Perceptive at dramatizing moments where teenagers' performances of masculinity and maturity inadvertently melt into something more fraught and real.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 6, 2021

Justin Lin's sleek and skillful Better Luck Tomorrow is a well-contoured fantasy, not about magical worlds, secret gardens, or Middle-earths, but about the place within where demons may lie in those who may otherwise seem to be the best of us.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 21, 2021

Better Luck Tomorrow is a huge step forward, and though it doesn't fully transcend its small budget, the story feels rooted in something more solid than prefab posturing.

| May 17, 2018

Lin's movie tries to do too much--it takes some dark, credibility-defying turns--but you come away knowing you've witnessed the birth of a moviemaking career.

| Mar 7, 2018

Better Luck Tomorrow, a corrosive, insightful study of the pressure-packed lives of suburban high school students, brings a new variant to gangster movies: gangsters with perfect SAT scores.

| Apr 2, 2013

Better Luck Tomorrow breathes new life into a familiar story: coming of age in high school.

| Apr 2, 2013

A enerally absorbing look at a slice of society normally taken for granted, both in life and onscreen.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

Justin Lin succeeds in shocking audiences with a story that breaks the mold...

| Apr 29, 2009

Intriguing but dramatically thin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Incisive [and] cautionary.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 27, 2007

Spends more time avoiding Asian-American stereotypes than it does making sense of its characters and plot.

| Jun 24, 2006

Has an optimistic outlook that uses pessimistic results in a manner fitting for a film of such solid morality.

Full Review | Original Score: 79/100 | Aug 22, 2004

Um filme do qual Martin Scorsese pode se orgulhar.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 2, 2004

You could have replaced everyone in this movie with the cast of some lily-white show like Dawson's Creek and nobody would notice the difference.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 21, 2004

Justin Lin’s biggest accomplishment is providing a stereotype-shattering insiders’ view of the angst and rage of a group of Asian teenagers ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 18, 2004

[I]f the story has some rough edges, well, it's a first film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 4, 2004

Doesn't settle for easy thriller plot twists.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Oct 6, 2003

At times Lin's story slides into crime cliches, but whatever he lacks in plotting he makes up for in style and brute emotional force.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2003

. . .its bolder themes and naked ambition heighten the sense of disappointment towards the film's end when it fails to deliver on its initial promise.

| May 30, 2003

The picture's relative uniqueness is what intrigues and compels, marking Better Luck Tomorrow as important, if not ultimately entirely successful.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 14, 2003