Observer's Scores

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For 1,801 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Denial
Lowest review score: 0 From Paris with Love
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,004 out of 1801
  2. Mixed: 382 out of 1801
  3. Negative: 415 out of 1801
1801 movie reviews
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  1. Big Bad Wolves
    Unpredictable, with a twisted surprise around each corner, Big Bad Wolves is a clever and arresting shocker from a country where blood and gore on the screen are least expected.
  2. Scream
    It’s fun, not in a way a computer or a boardroom might interpret fun—pixels taking the shape of something familiar, regurgitated across the screen—but rather, in an unabashed way, where it winks at the audience without apologizing for its gimmick, without being insincere or self-deprecating, and without sacrificing what makes popcorn horror movies such a reliable collective ritual.
  3. M3GAN
    On top of being a memorable horror-comedy, it’s also a pretty solid piece of science fiction, ruminating on the increasingly fraught relationship between parents, children, and technology.
  4. The Aeronauts
    The dialogue is dull as dried glue, but the acting is fine, although the boundless range and skill of Redmayne is wasted, which might account for the reason he doesn’t appear to enjoy the ride as much as he could. Unfortunately, we’ve seen it all before with motorcycles, submarines, airplanes and ships at sea in peril instead of hot-air balloons.
  5. American Animals
    It’s not the predictable plot that holds interest, but the unusual smart-aleck script by British writer-director Bart Layton that blends elements of the true story with an almost journalistic approach.
  6. Kodachrome
    Well-considered and sincerely acted, Kodachrome is a character-driven drama that has been wrongly labeled a comedy by some so-called critics. There is nothing funny about it.
  7. Path of Blood
    Powerful, devastating, depressing and deeply unsettling, the documentary Path of Blood by British filmmaker Jonathan Hacker gives new meaning to the word terror.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Godzilla vs. Kong
    The plot is built to deliver on the promise of the title, which it does with aplomb.
  9. Unexpected
    A sweet, honest, well-acted and carefully constructed little film that truly lives up to its title.
  10. The Catcher Was a Spy
    The result is a juicy true story told blandly, but The Catcher Was a Spy is still a movie worth seeing.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Challengers
    Loud, long, a little messy and very sweaty, Challengers may not be as sexy as its explosive first trailer implied, but it’s still a hell of a movie.
  12. The Devil's Double
    You won't find yourself yawning. It's a great double stretch for an actor and Mr. Cooper plays both the smoldering Latif and the bombastic Uday with combustible energy.
  13. Lucky
    The movie is so carefully observed and quietly calibrated as the old man moves from one scene to the next, as unobtrusive as a lap dissolve, that you can’t tell Harry from Lucky, or vice versa, and it doesn’t take long before you stop trying.
  14. Diary of a Chambermaid
    Diary of a Chambermaid doesn’t quite add up to the chronicle of decadent abuse endured by the servant class in turn of the century France that it hopes to be, but it’s still worth seeing as another entry in the rise of Léa Seydoux, a star of Gallic charisma if ever I’ve seen one.
  15. Villains
    In Villains, an energetic combination of black comedy and lazy thriller that is more of an attention grabber than most of what passes for disorganized, empty-headed, juvenile horror in today’s sociopathic cinema, four very good actors give it all they’ve got for nearly 90 minutes. Considering most of what I’ve suffered through this year, that passes for praise.
  16. A Private War
    Because it concentrates on her professional risks and accomplishments at the expense of the personal conflicts that give the film its title, it’s not a perfect film, but Rosamund Pike is so good in it that she’s certain to be remembered when the 2018 awards season rolls around.
  17. Holler
    A film that feels immersed in fog, and one that reserves even sunlight for vital moments, Holler is a gorgeously-textured exploration of the way ruthless corporatism trickles down through each layer of a country, and a system, until it falls on the shoulders of a young girl and obscures her future.
  18. Crawl
    While Crawl never quite achieves the classic status of Jaws, it’s so convincing that you forget about the mechanics and become petrified by the gore.
  19. Good Neighbors
    Good Neighbors is a hotbed of twisted ideas with a straightforward yet novel approach to the Gothic horror in the hearts of mistakenly everyday people. Stressful and disconcerting but highly recommended, it gave me nightmares.
  20. Phantom Thread
    As impeccably made and beautiful to look at as it is, Phantom Thread, under close scrutiny, is a disappointment, as elusive as its meaningless title.
  21. Calvary
    Downbeat, depressing and heavy as lead, Calvary is nevertheless an unusual film that never bores. Impeccable performances by Chris O’Dowd, Aiden Gillen, M. Emmett Walsh and Kelly Reilly are riveting. And Mr. Gleeson is a bear-like centerpiece of conflicts and contradictions who anchors the floating pieces of the Irish puzzle in faith and doctrine, while mercifully refusing to sermonize.
  22. Shot
    Shot is sobering, suspenseful and exemplary.
  23. Freak Show
    The results are a mixed bag of charm and calamity, marking the feature-length directorial debut of Trudie Styler who, in real life, is the wife of singing star Sting. She’s a talent worth watching.
  24. Gravity
    Accept Gravity as pure, popcorn-munching show business fun and nothing else, and you won’t go away disappointed.
  25. The Invisible Man
    When Whannell’s movie is at its best, the audience is not just a witness to the terror; we are part of the machinery that inflicts it. Which is not to say that — when it works — this remake of James Whale’s 1933 classic is a success born of camera placement, special effects, or even conceptual daring.
  26. Into the Forest
    In the hands of these two talented and well-matched actors, Into the Forest proves that this bond is powerful enough to sustain us.
  27. Bombshell
    The result seems to tiptoe around the even juicier chance to tell the dirty behind the scenes stories that could have made this story a real bombshell indeed.
  28. Out in the Dark
    It’s one of the most powerful films about the Arab-Israeli conflict that has ever been attempted on the screen.
  29. David Crosby: Remember My Name
    Produced by Cameron Crowe, who interviewed Crosby as a young journalist for Rolling Stone in 1974, the film spins a powerful and enlightening fable about the ultimate cost of survival. It’s about what happens when the most reckless and bridge-burning among us ends up being rock’s Harry Potter — i.e. the boy who lives — and must sift through the guilt and wreckage of all the relationships left in his wake.
  30. A Vigilante
    After "Enough" and five "Death Wish" movies, the revenge genre is not without its recurring clichés, many of which get defrosted and microwaved again in A Vigilante. The point, if there is one, is that “heinous criminal felonies are acceptable if they are justified by a woman driven beyond the limits of reason.” As one battered wife says, “Every graveyard is full of people who didn’t make it.” The same is true of old movies gathering dust in Hollywood film vaults.
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