Cath Clarke

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The Guardian, Time Out, Time Out London
For 508 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 32% higher than the average critic
  • 9% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Cath Clarke's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Some Like It Hot
Lowest review score: 20 Diana
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 129 out of 508
  2. Mixed: 367 out of 508
  3. Negative: 12 out of 508
508 movie reviews
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    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo
    What gives the film its distinct flavour is a slightly feverish tone and dream-like logic. In places, it’s hard to see what the magic realism adds, and the script’s ideas about gender and gaze feel underexplored. Perhaps in the end, this sense of unreality opens the door to its characters finding love in this harsh and hopeless place. A touching and moving film.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Extraordinary Miss Flower
    Flower herself remains elusive – which is the point, perhaps, since the perspective here is mostly lovers’ projections written on a delirious high, reconstructed from the letters.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Sketch
    This is a family film with an IQ higher than the average – though before you book your half-term tickets, ask yourself if your little one is ready to watch a kid take a DIY flamethrower to the face of a scary monster.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Librarians
    Incredibly principled and brave, the librarians talk about their vocation and standing up for the young people for whom libraries are a safe space where they can discover their identity in the pages of books. They really are superwomen.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Deaf President Now!
    With a blend of archive footage and re-enactments the film-makers skilfully recreate the urgency, passion and energy of their protest.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Holy Cow
    Holy Cow is sentimental in the best of ways, with its warmth and hope in human nature.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Flow
    As visions of apocalypse go, it’s rather lovely: a world lush with nature, animals learning to get by together.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
    Her poems, read by Giovanni herself and the actor Taraji P Henson, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Never Look Away
    This documentary about [Moth's] life, directed by the actor Lucy Lawless, is a fascinating portrait of a woman who had two mottoes: “no regrets” and “don’t be boring”.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Girls Will Be Girls
    It’s a quiet film, and Panigrahi plays Mira with such poise and intelligence, conveying her innermost thoughts with a slight lift of the chin here or lingering look there.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Daughters
    It’s a tender, painful, intimate film, made over several years as we watch four girls in the months before the dance.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Ama Gloria
    Àma Gloria is a small-scale film, barely over 80 minutes, but it leaves an almighty impression.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Frida
    Each new sentence adds more: more complexity, more woman.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Disappearance of Shere Hite
    If this documentary doesn’t make Hite a household name among a new generation of feminists, the biopic that should really follow it certainly will.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Subject
    The question of who gets to tell stories is discussed (spoiler: mostly white men, until recently), and for a 97-minute film, Subject squeezes in a lot of ethical biggies.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Bobi Wine: The People's President
    It’s an intimate portrait combined with increasingly shocking footage as his opposition movement comes under attack.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Revoir Paris
    It’s a measured, quietly powerful film with a performance from Virginie Efira that seems almost telepathic at times; in scenes where she doesn’t say a word, barely twitching a muscle in her face, yet somehow you know what she’s feeling.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Hello, Bookstore
    It’s the only documentary I’ve ever watched with a reading list in the credits – what a treat this film is.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Full Time
    Calamy is utterly convincing, giving a performance that pulls us right into Julie’s inner world.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    A Bunch of Amateurs
    A Bunch of Amateurs is a thoughtful film about film-making and has some unexpectedly deep things to say too about camaraderie, community and male friendship – though there are a couple of women in the club’s ageing membership.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Blue Caftan
    At times I wondered if the film is a bit too tasteful and tactful about the pain that Halim and Mina have to suppress, but still it’s a hugely compassionate and emotionally satisfying movie.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Stop-Zemlia
    This gentle, authentic-feeling coming-of-age drama from Ukrainian film-maker Kateryna Gornostai premiered at the Berlin festival in 2021. Released in the UK almost a year to the day since the Russian invasion, her film has become unbearably poignant.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    I Get Knocked Down
    Chumbawamba split up in 2012. They’re still mates and come across here as extremely likable, not taking themselves at all too seriously. Scenes of them nattering together, having a giggle now, are lovely.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Wildcat
    What an intimate, thoughtful film. I can’t remember the last time I watched a documentary so desperately wanting a happy ending for everyone – human and ocelot.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Eternal Spring
    This is a painful, important film, made more urgent in light of China’s tightening of religious freedoms and human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslims.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Territory
    The film is grimly depressing in places. I covered my eyes during Google Earth time-lapse sequences showing the pace of deforestation in the Amazon; the violence of it is too much. And yet, there is Bitaté: still a teenager, he’s already a skilled communicator.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Official Competition
    It’s a very funny film, sending-up human absurdities without being too mean. Cruz is a talented comedian, but she smartly plays it straight-ish here. You never doubt for a moment Lola is the real deal. Nor that Cruz is either.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Girls Can't Surf
    The director is Christopher Nelius, himself a surfer, who has done a brilliant job with editor Julie-Anne De Ruvo of assembling the archive to capture the sport at a moment in time, all youth and energy. Smartly, he lets this exceptional group of funny, tough, talented women surfers, now in their 50s, do the talking.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Free Chol Soo Lee
    What makes the film so engrossing is how much attention the film-makers give to Lee’s complicated life after prison.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Faith
    It’s a deeply uncomfortable film but also weirdly gripping.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    George Michael Freedom Uncut
    There’s perhaps not enough new material to justify a re-release, but as a whole it’s still great, and a reminder of just what a class act Michael was.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Josep
    It’s a delicate, thoughtful film, moving and real.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Ascension
    Part of the film’s genius is in how the images are put together, sometimes to absurd effect, at other times unnervingly.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The First Wave
    This remarkable film feels like it could become a time capsule, showing future generations what it felt like in 2020 for those on the frontline.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    You Will Die At Twenty
    The film is a parable about the dangers of blind faith in religion and authority, but it’s also warmly compassionate and accepting of human nature.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Keyboard Fantasies
    Often music documentaries feel padded out with filler but honestly I could have spent another hour in Copeland’s company.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Oliver Sacks: His Own Life
    What a man. Just writing this makes me want to watch the documentary all over again.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Invisible Life
    The movie is saturated with emotion and colour, though its novelistic depth brings with it the slightly effortful running time of two hours and 20 minutes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Two of Us
    How refreshing to watch a film in which the sexuality and desire of women in their 70s is portrayed not as a novelty but simply part and parcel of their lives; and since this French movie is a lesbian drama, there’s two of them – even better.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Human Factor
    It’s a blow-by-blow account in measured – but nailbiting – detail, told by the American diplomats in charge of the high-stakes negotiations. You could imagine John le Carré basing a character on one of these polite, ferociously bright people.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Road to Mandalay
    Compassionate and honestly told, it is a real empathy machine of a movie.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Painter and the Thief
    What an engrossing film – and the gender reversal of a male muse inspiring a female painter has got to be one small step for art-world equality.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Dirty God
    It’s intense but not unwatchably painful, and so much more than an issue film or portrait of a victim. I really hope Knight finds a place in the film industry; with her terrific performance here she’s earned it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Climb
    Tragedy and slapstick run through the film and it is very funny.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
    It is a personal film – and political, too. There is emotion and urgency in that familiar soothing voice.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Perfect 10
    What an emotional, satisfying film this is – and a whopping oversized calling card for everyone involved.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Judy & Punch
    It’s a mouth-puckeringly tart movie that’s tonally in a world of its own – darkly disturbing, absurd, brutal and silly, with a batsqueak of bonkers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Weathering with You
    Like Your Name, it’s thrillingly beautiful: Tokyo is animated in hyperreal intricacy, every dazzling detail dialled up to 11, but it’s less of a heartbreaker.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
    A little of the personality has been lost in adapting Shaun’s world for sci-fi (the Wallace and Gromit movie Curse of the Were-Rabbit pulled off horror with a little more finesse). It’s a minor quibble; Shaun is by no means past his prime.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Cave
    To say The Cave would break anyone’s heart feels flimsy. Like Ballour, it has a purpose: to focus the world’s attention on the suffering of Syrian people.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Honeyland
    Honeyland really is a miraculous feat, shot over three years as if by invisible camera – not a single furtive glance is directed towards the film-makers.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Mustang
    Brilliantly, Schoenaerts almost underplays Roman’s anger, lumbering slowly like a wounded animal, the downward slope of his eyes conveying a howl of rage. It’s an electrifying performance.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Hail Satan?
    With her funny, light-hearted documentary, Penny Lane lets the sunshine in, focusing on the Temple’s message of open-mindedness and inclusivity – LGBTQ followers speak of a sense of belonging.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Gwen
    This is not social realism in the style of Ken Loach, but it is a film with a strong sense of outrage. Some might find it relentlessly bleak.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Guilty
    Miraculously, Möller turns a handful of phone conversations into a nerve shredder.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Private Life
    What an intelligent, emotionally grown-up film. More of this please.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Milford Graves Full Mantis
    This delightfully entertaining and idiosyncratic music documentary ought to banish the stereotype of drummers as talentless thickos. It’s also one of those films you can happily watch without having a jot of prior interest in its subject.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    McQueen
    This intelligent, honest documentary explores his complex personality without getting tacky or tabloidy, or ignoring McQueen’s dark side.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Revenge
    What’s interesting about Revenge is that it’s told from a female perspective – and by a female filmmaker.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Ethel & Ernest
    The animation is beautifully old-fashioned.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Midwife
    Not much happens in The Midwife, but its depth and texture make this a moving film about families, time passing and shared history – and the handful of scenes in the maternity unit where Claire works, five or six little miracles of birth, somehow add to its sense of a life as mysterious and precious.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Berlin Syndrome
    The film isn’t perfect. It’s slightly too long and drifts a bit in the middle. But the final showdown left me in a cold sweat.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Wonder Woman
    This really is Wonder Woman coming to the rescue of the DC Comics universe.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Mindhorn
    Thorncroft is a gem of comedy creation – played to perfection by Barratt.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Heal the Living
    The medical side of things is shown in documentary detail, and it’s fascinating.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Lady Macbeth
    Newcomer Florence Pugh is like a lightning bolt, totally electric as Katherine, who’s up there with Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina in the literary heroine stakes.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Raw
    Watching Raw is a bit like seeing a toddler crawl toward a four-lane highway. You can’t tear your eyes away, but at same time you want to squeeze them shut. This is a film that doesn’t just put you through the wringer; it scrapes your insides out. It left me trembling for hours.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Beauty and the Beast
    This is a lavish pull-out-all-the-stops musical.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Student
    There is surely a sly attack here on the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s suppression of liberal values and demonisation of the LGBT community. As the tension escalates, there are some poking between the ribs questions too about free speech and facts in the post-truth era.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Cameraperson
    Cameraperson’ is a thoughtful examination of the role of the documentary-maker, showing us how it feels to be that person behind the camera.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Eagle Huntress
    You want to know more about what Aisholpan is thinking behind that shy determined smile. But that’s not her way. You can imagine her as the gutsy heroine of a Disney animation.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Brand New Testament
    This is a film with a big heart and an even bigger imagination.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Edge of Seventeen
    As a memorable teen character, she’s almost up there with Cher from ‘Clueless’ or Ellen Page’s Juno. Watch and wince.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    This entertaining first spin-off from the Harry Potter movies is both inventive and familiar – and Eddie Redmayne makes an endearing new wizarding lead.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Innocents
    It’s an emotionally involving rather than harrowing film, with scenes as beautiful as oil paintings.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Queen of Katwe
    If you’re the person who watches weepies with a cynical curl of the lip, this isn’t the film for you. Everyone else, prepare to have your heartstrings plucked.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    I’ve never liked Renée Zellweger more as a warmer and wiser Bridget Jones – but still capable of making a total prat of herself.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Born to be Blue
    It might not be note perfect, jazz fans will probably hate it, and whole chunks might not be true. But ‘Born to Be Blue’ feels like it’s somehow getting inside Chet Baker.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Maggie's Plan
    Intelligent and screwball-funny with clever and complicated female characters.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Daughter
    Few films make you care about the characters like this one does.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Mustang
    It’s raw, funny and incredibly moving.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Florence Foster Jenkins
    Director Stephen Frears sketches out her tragic backstory, and Streep in grande dame mode is not to be missed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
    A candid, often shocking documentary portrait of the great photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Jungle Book
    This Jungle Book has the bare necessities, and then some.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    We Are Many
    Nine years in the making, this impressive doc pieces together the story of the biggest global protest in history.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Joy
    Lawrence is gritty, real and totally genuine. And, after ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘Carol’, here’s another film that passes the Bechdel Test for proper female characters with flying colours.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Dark Horse
    It’s a film with the texture and truth of life, and at its heart is a beautiful performance by Cliff Curtis, who never in a million years will be nominated for an Oscar, but deserves one.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    McCullin
    Even just watching this impressive documentary, you feel a little unhinged by the scale of suffering.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Macbeth
    This Macbeth is ferociously well acted. Fassbender’s prowling energy electrifies the film.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Lady in the Van
    A wonderful Maggie Smith plays all this dead straight, poker-faced for maximum laughs. It’s a peppery, unsentimental performance. She’s hysterically funny, till she’s not – flooring you as the regret and tragedy behind Miss Shepherd’s vagabond life is revealed.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Suffragette
    Writer Abi Morgan ('Shame', 'The Iron Lady') and director Sarah Gavron's ('Brick Lane') tough, raw, bleak-looking film makes the suffragettes' dilemma feel immediate and real.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Trainwreck
    You forget how limited so many movies’ ideas of women are until Amy Schumer launches into an extended tampon joke: nothing is off-limits as she kapows through expectations of female characters.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The Diary of a Teenage Girl
    What a ballsy film and honest too.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Iris
    This woman has plenty of blunt wisdom to share.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Phoenix
    It works and then some, making for a noirish and complex emotional thriller. And Hoss is incredible, playing Nelly with the shuffling gait and haunted expression of a dead woman walking.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    The New Girlfriend
    What makes The New Girlfriend special is that is has something to say about sexuality (feminine, masculine, gay, straight, and everything in between – it’s complicated).
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
    For a film posing the metaphysical biggies, there is tenderness and laughs. Its bonkers approach to storytelling and life may drive some nuts. The rest of us will soar with the birds.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Pitch Perfect 2
    Pitch Perfect 2 is totally goofy but very sweet.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Far From Men
    Far from Men is a character study — a two-hander expertly acted by Mortensen and Kateb (best known for the terrific French cop show Spiral).
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Cath Clarke
    Dreamcatcher
    Dreamcatcher is harrowing.
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