David Ansen, Newsweek
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For 623 reviews, this critic has graded:
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63% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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34% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 11.5 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
David Ansen's Scores
- Movies
| Average review score: | 71 |
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| Highest review score: |
Critic Score
100
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| Lowest review score: |
Critic Score
0
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 424 out of 623
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Mixed: 165 out of 623
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Negative: 34 out of 623
623
movie reviews
- By critic score
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David Ansen 90
A delightful surprise... Jewison does his best work in decades. [21 Dec 1987] -
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David Ansen 90
Lehmann isn't in perfect control - the movie gets off to a flat-footed start, and the conclusion is chaotic - but when Heathers hits its stride, it reaches wild and original comic heights. [2 April 1989] -
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David Ansen 90
Movie purists will tell you that a heavy reliance on voice-over is a sin (“show, don’t tell”), but when the words are this funny, to hell with purity. -
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David Ansen 90
This is Depp's coming-of-age role, and he's terrific. Pacino, who's shown more flash than substance recently, reminds us how great he can be when he loses himself inside a character. The bond between these two makes the film sing. -
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David Ansen 90
Traffic doesn’t quite come to a full emotional boil at the end. Soderbergh is too knowing to offer easy solutions. But what a journey it takes us on: disturbing, exciting, completely absorbing. -
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David Ansen 90
Scherfig and her wonderful cast slyly transmute the quotidian into the magical. It’s like watching flowers bloom in a concrete garden. -
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David Ansen 90
It's a swirling, fluid retelling of the tale that packs an impressive cargo of laughs, thrills and wonders into a watertight 88 minutes. -
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David Ansen 90
Has an almost perfect-pitch grasp of those messy, idealistic, vibrant times, when everyone was trying to reinvent himself from the ground up. -
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David Ansen 90
What sets Jerry Maguire above any other romantic comedy this year is Crowe's writing. He captures the venal, high-stakes world of pro sports with deadly wit and an ex-journalist's sense of detail. -
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David Ansen 90
You have to pay close attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot, but the reward for your work is dark and dirty fun. -
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David Ansen 90
Writer-director Ray has a no-fuss style that is quietly, thoroughly gripping. -
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David Ansen 90
It starts quietly, introducing its splendid gallery of fowl, rats and humans, then builds and builds until it achieves full comic liftoff. -
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David Ansen 90
A stunning crime drama that shares its protagonists' rabid attention to detail—and love of adrenalin. -
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David Ansen 90
Reveals a chilling reality: how hard it is to tell a simple truth when big business doesn't want it told. -
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David Ansen 90
Vertical Ray slows our rhythms and heightens our senses: it's a shimmering, tactile experience. -
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David Ansen 90
It has the stately, well-crafted anxiety of a Hitchcock movie, except that the protagonist and antagonist are one and the same. -
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David Ansen 90
Deep Blue Sea gives good rush -- earning its stripes as one terrific junk movie. -
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David Ansen 90
The eroticism in Cuaron’s road movie (which broke all box-office records in Mexico) is the real deal: tactile, sexy, psychologically charged. -
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David Ansen 90
Zaillian's meaty movie, at once bleak and hopeful, speaks volumes about the maddening distance between justice and the justice system. -
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David Ansen 90
The beauty of this extremely clever movie, directed with fleet, robust theatricality by John Madden, is how deftly it manages to work on multiple levels. -
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David Ansen 90
A painfully funny movie. There’s nothing in the history of movie courtship quite like the first meeting between Pekar and his future wife and fellow depressive, Joyce Brabner. -
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David Ansen 90
Moore’s stunning, subtle performance as a woman trapped in the conventions of her time encapsulates the film’s brave, double-edged beauty. -
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David Ansen 90
Luhrmann has raised the level of his game, deconstructing the Hollywood musical -- a genre all but left for dead -- and reassembling it with a potency that hasn’t been seen since “Cabaret.” -
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David Ansen 90
This wonderful, one-of-a-kind movie hops from Taiwan to France, from tragedy to deadpan comedy and, in its mysterious conclusion, from the worldly to the otherworldly. -
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David Ansen 90
The payoff comes at the end, when the myriad threads pull together with a shock like a noose tightening around your neck. Built with old-fashioned craftsmanship, Lone Star is not a movie you'll quickly forget. [8 July 1996, p.64] -
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David Ansen 90
Never less than engaging; all that’s missing is a proper crescendo. The picture moves along briskly, even at two and a half hours, but it seems to be running on cruise control. -
