Empire's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 6,824 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Oppenheimer
Lowest review score: 20 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Score distribution:
6824 movie reviews
  1. Black-veined and dark-hearted, this is another persuasive character study from Campos.
  2. A harrowing, economical thriller that will sit with you for days, this is Shyamalan’s best film in years, and a calling card for Bautista in his strongest performance yet.
  3. The script might have benefited from being directed by someone more daring, instead George Roy Hill settles for more mainstream territory.
  4. Classic War caper with a few too many plot contrivances but high on adventure.
  5. Vividly staged but sentimental extravaganza.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A daring reimagining of an oft-told story, Kiss Of The Spider Woman features some sensational musical moments that nicely hark back to classic Hollywood, but struggles to reconcile two very different worlds.
  6. If you hear the Rocky theme and think '118 118', you might wonder what all the fuss is about. For the rest of us, this is a reminder of why we fell in love with the character in the first place.
  7. A fascinating and visually impressive intellectual helter-skelter ride, but the lack of narrative coherence lets down its promising sci-fi concepts and satire.
  8. A screwball comedy, with two well-cast leads, with a pre-Sex and the City Parker and a amusing Cage. The plot is ridiculous but enjoyably so, with enough jokes to carry it for an hour and a half and a relatively fast pace prevents you from seeing the holes in the story.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bourne goes epic. A wham-bam actioner, but its pointed political subtext ensures Damon and Greengrass deliver their most provocative mission yet.
  9. Stark, bold drama.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Paul Schrader delivers another compelling investigation of conflicted men in modern America. Master Gardener has a stately pace but a knockout punch; enriching cinema for the discerning punter.
  10. Sterling performances lift the occasionally soapy storyline in this semi-successful adaptation.
  11. A great cast is let down by a script that fails to provide a compelling mystery to solve. Never mind as a big-screen production, this would be disappointing as a BBC mini-series.
  12. A sports film with an arthouse sensibility. It benefits greatly from its chosen subject matter — two of the most remarkable characters in sporting history — but only manages to truly get under the skin of one of them.
  13. Too scattershot to land any effective punches.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A birdie biopic that’s too keen to avoid ruffling feathers, Lowthorpe’s film still boasts two brilliant lead performances — a magnificent Foy and an even more majestic Mabel.
  14. Exciting in parts, Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon doing their best, but arc of suspense doesn't quite bring you to the edge of your seats.
  15. One for the die hards. The saving grace here is a knowing sense of humour so lacking in its predecessor, For Your Eyes Only.
  16. A bold, brave first effort behind the camera for Viggo Mortensen, elegantly distilling some painful truths for anyone who has ever had a complicated relationship with a parent.
  17. A raw, lean and abrasively effective thriller from Steven Soderbergh, which features Claire Foy as we’ve never seen her before.
  18. While the quirky structure could be taken as a bold move, the story still feels frustratingly incomplete, rendering the preceding hour or so a tantalising glimpse at what could have been.
  19. Tender and touching, this gay coming-of-ages story is underpinned by a terrific, subtle turn from newcomer Florizoone.
  20. So so adaptation of the Kipling story. The human performances are riotous but their animal counterparts are blank canvases yet to be coloured.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fluffy thriller, with moments of unintentional humour.
  21. A lurid, luminous teen-bender movie, as ludicrous as it is stylish, and Harmony Korine’s best film in years.
  22. Genuinely disturbing horror but with Cronenberg producing a slightly deeper edge in his portrait of a troubled family.
  23. Moving and convincing as a case for romantic anxiety being the most isolating thing in the world. Fingernails is funny until it’s not: deeply romantic from the top of your head to the end of your fingernails.
  24. More Damon Runyan than Irvine Welsh, but as entertaining as it is important.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Curiously uninvolving. It never comes to life -- even after someone is found dead. Nevertheless, there are pleasures to be found in the performances, particularly in Eddie Izzard's lovelorn Chaplin and Edward Herrmann's paranoid Hearst.

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