Bilge Ebiri Author Archive
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Bilge Ebiri

Movie Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Bilge Ebiri is a film critic for New York and Vulture. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Criterion Collection.

  1. movie review
    Movie Review: Ride AlongStarring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.
  2. movie review
    Movie Review: In BloomEvery interaction in the film is built on anger and the promise of violence.
  3. movie review
    Movie Review: The Legend of HerculesStarring Kellan Lutz as the strongman.
  4. your box office explained
    The Eight Reasons Frozen Is UnstoppableThe movie has the staying power of Titanic, and it’s not just because it’s the only family movie around.
  5. movie review
    Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones ReviewThe fifth entry in the series is set in a Mexican-American neighborhood in California.
  6. movie review
    Ebiri on The Best Offer: A Suspenseful Tale of Art and RomanceGeoffrey Rush stars in the latest from the director of Cinema Paradiso.
  7. your box office explained
    7 Box-Office Quirks of 2013Raunch sells, 3-D slumps, and James Badge Dale rules them all.
  8. the sincerest form of flattery
    American Hustle and the Art of the HomageWith two very Scorsese-like movies in theaters (including one by Scorsese himself), Vulture looks at the pros and cons of imitation.
  9. year in culture 2013
    Bilge Ebiri’s 10 Worst Movies of 2013Another view of the year’s most unwatchable films.
  10. movie review
    Ebiri on 47 Ronin: A Japanese Legend Ambivalently Retold by HollywoodKeanu Reeves stars in an action movie with fantastical beasts and lots of beheadings that, ultimately, isn’t as crisply told as it could have been.
  11. movie review
    Ebiri on Grudge Match: Old-Guy Humor, But Not Enough of ItStallone is more willing to send up Rocky than De Niro is Raging Bull.
  12. movie review
    Ebiri on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: A Predictable Dream WorldExquisitely produced, immaculately acted, and thoroughly uninvolving: the perfect nothing of a movie.
  13. chat room
    Ralph Fiennes on Dickens and His Forgotten Film“I thought it would be noticed, but it was sort of dismissed.”
  14. movie review
    Ebiri: The Selfish Giant Is Powerfully, Powerfully SadFor all of its relentless horrors, this coming-of-age story never feels predictable.
  15. movie review
    Review: Hours, One of Paul Walker’s Last MoviesAn indie drama about a man struggling to keep his newborn baby alive during Hurricane Katrina.
  16. movie review
    Movie Review: Neil LaBute’s Some Velvet MorningMan and woman doing terrible things to each other.
  17. movie review
    Movie Review: Tyler Perry’s A Madea ChristmasStarring, written, and directed by the cross-dressing auteur.
  18. movie review
    Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of SmaugStarring the same hobbits and dwarves from An Unexpected Journey.
  19. movie review
    Ebiri: White Reindeer Is the Anti-Holiday MovieA bland, cookie-cutter wife comes home to find her husband murdered and her life upended. Merry Christmas!
  20. movie review
    Ebiri: Homefront Doesn’t Let Statham Be StathamAlso starring James Franco and Winona Ryder as Louisiana meth dealers.
  21. movie review
    Ebiri: Frozen Captures the Classic Disney SpiritStarring Idina Menzel as a princess with an icy touch.
  22. chat room
    Kasi Lemmons on Directing Black Nativity“This is a celebration of the black church, in many ways. I didn’t want to shy away from that.”
  23. movie review
    Movie Review: Black NativityThis new film is based on Langston Hughes’s all-black 1961 musical restaging of the Nativity.
  24. movie review
    Ebiri on The Great Beauty: A Daring Cinematic High-Wire ActPaolo Sorrentino’s film is one of the most unforgettable of the year.
  25. movie review
    Ebiri on Delivery Man: An Alleged Comedy With a Sentimental HeartVince Vaughn stars as a sperm-bank-donor-happy slacker.
  26. reappraisals
    A Creation Myth for the Sixties: Does Oliver Stone’s JFK Still Hold Up?JFK is a deeply confused movie, but there’s a searching quality to the confusion that marks it as a genuine work of art.
  27. movie review
    Movie Review: The Best Man HolidayThis sequel to 1999’s The Best Man stars Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Morris Chestnut, and more.
  28. Ebiri on Charlie Countryman: A Death Haunted Shia LaBeouf Goes EastCo-starring Evan Rachel Wood and Mads Mikkelsen.
  29. Movie Review: Dear Mr. WattersonJoel Allen Schroeder directs this documentary about comic strip artist Bill Watterson.
  30. behind the scenes
    Horrendous Acts in a Beautiful Way: Behind the Scenes of 12 Years a SlaveTalking to director Steve McQueen and his collaborators about the making of their remarkable film.
  31. deep dives
    12 Years a Slave vs. the 1984 TV-Movie VersionThe director of Shaft was the first to adapt the 1853 memoir.
  32. end of culture
    30 Great Movies You Probably Haven’t SeenPlus: 20 commercially unavailable movies you should watch online (and only if you know where to look).
  33. Ebiri on How I Live Now: War, Through the Eyes and Ears of the Young Directed by The Last King of Scotland’s Kevin Macdonald and starring Saoirse Ronan.
  34. movie review
    Ebiri on The Book Thief: Nazis, Stories, and a Chatty Grim ReaperDeath narrates this film about a young girl living with a German couple during World War II.
  35. movie review
    Ebiri on Keanu Reeves’s Man of Tai Chi: Neo Becomes Agent SmithReeves directs and stars in this martial-arts movie.
  36. movie review
    Ebiri on Last Vegas: Star-Studded, Liver-SpottedThe true pathos in this movie comes from our own history with its stars.
  37. cutting room floor
    Edelstein and Ebiri: 10 Horror Movies That Almost Made Our Best ListIf only we could have gone to 35.
  38. movie review
    Ebiri: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Is the Anti-BoratIn which Johnny Knoxville goes around America in old-man makeup.
  39. movie review
    Movie Review: The CounselorDirected by Ridley Scott, and starring Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, and Cameron Diaz.
  40. movie review
    Movie Review: Escape PlanWatching the grizzled action heroes working together as a team is a lot more entertaining than you might have expected.
  41. movie review
    Ebiri on Kill Your Darlings: A Traditional Movie About a Radical CliqueWith Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg.
  42. chat room
    Danny Trejo on Machete Kills and Unrealistic Oz“Do you remember that show called Oz? That show was so ridiculous.”
  43. Ebiri: Romeo and Juliet Is Undercut by Its Romeo and JulietRefreshingly un-modernized, this version suffers from young lovers who fall far short of the DiCaprio-Danes high-water mark.
  44. movie review
    Ebiri: Escape From Tomorrow Makes a Fine Midnight MovieSecretly filmed in Disney theme parks, it’s a nutty miasma of sexual neuroses, macho angst, regressive frenzy, and fevered paranoia.
  45. Movie Review: A.C.O.D.An indie about a commitment-shy adult child of divorce and the parents who made him that way.
  46. movie review
    Ebiri: Ben Affleck’s Bro Gordon Gekko in Runner Runner DisappointsA missed brah-pportunity.
  47. foreign affairs
    The O.C. vs. Med Cezir, the Turkish O.C.It’s darker, for starters.
  48. movie review
    Ebiri on Baggage Claim: A Gracelessly Conceived and Executed Rom-ComEven Paula Patton’s considerable charms can’t quite make this movie tolerable.
  49. movie review
    Review: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2This sequel, starring the voices of Bill Hader and Will Forte, picks up right where the first left off.
  50. movie review
    Movie Review: Metallica: Through the NeverThis movie is as metal as it gets.
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