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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. movie review
    Nobody Is Just Good Enough Thanks to Bob OdenkirkThe movie may be an unapologetic John Wick knockoff, but the comedian and actor makes for a compelling newcomer to the middle-aged action hero club.
  2. the unforgettable year
    A Year of Watching Movies About Being Stuck at Home (While Being Stuck at Home)COVID cinema arrived not long after the virus did — but what do we want from movies about a pandemic we’re all still experiencing?
  3. movie review
    Pedro Almodóvar’s English-Language Debut The Human Voice Is a Perfect Half-HourTilda Swinton wears gorgeous outfits and acts out in the Spanish director’s adaptation of the Jean Cocteau play.
  4. movie review
    Boogie Needs to Grow UpEddie Huang’s directorial debut is an Asian American coming-of-age story that could use more self-examination.
  5. movie review
    Raya and the Last Dragon Is Slick and Sometimes TranscendentThe new animated movie is a wonder of world-building, strategic IP generation, and accidental timeliness.
  6. movie review
    The Father Is a Devastating Close-up of a Mind That’s Beginning to FrayAnthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman are excellent as a father and daughter whose time together can only end in tragedy.
  7. the art of ending things
    Every Movie Should End in Song and DanceTo watch the finest of musical finales is to become convinced, however briefly, that every movie should resolve this way.
  8. the art of ending things
    The 101 Greatest Endings in Movies HistoryGood finales offer catharsis. The best deny us closure altogether.
  9. movies
    Chloé Zhao’s AmericaThe creator of quiet indie dramas is now the most-sought-after director in Hollywood.
  10. movie review
    In Minari, a Korean Family Tries to Make a Home in the HeartlandSteven Yeun heads up a deceptively gentle immigrant drama set in rural Arkansas in the 1980s.
  11. movie review
    Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci Are a Heartbreaking Couple in SupernovaThe longtime friends make this melancholy movie about early-onset dementia work.
  12. endings
    The Queasy Ending of Promising Young WomanIn Emerald Fennell’s incendiary revenge movie, rage can be a sanctuary, and it can also be a dead end.
  13. coming attractions
    65 Movies We Can’t Wait to See in 2021In fact, we couldn’t wait to see a lot of them last year. But here we still are.
  14. our streaming future
    Is It a Movie or Is It TV? And Does Anyone Really Care?After nearly a year of watching everything on the same damn screen, four critics attempt to talk through an unkillable debate.
  15. best of 2020
    The Best Horror Movies of 2020In a year defined by fear and anxiety, these ten films managed to provide haunts and delights.
  16. movie review
    Soul Is Pixar at Its Most Unpredictably WeirdAnd while the movie doesn’t always work, that part is kind of nice.
  17. movie review
    Promising Young Woman Is an Incendiary Revenge Movie With a Sugar-Sweet ShellCarey Mulligan is outrageously great as a Me Too vigilante in an unsettling first film from Emerald Fennell.
  18. movie review
    We Should Probably Talk About Wild Mountain ThymeBecause WTF.
  19. best of 2020
    The Best Movies of 2020The screens looked different, but the films kept coming. Here, our critics celebrate the greatest of our pandemic year.
  20. movie review
    This Is an Ode to the Best Movie Ending of the YearOn the bittersweet pleasures of watching Mads Mikkelsen dance in 2020.
  21. the quarries
    The First (And Dear God, It Better Be the Last) QuarriesIn which we award the most original, absurd, scrappy, and ingenious works that shaped our year in quarantine.
  22. deep dives
    How The Nest Shot the Year’s Most Cutting Dinner SceneCarrie Coon on wielding blondness, a wine bottle, and so much cigarette ash to needle Jude Law.
  23. movie review
    Mank Is David Fincher’s Flawed Fable About a Hollywood CynicGary Oldman plays the co-writer of Citizen Kane in a period showbiz story that could stand to go through another few drafts.
  24. movie review
    Frances McDormand Has Gone To Look For America In NomadlandDirector Chloé Zhao examines the idea of wide-open frontiers without nostalgia or the need to pathologize.
  25. movie review
    It’s the Uncozy Parts of Happiest Season That Make It InterestingThe Kristen Stewart-Mackenzie Davis Christmas rom-com is at its best when it acknowledges the cruelty underscoring its holiday hijinks.
  26. movie review
    Hillbilly Elegy Is Not the Fun Kind of BadThe Amy Adams and Glenn Close–led adaptation of J.D. Vance’s memoir says more about an idea of prestige cinema than it does the white working class.
  27. movie review
    Sarah Paulson’s a Terror in Tasteful Mom Garb in the Hulu Thriller RunOne of the takeaways of 2020: Don’t let Sarah Paulson give you medical treatments.
  28. movie review
    Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan Have a Sexy, Empty Romance in AmmoniteThe pair’s period courtship doesn’t have to be Portrait of a Lady on Fire — but it doesn’t have to feel so hollow, either.
  29. movie review
    Freaky Is the Sweetest Body-Swap Slasher Comedy You’ll See This YearThe new film from Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton is clever about horror conventions, but its biggest surprise is its streak of sincerity.
  30. movie review
    The Craft: Legacy Is Progressive, Positive, and Tragically DullThe ’90s teen-witch classic gets a 2020 overhaul that leaves it feeling too woke for … conflict?
  31. movie review
    On the Rocks Is a Light Comedy About Some Heavy FeelingsRashida Jones and Bill Murray are a daughter and dad who turn up some repressed familial pain in Sofia Coppola’s new film, streaming on Apple TV+.
  32. movie review
    The Witches Contains the Most Extra Anne Hathaway Performance of All TimeI wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s definitely big.
  33. close reads
    Before NXIVM and The Vow, Mark Vicente Directed a Truly Bizarre Hit DocumentaryA look back at What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?, the 2004 indie phenom that Vicente made back when he was the student of another dubious guru figure.
  34. movie review
    Aaron Sorkin’s Annoying Tics Are Actually Good in The Trial of the Chicago 7The speeches, the grandstanding, the quips — they totally work in the context of this Netflix courtroom drama.
  35. lux aeterna
    An Oral History of Requiem for a DreamDarren Aronofsky’s 2000 movie is the work of artists who hadn’t yet been told what they could and couldn’t do.
  36. movie review
    In the Extraordinary Doc Time, a Family Chronicles Two Decades of IncarcerationGarrett Bradley’s remarkable film folds together years of home-movie footage to provide a glimpse into activist Fox Rich’s fight for her family.
  37. movie review
    The Forty-Year-Old Version Isn’t the Quirky Underdog Comedy It Might Sound LikeGet past the goofy premise and Radha Blank’s debut, headed to Netflix, is about the frustrations of being a Black creator in a white theater scene.
  38. movie review
    Possessor Is a Spectacularly Violent Sci-Fi Thriller From David Cronenberg’s SonBrandon Cronenberg claims more territory on behalf of Canadian sci-fi and horror in his second film.
  39. friday night movie club
    In The Ring, the House Haunts YouBefore you die, you see The Ring … by joining us this October 2 for a live tweet as part of Vulture’s Friday Night Movie Club.
  40. movie review
    Jude Law and Carrie Coon Are Gorgeously Dysfunctional in The NestIn the new film from the director of Martha Marcy May Marlene, a family slowly implodes after moving into a crumbling house in the U.K. countryside.
  41. movies
    The Movies That Don’t Actually Speak to ‘the Moment’Antebellum is cinema’s latest desperate attempt at relevancy.
  42. movie review
    Mulan Is a Dour Drag of a Movie (But a Fascinating Cultural Object)In trying to square Disney girl-power tendencies with perceived Chinese values, the new remake ends up in a baffling limbo of motivations.
  43. movie review
    Hell Is Our Own Neuroses in I’m Thinking of Ending ThingsCharlie Kaufman’s new Netflix movie is wry, surreal, and an artistic dead end.
  44. fall preview
    39 Movies We’re Excited to See This FallWest Side Story, Dune, Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan in a seaside Romance. Will the movies come through?
  45. movie review
    Bill & Ted Face the Music Feels As Unstuck in Time As Its CharactersThat’s not a bad thing!
  46. movie review
    Dev Patel Does Dickens Well in The Personal History of David CopperfieldVeep creator Armando Iannucci has a light touch with the Victorian classic.
  47. movie review
    Russell Crowe’s Road-Rage Thriller Unhinged Isn’t Worth Getting COVID-19 ForCrowe gets good and glowering as a driver on a killing spree, but this thriller isn’t nearly clever enough to merit any sense of moviegoing urgency.
  48. movie review
    Project Power Is a Depressingly Uninspired Off-Brand Superhero StoryJoseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback, and Jamie Foxx star in a would-be Netflix blockbuster with a clever premise and crummy follow through.
  49. movie review
    Boys State Is an Enthralling Doc About How the Kids Are (and Aren’t) All RightA mock state election among Texas teens ends up being an entertaining reflection of the American political id in this Apple TV+ documentary.
  50. movie review
    The Burnt Orange Heresy Is Light on Thrills, Heavy on Beautiful ThingsClaes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki star in a suspenseless noir that’s worth watching mainly for how luxurious everyone and everything in it is.
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