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David Edelstein

Senior Movie Critic
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  1. movie review
    The Lost City of Z Isn’t the Epic You Might Expect, But It Takes You on a RideDirector James Gray has an unusual temperament for a film like this, humbled rather than stirred.
  2. Colossal Emerged From Its Director’s Desire to Kill the Rom-Com“I get excited by making things I know some people are going to hate.”
  3. movie review
    Movie Review: Colossal Finds a Monstrous Metaphor for Female EmpowermentA giddy rom-com of debauchery slowly transforms into a grim psychodrama about a woman’s loss — and recovery — of power.
  4. movie review
    In Wilson, Woody Harrelson Is a Utopian MisanthropeThe film is a brusque, foulmouthed character study.
  5. movie review
    Movie Review: In T2 Trainspotting, Danny Boyle and His Heroes Refuse to Grow UpThough the movie has a melancholy streak, Danny Boyle seems desperate to prove he has lost none of his youthful giddiness.
  6. movie review
    Jazz Documentary I Called Him Morgan Is DazzlingIf you don’t know Lee Morgan, it will be love at first listen.
  7. movie review
    Kong: Skull Island Movie Review: Who in the World Is This Movie For?Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson star in this proficient and stupefyingly predictable monster picture.
  8. movie review
    Movie Review: The Sense of an Ending Softens the Novel’s Emotional PunchThe film adaptation of Julian Barnes’s Booker Prize-winning book is content to spoon-feed its audience.
  9. movie review
    Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper Is Maddeningly Elusive But BeautifulKristen Stewart is practically the only person in this haunted-soul saga.
  10. storytelling
    Love & Taxes Monologuist-Star Josh Kornbluth On the State of StorytellingTalking with the Spalding Gray disciple about seeing his one-man stage show adapted for film.
  11. movie review
    Review: There Are Very Few Movies Out There Like CatfightDirector Onur Tukel gets a lot of points for what people in showbiz call “making strong choices and going with them.”
  12. movie review
    Review: Logan Is So F*cking DarkI can’t remember the last time a blockbuster has left me so ravaged.
  13. oscars 2017
    The La La Land Best Picture Mix-up Was a Fitting End to a Confused OscarsNo one seemed to know what they wanted out of the ceremony.
  14. movie review
    Jordan Peele’s Get Out Is Terrifying, Socially Conscious HorrorIt’s a mash-up of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and The Stepford Wives that’s more fun than either and more illuminating, too.
  15. movie review
    The Great Wall Is Wonderfully RidiculousIt’s terrible, but it’s lavishly, generously terrible.
  16. movie review
    Actually, Fifty Shades Darker Isn’t That BadThe movie’s real subject is wealth — and how much a woman is willing to accept being owned in return for beautiful clothes.
  17. movie review
    John Wick 2 Is Even Better Than the OriginalIt’s one of the bleakest bloodbaths you’ll ever see.
  18. movie review
    The Lego Batman Movie Starts Great But Dips PrecipitouslyThe first 20 minutes kill. The last hour is like a night at the comedy club after the headliners have left.
  19. movie review
    Movie Review: Farhadi’s The Salesman Is GrippingIt’s another of the director’s analytical but deeply empathetic films about modern Iranian society.
  20. movie review
    Movie Review: I Am Not Your Negro Is TimelessThis is Baldwin at his most polemical, but beneath his rage you can discern a groping for unity.
  21. movie review
    M. Night Shyamalan’s Split Is Exploitative TrashMy loathing of Split goes beyond its derivative ideas and secondhand parts.
  22. movie review
    Review: The Founder Is Crisp, and All Too TimelyMichael Keaton is sensational as Ray Kroc.
  23. movie review
    Ben Affleck’s Live by Night Is Low-Energy NoirYou’re left with a lot of pale characters, secondhand plotting, and second thoughts about the idea of a liberal-humanist gang boss.
  24. awards insider
    Join Vulture’s 2017 Golden Globe LiveblogVulture’s Jen Chaney, David Edelstein, and Nate Jones are here to guide you through every twist and turn of the night.
  25. tribute
    Carrie Fisher Died Having Figured Out How to Truly Be Carrie FisherShe had the flukiest life, but ye gods, she made it her own.
  26. movie review
    Paterson Evokes the Inner World of the Artist But Flirts With TweeIn depicting the day-to-day rituals of Adam Driver’s blue-collar poet, director Jim Jarmusch evokes something essential about the artist’s way.
  27. movie review
    Denzel Washington’s Fences Gets Stuck Between Stage and ScreenIt’s not cinematic enough to make you forget you’re watching something conceived for another medium, but it’s too cinematic to capture the intensity  of a great theatrical event.
  28. movie review
    German Comedy Toni Erdmann Gets Joyful Results From a Conventional SetupIt makes the best case imaginable for the importance of tone.
  29. movie review
    Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women Is an Absolute DelightAnnette Bening is too singular to be summed up in a few tired adjectives. She’s irreducible.
  30. movie review
    Martin Scorsese’s Silence Is a Challenging Saga of Faith and MartyrdomThe director is attempting to make you see things as no one has before: with pity, terror, and — maybe hardest of all to induce — a gnawing ambivalence.
  31. movie reviews
    Passengers Is an Intriguing Space Romance That’s Sunk by Its EndingJennifer Lawrence acts her heart out.
  32. movie review
    Movie Review: Star Wars: Rogue OneI found the first two-thirds of Rogue One pretty bad, but I have to admit that the last part caught me up.
  33. year in culture 2016
    The 10 Best Movies of 2016 — and 6 MoreThere were too many great films this year to include in a mere ten best list.
  34. year in culture 2016
    The Best Film Performances of 2016It would be much easier to make a Worst Performances of 2016 list than one that could do justice to all the terrific ones.
  35. movie review
    La La Land Salutes, and Updates, the Hollywood MusicalYou want to sing its praises, literally.
  36. movie review
    Jackie Is Brutally Intimate and Admirably BrittleNatalie Portman nails Jacqueline Kennedy’s irreducible mix of shyness and slyness.
  37. movie review
    Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply Is Uneven, Yet RevealingWhat Beatty projects onto Howard Hughes tells us something about how a megalomaniac contemplates the dying of the light.
  38. movie review
    Review: Allied Is a Beautiful Vintage TrifleRobert Zemeckis has fashioned a good old-fashioned World War II romantic espionage movie.
  39. movie review
    Fantastic Beasts Is a Distinctly Unmagical SlogThe Harry Potter spinoff is hectic, cluttered, and ineptly staged.
  40. movie review
    Manchester by the Sea Is Unrelenting in Its BleaknessCasey Affleck proves he can convey suffering as well as any actor alive.
  41. movie review
    Review: Billy Lynn Is a Messy, Ambitious SatireFew war movies are as far-reaching, angry, and genuinely tragic.
  42. movie review
    The Slow, Stunning Intimacy of LovingDirector Jeff Nichols embellishes nothing. With minimal means, he makes the air thick with dread.
  43. movie review
    Movie Review: Arrival Is a Tantalizing PuzzlerAmy Adams seems born to be this character.
  44. movie reviews
    Paul Schrader’s Dog Eat Dog Is Garish, Exuberant PulpThese lovable little men who sees themselves as tender and romantic are psychopaths who’d kill you out of irritation.
  45. movie review
    Doctor Strange Is an Impressive Cosmic SpectacleThis is a rare case in which Marvel has freed a director’s imagination instead of  straitjacketing it.
  46. movie review
    Hacksaw Ridge Is a Massive Achievement for Mel GibsonSay what you will about Mad Mel, he’s a driven, febrile artist, and there isn’t a second in this war film that doesn’t burn with his peculiar intensity.
  47. movie review
    Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden Is the Year’s Most Twisted RomanceThe surface is classical, but the perversity bubbles up from beneath.
  48. movie review
    The Diabolically Bland Inferno Is Tom Hanks at His WorstIt’s a lame adaptation of a lame novel.
  49. movie review
    Jack Reacher: Never Go Back Is a Model of Mindless Pulpy ActionThe movie is lighter, more fun, and ultimately more satisfying than its weighty predecessor.
  50. movie review
    The Wonderful Moonlight Is a Moody, Gentle Story of Identity in 3 ActsThe film is so delicate in its touch that the usual superlatives sound unusually shrill.
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