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David Edelstein

Senior Movie Critic
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  1. vulture lists
    Every Star Wars Movie, RankedFrom The Phantom Menace to The Rise of Skywalker.
  2. movie review
    RBG Is the Best Imaginable Retaliation to MansplainingYes, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg doc is a hagiography, but it has its cheeky aspect.
  3. movie review
    In Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, Capitalism Continues to Divide and ConquerWhat you register in the 19th-century frontier drama is what’s absent: a sense of community, of a shared enterprise.
  4. movie review
    Spaceship Earth Casts a Sympathetic Lens on a Much-Ridiculed Failed UtopiaMatt Wolf’s very entertaining documentary about Biosphere 2 sets out to liberate its architects and participants from their fate as a punch line.
  5. movie review
    Bull Is So Much More Than a Coming-of-Age ClichéThe story of a 14-year-old girl’s attempt to escape her homelife by apprenticing with an ex–bull rider is more stoic than it sounds.
  6. movie review
    Our Mothers Digs Up Guatemala’s Painful PastCésar Diaz’s drama about the aftermath of the nation’s civil war feels a bit like shards from a larger mosaic, but that somehow fits its subject.
  7. movie review
    New Braveheart Sequel Brings You More Angus Macfadyen and a Lot Less BloodTwenty-five years after Mel Gibson yelled “freeeeeedommm,” director Richard Gray brings Robert the Bruce back.
  8. a long talk
    Paul Schrader Does Not Have Much Hope for the Future of MoviesAfter publicly condemning producers who shut down his new movie over coronavirus concerns, the First Reformed director reflects in quarantine.
  9. movie review
    In The Other Lamb, Misandry Is a Survival InstinctGiven all the godly males who’ve been steering their flocks toward certain doom, the film has a special resonance in the spring of 2020.
  10. vulture recommends
    Introducing Six Degrees of One Kevin Bacon Movie, a New Quarantine GameWe asked our film writers to start with Mystic River and work their way through five more titles … ending on another Kevin Bacon movie.
  11. movie review
    Crip Camp Is a Transcendent Celebration of Activist CultureIt’s a shame this Netflix movie can’t be seen with a large, boisterous audience. It’ll make you want to dance and light up a joint.
  12. the heaviside layer
    A Few Thoughts on Watching Cats AloneWe are all now the cats of Cats, prowling in the shadows of our tattered culture, reliving memories in the ruined theaters of our minds.
  13. movie review
    Lost Girls Is an Anti-Police ProceduralThe Netflix film will make you rethink your need for a certain kind of closure in a world that has so little of it.
  14. movie review
    In the Brief, Sad Hope Gap, Annette Bening Gives a Fascinating PerformanceWilliam Nicholson’s autobiographical English drama, co-staring Bill Nighy, premiered at TIFF.
  15. movie review
    Wendy Takes a Children’s Classic Into Art-House NeverlandBenh Zeitlin’s follow-up to Beasts of the Southern Wild is a soggy riff on Peter Pan.
  16. movie review
    A Kinder, Gentler Call of the Wild Cancels Jack London’s OriginalThe original novel is surprisingly brutal. This version, with its computer-generated dogs, is weak stuff.
  17. appreciations
    Gillian Armstrong and Her Protagonists Redefined the Modern Movie HeroineHer work was vibrant and searching and messy in the best sense, and she put women’s psychology onscreen in ways that were never reductive.
  18. movie review
    Greta Gerwig’s Little Women Reaches for Something MoreThe director demonstrates her love for Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel in every scene.
  19. movie review
    Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Is a Formulaic, Crowd-Pleasing CartoonEpisode IX is a dream movie for Disney as much as I’m guessing it’s a nightmare for George Lucas.
  20. movie review
    Uncut Gems Gives Adam Sandler the Awesome, Freaky Movie He DeservesIt’s the summation of the Safdie brothers’ culture, in which the drive for life collides head-on with the drive for death, and the upshot is cinema.
  21. movie review
    Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell Is Full of Rage and SpinIt can’t be an accident that the film shows the enemies of truth and justice to be the FBI and the press.
  22. what were the 2010s?
    Every Movie of the 2010s, RankedOur critics pored over 5,279 of the decade’s films. Here’s the best, worst, and mehst.
  23. best of 2019
    The Best Movies of 2019Our critics celebrate the latest Tarantino, a South Korean black comedy, and the return of Eddie Murphy.
  24. movie review
    In Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, Rich White Bigots Get Their ComeuppanceMacabre as it is, there’s something comfy about the universe of this ensemble whodunit.
  25. movie review
    Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman Is His Most Satisfying Film in DecadesThe director has made his most stylishly daring movie: one that is pointedly sapped of style.
  26. movie review
    Todd Haynes’s Dark Waters Shows You Hell on EarthIs this what happens every day in a country controlled by companies with vast coffers, armies of lobbyists, and politicians leased by the year?
  27. movie review
    A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Ought to Make You Roll Your Eyes, and Yet …Our nicest Hollywood star playing our nicest-ever children’s show host: There’s peer pressure to succumb.
  28. movie review
    The Report Is a Dry, Arm’s-Length Movie That Seeps Into Your BloodAccidentally or on purpose (or a bit of both), Scott Z. Burns’s movie reminds us how hard it is to be a whistle-blower.
  29. movie review
    Ford v Ferrari Is an Old-fashioned RouserJames Mangold doesn’t misuse his head-rattling techniques. He brings a lot of new-fashioned virtuosity, too.
  30. movie review
    In Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach’s Self-Pity Comes With Stretches of BrillianceThe best parts of this divorce saga are the small moments that resonate like mad.
  31. movies
    The Movies We Loved in 2019Including Bong Joon Ho’s acid black comedy, Brad Pitt in space, and the gentle Pain and Glory.
  32. movie review
    The Current War Is an Absorbing Biopic That Never Quite Snaps Into FocusWhile alternating current is a fine principle for lighting the world, movies require a current more direct.
  33. movie review
    Dolemite Is My Name Gives Eddie Murphy a Second ActThe writers of Ed Wood provide the actor with his best material in years.
  34. movie review
    In Terminator: Dark Fate, the Cornball Franchise Returns With a VengeanceThe sixth — er, third — Terminator film has gotten much better reviews than it deserves, but I understand why people want to embrace it.
  35. movie review
    Even If You Don’t Love Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, You’ll Love That It ExistsFor extratextual reasons, support your local Nazi comedy.
  36. movie review
    Parasite Is an Acid-Black Comedy That Eats at the MindAt the heart of Bong Joon-ho’s latest film is the most gnawing evolutionary fear of all.
  37. movie review
    In The King, Timothée Chalamet’s Emo Angst Is UnderwhelmingDavid Michôd’s Netflix movie is a dull morality play — with one exception: a Plantagenet Jack Reacher moment.
  38. movie review
    Natalie Portman Gives an Astronomically Intense Performance in Lucy in the SkyEven when we don’t know what the hell is going on in Noah Hawley’s astronaut epic, Portman is a blast.
  39. movie review
    Joker Is One Unpleasant Note Played Louder and LouderJoaquin Phoenix is impressive, but the film panders to selfish, small-minded feelings of resentment.
  40. movie review
    In Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat, the Meek Are Absolutely ScrewedIs The Laundromat a poor man’s The Big Short? I would say it’s a heavily mortgaged middle-class man’s The Big Short, and that’s not such a bad thing.
  41. movie review
    Rambo: Last Blood and the Limits of the Macho-Male FantasyNo, I don’t know why I had high hopes for Sylvester Stallone’s latest.
  42. movie review
    Ad Astra Is Mostly Brad Pitt and Nothing ButJames Gray, even more successfully than in Two Lovers and The Lost City of Z, steeps you in his protagonist’s psyche.
  43. toronto film festival 2019
    The Goldfinch: When Adaptation Is Way Too ReverentThe movie is too artful to deserve outright rejection, but too arty to keep you from saying, “What did I just see?”
  44. the devil and daniel johnston
    What Fresh Hell Is This?In honor of the late Daniel Johnston, we’re revisiting the 2006 documentary that brought his defiant life to screen.
  45. toronto film festival 2019
    The Resentment of JokerI’m not arguing that Todd Phillips’s movie will inspire killings, only that it panders to selfish, small-minded feelings of resentment.
  46. fall preview 2019
    The Best and Biggest Movies to See This FallCats, Frozen II, Little Women, and more.
  47. movie review
    Official Secrets Is a Low-key, Paranoid Procedural Drama Done WellPasty white men debate whether a Bush-era whistle-blower, Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), is a hero or a traitor.
  48. movie review
    Brittany Runs a Marathon Is a Conflicted Go-for-It MovieDirector Paul Downs Collaizo and star Jillian Bell dare to tell an emotionally convoluted story.
  49. movie review
    American Factory Gestures Toward the End of the Working World As We Know ItThe Obamas’ Netflix doc is an eye-opening prelude to the rise of machines.
  50. movie review
    Where’d You Go, Bernadette? Nowhere, Damn ItNot even Cate Blanchett can save this out-of-focus adaptation.
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