A.A. Dowd
Writer
A.A. Dowd, or Alex to his friends, is a writer and editor based in Chicago. He has held staff positions at The A.V. Club and Time Out Chicago, and is a member of the National Society of Film Critics.
Last Breath review: Apollo 13 goes under the sea
Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu star in a deep-sea survival thriller that could used a little embellishing.
What will win, and what should win, at the Oscars this Sunday
Wicked? Dune? Anora? Here's what we're predicting will win at the Academy Awards this year — and what we hope does.
What’s the state of the Academy Awards, 10 years after #OscarsSoWhite?
The Academy is more diverse than ever in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite. So are the movies it celebrates.
20 years later, Constantine is more devilish fun than you remember
Keanu Reeves followed the Matrix trilogy with a DC comics adaptation that's a little better than critics said it was in 2005.
25 years ago, Vin Diesel had the best day of his career
Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of Boiler Room and Pitch Black, two very different movies that opened on the same day and both proved what a magnetic actor Vin Diesel could be.
40 years later, there’s no forgetting about The Breakfast Club
Nearly every teen movie of the last four decades owes something to John Hughes' 1985 classic.
Captain America: Brave New World review: a new rock bottom for Marvel
Harrison Ford Hulks out in a new Captain America movie that's as sloppy as anything Marvel has ever made.
Now on IMAX, Parasite is the perfect thriller for our post-Luigi world
Bong Joon-ho's twisty parable Parasite comes to IMAX screens five years after it set the global box office ablaze
The Marvel movies lost something when they lost Steve Rogers
Anthony Mackie is a worthy successor, but the MCU has still suffered from the absence of The First Avenger.
The Dark Universe is dead, but the Universal Monsters aren’t
A few years after the collapse of the Dark Universe, the most famous of movie monsters are enjoying a second life.
Why did the Oscars snub one of last year’s best movies?
Challengers got great reviews, made good money, and delivered Hollywood a rare adult-oriented hit. So why did the Academy completely ignore it?
Flight Risk review: Mark Wahlberg thriller crashes and burns
Mel Gibson casts Mark Wahlberg against type as a psycho in the cheap and lousy action thriller, Flight Risk, now in theaters.
All the 2025 Best Picture Oscar nominees, ranked
From Wicked and Dune to The Brutalist and A Complete Unknown, we rank all 10 films vying for the top Oscar this year
20 years ago, they brought a John Carpenter classic into the 2000s
At 20 years, the remake of Assault on Precinct 13 looks more dated than the crackerjack 1970s thriller it upgraded.
Wolf Man review: Woof!
Leigh Whannell follows his thrilling Invisible Man with a curiously dull, murky, and undercooked Wolf Man, in theaters now.
There’s no ‘fixing’ the worst aspect of Alien: Romulus
Fede Álvarez has tweaked his Alien: Romulus for home release, but the problems with the Ian Holm scenes go way beyond shoddy special effects work.
You probably haven’t seen 2024’s best movies. Here’s why you need to right now
Film critic A.A. Dowd makes the case that Sean Baker's tragicomedy Anora is the best film of 2024, before sharing his other picks for the year's finest.
At 25, The Talented Mr. Ripley is still the best take on a chilling classic
As good as Netflix's Ripley series turned out, the best adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's bestseller is still the 1999 version of The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Nosferatu review: A lush, lusty new take on Dracula
The director of The Witch and The Northman returns with a remake of the horror classic Nosferatu that's best at its kinkiest.
We failed Furiosa, one of 2024’s best movies. Here’s why it will live forever
Furiosa, George Miller's spectacular Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, deserved better from both audiences and critics.
Kraven the Hunter review: a suitably awful farewell to Sony’s Spider-Verse
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a muscular bore in the latest and maybe last entry in Sony's misbegotten franchise of Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man.
Ridley Scott makes blockbusters for grownups. Here’s why that matters now more than ever
This Thanksgiving, let's give thanks for the adult-targeted event pictures of Ridley Scott... even if Gladiator II is very far from his best.
Gladiator II review: Paul Mescal is no Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s disappointing sequel
Without original star Russell Crowe, Gladiator II, Ridley Scott's belated sequel to his Oscar-winning 2000 epic, falls short in just about every way.
A legendary musician wrote a bonkers Gladiator II movie that was never made
With Gladiator II now in theaters, let's fondly remember the bonkers version musician Nick Cave wrote back in the early 2000s.
Robert Zemeckis is still lost in the uncanny valley. Can he be saved?
Here, Robert Zemeckis' latest movie with Tom Hanks, finds the director still stranded in the digital abyss that ruined The Polar Express, Beowulf, and others.
Juror #2 review: Clint Eastwood’s best movie in years. It’s a shame you probably can’t see it
Whether it's his last movie or not, Juror #2 is a perverse spin on 12 Angry Men that ranks among the strongest of director Clint Eastwood's late-career efforts.
Venom, Joker, and the year of supervillain cinema
The comic-book movies of 2024 have thrown a spotlight on villains and antiheroes with mixed results. Does it signal a looming bust for the once-popular genre?
Smile 2 and Trap are horror movies for a pop-obsessed world
Brat summer is over, but it looms large over Smile 2 and Trap, two thrillers set against the backdrop of toxic pop fandom.
Saturday Night review: A Saturday Night Live origin story that plays it too safe
Jason Reitman assembles a giant, game ensemble for Saturday Night, a SNL origin story that's a little too reverent and tidy.
At 50, this classic horror movie is still cinema’s ultimate nightmare
Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has lost none of its nightmarish power over 50 years. Here's why it's still so unsettling.
Joker: Folie à Deux review: an oddly timid musical sequel
In Joker: Folie à Deux, Joaquin Phoenix reprises the role of a misfit wallflower killer in a genre-bending sequel too cautious to really go for it.
At 10, this modern classic remains a brilliant prank of a thriller
David Fincher's adaptation of the bestselling thriller Gone Girl, which turns 10 today, might be his most Hitchcockian achievement.
Megalopolis review: Francis Ford Coppola’s flawed, insane sci-fi opus
From the director of The Godfather comes Megalopolis, a sci-fi epic 40 years in the making that trips on its own ambitions.
30 years ago, Tim Burton offered his most adult, bittersweet fairy tale
With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice now in theaters, let's revisit one of director Tim Burton's best movies, which turns 30 this week.