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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    • 49 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
    Jovovich binds the episodic action sequences, her face a mask of noble pain and isolation. She outruns zombies, orchestrates catapults of flaming gasoline, literally slays a dragon with a Hummer – and all without a single unnecessary quip or wasted kiss.
  2. Trespass Against Us
    Plotless and illogical.
  3. Split
    Unfortunately, Split is a preposterous bore that steals shamelessly from "The Search for Bridey Murphy," "The Three Faces of Eve," "Sybil" and Shirley Jackson’s novel "The Bird’s Nest," made by a man who has been spending entirely too much time watching "Law and Order: SVU."
  4. The Founder
    A saucy, twinkling star performance by Michael Keaton make this one of the must-see entertainments of the year.
  5. Alone in Berlin
    As valiant and important as the film is, Alone in Berlin is not perfect. The director is the French actor Vincent Perez, whose commitment to the material is obvious, but whose lack of experience (it’s only his third effort behind the camera) shows badly.
  6. 100 Streets
    The actors are fine, but the material doesn’t give their talents much room to stretch.
  7. Patriots Day
    The question is, How big an audience is ready to relive the horror of a tragedy so close to home, especially in the light of the terrorist attacks that continue to assault our senses daily?
  8. Live by Night
    Live By Night boils over with ambience and charged with details, from Roaring 20s flapper costumes to shootouts in period cars, but too many aborted narratives in Affleck’s lifeless screenplay intertwine, fanning the confusion, while other subplots are abandoned altogether.
  9. Fences
    The best ensemble work of the year
  10. La La Land
    So in spite of its flaws, La La Land has moments of pleasure and satisfaction that are worth the price of admission. It’s not that it’s a bad movie; it’s just not an outstanding entertainment, the way great movies (especially musicals) should be.
  11. Frank & Lola
    Michael Shannon is a convincing and resourceful actor who is now too established and viable to settle for enigmatic roles in meaningless, throwaway movies with zero possibilities for commercial success like a thing called Frank & Lola.
  12. Jackie
    Never embroidered or rehearsed, the way so many biopics are, this is a wonderful movie that feels freshly observed, like an uninvited peek through some forbidden White House keyhole, at the woman we called Jackie.
  13. Lion
    Once in awhile, a movie comes along that is so touching and sincere, without a moment of false emotion or manipulative self-indulgence, that it establishes squatters’ rights and moves into your heart to stay.
  14. Allied
    Beautiful, bold and blazing with sex and suspense, Allied is a gorgeously photographed, intensely romantic, action-packed film by the great director Robert Zemeckis with two titanic star performances by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard that delivers something for everyone.
  15. Shut In
    We’ve seen it all before in dozens of low-budget slasher movies. This one just has a better cast — dismally wasted and left to seek better employment elsewhere.
  16. Nocturnal Animals
    The juxtaposition of tone, theme and content in the narratives fails beyond the basic ideas. This leaves the capable Gyllenhaal to do little more than scream and rant hysterically.
  17. Manchester by the Sea
    Manchester by the Sea is the best movie of the year.
  18. Arrival
    "Enemy" and "Sicario" were unspeakable disasters, and Arrival, the director’s latest exercise in pretentious poopery, gives me every reason to believe I have parted company with Denis Villeneuve for good.
  19. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
    As a movie, it lacks the unlimited manpower to equal Hacksaw Ridge, but as a dramatic postscript to the factors that led to Japanese surrender, its power and importance are undeniable.
  20. Elle
    It’s too twisted and implausible to be everybody’s cup of tea, but it keeps you glued to the screen from beginning to end. Boredom and bathroom breaks are not an option.
  21. 13th
    Perhaps even more powerfully, the film informs us of stories we don’t know but should.
  22. Bleed for This
    Nothing much revelatory here, but what makes the movie a keeper is the energy of director Ben Younger (Boiler Room) and the charisma of Miles Teller, the sensational young actor from "Whiplash," who invests the role of a prizefighter with the same intensity he brought to the role of an obsessively driven drummer in that film.
  23. Hacksaw Ridge
    The best war film since "Saving Private Ryan." It is violent, harrowing, heartbreaking and unforgettable. And yes, it was directed by Mel Gibson. He deserves a medal, too.
  24. Doctor Strange
    People who ask nothing more for their money than a lot of nerve-scrambling computerized special effects might get through Doctor Strange, another in a long line of lengthy, stupid and unbearable Marvel Studios comic books on film, with minimal brain damage.
  25. By Sidney Lumet
    This film is too long for a documentary, and only a true Sidney Lumet fan is likely to sit through nearly two hours of it undistracted. Still, it’s a fascinating exploration of how a great mind worked by allowing the quality of his scripts to determine the style of each film—including not only the inner life but the camera, the clothes, the entire visual approach.
  26. American Pastoral
    American Pastoral tries to be loyal in its adaptation, but the material is film-resistant and flat as cardboard.
  27. King Cobra
    King Cobra is a cut above most homoerotic masturbatory screen fantasies, but not by much.
  28. The Whole Truth
    A guaranteed cure for insomnia, an abomination called The Whole Truth is a courtroom movie that looks like a colorized version of an old Perry Mason TV show, starring Renée Zellweger’s new face and Keanu Reeves, who has the charisma and animated visual appeal of a mud fence.
  29. Desierto
    Desierto is an action thriller that delivers unforgettable punches at a feverish pace. You won’t doze through this one.
  30. Certain Women
    Comprising three separate, unrelated and thoroughly inconsequential short stories about lonely, miserable women in the isolated landscape of Montana, Certain Women is the latest thumping bore from Kelly Reichardt, a writer-director-editor who makes bland, low-budget films about various hidden aspects of women’s lives they are reluctant to reveal, then take forever to do so.
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