Tom Dawson

Tom Dawson's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
BBC.com
Total Film
Film4
The List
Publications:
BBC.com,
Total Film,
Film4,
The List
Movie Reviews Only
T-Meter | Title | Year | Review | |
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3/5 | 93% | Pandora's Box (1929) |
Pandora's Box is a richly atmospheric work, and Pabst is equally at home in Berlin high society or in London's impoverished East End, where Lulu encounters Jack the Ripper. - BBC.com
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| Posted Jun 16, 2020
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4/5 | 50% | Battle in Heaven (2006) |
A simultaneously austere and visceral work, one steeped in mystery and longing. - The List
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| Posted Apr 26, 2019
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2/5 | 42% | Goal! The Dream Begins (Goal!: The Impossible Dream) (2005) |
Of the actors, it's Alessandro Nivola in the role of a playboy midfielder who provides Goal!'s most entertaining performance. It's a pity then that the world he inhabits in the film is depicted in such cartoonish terms. - The List
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| Posted Apr 26, 2019
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4/5 | 99% | Moolaadé (2004) |
Mooladé is a masterful work, which eloquently conveys the central conflict between tradition and modernity in our global economy. - The List
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| Posted Apr 26, 2019
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4/5 | 80% | Czech Dream (2003) |
Czech Dream is much more than a sophisticated stunt. As the filmmakers lay bare the process of advertising. we become aware of the comprehensive strategies by which we as consumers are targeted. - The List
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| Posted Apr 26, 2019
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4/5 | 82% | Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) |
Fittingly for a film with such an all-inclusive title, July finds something wondrous in peoples' interactions in everyday life. - The List
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| Posted Apr 25, 2019
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4/5 | 90% | L'Eclisse (1962) |
The plot is minimal: what's remarkable here is how the formalist Antonioni creates and maintains the atmosphere of alienation, finding visual correlatives for his characters' psychological states. - The List
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| Posted Apr 25, 2019
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4/5 | 91% | Café Lumiere (2004) |
There are conscious echoes here of Tokyo Story, yet this is very much Hsiao-Hsien's vision of what it's like to be young and adrift in a contemporary metropolis. - The List
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| Posted Apr 25, 2019
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3/5 | 100% | Lizard (2004) |
Beneath the slapstick and one-liners lies an undeniably moral film, which preaches a comforting message of divine forgiveness. - The List
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| Posted Apr 25, 2019
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4/5 | No Score Yet | Heimat 3 (2004) |
Driven along by a dynamic original score, and boasting some striking widescreen compositions, it's another impressive feat of multi-stranded cinematic storytelling from Reitz. - The List
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| Posted Apr 25, 2019
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3/5 | 85% | Bombon: El Perro (2005) |
Thanks in part to the impressively dignified performance of the non-professional Villegas and to some accomplished landscape cinematography, this serves as an amiable tribute to Patagonia itself and the resilience of its inhabitants. - The List
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| Posted Apr 24, 2019
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3/5 | 93% | La demoiselle d'honneur (The Bridesmaid) (2004) |
Locating his story in a recognizably everyday world, Chabrol maintains a quietly menacing atmosphere in which dark undercurrents such as the disappearance of a young girl lurk beneath a facade of normality [and] respectability. - The List
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| Posted Apr 24, 2019
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5/5 | 91% | Nashville (1975) |
Altman offers up a sprawling mosaic of American society: we're given impressionistic glimpses of individual lives, moments of intimacy within the babble of everyday existence. - The List
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| Posted Apr 24, 2019
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4/5 | 82% | Private (2005) |
Shooting with hand-held digital video cameras, Costanzo achieves a powerful immediacy, particularly when conveying the chaos and terror of the nighttime raids endured by the family. - The List
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| Posted Apr 24, 2019
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4/5 | 14% | Ma Mere (2005) |
The cast deliver brave, accomplished performances, with Huppert's Héléne a compelling mixture of menace and fragility. - The List
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| Posted Apr 23, 2019
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3/5 | 77% | The Keys to the House (2004) |
[Andrea Rossi] conveys the joyful, charming and sometimes exasperating sides of his vibrant character. - The List
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| Posted Apr 23, 2019
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5/5 | 97% | Sideways (2004) |
Unfolding at a relaxed tempo, and unobtrusively edited, Sideways is a welcome throwback to 1970s Bob Rafelson and Jerry Schatzberg. - The List
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| Posted Apr 23, 2019
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4/5 | 86% | 2046 (2005) |
Wong Kar-wai's sumptuous tale of romantic heartbreak is now finally ready to be released: the end result is a work which combines formal cinematic brilliance with an operatic intensity of feeling. - The List
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| Posted Apr 23, 2019
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3/5 | 82% | Triple Agent (2003) |
It's an undeniably dialogue-heavy film, but the performances are assured and it's shot and directed with elegant simplicity. - The List
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| Posted Apr 22, 2019
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4/5 | 93% | Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai) (2004) |
Although it's perhaps overlong, Nobody Knows is shot with Ozu-esque beauty over four seasons and exceptionally acted by its non-professional cast. - The List
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| Posted Apr 22, 2019
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3/5 | 94% | The Story of the Weeping Camel (2004) |
Davaa and Falorni immerse the viewer in their chosen world. Their patient, observational approach pays dividends, allowing us to appreciate the resilience, cheerfulness and resourcefulness of the nomads. - The List
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| Posted Apr 18, 2019
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3/5 | 64% | The Flower of Evil (2003) |
Shows little concern with thriller conventions or with interior psychology, as Chabrol is content to simply push his characters around like pieces on a chess board. - The List
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| Posted Apr 17, 2019
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2/5 | 71% | Freeze Frame (2004) |
This low budget debut feature swiftly squanders an interesting premise of a man under perpetual self-surveillance to become a garbled and illogical thriller. - The List
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| Posted Apr 17, 2019
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5/5 | 88% | Bad Education (2004) |
Few other films this year are likely to match this combination of formal beauty, narrative playfulness and heartfelt personal feeling. - The List
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| Posted Apr 17, 2019
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4/5 | 100% | The Ice King (2017) |
Movingly conveys both Curry's brilliance and his inner torment. - Total Film
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| Posted Feb 21, 2018
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2/5 | 42% | Den of Thieves (2018) |
It's proficiently put together but decidedly derivative, right down to the Usual Suspects-esque twist ending. - Total Film
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| Posted Jan 30, 2018
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3/5 | 80% | The Nothing Factory (A Fábrica de Nada) (2017) |
Blurring the fiction/documentary lines (it features non-professional actors), it's spiced with eccentricities: alongside Marxist theorising, we get ostriches and even a song- and-dance number. - Total Film
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| Posted Jan 23, 2018
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4/5 | 83% | A Woman's Life (Une vie) (2017) |
There's poignancy too, thanks to Brize's build-up of telling details and Chemla's subtle turn. - Total Film
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| Posted Jan 9, 2018
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4/5 | 87% | Mountain (2018) |
Tracing how the world's peaks came to be viewed as playgrounds, it needs to be seen on the big screen for its vertiginous images of high-altitude adventurers. - Total Film
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| Posted Dec 15, 2017
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3/5 | 93% | Most Beautiful Island (2017) |
This is a taut, timely drama, even if the pay-off doesn't quite match the build-up. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 30, 2017
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4/5 | 85% | Beach Rats (2017) |
This dreamily shot US indie is an insightful study of sexual repression and awakening, featuring a compelling lead performance from Brit newcomer Dickinson. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 24, 2017
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4/5 | 96% | Trophy (2017) |
Trophy challenges audience preconceptions, revealing the complexities of the issues at stake. - Total Film
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| Posted Nov 14, 2017
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4/5 | 90% | Ferrari: Race to Immortality (2017) |
Blending archive footage, contemporary interviews and dramatic reconstructions, the film reminds us how dangerous the sport could be. - Total Film
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| Posted Oct 30, 2017
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3/5 | 80% | The Reagan Show (2017) |
The film's analysis is somewhat superficial, but comparisons to current White House incumbent Donald Trump's vows to "make America great again" are inevitable. - Total Film
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| Posted Oct 3, 2017
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4/5 | 98% | In Between (2018) |
The personal is the political in Maysaloun Hamoud's vibrant, taboo-breaking debut feature ... - Total Film
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| Posted Sep 21, 2017
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4/5 | 100% | My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) (2017) |
Including clips from nearly 100 films made between the '30s and '70s, he pays heartfelt tribute to the directors, stars and composers who ignited his passion. - Total Film
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| Posted Sep 11, 2017
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4/5 | 98% | God's Own Country (2017) |
Newcomer Lee has crafted a timely romantic drama, rooted in a keenly observed rural environment. - Total Film
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| Posted Aug 28, 2017
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3/5 | 63% | The Odyssey (L'odyssée) (2016) |
An attractive if conventional biopic of French underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau. - Total Film
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| Posted Aug 14, 2017
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5/5 | 97% | Le Doulos (1962) |
Superbly shot in high-contrast monochrome, it unfolds in a stylised universe where character is defined by actions and costumes rather than words. - Total Film
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| Posted Aug 7, 2017
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4/5 | 92% | Land of Mine (Under Sandet) (2017) |
Bringing to light a little known and far from honourable chapter of Danish history, this is convincingly acted and insanely tense. - Total Film
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| Posted Jul 31, 2017
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3/5 | 94% | Howards End (1992) |
Choice performances from Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, but any social criticism is weakened by the veneration of the privileged milieu. - Total Film
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| Posted Jul 24, 2017
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3/5 | 80% | Risk (2017) |
A critical docu-portrait of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, shot over a six-year period in which he was under house arrest in Norfolk and then holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy following sexual assault allegations. - Total Film
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| Posted Jun 26, 2017
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3/5 | 76% | Stockholm, My Love (2016) |
Occasionally rambling, it's kept afloat by an eclectic soundtrack and Christopher Doyle's striking urban lensing. - Total Film
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| Posted Jun 13, 2017
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4/5 | 93% | Daughters of the Dust (1991) |
It's lushly photographed and costumed, plus dreamily confusing, yet it vividly brings a past to life. - Total Film
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| Posted May 30, 2017
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2/5 | 79% | McLaren (2016) |
Donaldson does a fine job of celebrating his subject's many achievements. Yet compared to, say, Ayrton Senna, McLaren himself doesn't cut a compelling figure. - Total Film
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| Posted May 23, 2017
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4/5 | 91% | Frantz (2017) |
François Ozon crafts a sombre monochrome melodrama, which adopts its female protagonist's perspective and skilfully plays with viewers' expectations. - Total Film
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| Posted May 12, 2017
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4/5 | 72% | Suntan (2017) |
Troubling but compelling, this unflinching thriller deftly builds to its chilling conclusion. - Total Film
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| Posted Apr 25, 2017
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4/5 | 99% | I Am Not Your Negro (2017) |
With every word taken from Baldwin's own prolific literary output and public appearances, the film couldn't be more timely in presenting a despairing analysis of how racial injustice bedevils American society. - Total Film
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| Posted Apr 6, 2017
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4/5 | 95% | Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2017) |
Masterfully filmed in long takes, this slow-burner lays bare a world of systemic corruption. - Total Film
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| Posted Mar 28, 2017
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4/5 | 94% | All This Panic (2017) |
Avoiding the pitfalls of prurience and sensationalism, this dreamily photographed film reveals its young subjects to be vibrant and articulate individuals. - Total Film
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| Posted Mar 20, 2017
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