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Alison Willmore

Movie Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Alison Willmore is a film critic for New York magazine and Vulture. Formerly, she was the only critic at BuzzFeed News, the first TV editor at IndieWire, and the host of Filmspotting: SVU.

  1. sxsw 2025
    The Accountant 2 Can Not Be Taken SeriouslyDo not approach this sequel, starring Ben Affleck as an underworld accountant again, with any sort of sobriety.
  2. sxsw 2025
    Another Simple Favor Is So Fun, Until It Gets So DumbBy the end, the film doesn’t feel subversively strange, just self-consciously campy and irritatingly smug.
  3. movie review
    Errol Morris Has Been Sucked Into the Gaping Maw of True CrimeThe documentarian may have been pivotal to creating the language of true crime, but he’s not immune to streaming bloat.
  4. endings
    How Bong Joon Ho Crafted His First (Mostly) Happy EndingThe Parasite director talks about the Trump parallels and optimism of his new movie, Mickey 17.
  5. life after parasite
    A Guide to Director Bong Joon Ho’s Deeper CutsSome of his best work still might be the movies set domestically in South Korea.
  6. best of 2025
    The Best Movies of 2025 (So Far)Featuring at least one you could feasibly call a meathead remake of Michael Mann’s Miami Vice.
  7. sxsw 2025
    What’s at SXSW? Unicorns, Threesomes, and Another Simple FavorThe 15 movies we’re lining up to see at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival.
  8. vulture recommends
    I Don’t Need More Constantine, I Need More Movies Like ConstantineTwenty years after the Keanu Reeves supernatural noir, some thoughts on what’s missing in everyday entertainment.
  9. oscars 2025
    The Oscars’ Most Pressing Cause This Year Was the Movies ThemselvesThis year’s ceremony was an inward-looking affair that found the industry foremost concerned with itself.
  10. pretty statues
    Cheese: An Annotated History of the Oscar Class PhotoRevisiting 40 years of fancy midday Hollywood hangs.
  11. encounter
    Osgood Perkins Gets Into the Family BusinessHe’s Dorky Dave from Legally Blonde. He’s also Norman Bates’s son and the next big horror-movie director.
  12. movie review
    With Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho Offers a Bitterly Funny Take on AmericaRobert Pattinson plays an immortal drudge and Mark Ruffalo gives sci-fi Trump in the new film from the director of Parasite.
  13. movie review
    Paddington in Peru Bites Off More Than It Can ChewFortunately, adorable talking bears have big appetites.
  14. movie review
    It’s Honestly Really Nice to Get Older With Bridget JonesIn Mad About the Boy, Renée Zellweger’s chaotic singleton has finally learned to love herself.
  15. an urgent plea
    When Fans Love a Movie to DeathOscar contenders and Sundance breakthroughs alike are suffering at the hands of the people who want to see them the most.
  16. movie review
    The Horror Comedy Is the Genre of Our MomentAnd Heart Eyes is funny and gory enough to fit the bill.
  17. movie review
    Companion Is a Perfectly Mean RompSophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid star in a comedic thriller that’s better with dark twists than it is with big ideas.
  18. movie review
    Rom-Com You’re Cordially Invited Is a Much Better Com Than RomWill Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon just don’t have natural romantic chemistry?
  19. movie review
    Flight Risk Is Not the Right Kind of DumbThis gimmicky thriller, directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mark Wahlberg, starts falling apart almost as soon as it gets started.
  20. movie review
    Shouldn’t Nosferatu Be Scarier?Lily-Rose Depp stars in a vampire movie from The Witch director Robert Eggers that’s gorgeous and weirdly inert.
  21. vulture lists
    The 47 Best Movies Over 3 Hours LongGot some extra time? Lose yourself in these cinematic spectacles.
  22. movie review
    Grand Theft Hamlet Is a Delightful Putting-on-a-Show DocumentaryShot entirely in Grand Theft Auto Online, this film about two actors attempting an unusual Shakespeare production is both hilarious and touching.
  23. movie review
    They Don’t Make Comedies Like One of Them Days AnymoreBut they should.
  24. movie review
    Luca Guadagnino’s Queer Is More Challenging Than You Might ExpectFor such a hot movie, this Daniel Craig–starring William S. Burroughs adaptation sure feels emotionally sealed off.
  25. performance review
    For the Love of God, Give This Woman an Oscar NominationNo one last year gave a performance that comes close to what Marianne Jean-Baptiste does in Hard Truths.
  26. vulture lists
    The 54 Best Movies Under 90 MinutesSometimes you just want a good story, capably told with no time to waste.
  27. movie review
    Flow Is an Animal Adventure That’s Endearing and a Little Too PrettyThe Oscar-winning animated film is a wordless survival story that lets its animals act like animals.
  28. movie review
    Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton Are Perfectly Imperfect TogetherWho could blame Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door for being more interested in its leading ladies than in contemplating death?
  29. movie review
    Tyler Perry’s Cosplay of a War Movie Hardly Does Its Subjects JusticeThe Six Triple Eight ends up being more about what these women endured than about what they accomplished.
  30. movie review
    The Brutalist Is Half of a Great MovieA terrific Adrien Brody anchors this three-and-a-half-hour American saga whose ambitions end up exceeding its grasp.
  31. movie review
    It’s Everyone Around Bob Dylan That Makes A Complete Unknown Worth WatchingTimothée Chalamet is good as the enigmatic musician, but this is really a movie about what it’s like to bob around in the wake of greatness.
  32. movie review
    Joker: Folie à Deux Commits the Mortal Sin of Wasting Lady GagaI mean, what are we even doing here?
  33. movie review
    Netflix’s Red One Will Remind You of Other, Better MoviesHonestly, the Dwayne Johnson–Chris Evans action comedy would be more interesting if it actually were a disaster.
  34. movie review
    This Is Not Angelina Jolie’s Big ComebackHer starring role in Maria is her most ambitious in ages, and yet it feels like a snooze.
  35. movie review
    Kraven the Hunter Is a Bunch of Weird Guys in Search of A MovieThe origin story of a Spider-Man antagonist that, for contractual reasons, will not mention Spider-Man.
  36. performance review
    The Anti-EverywomanNicole Kidman has become a figure of aspiration, not relatability, which is precisely why her latest roles have been so fun.
  37. best of 2024
    The Best Movies of 2024There’s still nothing like the simple pleasure of watching movie stars be movie stars.
  38. movie review
    What’s a Girl Gotta Do to Get Some Conflict in Moana 2?The sequel to the 2016 hit needs better songs and better bad guys.
  39. movie review
    Blitz Is the Worst Movie Steve McQueen Has MadeBy any wider standard, that means that the World War II drama is still not bad at all.
  40. movie review
    I Hate to Say This, But Men Deserve Better Than Gladiator IIRidley Scott’s sequel might make you wonder if we’ve lost the ability to treat brawny historical epics earnestly.
  41. movie review
    Bird Is an Endearing, Ungainly Modern-Day Fairy TaleStarring a tatted-up Barry Keoghan, the film resembles a dream director Andrea Arnold had that she only semi-successfully translated to the screen.
  42. movie review
    Here Is the Biggest Pile of Schmaltz You’ll See This YearTom Hanks and Robin Wright reunite for a movie that uses a bold formal device to incredibly hokey ends.
  43. movie review
    In Dahomey, Mati Diop Gives the Past a Lyrical VoiceThe new nontraditional documentary from the director of Atlantics looks at the restoration of 26 plundered artworks to Benin.
  44. movie review
    Venom: The Last Dance Is Bad on PurposeAnd even though Tom Hardy’s digitally enhanced hand-puppet act is fun to watch, that starts to feel insulting.
  45. movie review
    Union Is a Reminder That Documentaries Can Be Artful As Well As PoliticalStephen Maing and Brett Story’s film is a gorgeously made document of a labor battle against the behemoth that is Amazon.
  46. movie review
    Goodrich Feels More Like a Therapy Session Than a MovieThe new film from Hallie Meyers-Shyer stars Michael Keaton as a genial bad dad.
  47. movie review
    The Lego Pharrell Movie Has a Lego Black Lives Matter SegmentSome thoughts on Piece by Piece and the dangers of committing to the bit.
  48. movie review
    The Best Doc of the Year Is Like a 5.5 Hour-Long Panic AttackJulia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends drops you into a group of independent Russian journalists in the last months before the invasion of Ukraine.
  49. a great debate
    Megalopolis Can Only Imagine Genius As a BrandFrancis Ford Coppola’s passion project about a visionary architect is a banal paean to stale ideas about great men.
  50. movie review
    Sleep Is A Near-Perfect Horror ComedyThe South Korean film, from Bong Joon-ho protege Jason Yu, is a rollicking ride about sleepwalking and marriage.
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