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Bilge Ebiri

Movie Critic

Bilge Ebiri is a film critic for New York magazine and Vulture. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Criterion Collection, among others.

  1. movie review
    Todd Haynes’s May December Is a Deeply Uncomfortable MovieWatching it with an audience, I found myself cackling with delight. Stepping out into the rainy night, however, I felt like I needed to take a shower.
  2. vulture lists
    The 17 Best Robot Movies of All TimeEver since the early years of cinema — even before the term “robot” was coined, in fact — the movies have been obsessed with them.
  3. movie review
    There’s a Simple Enough Conceit in The Wonderful Story of Henry SugarA quaint, optimistically naive short kicks off Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl film series.
  4. jason statham
    The 24 Worst Ways to Be Killed by Jason StathamStatham has a unique ability to maintain his stone-faced demeanor in even the most ridiculous of fatal circumstances.
  5. the vampire
    ‘I Think Every Movie Is Political’El Conde director Pablo Larraín on using satire to confront a real-life monster and finding inspiration in so-called “bad” movies.
  6. best of the fests
    The 14 Best Movies We Saw at Venice and TIFF This YearFall festival season has brought a bounty of awards contenders, star-making performances, and must-see masterpieces.
  7. where it started at
    The Timeless Honesty of Wild Style, the First Hip-Hop MovieCharlie Ahearn and Fab 5 Freddy’s documentary-like film became an international cult favorite in the early 1980s. It’s just as fresh today.
  8. movie review
    Kenneth Branagh Needs to Make 10 More of TheseThe creepy, moody Agatha Christie adaptation A Haunting in Venice is far from perfect, but it feels like the work of a man rejuvenated.
  9. venice 2023
    The Most Terrifying Film at Venice Is Spiders All the Way DownThe first time an army of tiny spider-babies appeared, my body bent into a shape it has never taken before or since.
  10. venice 2023
    Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard Are So Weirdly Right Together in MemoryNot a lot of Michel Franco’s somber drama makes sense, but it’s a movie clearly meant to be carried by its leads.
  11. venice 2023
    Mads Mikkelsen’s Cold, Hard Stare Awaits Us in the Epic Promised LandI cannot adequately express to you how perfect Mikkelsen is in this role; that sensuous frown of his has infinite layers.
  12. venice 2023
    If Glen Powell’s Not Already a Star, This Movie Will Make Him OneRichard Linklater’s Hit Man is a genuinely fresh and surprisingly gentle addition to the assassin genre.
  13. venice 2023
    Ava DuVernay’s Origin Devastates VeniceThe new film is both essay and melodrama, though neither description quite does it justice.
  14. venice 2023
    William Friedkin’s Final Film Makes You Question EverythingThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial sends you out interrogating your beliefs — about war, about service, about madness, even about right and wrong.
  15. best of 2023
    The Best Movies of 2023 (So Far)This year has delivered a bounty of independent, meticulously assembled cinematic stunners along with actually good superhero movies.
  16. venice 2023
    The Killer Could Be a Great Comedy If David Fincher Let ItThere’s a thin line between self-reflection and self-parody, and The Killer comes dangerously close to crossing it a few too many times.
  17. venice 2023
    Harmony Korine’s New Anti-Movie Aggro Dr1ft Looks Cool For a Few MinutesThe night-vision hit-man feature starring Jordi Molla and Travis Scott is a unique exercise in tedium.
  18. venice 2023
    Maestro Is a Masterful Reconstruction That Remains Just ThatThe Leonard Bernstein biopic somehow proves that Bradley Cooper is a director of genuine vision, even though it’s not a particularly successful movie.
  19. venice 2023
    In Ferrari, Adam Driver Is a Force of Steel, Asphalt, and DeathMichael Mann’s long-gestating movie is elegant and restless, with a sense throughout that something horrific is lurking around each corner.
  20. venice 2023
    The Blood Is Everywhere in Pablo Larraín’s Mesmerizing El CondeIt’s fun to imagine this piece of agitprop provocation just appearing on the screens of millions of Netflix subscribers across the world.
  21. venice 2023
    What’s at Venice Film Festival? Fast Cars, Fake Noses.And (some) movie stars.
  22. movie review
    Liam Neeson Is Stuck in a Car and All Is Right With the WorldRetribution is a simple little thriller that works despite plot holes and predictability.
  23. movie review
    Strays Is Crude, Rude, and Very FunnyGood dogs being bad are somehow the best dogs.
  24. movie review
    Blue Beetle Does the Superhero Thing RightIt’s funny, bighearted, and actually seems to like spending time with its characters.
  25. vulture animal bureau
    Cat Performances, RankedA celebration of the 25 greatest feline roles — with no CGI, human-cat hybrids in sight.
  26. movie review
    The Last Voyage of the Demeter Is a Delightfully Nasty Piece of WorkThick atmosphere and a gleeful mean streak make up for a premise with a foregone conclusion.
  27. the vulture transcript
    Director William Friedkin on Rising and Falling and Rising in the Film IndustryHis thoughts on The Exorcist, Sorcerer, Cruising, Killer Joe, and more.
  28. movie review
    Meg 2: The Trench Should Have Been StupiderIt’s all ridiculous and, in an alternate universe, it might have even been genuinely entertaining.
  29. movie review
    A Helpful Reminder Never to Underestimate Walton GogginsVenice has been filled with lots of big, bold, showy turns. Then there’s Goggins quietly yanking our heartstrings by simply being present.
  30. chat room
    How Cillian Murphy Found His ‘Resting Physicist’s Face’“My job is to convince the audience that Oppenheimer knows what he’s doing. I really spent most of the time working on his psychology.”
  31. movie review
    A Few Decent Laughs Can’t Save Haunted MansionDisney’s new theme-park movie is a hot mess, even if it’s a sporadically entertaining one.
  32. q&a
    The One Thing Missing From Oppenheimer’s ScoreLudwig Göransson strategically avoided an entire instrument family and built one of the most beautifully agitating movie soundtracks.
  33. barbenheimer
    Benny Safdie Is Really Proud of How His Eyebrows ‘Shined’ in Oppenheimer“Every once in a while I have a straggler that I’ll just pluck out. But Chris said, ‘Don’t do that. Let’s just let it go crazy.’”
  34. endings
    The Hidden ‘Inception’ Near the End of InceptionAn idea that might have been planted within Cobb’s subconscious.
  35. chat room
    It Sure Feels Good to Have Robert Downey Jr. Onscreen AgainDowney wanted a new experience, and he got it in Oppenheimer, a movie that takes him from chummy to snakelike in a fascinating role.
  36. endings
    The ‘Troubling Reverberations’ at the End of Oppenheimer, ExplainedIt’s the most shattering ending of anything Christopher Nolan has made, and maybe even of any studio blockbuster in recent memory.
  37. in conversation
    ‘I Can Do Things to You With My Voice’Fifty-one years of acting. Hundreds of roles. One Samuel L. Jackson.
  38. vulture lists
    All 12 Christopher Nolan Movies, RankedFiguring out which of the director’s films were the masterpieces and which were merely near-masterpieces (including Oppenheimer).
  39. behind the scenes
    How Christopher Nolan Crafted the World of OppenheimerThe film plays out across the landscapes of Los Alamos and of Cillian Murphy’s face.
  40. double feature
    The Only Way to Watch Barbie and OppenheimerYou’re wrong. We’re right. Long live Barbenheimer.
  41. movie review
    Bird Box Barcelona Doesn’t Have the Guts to Tell This StoryThe Netflix sequel is an exercise in sadism but not the good kind.
  42. movie review
    A Familiar Magic Trick Executed to PerfectionTom Cruise does what he does in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. He is very good at what he does.
  43. a long talk
    ‘My Films Had So Much Anger’John Woo reflects on a career driven by action, ambition, and artistry.
  44. movie review
    This Might Be the Strangest Movie of the YearRuby Gillman, Teenage Kraken seems like a trifling dose of high-concept sweetness, but it’s truly absurd in all sorts of unexpected ways.
  45. movie review
    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Is Too Entertaining to DismissA movie about going back in time turns out to be something of a time machine itself.
  46. movie review
    No Hard Feelings Makes It Look EasyJennifer Lawrence goes over the top in the most delightfully discomfiting way.
  47. movie review
    Extraction 2 Is Trying So HardMainly, it’s all just neat — impressively mounted and increasingly meaningless.
  48. movie review
    Wes Anderson Has Gone MadHis new movie, Asteroid City, brings a necessary madness to the meticulous director’s method, and it amounts to a masterpiece.
  49. endings
    Let’s Talk About the Ending of Beau Is AfraidIt would be tempting to say that Beau Is Afraid is the story of Beau’s journey back home, but really, there isn’t much of a journey.
  50. movie review
    Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Is Ready to Be Consumed and ForgottenFighting robots are back, but does anyone really care?
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