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The Forward

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
3/4
Shttl (2022) Simi Horwitz At its core, the film explores Jewish identity, unity and survival.
Posted Jan 16, 2026  Edit critic review
My Neighbor Adolf (2022) Olivia Haynie Somehow, the film has little to say about the Holocaust itself.
Posted Jan 02, 2026  Edit critic review
David (2025) PJ Grisar It slaps a narrative fig leaf over the interesting bits.
Posted Dec 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Marty Supreme (2025) PJ Grisar A rich Jewish text that alternates between wish fulfillment and nightmare. ... In this epic of chutzpah, we have a mature work via a singularly immature avatar.
Posted Dec 04, 2025  Edit critic review
Nuremberg (2025) PJ Grisar Vanderbilt tries to pack too much information into Nuremberg, leaving us with a movie that has to tell rather than show. The result is something more educational than evocative.
Posted Nov 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 (2024) Olivia Haynie With no elaboration or editorializing, it doesn’t feel like the film is helping clarify or challenge the audience's preconceived notions about the conflict. And though the footage is Swedish, it's unclear what, if anything, that lends to the conversation.
Posted Oct 09, 2025  Edit critic review
One Big Happy Family (2025) Simi Horwitz The hallmark of the film is the joyous merging of old comic Jewish stereotypes — think overbearing but well-meaning matriarch — with new comic Jewish stereotypes.
Posted Oct 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Eleanor the Great (2025) PJ Grisar The film insists it is about grief, but its heavy hand swipes aside more provocative and pressing questions baked into its conceit.
Posted Sep 25, 2025  Edit critic review
Hemda (2024) Dan Friedman Hemda (Bliss) is a profound account of what it is to continue the hard work of living and loving in the wake of illness, disappointment and missteps — which is to say, of living with humanity.
Posted Aug 26, 2025  Edit critic review
This Is My Mother (2023) Dan Friedman I went to see This Is My Mother based on little more than trust in the NYJFF curators and a fascination with the work of French (Tunisian, Jewish) actress Jaoui. I was not disappointed: Jaoui is the heart of the film, making a watchable film unmissable.
Posted Aug 26, 2025  Edit critic review
Guns & Moses (2024) Olivia Haynie The writing is hammy, the dialogue overexpository, and although the cast’s performances are heartfelt, it’s not enough to compensate for cheesy lines … [But] the film is notable for being a positive deviation from the typical portrayal of Jews in movies.
Posted Jul 24, 2025  Edit critic review
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence (2024) Olivia Haynie Breaking Silence has a lot to offer both for those who already identify as Ian fans and those who may be discovering the singer for the first time. The film captures Ian’s personal story, exposing fans to parts of her family and romantic life.
Posted Jun 04, 2025  Edit critic review
Pink Lady (2024) Simi Horwitz A deceptively simple film that explores sexuality and desire within an insular and restrictive Haredi community ... Though the film offers a harsh critique of its world, it is never strident or even obvious.
Posted Jun 03, 2025  Edit critic review
All God's Children (2024) Olivia Haynie The film could have painted a simpler picture of intercultural unity. [But it] refuses to shy away from how difficult and emotional the work can be, which is what makes the film so powerful.
Posted Dec 12, 2024  Edit critic review
A Real Pain (2024) Jenny Singer Eisenberg’s movie is interested in pain. It just doesn’t offer much insight into Jewish pain.
Posted Dec 10, 2024  Edit critic review
The Order (2024) PJ Grisar The film takes the threat of groups like the Order seriously, but not the conditions that give rise to them.
Posted Dec 04, 2024  Edit critic review
D
The Carpenter (2023) Mira Fox The Carpenter makes no attempts to authentically portray life and practices in ancient Israel. It doesn’t even portray biblical events. The two plot lines — MMA and Jesus — have seemingly nothing to do with each other.
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
B
Hot Frosty (2024) Mira Fox If 'Hot Frosty' had been this year's Hanukkah movie — most streaming platforms seem to make one per year, amidst the Christmas glut — there would have been so much more lore to mine.
Posted Nov 18, 2024  Edit critic review
The Brutalist (2024) PJ Grisar An easy read of The Brutalist would have Tóth building a new life as his project grows. But Corbet is suggesting that the past will always have a death grip on the artist’s work.
Posted Oct 10, 2024  Edit critic review
The Goldman Case (2023) Simi Horwitz A gripping multi-layered film whose titular character is an intriguing and inscrutable figure.
Posted Sep 13, 2024  Edit critic review
Farewell, Mr. Haffmann (2022) Simi Horwitz The psychological thriller dramatizes a morally complex and compelling Faustian narrative that touches on the power dynamics underlying class and gender inequality, antisemitism and, most central, the brutality of the Nazi regime.
Posted Sep 13, 2024  Edit critic review
Getting Away With Murder(s) (2021) PJ Grisar A fiery indictment of a historic injustice too little heeded and too often rationalized.
Posted Jul 12, 2024  Edit critic review
The Zone of Interest (2023) PJ Grisar Hedwig and Rudolf are hardly the haunted Macbeths. The only damned spots that concern them are those on the poorly trimmed lilac bushes on the camp’s perimeter.
Posted May 14, 2024  Edit critic review
Occupied City (2023) PJ Grisar One thing Occupied City won’t do, even with the cool, prestige imprimatur of A24, is win over today’s distracted youth. Too much context can be tedious.
Posted May 14, 2024  Edit critic review
Vishniac (2023) PJ Grisar Bialis’ slick dramatizations of Vishniac’s life, while tastefully done, are underwhelming when paired with the immediacy of the photographer’s own images.
Posted May 14, 2024  Edit critic review
All We Carry / Lo Que Llevamos (2024) PJ Grisar As a portrait of a family, Voge’s film is a jarring reminder of the need for a more humane system.
Posted May 14, 2024  Edit critic review
Unfrosted (2024) PJ Grisar Everything is tossed at the wall and, like Pop-Tarts’ gooey filling, much of it sticks.
Posted May 14, 2024  Edit critic review
Call Me Dancer (2023) Simi Horwitz "Call Me Dancer" is a charming character-driven documentary about family, culture, and the improbable friendship between a 21-year-old Mumbai street dancer, Manish Chauhan, and a 70-year-old Israeli ballet master, Yehuda Maor.
Posted Apr 23, 2024  Edit critic review
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023) PJ Grisar The film is at its most unsettling, and damning, when the violence of Edgardo’s abduction gives way to the quieter trauma to his soul in the pristine halls of papal Rome.
Posted Oct 03, 2023  Edit critic review
Golda (2023) PJ Grisar The force of Mirren’s performance as Israel’s fourth prime minister, imbued with anguished empathy and fierce composure under pressure, elevates an otherwise overbusy film.
Posted Aug 24, 2023  Edit critic review
D
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) Mira Fox The franchise has gone dark and self-serious, yet so unintelligible that any moral messaging has gone out the window...It’s impressive, honestly, to make an obvious Hitler figure so toothless.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
A+
Call Me by Your Name (2017) Mira Fox Luca Guadagnino’s lush Italian masterpiece, “Call Me by Your Name,” is full of romantic subtleties: long lingering looks, brief touches, meaning-laden passages read aloud. But nothing is ever fully overt...
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
D+
Sharp Stick (2022) Mira Fox Beyond attempts to plumb the depths of Dunham’s psyche, it’s hard to figure out what to make of “Sharp Stick.” It’s visually stylized and compellingly strange, but it’s not clear what, exactly, it’s trying to challenge.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
C-
Stutz (2022) Mira Fox Stutz has a strange amount of bravado for a therapist, talking frequently about his natural talent for therapy and the way ideas spontaneously come to him...especially with his invented vocabulary, he comes off more like a cult leader than a therapist.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
A
Where Life Begins (2022) Mira Fox This delicacy makes Where Life Begins feel like a standout among contemporary portrayals of Hasidism...in Where Life Begins, you can’t help but feel the sanctity of Hasidic life when it’s set against lingering shots of the stunning Italian countryside.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
B
Alegría (2021) Mira Fox Melilla comes to life in Salama’s hands, the city itself becoming the most compelling character in the film...in the small, human moments, Alegría shines — just as the small, human moments keep Melilla balanced.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
A-
Israelism (2023) Mira Fox Unlike many other documentaries about Israel, Israelism isn’t about the conflict, or at least not exactly. Instead, it considers how American Jewish institutions position Israel, valorizing the IDF and leaving out the darker side of the occupation.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
B
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) Mira Fox Not much has changed for Indiana Jones. Admittedly, the relic in question is more niche than the Ark or the Holy Grail — but otherwise, The Dial of Destiny is right in the mold of every other Indiana Jones installment, a swashbuckling adventure film.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
Bawaal (2023) Mira Fox Bollywood is far from the only place where the Holocaust is used as a sort of morality play...while it’s bad that the movie glosses over and distorts history, it is far from the only piece of media to use the Holocaust as a plot device.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
Those Who Remained (2019) Simi Horwitz An achingly complex love story that embodies a father daughter relationship and a deep bonding friendship between two lost souls whose suppressed and silent interactions resonate powerfully.
Posted Aug 02, 2023  Edit critic review
Tiger Within (2020) Simi Horwitz Short of the late Ed Asner's nuanced, haunting, indeed memorable performance, "The Tiger Within" is predictable, awash in stereotypes, devoid of original insight, and the ending is, well, just plain implausible.
Posted Jul 28, 2023  Edit critic review
Stan Lee (2023) PJ Grisar The film is so eager to flatter Lee by presenting him as he saw himself that it misses the distinctly ethnic discomfort and context that birthed the World of Marvel.
Posted Jul 26, 2023  Edit critic review
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) PJ Grisar Sorkin strains to abbreviate that long arc of the moral universe, flexing it toward justice through the sheer force of sophistry and righteous indignation.
Posted Jul 26, 2023  Edit critic review
Uncut Gems (2019) PJ Grisar While we shake our heads over Ratner’s judgment, it’s hard not to relate to his ambition to bet everything on some malformed vision of the American dream.
Posted Jul 26, 2023  Edit critic review
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) PJ Grisar Unlike its predecessor, this “Borat” leans less on shock value and succeeds in storytelling, solid gags and a more arresting character arc for Borat and his charge in their “Paper Moon”-like tour of the country.
Posted Jul 26, 2023  Edit critic review
Pieces of a Woman (2020) PJ Grisar “Pieces of a Woman” doesn’t forsake memory, but questions its proper place in the lives of the second generation.
Posted Jul 26, 2023  Edit critic review
The Flowers of Yesterday (2016) Deborah Krieger Adèle Haenel's performance as Zazie is a tour de force... Zazie is complex and, at times, opaque enough that following her rather than Toto would have provided an overall richer experience.
Posted Jul 31, 2018  Edit critic review
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) Deborah Krieger This documentary of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr is engaging and poignant, expanding the view (and our understanding) of the famously beautiful Hollywood star.
Posted Jul 31, 2018  Edit critic review
Humor Me (2017) Deborah Krieger Ultimately, the lightness and sincerity brought to Humor Me makes it worth catching.
Posted Jul 31, 2018  Edit critic review
The Testament (2017) Deborah Krieger The success of the The Testament rests on Ori's performance as Yoel, and in many cases, it works splendidly.
Posted Jul 31, 2018  Edit critic review
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