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Alison Willmore

Movie Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Alison Willmore is a film critic for New York magazine and Vulture. Formerly, she was the only critic at BuzzFeed News, the first TV editor at IndieWire, and the host of Filmspotting: SVU.

  1. encounter
    Osgood Perkins Gets Into the Family BusinessHe’s Dorky Dave from Legally Blonde. He’s also Norman Bates’s son and the next big horror-movie director.
  2. movie review
    Sing Sing Doesn’t Need a Movie Star’s TouchThe prison theater drama can’t square its naturalistic urges with its need to be an awardsy acting vehicle.
  3. best of 2024
    The Best Movies of 2024 (So Far)A sprawling western, a thrilling prequel, and a nonagenarian who finally gets a starring role worthy of her talents.
  4. movie review
    Catherine Breillat Is Back, BabyThe transgressive French filmmaker is in fine, fucked-up form with Last Summer, about a middle-age lawyer who starts sleeping with her stepson.
  5. movie review
    Mia Goth Will Almost Convince You MaXXXine Has Something to SayFor that, the girl deserves an Oscar.
  6. movie review
    Miyazaki Didn’t Lose a StepBack from temporary retirement, Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning film, The Boy and the Heron, is a reminder of what makes him an animation legend.
  7. movie review
    A Movie About Being Cool Shouldn’t Be This UptightHow is The Bikeriders, a movie in which Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy are a biker love triangle, so emotionally constipated?
  8. movie review
    Janet Planet Will Grow on YouAnnie Baker’s coming-of-age film features a career-best performance from Julianne Nicholson as a crunchy single mom living in Western Massachusetts.
  9. close read
    Yorgos Lanthimos Is Not Your FriendPoor Things was an empowerment fantasy. The director’s latest film, Kinds of Kindness, is a return to his primary interest — control.
  10. movie review
    Inside Out 2 Is Another Product of the Pixar SlumpThe animation giant goes back to the well of its 2015 coming-of-age hit, with less than joyful results.
  11. movie review
    The Watchers Squanders Its Creepy PremiseM. Night Shyamalan’s daughter makes her directorial debut with a horror movie about reality TV and the strange creatures that watch it.
  12. endings
    In a Violent Nature’s Unbearably Tense Ending Makes the Whole Film WorthwhileThe experimental horror film is at its best when it breaks format. Spoilers!
  13. movie review
    Not Even Jennifer Lopez Seems to Know What Atlas Is Meant to BeThe Netflix original is neither a serious action flick nor a B movie. It’s just a slick, textureless attempt to assure you that AI is your friend.
  14. how to be a star in 2024
    21 Ways to Hack StardomAfter a dry period, a new crop of A-listers is rising in Hollywood — and doing it differently this time.
  15. movie review
    Dune: Part Two Is Zendaya’s MovieAnd it’s a really good one.
  16. movie review
    Babes Revels in the Grossness of PregnancyBut the Michelle Buteau and Ilana Glazer comedy is better when it’s focused on their characters’ bittersweet friendship.
  17. movie review
    The Amy Winehouse Movie Doesn’t Like Amy Winehouse Very MuchWhy is Back to Black so bent on absolving the men in the troubled singer’s orbit?
  18. movie review
    Unfortunately, Madame Web Is Bad in a Boring WayDakota Johnson seems to give up halfway through this superhero movie, which drags through the middle and is inept by the end.
  19. movie review
    The Iron Claw Should Be Even SadderZac Efron, Harris Dickinson, and Jeremy Allen White star in the story of a tragic wrestling family that holds its subjects at arm’s length.
  20. movie review
    Gasoline Rainbow Bottles the Feeling of Being 18 AgainMostly in a good way.
  21. get it?
    This One Gag in Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tart Movie Is Like an Intrusive ThoughtWhat’s the deal with that January 6 bit?
  22. movie review
    In Search of a More Welcoming RealityJane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow is an enveloping, confounding film about isolation, gender transition, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  23. movie review
    The Idea of You Is a Mostly Not-Guilty PleasureAnne Hathaway is just terrific as a 40-year-old woman swept up by a romance with a boy-bander.
  24. close read
    There Are Actually Two Almost-Threesomes in ChallengersOne’s in a hotel room and the other’s on the tennis court.
  25. movie review
    Zack Snyder’s Screensaver Space Opera Comes to an Uneventful EndRebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver is a dream fulfilled for Snyder but one that ultimately isn’t that ambitious.
  26. movie review
    Guy Ritchie Goes Brutally PoshThe purveyor of British gangster sagas goes upscale for his Inglourious Basterds knockoff, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
  27. movie review
    Drive-Away Dolls Is Just Fizzy EnoughMargaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star in a lesbian road-trip comedy that will mostly remind you of better movies.
  28. movie review
    Pedro Almodóvar’s Queer Cowboy Short Is Too Sumptuous for Its Own GoodIt’s a gorgeous but unsatisfying sketch of a thing.
  29. movie review
    I’m Glad Everyone Had Such a Good Time Making Sasquatch SunsetIf only there were more reason to actually watch the movie they made.
  30. hard-bodied soft boys
    All the Sad-Eyed Action Guys Are Doing This MoveWhy use your own weapon when you can use the one your enemy just stabbed you with?
  31. movie review
    There’s Really Nothing Else Like The BeastLéa Seydoux and George MacKay are doomed lovers over three lifetimes in Bertrand Bonello’s haunting movie.
  32. movie review
    Lisa Frankenstein Is Strictly a Mall-Goth AffairKathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse star in a disappointingly flimsy horror comedy about a teen loner and her undead companion.
  33. movie review
    Did We Really Need Kaiju to Get All Cute?Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire doesn’t deliver the giant-monster goods, but it does make its creatures disconcertingly adorable.
  34. movie review
    The Best and Bleakest Comedy of the Year So FarRadu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World makes being ground up in the global machinery of capitalism look good.
  35. movie review
    A New Road House by Way of Looney TunesJake Gyllenhaal is better at oddballs than heroes — thank God he’s playing one of the former in this Road House remake.
  36. kingdom of dreams
    The 2024 Oscars Closed the GatesThis year’s Academy Awards turned on the charm and turned away from anything uncomfortable, even as protests raged outside.
  37. movie review
    Oppenheimer Is a Tragedy of Operatic GrandeurChristopher Nolan’s movie about the invention of the atomic bomb is almost too big to wrap your head around.
  38. movie review
    We’re Going to Be Talking About American Fiction All Awards Season LongCord Jefferson’s directorial debut, American Fiction, is a sharp comedy about racial commodification anchored by a terrific Jeffrey Wright.
  39. movie review
    Wonka … Is Pretty Good?Look, I’m as surprised as you are.
  40. movie review
    Problemista Could Use a Little Less Tilda SwintonAnd how often can you say that?
  41. fight club
    Watch Out for the Killer GamsLeg crush. Flying scissor. Whatever you call it, the move has become an inescapable part of action heroine fights.
  42. let’s go
    The 100 Fights That Shaped Action CinemaWhether the scenes featured fists, firearms, or blades, the result was always the same: The crowd was pleased.
  43. pretty statues
    Cheese: An Annotated History of the Oscar Class PhotoRevisiting 39 years of fancy midday Hollywood hangs.
  44. epic beauty
    The Case for the Spectacle CryIf the end of Speed Racer makes you well up … well, you’re not alone.
  45. sundance 2024
    The 15 Best Movies We Saw This Year at SundanceThis year’s slate actually felt like Sundance, like the festival it used to be before it became just another stop on Hollywood’s eternal red carpet.
  46. movie review
    Pictures of Ghosts and the Images That Outlive Us AllThe beguiling new film from Bacurau’s Kleber Mendonça Filho is a meditation on place, film, and time passing.
  47. movie review
    Tótem Throws a Goodbye Party You’ll Never Want to LeaveDirector Lila Avilés’ extraordinary family drama is in the vein of party films like Monsoon Wedding and Rachel Getting Married.
  48. movie review(s)
    A Guide to the Blue-Collar Killing-Machine Movies of JanuaryFrom bee movies to B movies, here’s what you need to know about whether to watch The Beekeeper, The Bricklayer, or The Painter.
  49. fall preview 2023
    All Eyes on Lily GladstoneThe actress is the unflinching face of an American tragedy in Martin Scorsese’s historical epic, Killers of the Flower Moon.
  50. movie review
    There’s Nothing Else Like The Book of Clarence, for Better and WorseEven if it doesn’t work, there’s something admirable about how at ease Jeymes Samuel’s new film is with its own erratic rhythms.
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