Donald Clarke

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The Irish Times
For 556 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Donald Clarke's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Son of Saul
Lowest review score: 20 Sonic the Hedgehog
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 280 out of 556
  2. Mixed: 255 out of 556
  3. Negative: 21 out of 556
556 movie reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Censor
    A clever concept carried out with great invention and some emotional honesty.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan
    Rather than just pushing the characters through their familiar beats, the well-judged narrative arc takes them on something like a proper journey.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    CODA
    Coda is an unqualified success in its relaxed, almost matter-of-fact treatment of how deaf families move through a largely uncomprehending society.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Free Guy
    There is a fair degree of fun to be had before the script gets too caught up in its own mythology.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Zola
    Time will tell if the social media thread is set to become the epic poem of the new millennium. For now, Zola feels like a triumphant lunge into fresh territory.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Boys from County Hell
    The unreal feels real. The real feels even more real. A decidedly decent slice of bog horror.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Donald Clarke
    Limbo
    This is a wonderful comedy that savours its remote environment while keeping its subjects at the centre of the story. There are always new ways of telling the era’s most unavoidable sad stories. Not to be missed.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    The Suicide Squad
    Hardcore fans will rejoice in telling us it is not for children. It’s not really for adults either. But the eternal inner adolescent that lives within us all will almost certainly have a swell time.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    I Never Cry
    I Never Cry works best as a showcase for a terrific young actor with a nuanced grasp of a complex character.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Old
    For all the mad adventure, it feels like a Twilight Zone episode stretched out thinly to feature length.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Deerskin
    Dupieux is flogging no message. He’s inviting us to take risks on a ride that is as unpredictable as it is spooky. And it’s all done in under 80 minutes. There is nothing else like it out there.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Donald Clarke
    Finding You
    In short, domestic viewers in search of outrage may find themselves a tad disappointed.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Black Widow
    Already established as a wizard with buried irony, Pugh politely steals the film with a witty performance that makes sense of even the silliest moments.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Jumbo
    It’s not exactly a world you would want to live in but Jumbo, nonetheless, is awash with a sympathetic visual aesthetic that gives us some sense of where the odd passion springs from. It needs a strong actor to compete with that madness, and Merlant does not disappoint.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Son
    The plotting is, alas, a little slack in the later stages. There is a sense of flailing around en route to a reasonably satisfactory destination. Son remains, nonetheless, the work of a singular, oddball talent. Seek out.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Another Round
    Shot in chocolatey browns amid the more comfortable suburbs of Copenhagen, Another Round underlines its later, more cautious warnings by reminding us how inexhaustibly tedious the drunk seem to the sober.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Supernova
    The two flawless performances, presented in the polite shades of prestige British cinema, make a winning case for the virtues of seasoned affection. An irresistible treat.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    F9: The Fast Saga
    It really isn’t worth trying to keep up. Immerse yourself rather in the sillier stunts and the genuinely sparky interplay between committed action stars: Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Cardi B (!).
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Luca
    It’s well-meaning. It’s lively. It’s moderately funny. But it is no Finding Nemo.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    In the Earth
    Not everything works in the admirably bizarre In the Earth, but nobody can deny Wheatley is back in his freak-folk wheelhouse.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    A Quiet Place Part II
    The set-ups are every bit as tense as before. The cast continue to throw themselves at the material with admirable gusto.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Donald Clarke
    Gunda
    A highly original, singularly beautiful film.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    After Love
    None of this would work if the lead actors were not so firmly connected to their complex roles.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Cruella
    Cruella plays like the result of an endless script conference that generated only partial answers to the questions being asked.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Donald Clarke
    The 8th
    Absolutely essential.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Army of the Dead
    Freed from the pretensions of his DC projects and working with the Netflix charge card, Snyder has a ball proving that trash can triumph on the largest stage if played with elan and enthusiasm.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Donald Clarke
    Cowboys
    Cowboys nonetheless gets by on goodwill and a passion for compromised Americana. Only a lowdown dirty heel would cuss it out.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Apples
    Apples works both as an unintended record of the times and as a wry comment on the ancient human condition. Dare we call it “memorable”?
    • 42 Metascore
    • 20 Donald Clarke
    Wild Mountain Thyme
    Viewing the entire film as it finally arrives to video on demand, one remains staggered that sentient human beings who walk upright and use cutlery believed this was a respectable use of their valuable time.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Donald Clarke
    Nomadland
    Joshua James Richards’s poetic cinematography – allowing in sunsets that drag us back to the America of John Ford – contributes to the queasy sense that redemption can come from landscape. Those sorts of conflicts are everywhere in a film that is quietly at war with itself throughout.
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