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Ben Kenigsberg
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Hollywoodgate (2023) |
The risks required to make this documentary also highlight its limitations... The frustration of “Hollywoodgate” is that it could only ever feel incomplete. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 18, 2024
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The Convert (2023) |
The lush forests and stark, black sand beaches, shot in locations near those used in “The Piano,” help make “The Convert” more than a message movie. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Hummingbirds (2023) |
“Hummingbirds” is pretty tight filmmaking at less than 80 minutes, and the laid-back presentation makes the political commentary register strongly from the periphery. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 21, 2024
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Treasure (2024) |
But whatever complexities might come across in the book don’t register in a film that has been fashioned, sometimes uneasily, into a sentimental father-daughter road movie. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 14, 2024
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Longing (2024) |
Plausibility complaints always feel cheap, but “Longing” strains credulity well past the breaking point. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 06, 2024
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The Dead Don't Hurt (2023) |
Mortensen’s ambitions may be old-fashioned, but they’re grand ambitions, and he has realized them in a handsome passion project. - New York Times
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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Aggro Dr1ft (2023) |
The onscreen credit is simply “by” Harmony Korine, who has apparently forsworn any impulse to control his material. - New York Times
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| Posted May 09, 2024
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Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg (2023) |
Pallenberg is finally in focus. But the picture is tough to look at. - New York Times
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| Posted May 02, 2024
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Blood for Dust (2023) |
"Blood for Dust” is a throwback, in the sense of being exceedingly familiar. An early shot of a snow-covered parking lot inevitably evokes “Fargo,” but “Blood for Dust” doesn’t have a witty line or a glimmer of humor. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Food, Inc. 2 (2023) |
You might devour less after watching “Food, Inc. 2,” and what you eat will probably be healthier. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 11, 2024
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Scoop (2024) |
What “Scoop” offers is the modest pleasure — to which any journalist is susceptible — of rooting for a reporting team to get a story. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 04, 2024
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The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024) |
“The Truth vs. Alex Jones” offers a lesson in just how vicious and pervasive conspiracy theories can become and a chilling portrait of how little they may trouble their purveyors. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 26, 2024
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William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill (2023) |
Listening to the actor’s wit, wisdom and drippy insights for 96 minutes is enough to tempt any viewer to channel his or her inner Spock. (“Most illogical!”) - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 21, 2024
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One Life (2023) |
In trying to capture this almost stoic modesty, the film, directed by James Hawes, falls into a dramaturgical trap. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 14, 2024
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Space: The Longest Goodbye (2023) |
[A] fitfully intriguing, sometimes wide-eyed documentary... - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 07, 2024
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As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial (2024) |
The staged material is a bit heavy-handed, but “As We Speak” makes a powerful case for the necessity of being free to make art, and for public awareness that art rarely qualifies as legal evidence. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 28, 2024
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2024 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Documentary (2024) |
Only one documentary short nominee this year has the full balance of human interest, social relevance and aesthetic appeal that tends to make a winner. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 15, 2024
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Onlookers (2023) |
This is a concept in search of a movie, and an academic exercise that doesn’t give observers much to work with. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 15, 2024
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Marmalade (2024) |
In essence, "Marmalade" pretends to be more dunderheaded than it is, then acts as if it's been smart all along, in a shift that takes it from insulting to incoherent. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 08, 2024
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Bushman (1971) |
The jarring switch to documentary gives “Bushman” its added charge. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 01, 2024
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American Star (2024) |
Despite an oddball taste for wide-angle lenses, the director, Gonzalo López-Gallego, can sustain a solid slow burn. Still, neither McShane nor the scenery can take the rust off the basic scenario. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 25, 2024
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Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest (2022) |
While the interviewees speak of Sherpa with sincerity and affection, “Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest” never locates a satisfying big-picture idea or formal approach that would make it more than a straightforward tribute. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 18, 2024
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Society of the Snow (2023) |
“Society of the Snow” is a perverse movie to watch the way most people will see it — on Netflix, in the comfort of their homes, with a refrigerator nearby. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 04, 2024
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Freud's Last Session (2023) |
Freud would say that nobody wanted anyone to see this movie. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 21, 2023
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Godard Cinema (2022) |
It refuses to reduce Godard’s output to the relatively accessible French New Wave period and tries to deal with him in all his thorniness. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 14, 2023
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Into the Weeds (2022) |
[These] stories illustrate the breadth of the ecological and agricultural challenges that remain. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 07, 2023
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American Symphony (2023) |
While some of the backstage material has an official feel, the documentary does not shy from showing private moments. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 30, 2023
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Frybread Face and Me (2023) |
The movie is overfamiliar and earnest, but you can’t accuse it of not being heartfelt. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 25, 2023
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David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived (2023) |
“The Boy Who Lived” provides an unusual behind-the-scenes portrait of how life goes on after movies are made. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 15, 2023
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Youth (Spring) (2023) |
Like Wang’s “’Til Madness Do Us Part,” set in a mental hospital, the movie is an exhortation not to forget the unseen. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 09, 2023
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Beyond Utopia (2023) |
Being able to experience the escape alongside these subjects greatly distinguishes this documentary. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 02, 2023
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Priscilla (2023) |
Stealthily devastating... - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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The Delinquents (2023) |
The film is not without its charms or a sense of humor. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 18, 2023
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The Mission (2023) |
The most barbed aspect of the movie, a National Geographic release, is its acknowledgment of the role that National Geographic itself has played in exoticizing groups like the North Sentinelese. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 12, 2023
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Foe (2023) |
What begins as a sleek, science-fiction-tinged mystery leaves little more than a cloud of dust. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 05, 2023
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The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) |
While this “Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” is unlikely to be remembered with Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” or “Sorcerer,” it offers a bracing demonstration of the director’s sensibility and craft. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 05, 2023
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Story Ave (2023) |
The film is cleareyed about Kadir’s artistic values and the potentially dangerous outcomes of his decisions. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 28, 2023
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Dancing in the Dust (2003) |
“Dancing in the Dust” shows Farhadi’s early confidence with using framing and cutting to create tension and parallels — skills that would serve him later. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 28, 2023
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Superpower (2023) |
Penn appears to have one eye in the mirror, but at least he’s taking some sort of action. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 18, 2023
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Dumb Money (2023) |
It’s hard not to root for Gill, in his dorky headband, to take down people who have staked vast sums against the stock he loves. Who cares if what the movie itself is selling is played out? - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 14, 2023
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Hello Dankness (2022) |
“Hello Dankness” belongs to a venerable underground-film tradition of treating refracted entertainment as a mirror for society. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 07, 2023
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We Kill for Love (2023) |
There’s something tough to resist about how “We Kill for Love” rescues works from the shadows. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 31, 2023
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Before, Now & Then (2022) |
It’s a daring narrative mix of the personal and the political, though Andini struggles to find the right balance between the two. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 24, 2023
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Blue Box (2021) |
The familial and personal tensions give it something extra, elevating it beyond the standard historical documentary. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 24, 2023
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Simone: Woman of the Century (2021) |
No matter how grave the situation, “Simone: Woman of the Century” treats it as spectacle. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 17, 2023
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Love Life (2022) |
Part of Fukada’s rationale may be that straightforward catharsis would be too easy. But his drama is facile in other ways... - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 10, 2023
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The Eternal Memory (2023) |
Could any film completely capture such a private dynamic? Surely not, but at moments, “The Eternal Memory” appears to come close. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 10, 2023
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Klondike (2022) |
A harsh but powerful movie. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 03, 2023
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North Circular (2022) |
The film has an original and at times disarming approach to bearing witness. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Stephen Curry: Underrated (2023) |
There’s little in “Underrated” that comes across as spontaneous. That may be because Nicks didn’t discover much that feels fresh. Or it may be that the project, like Curry today, doesn’t have anything to prove. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 20, 2023
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