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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
    Pixar’s Messy Metaphor for Interracial RomanceElemental is the story of what happens when fire meets water, falls in love, and turns into immigrant stereotypes.
  2. movie review
    The Impersonality of Ari Aster’s Most Personal FilmThe Hereditary director, never a horror guy, has left the genre behind for Beau Is Afraid — so why does his new film feel less open?
  3. movie review
    Flamin’ Hot Has an Unintentionally Grim MessageThis corporate fairy tale, directed by Eva Longoria, is resolutely feel-good in a way that starts to feel bad.
  4. movie review
    Past Lives Is Tasteful, Understated, and UnconvincingCeline Song’s directorial debut reaches for wistful romances but ends up just feeling calculated.
  5. movie review
    The Joyous Spectacle of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-VerseAside from the “to be continued” ending, the new Spider-Verse is breathtaking.
  6. movie review
    Sydney Sweeney Is Unreally Great in RealityThe Euphoria star plays whistleblower Reality Winner in an HBO film that turns the actual FBI interrogation transcript into a thriller.
  7. movie review
    You Hurt My Feelings Makes a Big Deal Out of Very LittleJulia Louis-Dreyfus doesn’t quite mesh as an author upset that her husband doesn’t like her work.
  8. movie review
    Fast X Feels Like a Head InjuryI didn’t hate it!
  9. movie review
    God’s Lonely Man Gets Laid AlreadyPaul Schrader’s Master Gardener plays less like a thematic finale and more like God’s lonely man finally got sick of his own company too.
  10. summer preview 2023
    Here Come Fast X, Tom Cruise, and a Summer of Big MoviesBut which will be the biggest? In a post-Maverick glow, anything is possible.
  11. fairy tales
    Every Movie Protagonist Is a Corporate Executive NowIt sure is a strange time to be releasing films about crusading tech entrepreneurs, but here we are.
  12. movie review
    Polite Society Pulls Its PunchesNida Manzoor’s big-screen debut is an immigrant-family dramedy by way of a martial-arts movie, and it’s fun without being satisfying.
  13. movie review
    Judy Blume’s Classic Book Has Been Made into a Totally Fine MovieAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is sweet but careful, and somehow the parents are the most interesting part.
  14. vulture food
    How to Prepare and Eat The Little Mermaid CastThese new character posters don’t look good, but with the right recipe, they have the potential to be great.
  15. movie review
    The Best Animated Movie of the Year So Far Doesn’t Involve MarioMakoto Shinkai’s Suzume is an openhearted romantic adventure about inheriting a broken world.
  16. movie review
    Renfield Sucks a Funny Premise DryNicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage are fun when playing Renfield and Dracula as a dysfunctional work relationship — shame about the rest of the movie.
  17. movie review
    Just Let Michelle Williams Work, Damn It!In Kelly Reichardt’s wonderful new comedy, Showing Up, Williams plays a sculptor on deadline who keeps getting pulled away.
  18. movie review
    We’re Still Pretty Bad at Making Video-Game Movies, Huh?All the best parts of The Super Mario Bros. Movie evoke gameplay. Too bad that’s just a fraction of the movie.
  19. movie review
    Rye Lane Makes Romantic Comedy Look EasyWatching these two dorky-hip 20-somethings banter around South London may make you wonder why we’re so worried about the fate of the rom-com.
  20. movie review
    Teyana Taylor Is Just So Good in This MovieAs a young mother in A Thousand and One, Taylor is tenacious, contradictory, adaptable, and raw.
  21. movie review
    This Korean Comedy Understands the Pleasures of Never Leaving the HouseWalk Up, from the prolific director Hong Sang-soo, is a deeply enjoyable movie that moves up through the floors of a Seoul apartment building.
  22. movie review
    Trapping Willem Dafoe in a Penthouse Prison Shouldn’t Be BoringInside wastes a great premise on dreary execution.
  23. the answer is in your heart
    Is Adam Driver an Alien in 65 or What?This is mostly, but not entirely, a dilemma of my own making.
  24. oscars 2023
    The Year the Movies Died (Over and Over and Over Again)It was an exhausting season for cinephiles, who were constantly confronted with elegies for an art form that is very much alive.
  25. movie review
    The Glorious Masculine Melodrama of Creed IIIMichael B. Jordan is good at this.
  26. performance review
    Paul Mescal Is Our Disappointment HeartthrobOther heartthrobs exude swagger or sex, but Mescal emanates something more devastating: the irresistible promise of eventually letting you down.
  27. movie review
    Magic Mike Shouldn’t DateChanning Tatum’s Mike Lane is the holy hunk, and his own desires seem incidental — tough stuff when you’re supposed to be half of a steamy couple.
  28. movie review
    The Numbing Spectacle of Infinity PoolWhat I did on my summer vacation (watched myself get executed).
  29. trends
    The Canceled As Character StudyIn Tár, Barbarian, and Glass Onion, there’s pleasure in watching celebrities fall.
  30. documentary
    How Margaret Brown Filmed One of the Year’s Most Telling Documentary ScenesThe Descendant director couldn’t have anticipated the unearthing of the slave ship Clotilda or the silence from the family who’d owned it.
  31. movie review
    Skinamarink Isn’t Like Other Horror MoviesKyle Edward Ball’s viral indie sensation has an analog aesthetic but was very much born from the internet.
  32. sundance 2023
    22 Movies We Can’t Wait to See at Sundance 2023From Cat Person (starring Cousin Greg) to the new Nicole Holofcener to an Ottessa Moshfegh–Anne Hathaway collaboration and more.
  33. movie review
    M3gan Is Good Enough for JanuaryThis horror comedy may have gone viral thanks to its Olsen-faced murder machine, but it’s Allison Williams who makes it watchable.
  34. backstories
    Glass Onion Isn’t Trying to Trick YouAccording to director Rian Johnson, every twist in his sequel is right in front of your face.
  35. movie review
    The Knives Out Sequel Is Bigger and Better Than the OriginalRian Johnson’s Glass Onion is more precisely designed, sitting with its characters rather than immediately showing off their decay.
  36. a long talk
    Park Chan-wook Leaves You HangingHis latest film, Decision to Leave, may be romantic, but that doesn’t mean the director is done with extreme violence.
  37. best of 2022
    Did We Want Too Much From Movies in 2022?Our film critics continue to chase that feeling of being utterly obliterated by what they see onscreen.
  38. best of 2022
    The Best Movies of 2022As the iron grip streaming held on our culture loosened this past year, the theatrical experience reestablished itself.
  39. movie review
    Disney Doesn’t Know What to Do With Strange WorldIf only this environmentally focused adventure featuring a queer Black teenager were as audacious as its themes.
  40. movie review
    All the Beauty and the Bloodshed Is an Incendiary Portrait of Art and ActivismNan Goldin takes on the Sackler family in this sweeping documentary.
  41. movie review
    The Inspection Is Both Incomplete and Full of PromiseA young gay man enlists in the Marines and endures brutal hazing in this autobiographical film from Elegance Bratton.
  42. movie review
    The Menu Is Deliciously MeanRalph Fiennes is a celebrity chef from hell in a film that feels like an unhinged sibling to The Bear.
  43. movie review
    The Son Is So Bad, You May Question Whether You Actually Liked The FatherThe new film from The Father director Florian Zeller, starring Hugh Jackman as a parent unsure of what to do about his child’s depression, is a mess.
  44. bedtime stories
    Nothing Helps Me Fall Asleep Faster Than Listening to Horror PodcastsIt’s not weird, I swear.
  45. movie review
    For a Movie About Patriarchal Violence, Holy Spider Sure Murders a Lot of WomenThe new film from Border director Ali Abbasi is a serial-killer story that tries, unsuccessfully, to be more.
  46. don’t go in there
    The Best Scene in Barbarian Nails the Horror of Knowing BetterAnd still going into that dark room anyway.
  47. movie review
    The Gorgeous Melancholy of AftersunPaul Mescal plays a dad who takes his kid on a holiday he can’t afford in this moody drama about memory.
  48. movie review
    Till Is a Painstakingly Careful Drama About a Racist AtrocityChinonye Chukwu’s film about the murder of Emmett Till is both cautious about and hemmed in by the terrible event at its center.
  49. movie review
    Are the Characters in Stars at Noon Unbearable or Just Unbearably Hot?Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn are expats unable to keep their hands off of each other in the unsettling Stars at Noon from Claire Denis.
  50. movie review
    Triangle of Sadness’s Class Satire Reaches Hazardous Levels of SmugThis year’s Palme d’Or winner is a total drag.
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