Pauline Kael
Select another critic »For 689 reviews, this critic has graded:
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27% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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71% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.6 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Pauline Kael's Scores
- Movies
- TV
Average review score: | 63 | |
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Highest review score: | Citizen Kane | |
Lowest review score: | Revolution |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 315 out of 689
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Mixed: 328 out of 689
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Negative: 46 out of 689
689
movie
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Pauline Kael
You keep wanting it to turn into wonderful romantic fluff, but it's only spottily successful.- The New Yorker
Posted Jun 7, 2022 -
- Pauline Kael
An existential thriller--the most original and shocking French melodrama of the 50s.- The New Yorker
Posted Jul 1, 2020 -
- Pauline Kael
Even though the movie retreats into its narrow story line, you come out with a sense of epic horror and the perception that this white master race is retarded.- The New Yorker
Posted May 15, 2020 -
- Pauline Kael
This lushly romantic creation, directed by Marcel Carne and written by Jacques Prevert, is a one-of-a-kind film, a sumptuous epic about the relations between theatre and life.- The New Yorker
Posted Apr 16, 2020 -
- Pauline Kael
The film, directed by Perry Henzell, is feverish and haphazard, but the music redeems much of it, and the rhythmic swing of the Jamaican speech is hypnotic.- The New Yorker
Posted Oct 3, 2019 -
- Pauline Kael
Travel-folder footage of Rio mixed with father-daughter incest (in a disguised form)...Most of the movie is an attempt to squirm out from under its messy erotic-parental subject.- The New Yorker
Posted Jun 28, 2017 -
- Pauline Kael
This piece of Pop Art Americana is a clever, generally engaging screwball comedy.- The New Yorker
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- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
It may be the most sophisticated political satire ever made in Hollywood. (As quoted by Roger Ebert)- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
The script (John Farris's adaptation of his novel) is cheap gothic espionage occultism involving two superior beings--spiritual twins (Andrew Stevens and Amy Irving) who have met only telepathically. But the film is so visually compelling that a viewer seems to have entered a mythic night world; no Hitchcock thriller was ever so intense, went so far, or had so many "classic" sequences.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
This is a polished light comedy in the "continental" style -- a sophisticated romantic trifle, with Dietrich more chic and modern than in her von Sternberg pictures.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
William Shatner's Kirk is less stoic here than in III--he's pleasantly daffy. The others in the crew also have an easy, parodistic tone. But the picture doesn't have much beyond the interplay among them and the jokey scenes in San Francisco.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
The script and conception are so maudlin and degrading that Cagney's high dedication becomes somewhat oppressive.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
This spoofy black comedy is thin-textured and it's sedated; it doesn't have enough going on in it -- not even enough to look at. The nothingness of the movie is supposed to be its droll point, but viewers may experience sensory deprivation.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
An almost perfect visual equivalent of the Dashiell Hammett thriller...It is (and this is rare in American films) a work of entertainment that is yet so skillfully constructed that after many years and many viewings it has the same brittle explosiveness - and even some of the same surprise - that it had in its first run.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
Penn is given so little to work with here that it's practically a pantomime performance. He's worth watching, even though the picture is singularly unimaginative.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
The script, by James Toback, is a grandiloquent, egocentric novel written as a film; it spells everything out, and the director Karel Reisz's literal-minded, proficient style calls attention to how airless and schematic it is.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
The jokes get rather desperate, but there are enough wildly sophomoric ones to keep this pop stunt fairly amusing until about midway. It would have made a terrific short.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
A B-picture classic. This plain and inexpensive piece of science fiction employs few of the resources of the cinema (to put it mildly), but it has an idea that confirms everyone's suspicions.- The New Yorker
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- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
The picture is so cautious about not offending anyone that it doesn't rise to the level of satire, or even spoof.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
This slapstick adventure comedy is in the commercial genre of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it's a simpler, more likable entertainment than Raiders; it doesn't leave you feeling exhausted.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
Ragged when it tries for philosophical importance, but it's fun to see so many stars at an early stage in their careers.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
Jane Fonda in possibly her finest dramatic performance, as Bree, an intelligent, high-bracket call girl, in Alan J. Pakula's murder-melodrama.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
Directed by Irvin Kershner, the film has a few shocking fast cuts, but it also has scabrous elegance and a surprising amount of humor.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
The film has many of the ingredients of a shocking, memorable movie, but it's shallow and earnest...It's a mess, with glimmerings of talent and with Newman's near-great performance.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
James Stewart is charming and even a little bit sexy as the mild-mannered Destry.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
It's intensely enjoyable--in some ways the best of Hitchcock's American films.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
Is there a piece of casting more ineffably Hollywood than Cher as a busy, weary public defender? She's all wrong for this role: her hooded, introspective face doesn't give you enough--she needs a role that lets her use her body.- The New Yorker
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- Pauline Kael
It's intended to be a thriller, but there's little suspense and almost no fun in this account of a schizophrenic ventriloquist.- The New Yorker