Find a Good Film Review

The release of motion pictures is advertised in various ways. There are many promotional activities involving the actors themselves and we get a glimpse of what to expect from trailers and other clips. But the best way to learn about a movie is arguably by finding film reviews. There’s an advance screening for the reviewers who go on to write whether the movie is brilliant, ordinary or downright awful. We have explored the internet to come up with a few good resources for anyone wanting a professional opinion on movies.

First of all, there’s a site dedicated to giving access to good movie reviews- findmoviereviews.com. There you can find many sites listed under tags like ‘Popular sites’, Offbeat, ‘Film Resources' and, ‘At your own risk’. Their list of the popular movie review sites agreed with ours for the most part.

If you are a movie buff and a nit-picker when it comes to film reviews, we recommend that you try the New York Times website- nytimes.com/pages/movies/index.html. The NYT has a reputed history and is one of the most trusted sources of news today. Not only does it review, it captures eloquently some of the highlights of the film. If you like descriptions that make you visualize the scenes, then this is a good source. The only snag is that you have to register and become a member to access reviews. The site lists what it terms the best 1000 movies of all time.

Entertainment Weekly is another great site for reviews. It’s simple and less academic in comparison to the NYT and that is actually the appeal. You don’t need to register. Their movie database is arranged in alphabetical order but you can browse by genre too. The best part is, you can see right off the year of release for each movie and the EW grading (from A+ to D-).

Yahoo and MSN are always reliable sources for movie lovers. MSN lists movies with their ratings for parents and their own good/bad rating. Reviews are available from experts (i.e. from the Associated Press) and from viewers. Yahoo gives more attention to photos and trailers on their movie webpage but after a search, we found that they had more critics’ reviews and more user reviews than MSN.

A firm favorite with many movie fans is the site rottentomatoes.com. The reviews come from different sources and are informal and fresh. One thing we didn’t like was the presentation- we found a few reviews on Hellboy II scattered here and there. You can also try the Online Film Critics Society link provided by Rotten Tomatoes- that has reviews in abundance. Just go to ofcs.rottentomatoes.com.

Article Summary- If you want to find a good film review, there are several web sources to choose from. We recommend the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, MSN, Yahoo and Rotten Tomatoes for useful information on movies.