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David Edelstein

Senior Movie Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine
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  1. movie review
    Todd Haynes’s Carol Manages to Find Romance in Deconstruction He has calibrated the film so precisely to Cate Blanchett’s talents that he couldn’t have rendered her better with animation.
  2. movie reviews
    The Farcical Man Up Is Rollicking, Albeit Uneven, FunMan Up is best when it’s pure farce — when Lake Bell is lying her bloomin’ arse off pretending to be someone and something she isn’t.
  3. movie review
    Review: Entertainment Shocks for No Good ReasonA ghastly movie that doesn’t earn its many hideous moments.
  4. movie reviews
    Review: Spectre Is Modern Bond Done Well EnoughThere’s plenty to carp about in Spectre, but it’s still more enjoyable than most of the post-Connery Bonds.
  5. movie review
    Review: Spotlight ShinesThe reporters were real vampire-hunters.
  6. movie review
    Saoirse Ronan Is Magnetic in the Otherwise Delicate BrooklynThe 21-year-old actress brings something unusual to her role, never letting her character’s passivity seem dull-witted or masochistic.
  7. movie review
    Our Brand Is Crisis is a Lively But Flawed Political Black ComedyFeaturing Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton as campaign rivals.
  8. The 25 Best Horror Movies Since The ShiningYes, the number one pick should be considered a horror movie, hear us out.
  9. movie reviews
    Review: I Smile Back Is an Empty Addiction MovieThough it does have a great performance by Sarah Silverman.
  10. movie reviews
    Rock the Kasbah Is Flat and Off the BeatAs one-liner after one-liner misses its mark, you begin to feel sorry for Bill Murray.
  11. movie review
    Heart of a Dog​ Is a Lucid (and Not Overly Woozy) Dream Laurie Anderson’s autobiographical meditation is free-associative but studded with tough observations and philosophical nuggets.
  12. movie review
    Beasts of No Nation Is Uncompromisingly BrutalFukunaga’s hurtling camera and taut cutting keep Beasts of No Nation only just this side of hallucinatory.
  13. movie review
    Movie Review: TruthOn its own terms, Truth works fine.
  14. movie review
    Movie Review: RoomBrie Larson plays a kidnapped and imprisoned mom.
  15. movie review
    Steve Jobs Starts With Big Ambition, But Settles for Small DramaThe first act is a thing of beauty and the second, good enough. Shame about that third act, though.
  16. movie review
    You’ll Want to Submit to the Milgram-Experiment Drama ExperimenterThe playfully dead-serious drama depicts the life of the Yale social scientist who studied “malevolent authority.”
  17. movie review
    Bridge of Spies Is a Subtler Kind of Spielberg MovieSober but stirring, it continues his creative evolution from fatherless child to nervous father wondering (absent role models) if he’s doing the right thing in the right way.
  18. movie review
    The Martian SoarsI can’t imagine anyone not liking this one.
  19. movie review
    The Walk’s Grandeur Makes Up for Its MisstepsAll the clunky stuff is foreplay, of course.
  20. new york film festival 2015
    13 Films to See at the New York Film FestivalMatt Damon on Mars is just the beginning. 
  21. movie review
    The Keeping Room: A Stirring Survivalist TaleWith rousing performances by Brit Marling and Hailee Steinfeld.
  22. movie review
    Movie Review: Green Inferno Goes for the Kill(s)The point is to feel something visceral, extreme. Eli Roth is extremely extreme.
  23. movie review
    99 Homes Tidily Critiques Our Swampy Financial EcosystemRamin Bahrani’s film is a slam-bang morality play in the Wall Street mode.
  24. movie review
    Pawn Sacrifice Is a Chess Psychodrama That Fails to Capture InterestDoes it make chess exciting? Not really.
  25. movie review
    Black Mass Struggles in Its Attempt to Depict an Unknowable ManBut Johnny Depp’s integrity is impressive.
  26. movie review
    Denis Villeneuve’s Drug-Cartel Drama Sicario DeliversWith a beautifully reactive performance from Emily Blunt, the film turns out to be a stupendously unnerving descent into moral chaos.
  27. The Twist Is That M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit Actually WorksM. Night Shyamalan has come up with an unoriginal faux-doc horror picture that works like a demonic charm.
  28. movie review
    Sleeping With Other People Is a Rare Non-Homogenized Rom-ComThe film is not quite a screwball comedy, but the emotions are screwball — zigzaggy and un–pin-downable.
  29. movie review
    No Movie Has Ever Looked Like Time Out of MindOren Moverman is attempting something hugely ambitious: a socially conscious, existential-­displacement art movie.
  30. movies
    Review: Steve Jobs: The Man in the MachineIt’s a skeptical essay, a meditation, a corrective.
  31. obits
    Edelstein on Wes Craven, 1939–2015A Nightmare on Elm Street was one of the best gimmick horror films of the last 30 years — if not the best.
  32. movie review
    Z for Zachariah Takes a Thrilling, Intimate Approach to DystopiaEven if you’re sick of end-of-the-world films, you might make an exception for this.
  33. fall preview 2015
    What Our Critics Are Really Looking Forward to This FallTheir top five picks for the season.
  34. Grandma Is Bleak, But Brings Plenty of DelightsIt marks a confident new era in gay cinema.
  35. movie reviews
    American Ultra: Come for the Actors, Tolerate the PlotEisenberg and Stewart’s apparent directionlessness is in sync with their generation.
  36. movie review
    Meru’s Extraordinary Climb Makes for an Extraordinary DocumentaryMount Meru is too scary-looking to lend itself to either inspiration or mysticism.
  37. movie review
    Straight Outta Compton Is a Complicated, Essential Underdog StoryIt succeeds on a visceral level.
  38. movie review
    The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Is Sexy, Breezy, Bond-like FunRarely does absolute inauthenticity come across as so superbly stylized.
  39. movie review
    Fort Tilden Is a Brisk Comedy Packed With Sharply Drawn CharactersDirectors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers have the taste to make even their whiniest, silliest characters deliciously whiny and silly. 
  40. movie review
    Greta Gerwig’s Influence Is Evident in Mistress AmericaThe movie’s tangle of sympathies shows an actress who wants to give every character a moment to shine.
  41. movies
    Meryl Streep Tears Up the Screen in Ricki and the FlashIt sends you home singing.
  42. movie review
    The End of the Tour Is Like Spending Two Hours With David Foster WallaceThe film is essentially a two-character piece in which every exchange is boldface, fraught.
  43. movie review
    Movie Review: Mission: Impossible — Rogue NationMight as well add (The Rebecca Ferguson Show) to the end.
  44. movie review
    Listen to Me Marlon Is a Searching Documentary in Brando’s Own WordsTaken from hundreds of hours of audiotapes he made over the decades as well as home movies and interview footage.
  45. movies
    Southpaw Is a Brutal, Punishing ExperienceYou don’t watch the brutal Jake Gyllenhaal boxing melodrama, you go 12 rounds with it.
  46. movies
    Movie Review: Phoenix Is a Devastating Spin on VertigoNina Hoss plays Nelly Lenz, a Jewish nightclub singer who survives a concentration camp and returns to a rubbled postwar Berlin in search of her non-Jewish husband.
  47. best of 2015
    The Best Movies of 2015 (So Far)Let’s get this out of the way now: The list includes Blackhat.
  48. movies
    Movie Review: A Hard DayI must keep this review short to keep from orienting you.
  49. movies
    Woody Allen’s Irrational Man Shouldn’t Work, But It (Kinda) DoesThe philosophical thriller is irrationally entertaining.
  50. movie review
    Ant-Man Is a Different Kind of Marvel MovieDespite a computer-effects team larger than the population of Scandinavia, it plays like a charmingly tacky jet-suit robot picture for kids.
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