Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes
Publications list

The Baltimore Beat

The Baltimore Beat is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Dominic Griffin.

Prev Next
Rating Title | Year Author Quote
One Battle After Another (2025) Dominic Griffin It is so soundly, devastatingly, and unequivocally the movie of the year that we’re all going to spend the rest of 2025 talking about it, no matter what.
Posted Sep 26, 2025  Edit critic review
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Dominic Griffin Questionable conclusions and inconsistent themes aside, at the end of the day, Spike is still a thrill to watch work.
Posted Sep 10, 2025  Edit critic review
Superman (2025) Dominic Griffin As children, many of us would pick up a random issue of a comic book from a grocery store’s spinner rack, without knowing what came before or could come in the future. “Superman” is the first superhero film to capture that inimitable experience.
Posted Jul 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Mickey 17 (2025) Dominic Griffin As fun as “Mickey 17” is, it’s in these fleeting moments of ecological despair that it rings the truest and in its brief bursts of justifiable rage at the state of the world around us.
Posted Mar 12, 2025  Edit critic review
Nickel Boys (2024) Dominic Griffin ...the first capital G-great film of the post-DEI era.
Posted Feb 26, 2025  Edit critic review
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) Dominic Griffin If someone of Jenkins’s pedigree can’t, with all this budgetary power behind him, best some poster on Elon Musk’s X typing “lions fight on mountaintop epic” into Sora, then Hollywood is truly cooked.
Posted Jan 31, 2025  Edit critic review
It's What's Inside (2024) Dominic Griffin “It’s What’s Inside” mines a well-worn horror set-up for a thrilling and inventive mystery that’s as crowd-pleasing as it is disorienting.
Posted Oct 23, 2024  Edit critic review
Rebel Ridge (2024) Dominic Griffin “Rebel Ridge” rejects expectations for the kind of film it is presented to be, for better and for worse.
Posted Sep 25, 2024  Edit critic review
The Killer (2024) Dominic Griffin Whether or not it’s as good as the original is beside the point; it’s worth the price of admission alone to watch one of global cinema’s most significant living masters work within the strange new streaming normal and still pull out something of value.
Posted Sep 11, 2024  Edit critic review
Longlegs (2024) Dominic Griffin But on the first watch, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that we’re watching both a celebratory coming-out party for Perkins as a director and empirical proof that his screenwriting requires more polish
Posted Jul 31, 2024  Edit critic review
MaXXXine (2024) Dominic Griffin “MaXXXine” is a film whose metatextual, cinematic preoccupations hold it back from greatness.
Posted Jul 17, 2024  Edit critic review
Hit Man (2023) Dominic Griffin “Hit Man” ascends into something special
Posted Jun 19, 2024  Edit critic review
I Saw the TV Glow (2024) Dominic Griffin “I Saw the TV Glow” is a heavy rumination on an element of being trans that ought to speak to plenty of cis folks, too: having the sense that something about your life is very wrong, but being trapped at the precipice of doing anything about it.
Posted Jun 05, 2024  Edit critic review
Challengers (2024) Dominic Griffin “Challengers” feels like a time machine back to an era where seeing a handful of talented and photogenic actors unravel interpersonal relationships was enough to get butts in seats at the multiplex.
Posted May 21, 2024  Edit critic review
Shirley (2024) Dominic Griffin “Shirley” is a watchable-enough affair. But it doesn’t feel like anybody involved quite realized how sad and bittersweet a tale they were telling.
Posted Apr 10, 2024  Edit critic review
2/10
Mea Culpa (2024) Dominic Griffin No matter what new low Tyler Perry sinks to, an audience will always be willing to give it a shot for exactly the same reason we crane our necks when driving past car wrecks.
Posted Mar 13, 2024  Edit critic review
Bob Marley: One Love (2024) Dominic Griffin “One Love” is fine if you want to pay for an infomercial advertising Marley’s music, but it is an absolute waste of time for anyone hungering for much more.
Posted Feb 28, 2024  Edit critic review
A Thousand and One (2023) Dominic Griffin ...through Taylor’s excellent screen work, it functions so potently as a portrait of the real people left by the wayside by institutions designed to catch them when they fall.
Posted Feb 13, 2024  Edit critic review
6/10
Origin (2023) Dominic Griffin Wilkerson’s book has 496 pages to map the connection between racism in America, Nazi Germany, and the caste system in India. DuVernay’s film only has 145 minutes to do the same...
Posted Jan 31, 2024  Edit critic review
7.5/10
American Fiction (2023) Dominic Griffin “American Fiction” is a film that fails to balance its satiric origins with the tragicomic story it seems far more interested in telling.
Posted Jan 17, 2024  Edit critic review
7.5/10
The Burial (2023) Dominic Griffin But perhaps not since their 1990s heyday has an example of the form been as entertaining as “The Burial,” the latest directorial effort from “Novitiate” director Maggie Betts.
Posted Nov 03, 2023  Edit critic review
7/10
Cassandro (2023) Dominic Griffin An endearing and engaging portrait of otherness and the way the things about ourselves that hold us back in life can be what propels us forward to the life we’ve always wanted.
Posted Oct 06, 2023  Edit critic review
6/10
Outlaw Johnny Black (2023) Dominic Griffin There’s an earnestness on display and an unmistakable passion that carries through even the toughest, least entertaining of its passages.
Posted Sep 20, 2023  Edit critic review
7.5/10
Miguel Wants To Fight (2023) Dominic Griffin The film’s movie-referencing, self-aware sheen betrays a heartfelt core that makes it an instant classic about the travails of youth.
Posted Sep 06, 2023  Edit critic review
7.5/10
Biosphere (2022) Dominic Griffin “Biosphere” seemed like it was going to be a feature-length game of “will they or won’t they,” similar to the Duplass vehicle “Hump Day." But instead, it transcends into something a little headier, a lot more ambitious, and more tender.
Posted Aug 23, 2023  Edit critic review
7.75/10
They Cloned Tyrone (2023) Dominic Griffin “Tyrone” appears to be saying something very broad and belabored about the plight of the Black community. It, unintentionally or not, paints a picture of a monolithic culture warped by outside influences.
Posted Jul 26, 2023  Edit critic review
6/10
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023) Dominic Griffin Story shows a lot of promise as a filmmaker, even if “Angry Black Girl” lacks in some of the typical areas for films on this end of the budget spectrum...
Posted Jul 12, 2023  Edit critic review
6/10
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) Dominic Griffin ...an ambitious and loving character portrait that honors the franchise’s past while never quite matching its majesty, verve, or charm.
Posted Jul 01, 2023  Edit critic review
8.5/10
Master Gardener (2022) Dominic Griffin Schrader doesn’t seem particularly interested in the complex specifics or logistics of accountability here. But the fact that he’s finally embraced the idea of proper redemption being possible on a long enough curve feels revelatory.
Posted May 31, 2023  Edit critic review
7/10
Chevalier (2022) Dominic Griffin A continent away and centuries removed, this myth of Black excellence is still foisted upon unsuspecting Black youths, with a harsh lesson they all must learn the hard way.
Posted May 17, 2023  Edit critic review
7.5/10
Air (2023) Dominic Griffin ...once the tone and time settle, the story’s comedic charm gives way to a more nuanced exploration of the nature of myth and its unenviable position at the intersection of commerce and legacy.
Posted Apr 19, 2023  Edit critic review
9/10
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) Dominic Griffin “John Wick: Chapter 4” pushes the series to its outermost limits, delivering some of the best action in American cinema history.
Posted Mar 24, 2023  Edit critic review
3/10
The Whale (2022) Dominic Griffin ...in watching “The Whale,” a fatphobic audience might temporarily disabuse themselves of the derision and disgust they hold for the heavyset just long enough to pat themselves on the back for emotionally connecting with a cartoon for roughly two hours.
Posted Jan 11, 2023  Edit critic review
6/10
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) Dominic Griffin "Wakanda Forever" exists within an apparatus that will never allow the creatives working inside it the freedom and space to make it anything more than the best possible compromise.
Posted Nov 16, 2022  Edit critic review
6/10
Blonde (2022) Dominic Griffin In the end, “Blonde” feels like an unfortunate monkey’s paw from everyone who has ever wished for Netflix to release more movies that don’t feel created by algorithms.
Posted Oct 05, 2022  Edit critic review
5/10
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (2022) Dominic Griffin Ebo adapted this film from her own short of the same name, and at feature length, it regularly feels like a thimble full of wine diluted in a goblet full of holy water.
Posted Sep 21, 2022  Edit critic review
7.5/10
Day Shift (2022) Dominic Griffin There was a time however, when even the bad movies were pretty fun. Day Shift suggests maybe we can go back there.
Posted Sep 21, 2022  Edit critic review
7.5/10
Black Panther (2018) Dominic Griffin ...people are so thirsty for representation and so ready for this movie to be the end-all-be all-of blackness on screen that they'd likely twist themselves into pretzels defending it as such even if it wound up being low-key trash.
Posted Jul 16, 2019  Edit critic review
9.5/10
Phantom Thread (2017) Dominic Griffin ...a testament both to the brilliant performances at its core, from Day-Lewis in his final bow and Krieps in a breakout role, and to Anderson's continued growth as one of our greatest filmmakers.
Posted Jul 16, 2019  Edit critic review
8.5/10
The Shape of Water (2017) Dominic Griffin Passive furries may have helped The Beauty & The Beast become a global smash this year, but it's The Shape of Water" that uses its interspecies, star-crossed lovers to actually say something.
Posted Jul 16, 2019  Edit critic review
Prev Next