[Director Terry Zwigoff] has a gift for understated moments of wry humor and a sensitivity to the ennui surrounding the lost Generation Y girls so busy sniping and skewering the “losers” around them to find any direction in their own floating lives

| May 6, 2023

This kind of subtle moral isn’t as readily available to most audiences, but should appeal to the younger generation who are strapped with the burden of carrying society into a new century filled with strife, misery and great opportunity.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 20, 2022

Ghost World remains pretty special in its old-boned melancholy.

| Dec 1, 2022

A coming-of-age film that actually tries to show an uncompromised vision of a kid finding herself, even if she doesn’t always like what she finds.

| Aug 11, 2022

Ghost World is very funny but also very perceptive, and it offers Steve Buscemi one of the defining roles of his career.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 22, 2021

... one of the best films made by middle-aged men about what women might feel when confronted by the comic, tragic un-loveliness of middle-aged men themselves...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2021

Zwigoff's portrait of adolescent alienation commands a potent portrait of interiority as concerns its lonely souls searching for likeminded personalities within a superficial void.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 9, 2020

An elegy to the rebellious Gen X dream, and a crash course in existence for all 18-year-olds who followed.

| Aug 4, 2020

We care about these characters and, despite themselves, they care for one another, too. Irony meets empathy here and both are better for it.

| Feb 24, 2020

That is part of its magic and its beauty, I think - its ability to speak to and for those who don't quite feel at home in mainstream society.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 4, 2019

Ghost World is animated by a tension between Seymour's 78 rpm universe and Enid's dedication to a punk etho

| Oct 31, 2018

A blend of old and new leaves the film with a timeless feel, one that emphasizes that no matter what significant changes society undergoes people are pretty much the same.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 31, 2018

The greatest distinction of "Ghost World" is its singular spirit. Here's a dark, deadpan comedy about alienated kids that manages to be smart, surpassingly odd, extremely funny and mysteriously endearing at the same time.

| Apr 12, 2013

While this isn't a showy or flashy movie, it has social, psychological, and ultimately mystical overtones that raise it leagues above most other teen-centered comedies.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 12, 2013

The modest yet redeeming triumph of Ghost World is the offhand way it brings to the screen a streak of American dark humor that is dour, resilient and unexpectedly infectious.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 12, 2013

See it for Birch's hostile stare and Johansson's devastating monotone.

Full Review | Apr 12, 2013

A top draw adaptation of a cracking comic-book.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 9, 2012

Like "Rushmore" with a female slant, "Ghost World" tackles the true torches we often keep to ourselves as well as the struggle of feeling like a specter, or, as Enid says, as though "everyone's too stupid to realize you."

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 24, 2010

Most of Ghost World is funny, but the laughs are inextricably tied to the painful alienation and self-loathing that comes with living on society's fringes.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2010

By sharp turns poignant, disturbing and hysterically funny.

| Jul 7, 2010