Stephen Holden
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Publications: | New York Times |
| Critics' Group: | New York Film Critics Circle |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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| No Score Yet |
Overacted, underwritten, murky (some scenes appear to have been filmed by candelight) and essentially implausible, it succeeds only in churning up an atmosphere of ghoulish sentimentality.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Jul 5, 2018
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| 61% | The Zookeeper's Wife (2017) |
A polite but pallid recycling of Holocaust movie tropes with epic pretensions.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2017
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| 62% | Cezanne and I (Cézanne et Moi) (2017) |
"Cézanne et Moi" offers a pungent, demystifying portrait of the rowdy late-19th-century Parisian art world where famous painters and poets mingled and jostled for position at dinner parties and art openings filled with shoptalk, backbiting and intrigue.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2017
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| 91% | Frantz (2017) |
As if shedding a skin, the film shucks off its elegiac, white-gloved manners to explore a slippery realm of secrets, lies and moral uncertainty that eventually leads her to consult a priest for advice on how to proceed.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Mar 14, 2017
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| 94% | Donald Cried (2017) |
The movie forcefully reminds you that the past you thought you had left behind still hurts, and that the old wounds you imagined had healed have simply been covered over.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Mar 2, 2017
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| 86% | Apprentice (2017) |
At first "Apprentice" seems to be a basic revenge film in which Aiman stalks the man who killed his father. But it becomes psychologically more complex ...‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Mar 2, 2017
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| 87% | Dying Laughing (2017) |
Pared down, this overcrowded movie could be a teaching tool in a comedy school. But as one comic after another recalls triumphs, misadventures and painful lessons learned, the stories become redundant.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2017
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| 83% | Punching Henry (2017) |
Mr. Phillips's self-deprecating humor is amusing but not funny enough to give him the edge he needs to rise up and conquer.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2017
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| 92% | From Nowhere (2017) |
It's one thing to read about roundups of suspected illegal immigrants; it's quite another to observe the anxiety of smart, talented teenagers trying to keep their cool while under the watchful gaze of immigration officials and the police.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2017
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| 81% | Lovesong (2017) |
Little is resolved, and it will leave you contemplating the mysteries of relationships.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2017
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| 30% | In Dubious Battle (2017) |
At least it means well.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2017
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| 67% | Ha-Sodot (The Secrets) (2007) |
The passionate performances of Ms. Bukstein, Ms. Shtamler and Ms. Ardant lend The Secrets enough emotional solidity to prevent it from entirely dissolving in the suds.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2017
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| 100% | Vince Giordano: There's a Future in the Past (2017) |
Digs deeply enough into Mr. Giordano's world to convey the drudgery and headaches of being a bandleader: juggling personnel, scheduling, dealing with a musicians' union and lugging around instruments.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Jan 12, 2017
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| 93% | I, Daniel Blake (2017) |
"I, Daniel Blake" is a powerful return to form for Mr. Loach, the much-honored left-wing British filmmaker who is now 80 and is still in full command as a filmmaker and a social critic.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Dec 22, 2016
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| 30% | Passengers (2016) |
"Passengers" increasingly succumbs to timidity and begins shrinking into a bland science-fiction adventure whose feats of daring and skill feel stale and secondhand.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2016
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| No Score Yet | Short Stay (2016) |
Mr. Fendt's first feature film after three shorts, is a throwback to the early days of mumblecore. It views the world through Mike's eyes, and what he sees is unfailingly drab.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Dec 15, 2016
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| 42% | All We Had (2016) |
A well-meaning but formulaic movie with not enough time to transcend predictable clichés.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Dec 8, 2016
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| 82% | The Brand New Testament (Le tout nouveau testament) (2016) |
A surreal comedy whose endless visual imagination matches its conceptual wit.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Dec 8, 2016
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| 100% | One More Time With Feeling (2016) |
Even in the throes of grief, Mr. Cave retains his mystique as a rock shaman.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 30, 2016
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| 90% | Bobby Sands: 66 Days (2016) |
Mr. Byrne's film is a sober, evenhanded recapitulation of Sands's imprisonment and death that places him in a historical context.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 29, 2016
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| 76% | Miss Sloane (2016) |
Partly because "Miss Sloane" is more a character study than a coherent political drama, it fumbles the issue it purports to address, and it eventually runs aground in a preposterous ending.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 24, 2016
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| 56% | Rules Don't Apply (2016) |
It may be hyperbolic to describe Warren Beatty's Howard Hughes movie, "Rules Don't Apply," as a screwball "Citizen Kane." But that's what it feels like.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 22, 2016
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| 95% | The Edge of Seventeen (2016) |
It can hold its own against "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," "Clueless" and other movies that have raised the bar on teenage movies.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2016
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| 94% | Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened... (2016) |
[Mr. Price's] passionate enthusiasm and sense of wonder animate every frame and leave you with a misty-eyed glow.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2016
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| 94% | Notes on Blindness (2016) |
The tone of the narration is so wrenchingly honest that the film never lapses into self-pity or relies on mystical platitudes.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 15, 2016
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| 64% | Lazy Eye (2016) |
[A] dull two-character talkfest that fancies itself a gay variation on a chapter of Richard Linklater's "Before" trilogy. Oh, if only.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2016
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| 100% | Peter and the Farm (2016) |
The film evokes the natural world with a grand poetic awareness of the primal connectedness of things. From the rapturous to the gross, you can't have one without the other.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 3, 2016
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| 81% | Don't Call Me Son (Mãe Só Há Uma) (2016) |
The narrowness of its perspective and its relatively brief 82-minute length disappoint. Yet "Don't Call Me Son" still manages to be a fascinating, sympathetic portrait of a lost boy abruptly thrown to the wolves.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2016
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| 94% | Gimme Danger (2016) |
"Gimme Danger" is ... plenty entertaining and includes many moments of foaming-at-the-mouth musical fury.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 27, 2016
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| 88% | Portrait of a Garden (Portret van een tuin) (2016) |
As you watch its diligent overseers at work, the movie feels like a Zen meditation on time, nature and human activity.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 25, 2016
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| 21% | American Pastoral (2016) |
Not a desecration but a severe diminution of a complex literary masterpiece.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2016
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| 44% | King Cobra (2016) |
To say it feels reasonably authentic doesn't mean it's very good.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2016
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| 52% | The Accountant (2016) |
Who knows why Mr. Affleck, looking appropriately dead-eyed and miserable, committed himself to this laborious ultraviolent brain tease of a crime thriller.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2016
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| 49% | Mascots (2016) |
Although "Mascots" is neither as funny nor as satirically acute as its forerunner, it would be churlish to complain too loudly.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2016
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| 90% | Blue Jay (2016) |
Blue Jay is wistful and beautifully acted until the moment Amanda produces an unsent letter from Jim that she has discovered among the piles of old clothes and keepsakes. Nostalgia gives way to melodrama.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2016
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| 94% | Being 17 (Quand on a 17 ans) (2016) |
A touching drama about raging hormones, bullying and sexual awakening - and the strongest film in many years by the post-New Wave French director André Téchiné.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Oct 6, 2016
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| 82% | Girl Asleep (2016) |
As it seesaws between Greta's conscious and unconscious minds, the movie begins to feel like a waking dream.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 29, 2016
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| 83% | Denial (2016) |
You wonder if the material would have been more effective as a courtroom procedural adapted for the stage.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 29, 2016
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| 75% | Chronic (2016) |
"Chronic" dramatizes the caregiver's paradoxical relationships to his charges with an acuity that can make it almost unbearable to watch.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2016
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| 50% | The Free World (2016) |
A movie that abruptly changes direction as it goes along while taking shortcuts that leave its characters underdeveloped and crucial plot elements barely fleshed out.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2016
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| 91% | Miss Stevens (2016) |
Ms. Rabe's beautifully balanced performance reminds you that people never really grow up.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 15, 2016
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| 78% | Bridget Jones's Baby (2016) |
Despite an abundance of mostly tepid jokes that keeps the comedic tone at a quiet simmer, "Bridget Jones's Baby" doesn't jell.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 14, 2016
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| 100% | As I Open My Eyes (À peine j'ouvre les yeux) (2016) |
"As I Open My Eyes" is best when it observes the fraught but loving mother-daughter relationship between Hayet and Farah.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2016
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| 86% | Kicks (2016) |
The characters have enough dimension to avoid appearing to be symbols of a social tragedy, and the movie's relative gentleness makes the harsher realities of Brandon's world all the more distressing.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2016
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| 69% | White Girl (2016) |
We're all familiar with the term contact high, but not with its antithesis. Because it is so believable, "White Girl" is a contact bummer that's hard to shake.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 1, 2016
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| 60% | The Light Between Oceans (2016) |
The film's solemn visual rhythms exert an almost hypnotic spell that for a time gives a heroic dimension to a story as emotionally fraught as a vintage Bette Davis melodrama.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Sep 1, 2016
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| 84% | Fatima (2016) |
A small miracle of a film from the French director Philippe Faucon.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Aug 25, 2016
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| 82% | Kate Plays Christine (2016) |
Muses intriguingly about the boundaries between actors playing themselves and fictional characters in front of a camera.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Aug 23, 2016
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| 24% | Ben-Hur (2016) |
It needed a star like the Russell Crowe of "Gladiator" to provide dramatic heft. What is "Ben-Hur" without a platform of moral grandeur? Not much.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Aug 18, 2016
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| 95% | Spa Night (2016) |
It would be easy to categorize this cool, exquisitely observant first feature by the Korean-American filmmaker Andrew Ahn as a gay movie. But it is much more.‐ New York Times
Read More | Posted Aug 18, 2016
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