Vadim Rizov
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications:
Movie-Vault.com,
Boxoffice Magazine,
L.A. Weekly,
Time Out,
Sight & Sound,
Village Voice,
AV Club,
Reverse Shot,
Little White Lies,
Brooklyn Magazine,
House Next Door,
The Dissolve,
GreenCine,
MUBI,
Filmmaker Magazine
Echoes of the Orient (2025)
EDIT
“Echoes’s distinguishing features include its adept widescreen compositions—an aspect ratio unusual for this pocket of slow cinema—and its equally non-standard, lowkey but consistent sense of humor and extreme awareness of the present moment.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Nov 22, 2025
Full Review
Far in the Middle of the East (2025)
EDIT
“Well-executed, dramatically bracing and well-composed.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Nov 22, 2025
Full Review
Sermon to the Void (2025)
EDIT
“The film’s real business is the non-stop purveying of images you’ve never seen before, building off a strong foundation of material shot in a desert over the course of 11 months.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Nov 21, 2025
Full Review
Le Lac (2025)
EDIT
“The most stereotypically “Swiss” movie imaginable.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Nov 21, 2025
Full Review
Saikai Paradise (2025)
EDIT
“So determinedly “gentle” and “low-key” that it made me wonder how many Japanese movies I’ve seen that could be called Still Walking beyond Kore-eda Hirokazu’s tonal prototype.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Nov 21, 2025
Full Review
Fire of Wind (2024)
EDIT
“If "Fire" is familiar in both its austerity and quasi-revolutionary solidarity, Mateus's command of her craft is clear, and her service in maintaining a particular lineage of severity admirable.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 30, 2025
Full Review
Gavagai (2025)
EDIT
“Köhler’s a sneaky filmmaker, using conventional visual language and fully fleshed-out plotting to wrongfoot expectations in ways you couldn’t see coming, and it’s a pleasure to have him back for his first film in six years (!).” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 17, 2025
Full Review
Duse (2025)
67%
EDIT
“Duse hit because of its core tenet: History is a real thing that actually exists.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 17, 2025
Full Review
Strange River (2025)
EDIT
“Strange River is a fine but familiar coming-of-age saga.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 7, 2025
Full Review
Gloaming in Luomu (2025)
EDIT
“The movie is basically never funny, nor is it especially pregnant with longing for a missing partner; it’s just inert.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 7, 2025
Full Review
Black Rabbit, White Rabbit (2025)
EDIT
“For about an hour, Black Rabbit is great fun, but unfortunately Mokri’s film is 138 minutes long.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 7, 2025
Full Review
The River That Holds Our Hands (2025)
EDIT
“The movie is what we’d call a “promising first feature,” full of slow cinema compositional skill but a little low on the ideas necessary to get to even 85 minutes.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 7, 2025
Full Review
If On a Winter's Night (2025)
EDIT
“Both lead performers convincingly embody the lived-in quicksilver intimacy of an infatuated couple being slowly worn down, and watching the light slowly fade from their eyes is fairly devastating.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 7, 2025
Full Review
To the Victory! (2025)
EDIT
“I found it all very funny and sharp.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Oct 2, 2025
Full Review
The Fence (2025)
70%
EDIT
“The Fence seems to be an inexplicably faithful adaptation of a bad play.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Sep 24, 2025
Full Review
The Wizard of the Kremlin (2025)
49%
EDIT
“I would describe the film’s political diagnosis as both accurate and unsurprising; its real meat is in further illuminating the contours of Assayas’s life-long project.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Sep 15, 2025
Full Review
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
92%
EDIT
“I’m glad to see mystery scholarship-in-action continue to get such a lavish stage in all its sub-genre forms.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Sep 15, 2025
Full Review
Blue Moon (2025)
90%
EDIT
“Kaplow’s script is a curious example of the biopic, bucking convention in several ways.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Sep 10, 2025
Full Review
Mare's Nest (2025)
EDIT
“A lot of the film is unexceptional.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Sep 10, 2025
Full Review
Promise, I'll Be Fine (2024)
EDIT
“The film is a spritely piece of work, whose frequently moving camera renders spectacular kinetic views of mopeds racing through imposing forests.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Jul 21, 2025
Full Review
Dust Be My Destiny (1939)
EDIT
“Some "genius of the system" virtues include typically breathtaking black-and-white cinematography by James Wong Howe and a script by Robert Rossen of such dialogue pungency that it sometimes rises to Sweet Smell of Success levels of acridness.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Jul 17, 2025
Full Review
Sand City (2025)
EDIT
“Mountains of crushed glass and sand are constant attractions, and the film is adroit at exploiting scalar differences in its under-construction landscapes.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Jul 17, 2025
Full Review
The Luminous Life (2025)
EDIT
“Perhaps the film’s greatest pleasure is spending time with 24-year-olds who read books older than themselves and don’t pheremonally emit the desire to either produce or stream content.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Jul 17, 2025
Full Review
Broken Voices (2025)
80%
EDIT
“Provaznik introduces signs of barely articulated unease slowly but never lets them primarily drive the narrative until the very end.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Jul 17, 2025
Full Review
Out of Love (2025)
EDIT
“The film is a tearjerker semi-disguised as a nuanced psychological drama; Ambrosioni hits a few narrative beats repeatedly to diminishing effect.” –
Filmmaker Magazine
Jul 17, 2025
Full Review
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