Oliver Lyttelton

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For 152 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Oliver Lyttelton's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
Lowest review score: 0 Grace of Monaco
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 101 out of 152
  2. Mixed: 38 out of 152
  3. Negative: 13 out of 152
152 movie reviews
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    • 66 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    Happy New Year, Colin Burstead.
    Some might dismiss the film as minor Wheatley — made in just a couple of weeks, on a budget likely smaller than even many of Wheatley’s inexpensive earlier pictures. But there’s a lot going on in it, from the genuinely profound portrait of how families can bring out the most toxic sides of their members when they’re together, to a light sprinkling of state-of-the-nation, post-Brexit commentary.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    Shadow
    This is a filmmaker in total command of every visual element — his compositions more compelling than ever, the production design almost verging on steampunk, and a special mention has to go to the extraordinary costumes — but it doesn’t feel stifling or precious either.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    The Breaker Upperers
    Most importantly of all: it’s funny. Really, really funny, consistently and constantly.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    They Shall Not Grow Old
    It makes a deeply human experience, and one that’s frequently both educational (the film’s main purpose: a copy will be given to every school in Britain) and moving. In fact, it’s not so much individual faces or interviews that leave the most lasting impression so much as it’s the cumulative impact of all the faces.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Oliver Lyttelton
    Outlaw King
    Those looking for a substantial meal or an Oscar contender are probably going to be left lacking. But so long as you’re prepared for some rousing medieval action and not all that much more, Mackenzie proves here he can work on a significant canvas with a film that must rank as one of Netflix’s more satisfying bigger-budget ventures to date.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Oliver Lyttelton
    Been So Long
    It’s a cast full of the sort of faces that regularly pop up on ones-to-watch lists, and it’s the biggest thing that Been So Long has going for it. “Chewing Gum” fans will know how talented Coel is, but she’s particularly good here with a role that’s more adult and serious than her breakout turn (while still letting her have some fun occasionally).
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    Good Manners
    Pulling off an ambitious mash-up of genres like Good Manners is no easy feat — that Dutra and Rojas pull it off so successfully suggests we’ll be hearing a lot more from them down the road.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Oliver Lyttelton
    Ghost Stories
    There’s still a lot of pleasure to be had here, whether from digging your fingernails into the armrest early on, to Freeman’s sly comic performance later.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    Journey's End
    Journey’s End is about as good an adaptation as you can imagine of the material, and a film with compassion and humanity that goes far beyond its perhaps uncompromisingly prestige-y exterior.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    Thoroughbreds
    It’s the pair’s bond that helps to make the film more interesting than just a study of wealthy murderousness (though it’s great at that too). It’s also a portrait of female friendship that, despite the dark places it goes to, proves to be oddly touching.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Oliver Lyttelton
    Mindhorn
    The film is very, very funny, consistently.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Oliver Lyttelton
    The Levelling
    It isn’t just one of the best debut films of the year, but one of the year’s best films, period.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    The Last Laugh
    For the most part, the breadth of its examination of the subject is welcome, and by the end, it ends up feeling like as definitive a film on comedy and the Holocaust as you could ever want.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Oliver Lyttelton
    Nocturama
    Even if the film isn’t entirely to my taste, it’s a provocative and powerfully made piece of work.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Oliver Lyttelton
    A United Kingdom
    The filmmaker has a real gift for getting into the political context of her stories while never neglecting the personal, and seeing the Khamas gradually win over his people, while still battling the British establishment, is gripping, rewarding and eventually moving.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Oliver Lyttelton
    Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
    At its best, the film becomes something winningly subversive.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Oliver Lyttelton
    The Lovers and the Despot
    The tale of Choi and Shin is a true stranger-than-fiction one, as good a piece of material as a filmmaker could help for. It’s just a shame that, for the most part, The Lovers And The Despot feels like it’s giving you the Cliff Notes version of the story.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Oliver Lyttelton
    Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
    For all the film’s politics, Arabian Nights can also be whimsical, swooningly romantic, inspiring, fascinating, or deeply sad.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Oliver Lyttelton
    Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One
    It’s as successful as it is ambitious.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One
    It’s dizzying stuff, and virtually everything that Gomes tries his hand to works: it’s a film that’s moving, sad, exciting, fiery, and funny.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Oliver Lyttelton
    Elstree 1976
    Without patronizing or condescending, it’s an examination of how fame can change us and haunt us, and of the complicated relationships that survivors of something like “Star Wars” can have with it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    Bone Tomahawk
    Bone Tomahawk is a proper Western, a proper horror movie, and by combining the two, becomes something else entirely, and proves hugely enjoyable for it.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Oliver Lyttelton
    The Falling
    Every time the picture opens a fascinating door, you're held back from going through by a naff filmmaking choice or a rote story move.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Oliver Lyttelton
    Chronic
    It's a stinker of an ending tacked on to a disappointing third act (which is at least lifted up by Bartlett's performance), and it's a shame because so much of what went on before was so good: a tender, unsentimental, unexploitative look at an existence that all too many people have, and what it is to be someone who looks after them.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    Son of Saul
    Though it has a few elements of its construction that might be questionable, it's mostly a powerful, thoughtful, and visually striking picture.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    My Golden Days
    The film doesn't reinvent the wheel: it is, ultimately, a middle-class-white-boy coming-of-age tale of the kind that the cinema of France, and elsewhere, has never been lacking. But it's written, shot, cut and performed with such palpable joy, intelligence and warmth that it ends up feeling entirely fresh.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    Mia Madre
    As ever, Moretti creates a rich and incredibly detailed world, one where every character has a life that stretches far beyond their on-screen scenes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    Dheepan
    This really is Audiard operating at the top of his game, mostly dropping the contrivances of "Rust & Bone" for incisive character studies and a deeply humane, almost warm, worldview.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Oliver Lyttelton
    The Little Prince
    The book is so counter to our contemporary narrative demands that liberties would need to be taken for a movie version, and for the most part Osborne takes the right liberties, ending up with an extremely beautiful, very charming, thematically rich take that’s sure to be one of the better animated movies this year.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Oliver Lyttelton
    Louder Than Bombs
    Trier’s sensibility for the dynamics of family, for the depiction of nebulous memory, and for the detail of life (the film’s full of beautiful, complex scenes), means that I’m already eager to take a second look and see what else there is to unpack.
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