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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. venice 2024
    Controversial Point: George Clooney and Brad Pitt Are Good TogetherWolfs is fine as a comedy but great as a star vehicle that makes you wonder why it took so long for its leads to reunite.
  2. movie review
    Inside Out 2 Is Another Product of the Pixar SlumpThe animation giant goes back to the well of its 2015 coming-of-age hit, with less-than-joyful results.
  3. movie review
    Babygirl Might Just Be The Year’s Hottest MovieThough what’s great about this sexy Nicole Kidman-Harris Dickinson drama is how surprising it can be.
  4. close read
    Are We Getting The Substance All Wrong?The Demi Moore horror film is being hailed for its feminism, but its real strength is in its portrayal of addictive behavior.
  5. movie review
    In Search of a More Welcoming RealityJane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow is an enveloping, confounding film about isolation, gender transition, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  6. movie review
    A Different Man Might Be Overthinking ThingsSebastian Stan is very good in this droll, distant drama about being unable to escape yourself, but it’s Adam Pearson who brings the film to life.
  7. movie review
    The Speak No Evil Remake Is Sillier (and Better) Than the OriginalThe American remake loses something in ditching the unrelenting darkness, but it also avoids the original’s borderline reactionary message.
  8. movie review
    My Old Ass Is Low-Key DevastatingMaisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza star in a rewarding coming-of-age story about getting the chance to advise your teenage self.
  9. venice 2024
    What Is the New Standard for American Cinema?The movies in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival told a story of a porous U.S. film world, a washed up scene, or something in between.
  10. movie review
    Miyazaki Didn’t Lose a StepHayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning film The Boy and the Heron is a reminder of what makes him an animation legend.
  11. venice 2024
    Familiar Touch Is an Infinitely Tender Movie About DementiaKathleen Chalfant is astonishing as a woman who moves to a care facility after she is no longer able to live alone.
  12. venice 2024
    Harmony Korine’s Baby Invasion Made Me SickIn a “let me off the roller coaster before I throw up” way, not a “this is disgusting” way.
  13. close read
    Yorgos Lanthimos Is Not Your FriendPoor Things was an empowerment fantasy. Kinds of Kindness is a return to the director’s primary interest — control.
  14. festival season
    The 18 Movies We’re Most Excited to See at Venice and TIFFTwo major film festivals are happening over the next two weeks in Venice and Toronto, setting the film world’s agenda for the rest of the year.
  15. venice 2024
    Tim Burton Is Great AgainBeetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t just a nostalgic retread — it’s a jolting reminder of what makes the director so seductive.
  16. movie review
    They Finally Made The Crow for Goth IncompetentsBill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs star in the tragic love story between a Soundcloud scarecrow and a rebellious cheerleader.
  17. movie review
    Josh Hartnett Gives Grade-A Murder Daddy in TrapM. Night Shyamalan’s latest works better than should be possible because of Hartnett, who plays a monster wearing the skin of a devoted family man.
  18. movie review
    Seeing Matt Damon Paired With Casey Affleck Is So DisorientingThe Instigators, starring Damon and Ben Affleck’s younger brother, Casey, plays like an indirect comment on the ‘Matt and Ben Show.’
  19. movie review
    What If Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway Had a Mother-Off, and We All Lost?The strange case of Mothers’ Instinct.
  20. movie review
    Dìdi Remembers All Too Well What It’s Like to Be 13Sean Wang’s directorial debut so vividly recreates the netherworld between middle and high school that it’s kind of hard to watch.
  21. movie review
    Twisters Needs to Be Either Smarter or DumberWhy so cirrus-us?
  22. movie review
    Sing Sing Doesn’t Need a Movie Star’s TouchThe prison theater drama can’t square its naturalistic urges with its need to be an awardsy acting vehicle.
  23. movie review
    Catherine Breillat Is Back, BabyThe transgressive French filmmaker is in fine, fucked-up form with Last Summer, about a middle-age lawyer who starts sleeping with her stepson.
  24. movie review
    Mia Goth Will Almost Convince You MaXXXine Has Something to SayFor that, the girl deserves an Oscar.
  25. movie review
    A Movie About Being Cool Shouldn’t Be This UptightHow is The Bikeriders, a movie in which Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy are a biker love triangle, so emotionally constipated?
  26. movie review
    Janet Planet Will Grow on YouAnnie Baker’s coming-of-age film features a career-best performance from Julianne Nicholson as a crunchy single mom living in Western Massachusetts.
  27. movie review
    The Watchers Squanders Its Creepy PremiseM. Night Shyamalan’s daughter makes her directorial debut with a horror movie about reality TV and the strange creatures that watch it.
  28. endings
    In a Violent Nature’s Unbearably Tense Ending Makes the Whole Film WorthwhileThe experimental horror film is at its best when it breaks format. Spoilers!
  29. movie review
    Not Even Jennifer Lopez Seems to Know What Atlas Is Meant to BeThe Netflix original is neither a serious action flick nor a B movie. It’s just a slick, textureless attempt to assure you that AI is your friend.
  30. how to be a star in 2024
    21 Ways to Hack StardomAfter a dry period, a new crop of A-listers is rising in Hollywood — and doing it differently this time.
  31. movie review
    Dune: Part Two Is Zendaya’s MovieAnd it’s a really good one.
  32. movie review
    Babes Revels in the Grossness of PregnancyBut the Michelle Buteau and Ilana Glazer comedy is better when it’s focused on their characters’ bittersweet friendship.
  33. movie review
    The Amy Winehouse Movie Doesn’t Like Amy Winehouse Very MuchWhy is Back to Black so bent on absolving the men in the troubled singer’s orbit?
  34. movie review
    Unfortunately, Madame Web Is Bad in a Boring WayDakota Johnson seems to give up halfway through this superhero movie, which drags through the middle and is inept by the end.
  35. movie review
    The Iron Claw Should Be Even SadderZac Efron, Harris Dickinson, and Jeremy Allen White star in the story of a tragic wrestling family that holds its subjects at arm’s length.
  36. movie review
    Gasoline Rainbow Bottles the Feeling of Being 18 AgainMostly in a good way.
  37. get it?
    This One Gag in Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tart Movie Is Like an Intrusive ThoughtWhat’s the deal with that January 6 bit?
  38. movie review
    The Idea of You Is a Mostly Not-Guilty PleasureAnne Hathaway is just terrific as a 40-year-old woman swept up by a romance with a boy-bander.
  39. close read
    There Are Actually Two Almost-Threesomes in ChallengersOne’s in a hotel room and the other’s on the tennis court.
  40. movie review
    Zack Snyder’s Screensaver Space Opera Comes to an Uneventful EndRebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver is a dream fulfilled for Snyder but one that ultimately isn’t that ambitious.
  41. movie review
    Guy Ritchie Goes Brutally PoshThe purveyor of British gangster sagas goes upscale for his Inglourious Basterds knockoff, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
  42. movie review
    Drive-Away Dolls Is Just Fizzy EnoughMargaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star in a lesbian road-trip comedy that will mostly remind you of better movies.
  43. movie review
    Pedro Almodóvar’s Queer Cowboy Short Is Too Sumptuous for Its Own GoodIt’s a gorgeous but unsatisfying sketch of a thing.
  44. movie review
    I’m Glad Everyone Had Such a Good Time Making Sasquatch SunsetIf only there were more reason to actually watch the movie they made.
  45. hard-bodied soft boys
    All the Sad-Eyed Action Guys Are Doing This MoveWhy use your own weapon when you can use the one your enemy just stabbed you with?
  46. movie review
    There’s Really Nothing Else Like The BeastLéa Seydoux and George MacKay are doomed lovers over three lifetimes in Bertrand Bonello’s haunting movie.
  47. movie review
    Lisa Frankenstein Is Strictly a Mall-Goth AffairKathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse star in a disappointingly flimsy horror comedy about a teen loner and her undead companion.
  48. movie review
    Did We Really Need Kaiju to Get All Cute?Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire doesn’t deliver the giant-monster goods, but it does make its creatures disconcertingly adorable.
  49. movie review
    The Best and Bleakest Comedy of the Year So FarRadu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World makes being ground up in the global machinery of capitalism look good.
  50. movie review
    A New Road House by Way of Looney TunesJake Gyllenhaal is better at oddballs than heroes — thank God he’s playing one of the former in this Road House remake.
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