Popular reviews

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  Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★ 4

  The moral of so many movies I’ve watched recently seems to be “don’t go to Florida”

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  Review by Ayo Edebiri ★★★★½

  movies rule

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  Review by Sean Fennessey ★★★★½ 7

  Quite possibly my platonic ideal movie. Right time, right star, right studio, right editor, right energy. Utterly depraved and sad and kind of casual about the whole ordeal.

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 25

  Is there a more versatile actor than Gene Hackman? He can play the heavy. He can play the hero. He can do it all. Finally, I checked out The Hack in Night Moves. A '70s neo-noir, about a private investigator, and the case of a runaway teenage girl. But, like any brilliant noir, it way more than what it appears. 

  This flick is so much fun. Hack tickles nipples with his feet, reminisces about JFK and Bobby, shags Webster's mom, talks dirty, avoids jailbait, swims with dolphins, spends the night in a mobile trailer, cracks insensitive jokes and plays chicken with an airplane. Hell yes!!

  Night Moves features early roles from Melanie Griffith and James Woods. It has a great little mystery, and a lot of twists. The dialogue is hilarious. The stunts are rad. It oozes '70s cool. If you like movies like The Long Goodbye, there's a great chance you will love Night Moves.

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  Review by Joe ★★★★★ 2

  The basic assumption of every detective story, no matter how realistic, is that A, there are questions out there, and B, they can be answered. Maybe the reason that detective fiction has been so popular for so long is because deep down we want this to be true, even though we all know from experience that it probably isn't, and Night Moves comes from a particularly cynical point of view - that our heroic detective seems to be the only person who hasn't realized that detectives are full of shit.

  Whereas Chinatown's JJ Gittes faces up against pure evil incarnate in Noah Cross, Night Moves' Harry Moseby doesn't have any such excuse for his bungling. I think if you combine…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★

  accept that you probably deserve to be alone.

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Post-Watergate era rendered not in the paranoid terms of Nixonian rage but as a state of impotent depression, of stacked indignities that mute the mystery of the central noir. Only when that mystery unspools into something truly monstrous is the hero shaken from his zombielike stasis, far too late to do anything about it. The nightmarish final scene, of Moseby watching helplessly as a man drowns before him, at once ripped harshly back into a world of feeling and cast out forever from it in a fit of unbearable trauma, is among the most desolate endings I've ever seen.

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★½

  One of my favorite detective movies, where the ultimate mystery is not “What happened to the missing girl?” or “Who is the killer?” but “Why does everything suck so bad?” And that’s the kinda mystery you could spend a lifetime trying to solve. You’d probably wind up in the same place as Harry, too — going around in circles.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★ 2

  80

  Directed by Arthur Penn, starring Gene Hackman, and released in 1975, I knew this wasn't exactly going to be rainbows and sunny days, but the reservation of its central 'private detective' narrative makes for an existential inquiry into a world beyond life. This isn't necessarily about a dying social fabric but an inability for some individuals to operate 'normally', a total lack of connection. And not only that - the film posits that it's most likely their fault! The grim, fruitless atmosphere of Night Moves is only heightened by a classic conclusion, one which fits comfortably within the 70s defeatist canon. Gene Hackman is, of course, tremendous, but the screenplay by Alan Sharp is key to the immersive vibe. Very woozy and unsure of anyone or anything, much to the collapse of the protagonist and the world he thinks he exists within. This is about as detached and hopeless as 70s cinema gets.

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★ 30

  Neo-noir drowns in the murky waters of 1970s cynicism with Arthur Penn’s “Night Moves.” 

  Gene Hackman stars as a private eye sent to Florida to track down the missing daughter of an aged grande dame Hollywood actress. 

  “Night Moves” unfolds in the ripples of the Kennedy assassination and Watergate; the inciting loss of American innocence, and then trust, that followed. 

  Good and evil deeds come to rest equally on the souls of the innocent. 

  “Night Moves,” like much of Penn’s work, can hardly be said to have a light touch in its metaphors. Portions of the film’s dialogue make overt political references, with little attempt to mime disguise behind even the thinnest veil of allusion. The choice makes the characters…

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  Review by Timcop ★★★★½

  Nothing quite like the dulcet tones of Gene Hackman's voice uttering the phrase "erect nipples" to get your motor going. Also nothing quite like the brilliance of Gene Hackman to remind you that existence is totally pointless.

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  Review by Will Sloan

  "He was the only man around who got nicer as he got drunk. lt may not sound like much to you, but believe me, in these parts, it's a good deal."