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Ben Croll

Tomatometer-approved critic

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
A Private Life (2025) 81% EDIT “Though certain tonal leaps don’t always land, the film still offers plenty of fun, especially when centering around two exes more interested in each other than the case at hand.” – TheWrap Dec 31, 2025 Full Review Orphan (2025) 63% EDIT “Immaculate and inert, “Orphan” plays like a Spruce Goose power ballad too leaden to lift. ” – TheWrap Sep 6, 2025 Full Review The Stranger (2025) 88% EDIT “One of Ozon’s richest and most satisfying works in years -- that rarest of literary adaptations, one that honors a foundational text precisely by finding something new to say.” – TheWrap Sep 4, 2025 Full Review The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025) 95% EDIT “Ben Hania shows little interest in agitprop. By burrowing into the granular details of this one tragedy on this one day, she arrives at an extraordinarily far-reaching articulation of an acutely contemporary emotion. ” – TheWrap Sep 3, 2025 Full Review Cover-Up (2025) 98% EDIT “Cover-Up truly comes alive when Poitras’ voice cuts in from offscreen, challenging Hersh’s claims and pressing him on his blind spots. That the documentary lacks the same clarity of purpose as some of the directors’ previous work is a minor quibble.” – TheWrap Sep 2, 2025 Full Review Late Fame (2026) 85% EDIT “Late Fame begins with a premise that could easily tilt toward a better-late-than-never redemption tale... Instead, Jones and screenwriter Samy Burch strike a trickier balance, taking aim at all the ripe targets without ever turning salacious. ” – TheWrap Sep 1, 2025 Full Review The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) 87% EDIT “Fastvold fuses form with function to meet an 18th-century religious leader on her own terms, delivering a thrillingly modern incantation of an antiquated tune. ” – TheWrap Sep 1, 2025 Full Review Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) 81% EDIT “Here, the most piercing moments come in the spaces between words, in the silences, sidelong glances, and skipped beats of families that have simply run out of things to say. And in classic Jarmusch fashion, those same pauses just as often double as gags.” – TheWrap Aug 31, 2025 Full Review A Poet (2025) 100% B+ EDIT “Art-world send-up explores the many fears and frustrations the acclaimed director felt in the decade since making... Leidi, channeling them into a darkly-funny burlesque that speaks of verse while playing like a Dan Clowes comic brought to manic life. ” – IndieWire May 29, 2025 Full Review Splitsville (2025) 84% EDIT “ If less coiled and emotionally acute than their previous effort, “Splitsville” is every bit as funny – if not more so – often leaving the audience in stitches...” – TheWrap May 28, 2025 Full Review Resurrection (2025) 89% EDIT ““Resurrection” may end with an elegy, laying cinema to rest, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve only just Bi Gan. ” – TheWrap May 23, 2025 Full Review The Mastermind (2025) 90% EDIT “Jauntier than any of Kelly Reichardt’s previous work, “The Mastermind” packs an ironic punch.” – TheWrap May 23, 2025 Full Review The History of Sound (2025) 70% EDIT “Don’t let the title fool you: “The History of Sound” is an awfully muted affair. Muted in color, performance, tenor and tone.” – TheWrap May 21, 2025 Full Review Eleanor the Great (2025) 67% EDIT “If “Eleanor the Great” never quite braids its strands into a truly compelling yarn, there’s still pleasure in examining the individual threads. Squibb clearly relishes the chance to cut loose.” – TheWrap May 20, 2025 Full Review Sound of Falling (2025) 95% EDIT “For all its opacity, “Sound of Falling” is unambiguous about its creative inspirations, alchemizing visual and narrative motifs from Bergman, Tarkovsky, J. A. Bayona, Andrew Wyeth and the brothers Grimm into a form that Schilinski can call her own.” – TheWrap May 19, 2025 Full Review Case 137 (2025) 92% EDIT “A far from a whodunnit as this genre can get, “Case 137” instead mines greater surprises from the straightforward, relying on well-observed character turns from Stéphanie’s working-class partner, her investigation’s key witness and from her teenaged son.” – TheWrap May 19, 2025 Full Review Nouvelle Vague (2025) 91% EDIT “A labor of love and a product of considerable craft, Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” is more than just a valentine to the French New Wave; the film is also a stealth showcase for a filmmaker rarely heralded for his technical sophistication.” – TheWrap May 17, 2025 Full Review Eddington (2025) 68% EDIT “Aster’s Risqué Fantasia on National Themes begins as a surprisingly genteel send-up of pandemic-era fever-dreams before finding more audacious (and satisfying) footing by letting loose to fully embody that mania. ” – TheWrap May 16, 2025 Full Review Leave One Day (2025) 57% B EDIT “This is an expressly millennial nostalgia play -- often endearingly so, if you ask this particular millennial -- and one that, in key respects, pines for an already-globalized era. As in karaoke, you don’t need to know the song to appreciate the gusto.” – IndieWire May 14, 2025 Full Review Blue Moon (2025) 90% EDIT “Running a brisk 100 minutes, “Blue Moon” is an unreservedly stagey affair – matching form with content to follow an unhappy man for whom all the world’s a stage right before his curtains fall.” – TheWrap Feb 18, 2025 Full Review Mickey 17 (2025) 78% EDIT “A teen-idol turned auteur-darling turned action-lead, Pattinson could easily call comedy his true calling, here delivering an elastic physical performance as dexterous as Jim Carrey in his prime. ” – TheWrap Feb 15, 2025 Full Review Babygirl (2024) 76% EDIT “Like a sheep in wolf’s clothing, Halina Reijn’s surprisingly genteel Babygirl might bare the occasional fang, but it doesn’t have much bite.” – TheWrap Dec 20, 2024 Full Review The Brutalist (2024) 93% EDIT “Taken as a whole, The Brutalist both mourns and celebrates American ambition -- the ambitions of an immigrant class trying for a new life with no guarantee of success, and the ambitions of a filmmaker filling a canvas with a lifetime of obsessions. ” – TheWrap Dec 12, 2024 Full Review Nonostante (2024) C+ EDIT “If not quite working on the same level as Kore-eda’s 1998 masterpiece, “Nonostante” still circles around similar conclusions, understanding that the artistic urge to capture and enshrine connects to a sentiment commonly offered in mourning.” – IndieWire Sep 12, 2024 Full Review Youth (Homecoming) (2024) 94% B+ EDIT “While Youth (Homecoming) certainly benefits from the seven hours of weaving-machine whir that preceded, the film quite ably stands alone. ” – IndieWire Sep 7, 2024 Full Review
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