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Alison Lanier

Alison Lanier's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
Publications:

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Perfect Neighbor (2025) 99% EDIT “The film is intimate, painful, vital, and messy. I think only a family friend could have made this documentary in a way that didn’t feel invasive, instead grieving with and for the Owens family.” – Pajiba Oct 20, 2025 Full Review Unknown Number: The High School Catfish (2025) 85% EDIT “The people featured in the documentary remain profoundly human, rather than becoming characters.” – Pajiba Sep 24, 2025 Full Review The Truth About Jussie Smollett? (2025) 67% EDIT “It’s worth a watch to weigh the complicated scandal for yourself.” – Pajiba Sep 10, 2025 Full Review Stolen: Heist of the Century (2025) EDIT “Some of it sounds very unlikely; some of it sounds downright impossible. But at a certain point, I kind of stopped caring. It’s too fascinating and precise to be disappointing, even if the truth is a bit smudged at the edges.” – Pajiba Aug 15, 2025 Full Review A Deadly American Marriage (2025) EDIT “It’s a well-made documentary, even-keeled and patient in unspooling a story with many different “truths,” but like most true crime, it also follows a formula of exploitative shock value where it could tread far more carefully.” – Pajiba May 15, 2025 Full Review Con Mum (2025) EDIT “A brutal, clear-eyed story about how even serious, careful, and emotionally intelligent people can be conned.” – Pajiba Apr 7, 2025 Full Review Biggest Heist Ever (2024) EDIT “This thing needs to be seen to be believed. It also makes me even more terrified of techy hustle culture than I was before.” – Pajiba Dec 10, 2024 Full Review The Menendez Brothers (2024) EDIT “It’s thorough and precise and generally the better of the two [documentaries about the Melendez brothers released in 2024].” – Pajiba Oct 15, 2024 Full Review What Jennifer Did (2024) 55% EDIT “It makes small nods toward moments of possible insight -- but none of them land. The story is there for shock value, compiled and shoveled out to stream.” – Pajiba Apr 29, 2024 Full Review Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion (2024) 100% EDIT “It’s a true crime view of a serious and disturbing series of issues all rooted in the massive consumerist drive to pursue endless profit and clout, while dehumanizing and exploiting the least powerful.” – Pajiba Apr 11, 2024 Full Review They Called Him Mostly Harmless (2024) 63% EDIT “On the surface, judging by the streaming service thumbnail and catchy synopsis, They Called Him Mostly Harmless appears like any other sensational procedural true crime saga about discovering the truth behind a baffling mystery. But it certainly isn’t.” – Pajiba Feb 21, 2024 Full Review Great Photo, Lovely Life: Facing a Family's Secrets (2023) 100% EDIT “It’s the difficult work of true crime, dwelling with the harm done and reckoning with it in a way that is patient and non-superficial.” – Pajiba Dec 29, 2023 Full Review May December (2023) 91% EDIT “May December is my favorite kind of exploration in this vein -- a thoroughly “human story” that asks the questions that true crime begs, without pretending to know the answers.” – Pajiba Dec 7, 2023 Full Review Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) 33% EDIT “With a cast of one, a single setting, and minimal dialogue, the game did much better storytelling than its overloaded failed-trope adaptation.” – Pajiba Nov 3, 2023 Full Review The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring (2023) 83% EDIT “This is what I have to call beating a thoroughly dead horse. And despite having a new perspective on the story via Lee, The Ringleader only really manages to give a platform to yet another Bling Ring member swearing they’ve reformed.” – Pajiba Oct 13, 2023 Full Review Scout's Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America (2023) 94% EDIT “Sure the documentary leans a bit on the sensational side, but that can’t diminish the story at its heart: victims coming forward to speak about what happened to them and the voices of the people who are trying to get them some semblance of justice.” – Pajiba Sep 14, 2023 Full Review The Pale Blue Eye (2022) 62% EDIT “The patient, dark understatement of the whole adventure worked for me and felt in concert with the quiet and shadowed world it portrays.” – Pajiba Jan 13, 2023 Full Review Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) 43% EDIT “It’s more of a biographical recitation than a fresh insight.” – Pajiba Dec 28, 2022 Full Review Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery (2022) 91% EDIT “Part of the delight of the show is just how much fun everybody is having and how unseriously the show takes itself. It has the energetic, spontaneous abandon of SNL at its best. ” – Pajiba Dec 20, 2022 Full Review The People We Hate at the Wedding (2022) 30% EDIT “It's all good fun.” – Pajiba Dec 2, 2022 Full Review Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) 96% EDIT “Whatever I was expecting or wanted this remake of a well-worn story to be, this was better. I can’t say it’s an uplifting Christmas film for the whole family, but it’s certainly a beautiful one.” – Pajiba Nov 29, 2022 Full Review God's Country (2022) 88% EDIT “God’s Country is not a fun watch. It will probably ruin your day honestly. But if you find yourself in the mood for a hard-hitting, straight-up good movie that will stick with you, you know where to go.” – Pajiba Oct 7, 2022 Full Review Blonde (2022) 43% EDIT “An honestly extraordinary movie with its vision intact. That vision is not gentle nor entirely palatable, but it’s delivered with a purposefulness and heart that I have to admire.” – Pajiba Sep 16, 2022 Full Review They/Them (2022) 33% EDIT “As a whole, They/Them is basically an awkward, non-self-aware mishmash of homophobia and obligatory horror tropes doled out by the bucketful... I’m sure there’s a way to do it well. But this ain’t it.” – Pajiba Aug 15, 2022 Full Review Vengeance (2022) 82% EDIT “While this is definitely a first film, it’s a solid one, and one from which I think lessons will be learned. I sincerely hope there’s another filmmaking project in Novak’s future, and I’m excited to see how this new path unfolds for him.” – Pajiba Jul 22, 2022 Full Review
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