019) An engaging historical story with timely contemporary echoes. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2019
80% In Full Bloom (2020) An impressively polished debut feature, admirably ambitious and elegantly crafted. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 31, 2019
97% Tell Me Who I Am (2019) Gripping and moving, despite some tricksy narrative twists. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 17, 2019
No Score Yet Somebody Up There Likes Me (2019) For serious rock scholars and fans of quality documentaries in general, this lightweight vanity project will feel disappointingly thin and perfunctory. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 14, 2019
50% Earthquake Bird (2019) A fairly flat treatment of over-familiar plot elements, and fatally low on the key psycho-thriller elements of suspense, surprise and dread. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 10, 2019
100% Sid & Judy (2019) [A] conventional but briskly entertaining TV bio-doc... - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 10, 2019
91% Leap of Faith (2019) The 84-year-old veteran director remains an articulate and forceful presence onscreen, refreshingly unburdened by modesty and clearly keen to display his highbrow cultural smarts. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 7, 2019
44% Cuck (2019) While clearly limited in budget and a little too blunt in its hectoring message, Cuck also has an agreeably cultish intensity and newsworthy urgency. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 2, 2019
26% Gemini Man (2019) The disappointing end result feels less than the sum of the talents involved, a weak script and thin high-concept plot only just held together by smart visual wizardry. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 26, 2019
No Score Yet Volare (Tutto il mio folle amore) (2019) At times, it is almost indigestible in its sugary sentimentality and facile life-is-sweet message. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 19, 2019
No Score Yet Silent Days (Hluché dni) (2019) An artful, lyrical treatment of gritty subject matter. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 18, 2019
100% Black Conflux (2019) A haunting, humane twist on thriller conventions. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 17, 2019
55% The Antenna (Bina) (2020) A stylish, surreal shocker. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2019
90% White Lie (2019) Nervy and kinetic, it succeeds as a small-scale psychological thriller. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 9, 2019
84% Lingua Franca (2020) While Sandoval's hard-working dedication is admirable, and her semi-autobiographical story full of latent dramatic potential, Lingua Franca is ultimately an underpowered, amateurish disappointment. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 6, 2019
88% Scales (Sayidat Al Bahr) (2019) A timeless magical realist fable with a contemporary feminist message. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 3, 2019
100% Sole (2019) Essentially a two-hander, Sole feels skimpy and underpowered at first, but it blossoms into a moving, quietly absorbing character study. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 29, 2019
No Score Yet Scandinavian Silence (Skandinaavia vaikus) (2019) An elegant two-hander about mute siblings struck dumb by dark secrets. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 29, 2019
73% The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) Ticks plenty of lightweight fun boxes for its prime target audience of younger children, with just enough adult humor to keep parents from yawning too. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 29, 2019
100% The Father (Bashtata) (2019) The story may test the limits of plausibility in places, but overall this off-the-map road movie is a humane, compassionate, character-driven delight. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 10, 2019
No Score Yet A Certain Kind of Silence (Tiché doteky) (2019) With its artfully muted Scandi-chic color palette, painstakingly framed architecture porn and almost subliminal drone-driven score, A Certain Kind of Silence is a gorgeous aesthetic experience. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 10, 2019