Popular reviews

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★★

  The cinematic epic of American Blackness. I'd say it belongs in the fucking Smithsonian, but that's a white man's museum for a white man's history.

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  Review by Ayo Edebiri ★★★★★

  if you’re an artist actively engaging in leftist causes you’re probably on some sort of government watchlist goodnight ❤️

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 20

  When the white girl at the college asks Malcolm X what she can do to help his people, he responds with a blunt "Nothing." Though Malcolm X would later come around on this idea, the context of that girl's question stands out. She precedes it by asserting that she's not a bad person despite what her ancestors did, and... it's not that simple. If your parents killed someone and stole their wealth, I would not argue that you stand trial for their crimes, but I would argue that the wealth they stole should be returned. That girl (and myself) have both benefited from the white supremacist world we live in, and though we are not guilty of enslaving people or…

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  Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★½ 16

  Now I'm mad we didn't watch this in my high school history class

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  Review by Cole ★★★★½ 3

  If the montage at the end of this film doesn't make you well up, you may just be dead inside.

  Yes, it's manipulative. Yes, it's largely working with the traditional conceits of a biopic. Yes, it has an agenda.

  I could not give less of a shit.

  This is transcendent cinema. This is one of our greatest directors, and one of our greatest actors, telling a truly epic tale. It's grandiose. It's full of emotion and heart. It's utterly captivating throughout. It feels like eight movies in one, and yet never feels disjointed.

  I honestly am lacking some of the words. It's just great. Watch it. I know it's over 200 minutes long, but it shoots by, trust me. It's worth it. Lord knows it's worth it.

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 8

  Fun fact I only just discovered today: the script of this masterpiece was actually written by none other than James Baldwin in the 1970's (his family estate requested his name be removed from the credits as Spike Lee was doing script revisions, though Lee maintains not much was changed). So it makes even more sense then that despite it being a bio-pic, the focus is squarely on Malcom's intellectual development and even intellectual trajectory rather than life events - only really life events when they inform Malcom's own ideological conciousness. That's also why this is just about the least "Oscar-baity" bio-pic one could possibly ever make, even with Spike Lee toning down his usual formal approach. It's also why this…

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  Review by laird ★★★★★ 5

  Imagine the Academy voters seeing Denzel in this and being like, "Yeah, but Pacino was so funny, 'hoo-ah!', lol."

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  Review by Jamelle Bouie ★★★★½ 4

  It is almost impossible to make a good biopic for the simple reason that a human life — any human life — is too complicated for the form. You can’t actually fit the full scope of someone’s life in a 120 minute movie. It’s why the best films in the genre center on a singular event in an individual’s life versus the full sweep of their experiences. And even then, it’s tough.

  Malcolm X is a traditional biopic in that it attempts to tell the story of the civil rights leader from start to finish. But rather than try to avoid or work around the fact that lives — to say nothing of the life of Malcolm X — are big and…

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 4

  "That's too much power for one man to have."

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  Review by Logan Kenny ★★★★★ 3

  the two shots of the fires burning down homes two hours apart, about men holding their families as their houses blaze behind them, looking off in the distance of the racists that did it with fury, and knowing that this is the sign of their painfully inevitable demise. by the time malcolm himself sees the flames and in essence, becomes his father, he's living on borrowed time, only a matter of moments or scenes before he dies before he should, at the hands of bigots with weapons and most importantly power. you can almost see it in his eyes, that death is coming for him, because he committed the crime of being black and not letting his oppressors control him any longer. this is the great american tragedy, not just malcolm but for all the black people slaughtered due to their skin and their strength. one of the greatest films and lead performances you'll ever see

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  Review by David Jenkins ★★★★ 3

  "And the winner for best actor goes to… Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman."
  The Academy, 1993

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  Review by kailey ★★★★½ 2

  by the time malcolm x wearily stumbles to the speech he will give before his death, we understand in our bones both his anger and his exhaustion. the triumph of the film is that it's the story of one man's struggle and through digging deep into his psyche, it becomes the story of many people's struggle. the movie ends by showing us that malcolm x's legacy continues and his call for racial equality is still being answered. we know every step of the way what he is fighting for and who he is fighting because the film intertwines the personal with the monumental. grand with empathy-the birth to death approach here doesn't feel like a wikipedia article (unlike ahem bohemian rhapsody), it feels like a journey. it's spike's american epic. it's bringing both america and america's legacy of white supremacy to trial.