Licorice Pizza (2021) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Lauren Wilford 263

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

  A warm tribute to a kind of relationship I feel like lots of us have stuffed way in the back of a mental drawer: the ill-advised crush turned briefly, oddly, achingly mutual, transmuted not into a romantic relationship but into an ambiguous, charged entanglement.

  Alana's reluctant seduction by Gary in the first few scenes strikes me as incredibly psychologically realistic. She outlines a boundary upfront and continues verbally repeating it, but by her actions edges toward it out of curiosity. She's reflexively annoyed at first, but as she becomes more impressed by his gumption, the annoyance becomes more of an act. She's caustic in order to maintain plausible deniability, mostly to herself, about her interest in Gary. She's lightly thrilled…

• Review by Jay ★★★★ 17

  “i can fix him” says girl who is worse

• Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★½ 99

  After this and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, every director I like is now required to make a fun hangout movie set in a lovingly recreated version of the time and place they grew up

• Review by Karst ★★★★ 1

  alana haimwas interested in politics from a very young age

• Review by demi adejuyigbe 47

  most of the filmmakers i really love are impressive to me because they either make me think “god i could never do that” or “god i hope i could do that” and even though his films rarely seem complicated or artfully obtuse, PTA has always fallen in the former camp. i read a piece once where he said he doesn’t write to a predetermined ending, he just writes characters and writes what they’d do until an ending emerges (paraphrased for laziness) and i think this is why it’s so impressive to me; for some that’s a very natural and obvious way to write, but it’s never been the kind of stories i’ve wanted to tell. when PTA does it, he…

• Review by Robert Franco ★★★★★ 15

  annoying blue check critics: groovy, soulful, and a little funky!! a love letter to california in the 70s!

  me and the fellas: this is a movie about being a young pimp hustler, snapping necks and cashing checks.

• Review by cookie ★½ 36

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

  i, for one, love a meandering plotline or a structureless plot when done right! but this was just stuff: happening! to what end?? seriously, to what end. the only thing keeping the audience mildly engaged was the same unfunny joke being made every few minutes (background character makes snarky comment, saying What We're All Thinking!) not to mention the packed house laughing a liiiiiittle bit too hard at the racism :| huh?

  i haven't liked a single PTA film i've seen so i went in with fairly low expectations to start, but whew. am i alone in thinking the editing sucked? especially that ending, jesus. none of the technical choices served a greater purpose. a film so lacking in depth i can't comprehend what anyone saw in it

  once upon a time in hollywood ass movie... this one will not stand the test of time

• Review by 24framesofnick ★★★½ 17

  Why would you put licorice on a pizza

• Review by KYK ★★★ 14

  I had fun, but it lowkey felt like sitting through an entire season of an HBO series that would not let me pause between episodes....... Overdrawn subplots, confusing repeat of racist jokes (don't worry, we PLENTY get it the first time), and it's annoyingly such a male fantasy movie. On the bright side, I went from not getting Alana Haim at all to being quite charmed.

  70mm. Alamo Drafthouse.

• Review by davidehrlich ★★★★★

  Gary Valentine is 15 going on 30, Alana Kane is “25” but in air quotes that basically allow her to be whatever it might say on her eventual dream ticket out of Encino, and they first cross paths on a pale 1973 morning in the San Fernando Valley at a strange moment in history when Old Hollywood and New Hollywood have started to overlap. Bing Crosby is still alive even though Jim Morrison is already dead, and it feels like everyone is more or less the same age because no one really knows what time actually means anymore.

  They meet on yearbook portrait day at the local high school, and Alana — working as an assistant for the handsy photographer…

• Review by Lucy ★★★★ 53

  thoroughly enjoyed this very entertaining movie for a long stretch of time but weirdly enough there was an elephant in the corner of the room for like every scene. and the whole time i was like huh! there’s an elephant in this room! that’s kind of weird but everyone seems to be minding their business so i guess the elephant isn’t a problem right now. but eventually someone pokes the elephant and made me wonder why the elephant was even there in the first place

  wait, that’s poking the bear. i’m mixing metaphors but anyways this movie rocks and might have even been my favorite of the year except for the age gap thing, the offensive asian jokes that come…

• Review by Hari Nef 36

  when i lived in la i was in my mid-twenties, like alana. i had ceased to be what i was and had yet to become what i thought i ought to be. i hopped off the plane at lax with a dream and a basic understanding of the city's topography acquired from playing grand theft auto: san andreas, which takes place in a digital replica of la. the city unfurled around me like a treasure map: a mission-based game to play and win

  i had a handful of well-connected friends, i'd appeared in one semi-successful indie film, and i looked okay in a short dress; this got me up some elevators, beyond some reception desks. down the halls dwelled elders…