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Michael Sragow

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Michael Sragow saw the greatest movie ever made, The Wild Bunch, six times in two weeks in 1969 and has been arguing about it and other movies ever since. He has been a movie critic for The Baltimore Sun since 2001 and a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1989. Prior to writing for The Sun, he was a film critic for Rolling Stone and The San Francisco Examiner, among other publications. He is the author of Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Pantheon, 2008).

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Misery (1990) 87% 2.5/4 EDIT “Bates is so good at playing a psycho that you have to wonder if she has a brother named Norman.” – San Francisco Examiner Jan 22, 2026 Full Review Stand by Me (1986) 88% 2/4 EDIT “"Stand by Me" substitutes sentimentality for teen-movie zap. It's an ode to arrested preadolescence.” – San Francisco Examiner Jan 14, 2026 Full Review Hook (1991) 37% 1.5/4 EDIT “Spielberg's knack for carnival-like choreography has left him. The action is frenetic and indistinct: a no-ring circus.” – San Francisco Examiner Dec 19, 2025 Full Review The Abyss (1989) 76% 2/4 EDIT “Even when it looks and tastes great, "The Abyss" isn't filling at all.” – San Francisco Examiner Dec 9, 2025 Full Review Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 91% 1.5/4 EDIT “The rest of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is a series of crushing fights and chase scenes punctuated with a smattering of cheap jokes and meretricious calls for world peace. ” – San Francisco Examiner Dec 9, 2025 Full Review From Beyond (1986) 74% 2.5/4 EDIT “Gordon's scares are smarter than the average scares.” – San Francisco Examiner Oct 20, 2025 Full Review Darkman (1990) 80% EDIT “It's a zippy, furious yet endearing little big film.” – San Francisco Examiner Aug 26, 2025 Full Review The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) 88% 3/4 EDIT “The ZAZ folks are very clever barbarians -- they're dumb without being stupid. And in their pursuit of yocks, they stumble into inspired parodies and pratfalls as well as jokes for the john.” – San Francisco Examiner Jul 24, 2025 Full Review The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) 77% 3/4 EDIT “Losing Abrahams and Zucker must have hurt like the loss of a right hand. Luckily, David Zucker appears to be left-handed. ” – San Francisco Examiner Jul 23, 2025 Full Review Explorers (1985) 49% EDIT “Show-biz jokes and movie magic blend in a junk-food casserole that's surprisingly tasty and nutritious.” – Boston Phoenix Jul 10, 2025 Full Review Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) 16% 1.5/4 EDIT “It is tacky and skimpy.” – San Francisco Examiner Jul 2, 2025 Full Review Day of the Dead (1985) 61% 2/4 EDIT “The movie is turgid and inchoate.” – San Francisco Examiner Jun 25, 2025 Full Review Child's Play (1988) 64% 2/4 EDIT “The real problem is that most audiences who see Child's Play will realize that they've seen it all before -- and better -- on The Twilight Zone.” – San Francisco Examiner Jun 6, 2025 Full Review The Karate Kid (1984) 81% EDIT “In The Karate Kid the fantasies get mixed up with messy social realities that are cheapened because their only purpose is to slant the melodrama even further. ” – Boston Phoenix May 27, 2025 Full Review Mission: Impossible III (2006) 73% B- EDIT “Abrams has concocted a big-screen M:i entry that's an Alias story arc with the quirks and the emotional heft reduced and the explosions augmented.” – Baltimore Sun May 20, 2025 Full Review Withnail and I (1987) 84% 1/4 EDIT “Withnail and I tries to take black comedy to the limit and merely ends up black and blue.” – San Francisco Examiner Apr 4, 2025 Full Review Do the Right Thing (1989) 92% 2/4 EDIT “In terms of visceral force, the movie works. As an artistic expression of chaos, or even as a treatise, it fails, wretchedly.” – San Francisco Examiner Mar 20, 2025 Full Review Back to School (1986) 81% 3/4 EDIT “"Back to School" is a highly enjoyable low comedy...It gives Dangerfield a chance to exploit his persona's blend of cynicism and exuberance and his churning, spluttering delivery without bending the movie's chassis out of shape.” – San Francisco Examiner Feb 27, 2025 Full Review The Breakfast Club (1985) 87% EDIT “An appetizing failure. The big climactic confrontation scenes are so embarrassing that audiences ignore them and respond to the fine actors' touches at the edges. At this point in his career, Hughes' greatest gift is his peripheral vision.” – Boston Phoenix Feb 14, 2025 Full Review Beauty and the Beast (1991) 95% 3.5/4 EDIT “Beauty and the Beast is a zesty charmer with a solid story and hip filigree. This movie is unceasingly enjoyable: It has the soul of generosity.” – San Francisco Examiner Dec 16, 2024 Full Review Beetlejuice (1988) 83% 2.5/4 EDIT “Beetlejuice comes together as the work of a madcap art student with one foot in the gallery and the other in a Saturday matinée. ” – San Francisco Examiner Aug 22, 2024 Full Review Aliens (1986) 94% 3/4 EDIT “What a difference an "s" makes -- for the good.” – San Francisco Examiner Jul 30, 2024 Full Review Planet of the Apes (2001) 42% 2.5/4 EDIT “Not a remake but a jumbled revision that tumbles out as if from a piñata. ” – Baltimore Sun May 1, 2024 Full Review Postcards From the Edge (1990) 83% 1/4 EDIT “[Postcards From the Edge] is the kind of Hollywood movie a clef that Hollywood loves. It's morally double-jointed. The film's smug attitudes and in-jokes are symptoms of the Tinseltown insularity the screenplay tries to attack.” – San Francisco Examiner Apr 30, 2024 Full Review Spaceballs (1987) 52% 2.5/4 EDIT “Whatever affection [Brooks] has for sci-fi blockbusters gets mixed up with his bitterness at what they've done to Hollywood. And no matter how many mock-up merchandising items he throws into the screen... the theme is obtrusive, tacked on.” – San Francisco Examiner Apr 12, 2024 Full Review
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