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Andrew Sarris
Tomatometer-approved critic
(Photo Credit: Robin Platzer/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Raging Bull (1980) |
Between them, De Niro and Scorsese and their associates end up with a breathtakingly new dimension of memory and regret. If only I could feel the slightest moral resonance as well -- but I can't, and that makes all the difference. - Village Voice
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| Posted Oct 11, 2023
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Taxi Driver (1976) |
I didn't mind the sordidness, the violence, or the mock-ironic ending. What I did mind about the film was its life-denying spirit, its complete lack of curiosity about the possibilities of people. - Village Voice
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| Posted Oct 06, 2023
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The Exorcist (1973) |
The Exorcist succeeds on one level as an effectively excruciating entertainment, but on another, deeper level it is a thoroughly evil film. - Village Voice
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| Posted Sep 27, 2023
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Night Games (1966) |
Miss Zetterling's second feature film is even more ponderous and pretentious than her first. - Village Voice
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| Posted Sep 20, 2023
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Phantom of the Paradise (1974) |
De Palma has mixed too many of his styles in Phantom of the Paradise, but this is still a movie to be seen and heard. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 27, 2023
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The Color Purple (1985) |
The Color Purple is the most lavishly produced and lovingly lyrical, virtually all-black entertainment ever produced by an American moviemaker. - Video Review
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| Posted May 31, 2023
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The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) |
This very frothy farce is more pointedly political -- refreshingly so -- than almost any "serious" movie in recent memory. - Video Review
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| Posted Mar 02, 2023
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The Lady Eve (1941) |
Henry Fonda [is] seldom associated with unrestrained merriment. Fortunately, Preston Sturges films qualify as special situations. Fonda, particularly, emerges in The Lady Eve as the funniest deadpan comedian since Buster Keaton. - Village Voice
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| Posted Dec 28, 2022
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Groundhog Day (1993) |
Groundhog Day generates enough warmth, wit, humor, sexual chemistry, and spiritual resonance to light up a whole season of Valentine's Days. - Observer
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| Posted Dec 07, 2022
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The Deer Hunter (1978) |
Far from achieving Tolstoyan heights, however, Cimino fails even to attain a Scorsesian or Coppolian level. The structure of the film is so rickety, and the details so incongruous, that whatever feelings were intended finally peter out. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 30, 2022
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The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) |
A highly controversial and distinctly original work of cinematic art fashioned by writer-director Greenaway. - Observer
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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The Sting (1973) |
Pure popcorn like this is hardly worthy of serious analysis... Fortunately, the stars have not lost their charm and authority. - Village Voice
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| Posted Aug 08, 2022
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The Godfather, Part III (1990) |
I consider this third part of the Godfather trilogy a worthy conclusion to the greatest American movie epic of the past two decades -- and an underrated masterpiece in its own right. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 08, 2022
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The Silence of the Lambs (1991) |
Most viewers will be rooting for Foster's Starling all the way up to the expertly directed denouement -- a darkly whimsical ending that would have been utterly unacceptable in the old days of the Production Code. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 08, 2022
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Rain Man (1988) |
My own comparatively mixed reaction is conditioned by a reflex resistance to any movie that seems to exploit a mental or physical handicap for easy pathos... Having stated this reservation, I must confess that Rain Man had me close to tears. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 08, 2022
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The Last Emperor (1987) |
A spectacle that evokes respect and even admiration rather than genuine movie-movie affection. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 08, 2022
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Hard to Kill (1990) |
The choreography of violence is competent enough to satisfy the more violence-addicted sector of the video public. For even a modicum of redeeming charm, wit or humor, however, Seagal is clearly no Schwarzenegger. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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The Believers (1987) |
There is a depressingly surprising ending in tune with the current tendency to let the forces of darkness prevail for the sake of profitable sequels. Invincible evil seems to sell like hotcakes in today’s marketplace. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Heaven (1987) |
Heaven is a chaotically incoherent viewing experience. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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The Terminator (1984) |
This action flick has more than a few moments of intimacy, lyricism and tenderness as it confronts the bleak prospects for mankind from a matriarchal point of view. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Look Who's Talking (1989) |
Look Who’s Talking would be complete goulash if it were not for Alley’s charm and comic timing. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Up the Down Staircase (1967) |
Up the Down Staircase can be considered a failure for asking questions it is afraid to answer. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jul 01, 2022
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Dont Look Back (1967) |
What Pennebaker records is not Bob Dylan as he really is, whatever that means, but rather how Bob Dylan responds to the role imposed on him by the camera. Compared to most public figures of his time, Dylan responds very well indeed. - Village Voice
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| Posted May 09, 2022
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The Country Girl (1954) |
If Seaton chooses to film Odets’ love letter to the theatre as a dull tract on alcoholism, that is his business. It is the critic’s business to discourage such ventures. - Film Culture
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| Posted Mar 28, 2022
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The Great Adventure (1953) |
The foxes, the owls, and the lynx become props in what Disney would call a "true life adventure." It is in this breach of artistic sensibility, in this compromise with a story line, that The Great Adventure forfeits its earlier promise of sincerity. - Film Culture
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| Posted Nov 18, 2021
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To Catch a Thief (1955) |
Both director and writer seem unable to sustain character, much less develop, and enrich it. Both [To Catch and Thief and The Trouble with Harry] drag along from scene to scene without much inner motivation. - Film Culture
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| Posted Nov 18, 2021
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The Ipcress File (1965) |
The Ipcress File was reasonably entertaining while I was watching it, but after it was over I felt I'd been had. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jul 27, 2021
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Repulsion (1965) |
Repulsion is the scariest if not actually the goriest Grand Guignol since Psycho. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jul 27, 2021
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Alexander the Great (1956) |
Robert Rossen has aimed for greatness in Alexander the Great and has missed honorably. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Nights of Cabiria (1957) |
Like La Strada, Fellini's other near-masterpiece, Cabiria has some of the limitations of an acting vehicle that sometimes loses its way on the road of life and forks out into the by-paths of a virtuoso performance. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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The Seventh Seal (1957) |
Although Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is set in medieval Sweden, nothing could be more modern than its author's conception of death as the crucial reality of man's existence. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Giant (1956) |
If Stevens intended Giant as a great work of art, serious doubts arise as to both his artistic judgment and his ability to rise above the level of his material. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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A Man Escaped (1956) |
Bresson intervenes between his hero and his hero's associates, and even his German captors to present a wide range of human sympathies which linger in the mind as a Christian testament. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Strategic Air Command (1955) |
These beautiful planes fly endless vapor trails in the sky to the strains of romantic melodies from the stereophonic sound-track orchestra. By contrast, the human actors on the ground perform a cappella. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Love Me or Leave Me (1955) |
Charles Vidor has mounted a solid, grimy-textured production around his two principals, and must be credited in some measure for Doris Day's triumph over off-beat casting. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Stella (1955) |
Stella fails to reflect any distinctive aspect of Greek life. If Cacoyannis is to comprise a Greek film renaissance, he will require bigger themes and better scripts. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Daddy Long Legs (1955) |
Daddy Long Legs whips together most of the audience-tested ingredients of the Hollywood musical. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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One Summer of Happiness (1952) |
It is a thoughtful, sincere film graced with an unusually intense performance by Ulla Jacobsson. But it is not really a great film nor even a very important one. But it has a certain interest, both technically and historically. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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East of Eden (1955) |
Elia Kazan has mastered Cinemascope. Whatever its faults, East of Eden, at least keeps moving visually with its story. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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A Face in the Crowd (1957) |
The quiet, intimate scenes and background effects of Miss Neal, Matthau, and Franciosa maintain a level of distinction which cancels out much of the bombast and makes [the move], paradoxically enough, the most interesting film from Hollywood this year. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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The Rose Tattoo (1955) |
There is nothing to recommend in the film but the incomparable Magnani. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Court Martial (1955) |
The sole power of the film is derived from the excellent readings of the dialogue. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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The Trouble With Harry (1955) |
It doesn't come off because even the little touches are done badly. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Guys and Dolls (1955) |
Both Brando and Sinatra retain enough personal charm to keep Guys and Dolls moving along as the most entertaining musical from Hollywood since Singing in the Rain. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Picnic (1955) |
All in all, Picnic is an interesting failure. It is always visually attractive even when it is artistically unfaithful to its theme. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Baby Doll (1956) |
As a career setback, Baby Doll indicates not so much a technical regression as an unfortunate choice of subject matter. - Film Culture
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| Posted Feb 03, 2021
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Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) |
I respect Jeanne Dielman as a whole and even admire parts of it, but I do not feel that it breaks out of its formal shell into the realm of exquisite feeling that I have found over the years in the great works of Bresson, Godard, and Fassbinder. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jun 15, 2020
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The Touch (1971) |
Bergman's psychological intensity, though often disconnected dramatically, grabs our throats with its intimations of unrelieved pain and suffering. - Vogue
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| Posted Mar 19, 2020
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Mon Oncle d'Amerique (1980) |
With Mon Oncle d'Amérique, however, Resnais is truly resurgent as he reacquaints us with the richness of his paradoxes, the profundity of his playfulness. - Vogue
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| Posted Mar 19, 2020
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Every Man for Himself (1980) |
Every Man for Himself emerges as an exquisite piece of cinematic music for the restless, harried, disconnected, rootless times in which we live. - Vogue
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| Posted Mar 19, 2020
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