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Molly Haskell
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
(Photo Credit: Reg Innell /Contributor/Toronto Star/Getty Images)
Publications:
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Jaws (1975) |
It is a thriller, according to the classic distinction, of surprise rather than suspense. You feel like a rat, being given shock treatment, who has not yet figured out what to do to call off the buzzers. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jul 02, 2024
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To Sleep With Anger (1990) |
An unusual and richly rewarding viewing experience. - Video Review
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| Posted Nov 29, 2023
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Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) |
"Alice" has been put together in so obvious an attempt to answer the womanless or woman-hating films of today, that I only wish I could have liked it more than I do. - Village Voice
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| Posted Oct 12, 2023
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Play It as It Lays (1972) |
The movie shares the book's anesthetized quality, but without the acute sensory awareness of a person going under, and with only a little of its hard, brittle humor. - Village Voice
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| Posted Sep 28, 2023
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Macbeth (1971) |
Polanski sacrifices the reverberation of anticipation and memory for the chills of immediate moment. But he gains in momentum, so that we never have the sense of coming to a halt at the Great Soliloquies, like a tourist bus before the monuments of a city. - Village Voice
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| Posted Jul 21, 2023
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Crossing Delancey (1988) |
The implausible and the irresistible come joyfully together. - Vogue
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| Posted May 16, 2023
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Funny Lady (1975) |
When the show hits the road, first in its bloated "draft" form, with sketches that would make the great Ziegfield groan, then in its final, Fanny-polished version, it literally falls to, or into, pieces. - Village Voice
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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A Passage to India (1984) |
David Lean's adaptation of E.M. For- ster's great Anglo-Indian novel is, for a great deal of its 2 1/2-hours running time, an exceptionally fine and civilized movie, almost a great one. - Video Review
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| Posted Jan 19, 2023
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Platoon (1986) |
Platoon makes us understand in the most savagely dramatic terms that this was a war in which we fought not the enemy, but ourselves, both in 'Nam and at home. - Vogue
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| Posted Aug 19, 2022
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A Summer Story (1988) |
This story of a tragic betrayal of a loving heart rolls with the inexorable force of a runaway railway train as it unfurls one unforgettable image after another of unrequited commitment. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Nadine (1987) |
Writer-director Benton’s feeling for the endless surprises of domestic intimacy (Kramer vs. Kramer) and the built-in resilience of Southern communal life (Places in the Heart) come together in this lighthearted mock-thriller. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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No Way Out (1987) |
This stunning thriller about a murder and an elaborate cover-up in present-day Washington power circles was one of the best movies of 1987 and, to my mind, an all-time classic. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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The Bostonians (1984) |
Ivory, working in concert with his longtime producer-partner Ismael Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, possesses an abundance of those civilized virtues we could use more of in everyday life but that are often a handicap in making movies. - Video Review
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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The Parallax View (1974) |
The Parallax View is a movie of splendid bits and pieces disappointingly strung together. - Village Voice
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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Don't Look Now (1973) |
It is a film in which everything seems to have been sacraficed for pictorial effect. - Village Voice
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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The Heartbreak Kid (1972) |
Elaine May's second feature is a funny and sometimes side-splitting whose whole never approaches the success of its best moments in which the two levels of romantic fantasy and satire are reconciled. - Village Voice
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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A New Leaf (1971) |
The picture as it now stands is very funny indeed, but more charming than uproarious, and quite surprisingly romantic. - Village Voice
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969) |
The joys are more leisurely. For instance we can watch the gradual formation of Charlie Brown's crinkle smile and some well-timed slow reactions. - Village Voice
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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Mishima (1985) |
Despite a genuinely resonant performance by Ken Ogata as the mature Mishima, what finally emerges is a psychological drama without a Rosebud, a puzzle that, when all the pieces fall neatly into place, leaves us cold. - Vogue
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| Posted Apr 07, 2022
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The Age of Innocence (1993) |
This is a magical tribute to a long-gone world. And in the tradition of the great films of romantic heartbreak, it leaves us in an after- glow of yearning. - Ladies' Home Journal
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| Posted Aug 04, 2021
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Iron Will (1994) |
With its clean and dramatic lines, its glistening cinematography and its deep understanding of the bond between animals and people, Iron Will is the kind of film Disney is famous for -- the kind of movie, in short, both kids and parents love. - Ladies' Home Journal
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| Posted Aug 04, 2021
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Free Willy (1993) |
Like all memorable children's films, this one will bring tears to the eyes of parents and kids alike as it deals with the eternal themes of love, loss, trust and forgiveness. - Ladies' Home Journal
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| Posted Aug 04, 2021
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Sleepless in Seattle (1993) |
Sleepless in Seattle succeeds as a glorious three-way romantic comedy between men, women and children. It's a valiant valentine to the post-nuclear family. - Ladies' Home Journal
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| Posted Aug 04, 2021
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The Joy Luck Club (1993) |
No one will want to miss this celebration of the mother- daughter bond, that most vexed and fascinating of relationships -- and one of the most neglected themes in American film. - Ladies' Home Journal
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| Posted Aug 04, 2021
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Places in the Heart (1984) |
Sally Field gives her best performance ever. - Vogue
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| Posted Mar 23, 2020
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Dirty Dancing (1987) |
Dirty Dancing, directed by Emile Ardolino, is a conventional film in its Borscht Belt setting, ethnic satire, and feel-good ending, but with a deliciously subversive core. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Micki & Maude (1984) |
Edwards manages to steer a miraculously evenhanded course, thanks to the expert performances of his three leads. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) |
Spider Woman is a stunning achievement: it seduces us into its web with a whiff of camp and, without ever losing its irony, drops us into a vortex of pain and love. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Wish You Were Here (1987) |
Newcomer Emily Lloyd, blond and mischievously lovely, is heartbreaking and irritating in equal parts as the hedonistic Lynda. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) |
The Purple Rose of Cairo, Woody Allen's latest, is the slight but charming story of what happens when Cinderella's Prince steps out of the fairy tale and comes to New Jersey for a taste of Reality. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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City Heat (1984) |
Burt and Clint might not go down as one of the great comic teams in history, but as a private investigator and a cop in City Heat, they bring fireworks to a lackluster season. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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1984 (1984) |
Watching 1984 is a powerful, even terrifying experience, but so is being locked up in a dark closet. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Birdy (1984) |
Stunning and heartrending. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Cocoon (1985) |
Eventually it bogs down in sci-fi gimmickry and a script that is both soft and ambivalent about the senior citizens. But the first forty minutes are four stars. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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St. Elmo's Fire (1985) |
It's not until the strains begin to show and rivalries emerge that St. Elmo's Fire becomes truly interesting -- and convincing. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Prizzi's Honor (1985) |
John Huston's best film in years. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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The Official Story (1985) |
[A] proudly intelligent, powerfully moving drama, a "political" film that is much, much more than that. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Plenty (1985) |
As it moves through time and gathers intention, Plenty fulfills its promise as a sparkling masterwork as mercurial as its heroine, and one of the major word in a surprisingly strong year. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later (1986) |
Did you ever consider trying to revive that rhapsodic but short-lived affair that took place twenty years ago, and then think better of it? Well, Claude Lelouch didn't think better of it, and the result is A Man And A Woman, 20 Years Later. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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My Life as a Dog (1985) |
This is a coming-of-age film in the fullest sense of the term: we watch Ingemar grow up before our eyes, and turn into a human being who can live with the harsh memories as well as the more lyrical ones. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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The Holy Innocents (1984) |
If Spanish director Mario Camus is not in a class with Luis Buñuel or Ermanno Olmi, his The Holy Innocents is nevertheless a major, swelling achievement that should put him on the international map. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Streetwise (1984) |
The filmmakers make it as impossible to romanticize as to resist these kids. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018) |
If Phoenix doesn't generate much humor, he also acts as an astringent against the potent sentimentality of Callahan's Saul-to-Paul transformation and pilgrimage of apology, underlined by a heart-tugging Danny Elfman score. - Film Comment Magazine
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) |
I don't see how I can come out ahead panning Star Wars, George Lucas's science-fiction film that has been acclaimed by children of all ages as the Fun Movie of the year. - Village Voice
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Favourite (2018) |
It's a dark view, but dark views, like sunny views, have to come from somewhere. Where is Lanthimos's dark sun? I don't know, but I'll definitely keep watching. - Film Comment Magazine
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Blood Simple (1984) |
Blood Simple is less than a masterpiece, but it's more than a successful audition for the Coen brothers' talents. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Killing Fields (1984) |
This is one of the quietest "war" movies ever made; yet, it's an indelible portrait of the excitement, horror, and confusion with which journalists experience war. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Plague Dogs (1982) |
This is one of the most anguished yet engrossing animated films ever made. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Pale Rider (1985) |
A beautiful, unhurried, snowbound Western punctured by violence and lyricism. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The King of Comedy (1983) |
If there was any doubt that Robert De Niro is the greatest and most unsettling actor in movies today and Martin Scorsese the director most adept at bringing out his genius, then The King of Comedy should dispel it. - Vogue
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| Posted Feb 27, 2020
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