Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times
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For 683 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Jeannette Catsoulis' Scores

  • Movies
Average review score: 56
Highest review score:
Pieta
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
America the Beautiful
Critic Score 0
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 275 out of 683
  2. Mixed: 294 out of 683
  3. Negative: 114 out of 683
683 movie reviews
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    • Metascore: 49
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Protektor
    Dipping in and out of luminous black and white, Protektor has a distancing glamour that prevents the story from digging in. Burdened by a central relationship so lacking in passion that its fate becomes negligible, the film's narrative feels trivialized by jaunty musical fragments and repetitive cycling and rowing motifs that belabor Emil's metaphorical treadmill of appeasement.
    • Metascore: 45
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Berlin 36
    Tasteful to a fault, Berlin 36 turns real-life controversy into disappointingly tepid drama.
    • Metascore: 42
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    A Bird of the Air
    Ms. Nichols is consistently appealing in the kind of role Zooey Deschanel has pretty much cornered, and Philippe Rousselot's nighttime shots of highway tragedy are dreamily atmospheric. If only Roger Towne's screenplay had focused less on the metaphysical import of Lyman's savior impulses and more on the physical rewards of his salvaged life.
    • Metascore: 45
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    The Last Ride
    This one is for Hank Williams fanatics only, and Mr. Thomas puts a dark and subtle sheen on a disappointingly watery script. Cover versions of Williams's songs - several sung by his daughter, Jett - remind us why he mattered, even as the movie fails to do the same.
    • Metascore: 55
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    The Assault
    In place of emotional stakes, we get gleaming, stylized, occasionally slow-motion violence, filmed in such extreme close-ups and cramped spaces that it's impossible to differentiate gunman and victim.
    • Metascore: 38
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    The Moth Diaries
    Roiling with jealousy, suicide and latent lesbian urges, The Moth Diaries dances on the border between hallucination and reality without fully committing to either. Yet the film's narrative frailties are offset by impeccable performances and a consistently eerie tone, helped along by a location as forbidding as the "Overlook."
    • Metascore: 59
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    On the Ice
    Glinting white vistas and endless light blanket On the Ice, a frigid drama that's tough to warm up to.
    • Metascore: 49
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Beyond the Black Rainbow
    Unless you're among those who still drop acid as a midnight-movie apéritif, your enjoyment of this retro oddity remains far from guaranteed.
    • Metascore: 65
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Better Than Something: Jay Reatard
    The result is a frustratingly superficial look at a smart, driven and sometimes frightened young man who always felt as though he were "racing against time."
    • Metascore: 43
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Apart
    A brief appearance by Joey Lauren Adams adds a welcome warmth to the standard therapist role, but otherwise all is bewilderment and repetition.
    • Metascore: 53
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Pray for Japan
    If making a decent movie required only good intentions, then Pray for Japan would be off and running. As it is, though, this muddled collage of random impressions and personal histories, emerging from last year's destruction of the Tohoku coastline by the earthquake and tsunami, doesn't document a tragedy so much as repeat a mantra.
    • Metascore: 56
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Citizen Gangster
    A good-looking but passionless affair that remains stubbornly aloof from its audience.
    • Metascore: 43
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    The Giant Mechanical Man
    Pleasantly charming but instantly forgettable.
    • Metascore: 42
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Chronicling a Crisis
    Alternately tedious and illuminating, this deeply honest and scattered movie revels in its lack of purpose.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Sleepless Night
    Hectic and harebrained, this galloping French thriller tosses a potpourri of plot points - crooked cops, sleazy gangsters, stolen drugs and an underage hostage - into a packed-to-the-gills nightclub, and stirs. Repeatedly.
    • Metascore: 36
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Red Lights
    Before Silver hijacks the plot, Rodrigo Cortés's smart, talky screenplay and tense direction hold our attention, as much for the unpredictability of the story as the ease with which Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy slide into their roles.
    • Metascore: 44
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Patagonia Rising
    A beautifully filmed and patiently explained assessment of a proposal to build five hydroelectric dams in the Patagonia region of Chile.
    • Metascore: 56
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Stella Days
    Relaxed performances and pillow-soft photography compensate somewhat for the story's narrow ambitions, but they're not enough to invigorate a movie that clearly would rather charm than challenge.
    • Metascore: 40
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Falling Overnight
    The film's sweetness is endearing but too featherweight to engage.
    • Metascore: 43
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    True Wolf
    Having devoted much of their lives to combating lupine myths by introducing Koani to wonder-struck schoolchildren, Mr. Weide and Ms. Tucker are ill served by a director who reduces the anti-wolf lobby to caricature and the debates over reintroducing wolves to the Northern Rockies to grossly biased clips.
    • Metascore: 52
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Vulgaria
    The film's kinky energy eventually wanes, the pileup of profanities losing its initial zing.
    • Metascore: 52
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Sexy Baby
    This scattershot investigation of the effects of Internet pornography on female behavior only ruffles the surface of a complex issue, one that demands a much larger sample than three white, educated women.
    • Metascore: 49
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    La Rafle (The Round Up)
    A well-meaning but inexpertly dramatized account of the roundup of 13,000 Parisian Jews in the summer of 1942.
    • Metascore: 61
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Buffalo Girls
    A story that, though sickly fascinating, is as crudely rendered as its images.
    • Metascore: 43
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    The ABCs of Death
    At its best when merging shocks with social commentary, this halting compilation improves significantly as it nears the end of the alphabet.
    • Metascore: 53
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Let Fury Have the Hour
    Infinitely less than the sum of its parts, Antonino D'Ambrosio's Let Fury Have the Hour crams 50 thoughtful artists into a disappointingly muddled film.
    • Metascore: 53
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    High Tech, Low Life
    The result is a narrow, albeit intriguing window into a technological revolt that deserves a more far-reaching film than this one.
    • Metascore: 68
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    A Place at the Table
    Though the directors, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, smartly choose examples from among the working poor — reframing obesity as chronic malnourishment in areas where it’s easier to find a burger than a banana — they’re reluctant to get down in the political dirt.
    • Metascore: 58
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Vanishing Waves
    This Lithuanian love story from Kristina Buozyte offers a discomfiting blend of visual ecstasy and narrative sterility.
    • Metascore: 47
    • Jeannette Catsoulis 50
    Fists of Legend
    Shot with some wit and considerable speed, its short, sharp beatdowns are a refreshing change from the bloated action sequences favored by some of Mr. Kang’s genre contemporaries.
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