Phil Hoad

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The Guardian
For 167 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 37% higher than the average critic
  • 13% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Phil Hoad's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Violation
Lowest review score: 20 Shark Bait
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 48 out of 167
  2. Mixed: 117 out of 167
  3. Negative: 2 out of 167
167 movie reviews
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    • 91 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Menus Plaisirs - Les Troisgros
    At one point, Michel Troisgros insists that cuisine is not cinema, but real life. But Wiseman continually spotlights the importance of close observation in ingredients, taste, preparation and presentation that enables the elevation of the material world into art; from creme brulee forensics, to the staff finicking with the tableware until the setting is just-so.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Pictures of Ghosts
    [A] somewhat bemused memoir-essay about place, cinema and time.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    The Novice
    It’s hard to deny Fuhrman’s pinch-faced vehemence and the film’s hallucinatory verve.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    That They May Face the Rising Sun
    Despite its somewhat diffuse centre, Collins’ film still has a straightforward poignancy, with subtle and dignified performances across the board.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Phil Hoad
    Toofaan
    Partly set in the Mumbai underworld, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s boxing drama aims at Raging Bull grit but has an unfortunately irresistible drift towards late-Rocky melodrama.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Too Late to Die Young
    Castillo’s talent for spiritually attuned atmospherics could be her USP among Chile’s current crop of directors with idiosyncratic slants on their country’s recent past.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Linoleum
    The apparently depressing twist gives Linoleum’s entropy-defying optimism successful lift-off.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Phil Hoad
    Living with Chucky
    The close-knit ethos might well explain the franchise’s gleefully perverse sense of fun, but the truth is this love-in features too much filler.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    The First Slam Dunk
    Fleshed out in 3D animation, the action – feinting, pivoting and occasionally soaring high above the stands – feels resplendently immediate.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    The Count of Monte Cristo
    The pay-off is a fast-moving, good-looking gallop of Mission: Impossible-style mask play, languorous conniving in courtyards and occasional outbreaks of derring-do that chews up three hours without pausing for quail sandwiches.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Porcelain War
    A sombre, steadfast argument for art’s life-giving properties.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Becoming Cousteau
    Becoming Cousteau is no hagiography, but greater distance might have also allowed Garbus to reflect more on the man’s environmental legacy.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Phil Hoad
    The Coffee Table
    Casas has an undeniable nose for middle-class peccadilloes, but tone is everything.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Redux Redux
    If it’s not quite devious enough overall, Redux Redux still opens up a punchy murder-revenge side alley for the genre.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Late Night with the Devil
    The directors and Dastmalchian – high on his own bogus gravitas – have fun with a fresh premise that reminds us that light entertainment is the anteroom of hell.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Phil Hoad
    My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
    All the exertion – fleshed out in visuals that veer from Astro Boy-aping cutesiness to interestingly rough closeups, as if the animation itself is fraying in the heat of battle – pays diminishing dividends. The panoply of powers begin to seem interchangeable, the character arcs dim.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Daddy's Head
    Barfoot taps into liminal terrors more effectively through the visuals, from the gracefully shot fugue states experienced by stepmother and surrogate son, to a sinewy barrelling nightmare-beast that has apparently escaped from a Chris Cunningham video.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Charli XCX: Alone Together
    Charli XCX’s drive and heart are infectious, even for non-Angels.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    The Vigil
    It still just about puts the id in Hasidic, thanks to spiritually atmospheric cinematography and a twitchy, expressive performance from Davis, who resembles Riz Ahmed, and wards off evil with that most Jewish of charms: heroic self-deprecation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Beirut
    Despite possessing unusually detailed context for a thriller, it’s a bit like diplomatic efforts in the region: the same old story.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Gatlopp
    Belli’s supple direction – reminiscent of Edgar Wright’s pop’n’snap – keeps its energy levels high as it roves around the living room that is its main location; it also exults in the occasional set-piece, such as the players’ Jazzercise routine. There aren’t quite enough of these zany segues, but with a larger budget, you can smell the franchise potential here.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Blood Relatives
    With his reedy voice and fractionally mis-set eyes, Segan exploits his unsettling qualities in a deadpan performance that he lifts, as director, with pleasingly snappy, almost comic-book-like direction.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    LaRoy, Texas
    If Atkinson isn’t quite the Coen inheritor he aspires to be, this hectic flurry of schemers, snatchers and low-lifes puts him three-quarters of the way to inventing a new genre: Texan noir farce.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    New Life
    New Life makes the most of Jessica’s fraught interactions on the road, with spasmodic bursts of bubo-popping horror.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Phil Hoad
    Akilla's Escape
    This tale of freelance underworld fixer Akilla Brown, played with careworn wisdom by Saul Williams, doesn’t live up to its sharp tailoring and has too much faith in fatigued beats from the gangster-film locker.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    My Hero Academia: You're Next
    There’s nothing revolutionary here, but the hybrid of old-style battle manga with a more modern oneiric sensibility feels a little different from standard superhero loudhailing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Bumblebee
    While Knight and team duck origin-story slavishness that has dogged so much recent franchise work, they succeed in reviving the playful Saturday-morning-serial spirit of the original 80s Transformers.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Influencer
    The four-part shuffle keeps it lively, and Naud is an imposing black hole.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    Widow Clicquot
    It’s not quite the full grand cru period drama from the Merchant Ivory vintage, but rather a semi-sparkling biopic.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Phil Hoad
    A Good Woman Is Hard to Find
    The opportunistic genre-welding holds together thanks to vivid performances. Bolger makes a slightly implausible character arc completely convincing, graduating from panicky improvisation to grim determination.
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