The Guardian's Scores

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For 6,656 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 London Road
Lowest review score: 0 Melania
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,521 out of 6656
  2. Mixed: 3,814 out of 6656
  3. Negative: 321 out of 6656
6656 movie reviews
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  1. Yakuza Princess
    It’s been compiled with enthusiasm, flashes of skill, and a certain devil-may-care cheek – an infusion of newish blood for a Brazilian film industry that’s been badly drained in recent years.
  2. The Voyeurs
    Mohan handles his audience with care, diligence, attentiveness, creativity, smoldering passion – the mind positively swims with sexual metaphors. That’s the headspace in which this film leaves us: a well-made gutter we haven’t had the chance to visit for far too long.
  3. Halloween Kills
    Forty years after John Carpenter made the defining slasher movie, director David Gordon Green has made a creditable stab, as it were, at reanimating the title.
  4. From the Vine
    An Italian-American man in late middle age rejects the rat race and embarks on a voyage of self-discovery and winemaking in this lifelessly unfunny comedy.
  5. Copilot
    Anne Zohra Berrached’s film is ambitious and interestingly intended, but naive and flawed, with a fundamental problem, which is right up there in the title.
  6. Sweet Thing
    This small, delicate, late-blooming film is quite lovely, and a throwback to the 1990s/2000s craze for semi-improvised, rough and ready indie film-making.
  7. Sundown
    It’s pitiless and pitch-perfect, an existential tour-de-force with shades of Camus’s The Outsider.
  8. Wife of a Spy
    There is sweep and confidence in this movie
  9. Boiling Point
    The explosively potent Graham does deliver a colossal, intimate ending, acted with complete and affecting sincerity. He has presence, potency and force.
  10. Wildfire
    It’s a potent drama – and a melancholy reminder of the talent that Irish cinema and TV lost in McGuigan
  11. Last Night in Soho
    British writer-director Edgar Wright takes a grab-bag of 1960s ingredients, paints them up and makes them dance to his tune. His film is thoroughly silly and stupidly enjoyable.
  12. Spencer
    Kristen Stewart proves entirely compelling in the title role. She gives an awkward and mannered performance as Diana, and this is entirely as it should be when one considers that Diana gave an awkward and mannered performance herself, garnishing her inbred posh hauteur with studied coquettish asides.
  13. Dune: Part One
    Denis Villenueve’s slow-burn space opera fuses the arthouse and the multiplex to create an epic of otherworldly brilliance.
  14. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
    It purports to be a “cinematic meditation” on the havoc humans have wreaked on the environment, yet the style-over-substance approach reduces these eco-conscious contemplations to a mere exercise in aesthetics, without any social or political context.
  15. The Card Counter
    The central relationships can be a little schematic, while the plot slaloms in and out of plausibility. Still, the cast keeps it honest and there is much to relish in the film’s moody, meditative intensity.
  16. The Hand of God
    The Hand of God, no surprise, is Sorrentino’s most nakedly personal film to date, almost to a fault in the way it jettisons the cool distance of The Great Beauty or Il Divo in favour of a sweaty, close-up evocation of youth. It’s a picture only Sorrentino could make. But that doesn’t necessarily make him the safest pair of hands.
  17. Enforcement
    There are plenty of heart-pumping moments, plus a fair few false notes, a couple of implausible coincidences and some exposition-y dialogue spelling out the film’s message, which is about how the two sides see each other.
  18. Misha and the Wolves
    It’s propulsively watchable if a tad light on reflection. And you may feel hoodwinked by one late reveal.
  19. Here Today
    Any movie that helps us to talk about dementia is to be welcomed, and they are becoming more commonplace. But the pure treacliness of Here Today is very dispiriting and there are some tonal missteps.
  20. The Power of the Dog
    It’s a brawny, brooding drama about the wreckage caused by men, beautifully framed in muted neutral tones as the camera circles the ranch-house with a deliberate, stealthy tread.
  21. Parallel Mothers
    Let nobody fault Almodóvar’s ambition here. If this finally lacks the polished sweep and completeness of Pain and Glory, his previous feature, it compensates with an air of fraught intimacy and throws out a wealth of ideas, leaving some tantalising loose ends to be picked up and examined.
  22. Cinderella
    Writer-director Kay Cannon’s new Cinderella isn’t bad, and Camila Cabello makes a rather personable lead, carrying off some of the movie’s generous helping of funny lines.
  23. The Last Bus
    Try as I might, I couldn’t make friends with this weirdly unreal and sentimental Britmovie in the last-journey-with-someone’s-ashes genre. But it is certainly acted with commitment and integrity by Timothy Spall.
  24. Deception
    A film full of people smiling knowingly and laughing delightedly at each other’s not-especially-funny-or-interesting remarks, and it’s all the more insufferable for things the film gets fundamentally and structurally wrong.
  25. Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie's Dead Aunt)
    Ellie & Abbie celebrates queer love – romantic, familial, and intergenerational – in all its distinction. It’s nice, it’s different, and it’s delightful.
  26. Demonic
    The connective circuitry is too identikit for Demonic to be especially distinctive.
  27. The Nest
    This is a film that swerves away from categorisation. It’s an 80-set picture that wears its period locations and its musical references lightly. It’s a city trader film where the main bad guy doesn’t do coke. And it’s a scary movie whose disturbing supernatural interludes happen almost incidentally, a sideshow to the emotional collapse.
  28. Vacation Friends
    The base ingredients are here – a charming, comically adept cast, a fun culture clash set-up, idyllic scenery! – but they’re carelessly tossed together rather than combined with any thought, care or even slickness.
  29. He's All That
    It’s the same feeling, really, as watching a bunch of straight TikToks. While Rae offers flashes of promise, especially when she pops her genuinely winning smile, she doesn’t make the case for TikTok-to-film-stardom here. The chemistry between her and Buchanan is stilted, at best.
  30. The Macaluso Sisters
    The movie has a streak of sentimentality amid its melancholy and a certain formal theatricality: director Emma Dante has adapted the movie from her own stage play, but has opened it out very plausibly and cinematically.
  31. Who You Think I Am
    Binoche’s performance and the movie are elegant, ingenious and sexy.
  32. Surge
    Karia is a smart film-maker and this is a valuable beginning.
  33. Candyman
    This film is a very tasty confection of satire and scorn.
  34. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    It’s an entertaining romp, although the formulaic quality is becoming a little obvious.
  35. Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac
    Here it seems that Death Row Records was simply a criminal organisation, of which rap music was a byproduct. The talent it somehow nurtured in this way looks even more tragically fragile.
  36. Bellbottom
    BellBottom always feels more movie than propaganda – a mission undertaken to offer audiences a good time after the longest and worst time.
  37. Sweet Girl
    Thinly etched topicality only gets the film so far (the script is very “I read an article once”) and when the action mechanics kick into gear, it’s yet more of the same with very little to distinguish it from the pack.
  38. Sabaya
    The first 20 minutes of Hogir Hirori’s extraordinary documentary has the beat of a gripping thriller, full of hushed voices, car chases, and the terrifying sounds of gunfight.
  39. Jakob's Wife
    Crampton and Fessenden’s easy, credible chemistry keeps up a steady baseline of bickering banter that’s charming throughout. The film could have been a bit more audacious about tweaking Christian pieties, but you can’t have everything.
  40. Reminiscence
    The reminders of Inception become so distracting that the film starts to border on pastiche. ... It’s overwhelming, even suffocating at times, which is a shame because there are elements here that work independently, without the need for the Nolan playbook to be so obsessively followed.
  41. The Night House
    There are enough crafty surprises buried within The Night House to just about outweigh the elements that don’t work quite as well, mainly because it’s all delivered with such fiery conviction by Hall. The house might be built on shaky foundations but its inhabitant is utterly unshakable.
  42. People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan
    What really redeems the film are the brilliantly observed characters: these are archetypes of modern Britain that nobody really nailed before. Created by the principal actors themselves, they are generally portrayed with affection rather than condescension, and performed so convincingly that a newcomer might well believe they were real people.
  43. Beckett
    Like Beckett trying to escape his pursuers, it’s a scrappy little film but one worth keeping up with.
  44. The Fever
    The Fever is a calm and quiet and subtle film, a little inert perhaps, but deeply engaged with the hidden lives of Brazil’s indigenous people. There is poetry in it.
  45. Midnight in the Switchgrass
    Even though it’s largely deeply undistinguished work, credit is due to whoever rustled up some great supporting actors for little roles around the edges, such as Welker White as the mother of one murdered kid, and Samiah Alexander, who is a hoot as a punctilious trucking company secretary.
  46. New Order
    On the most basic level, it is a warning of what inequality can cause in the future and what it is effectively causing right now. Perhaps there is something nihilistic here, but New Order very effectively persuades you that a real-life revolution might well be every bit as ugly, horrifying and un-Hollywood as this shows – and that it is on the way.
  47. I'm Your Man
    I was disappointed with a film whose crises and dilemmas seem laborious and essentially predictable; it does not fully work as sci-fi or satire or comedy.
  48. WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
    Jed Rothstein’s very entertaining documentary is another horror story from the tulip-feverish world of tech startups.
  49. Don't Breathe 2
    Don’t Breathe 2 is not only struggling for air but it’s struggling for purpose and meaning and hopefully this weekend, audiences too.
  50. Bleed with Me
    Moses’ story circumnavigates a relationship between two women, one that is charged with an intensity that’s more than platonic but less than erotic, and inflected by an unequal power distribution.
  51. Free Guy
    Free Guy isn’t going to have many MA theses written about it, but it has entertainment value.
  52. Zola
    Now this has been turned into a very entertaining lowlife crime comedy from director and co-writer Janicza Bravo, a film that preserves the fishy flavour of the online original – if perhaps only semi-intentionally – and has interesting things to say about the exhaustingly performative and self-promotional world of social media.
  53. Vivo
    The eye-popping gloss of Vivo will probably lure in impressive numbers for Netflix (the animation itself is generic but impressive) but in a genre that promises so much magic, the spell cast by Miranda and co is a brief one.
  54. The Sparks Brothers
    It is simultaneously exasperating and magnificent that he shows no interest whatever in asking the Mael brothers anything about their personal, emotional or romantic lives.
  55. Settlers
    Settlers isn’t perfect: some of the storytelling beats aren’t hit as clearly as they could have been. But it’s a quietly impressive piece of work.
  56. Spirit Untamed
    It’s a sweet, undemanding film that, despite the title, is tamer than a sedated bunny. That said, the four-year-old I watched with spontaneously yelped “this is the best!” 20 minutes in. So really, what do I know?
  57. The Suicide Squad
    Not everything works here, but the sheer crazy confidence-through-chaos of the Suicide Squad and their bizarrely dysfunctional MO makes for a mighty spectacle.
  58. The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
    It is a desperately unhappy story, sympathetically told by film-makers Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri.
  59. Jungle Cruise
    The spark that was there in the opening section disappears and the film splutters out into something directionless and derivative and dull.
  60. Out of Death
    The film squanders one or two promising plot ideas, and winds up making a hamfisted paean of praise to the idea of “open carry” gun ownership.
  61. The Offering
    It’s a shame that Durall doesn’t find his torrid and sophisticated story the visual register it deserves, leaving The Offering with a humdrum televisual ambience that’s a bit unsatisfying.
  62. The True Don Quixote
    A whimsical, good-natured romp, sure, but one that’s only mildly amusing.
  63. The Garden Left Behind
    It’s not reasonable to ask that the film keeps Tina safe, but a sense from the start that things might end badly for her made me wince a little even during the lovely, authentic-feeling scenes of her life.
  64. Man Under Table
    Money can’t buy you good comic instincts, inventiveness or a sense of playful whimsy, but, fortunately, Taylor and his handful of collaborators have all that for free.
  65. The Boy Behind the Door
    In the end this is a fundamentally genre-subservient film, staying within the safe lines that absolves it from getting close to the true horrors it hints at.
  66. Off the Rails
    The net effect of Debbie Harry popping up at 10-second intervals on the soundtrack to top up levels of ironic sass is to highlight how that quality is in generally short supply in the script.
  67. The World to Come
    Fastvold’s film is distinctive in that she shows us how physical constraint and violence are part of the fabric of living.
  68. Val
    It’s pure hagiography and taken as that, it’s skillfully assembled, even stylishly so at times, and Kilmer’s insights into his art skirt just the right side of Inside the Actors Studio indulgence but as a portrait of a star known for his rough edges, it’s all far too smooth.
  69. Riders of Justice
    There are action thrills, to be sure, but they are folded into what becomes a sort of group therapy session on the psychology of grief, guilt, vengeance, chance and coincidence. Even more blessedly, it’s often hilarious.
  70. Bye Bye Morons
    Some French films, like wine, don’t travel. This one turns to vinegar.
  71. Last Letter from Your Lover
    The central romance here is, on paper, a love for the ages, a story of all-consuming passion. It’s not quite so in practice.
  72. Old
    The elements of silliness and deadly seriousness are nicely balanced and although I wasn’t absolutely sure about the ending, which has maybe too neat a bow tied on it, this is just very enjoyable and I was on the edge of my seat, not knowing whether to flinch or laugh, though I did both.
  73. Jolt
    Altogether, this is flyweight fun.
  74. Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
    The script’s attempts at wisdom amount to little more than dime-store platitudes, and the internecine turmoil of the Arashikage clan never comes close to anything like emotional heft.
  75. Kandisha
    The closing stretch – including an exorcism in an imam’s incantation-lined apartment (interior design goals!) – is brutally effective. By this time, Aisha Kandisha is a towering succubus; postcolonial theory stomping in on a pair of terrifying goat’s hooves.
  76. Luz: The Flower of Evil
    The film is depressingly thin on the women; often it seems more interested in arranging them in arty tableaux than investigating the way that isolation has shaped their personalities and how they see the world.
  77. Every Breath You Take
    The whole thing hangs on a twist that anyone who has ever watched a trashy thriller will have cottoned on to at around the 20-minute mark.
  78. Mi Iubita Mon Amour
    It’s an engaging piece of work from Merlant who has a real sense of directing an ensemble of actors.
  79. Here We Are
    The last half hour, so finely underplayed, is quietly devastating.
  80. Rogue Hostage
    The whole shooting match is pretty bloody, and as cheesy as the dairy aisle, but decent fun to watch.
  81. Phil Liggett: The Voice of Cycling
    This film (and Liggett) is likable and charming enough.
  82. Night of the Kings
    The freshness of the approach, combined with the substance of the stories, works the same strange magic on the viewer as on the inmates. It is easy to be swept along.
  83. Air Conditioner
    The tech may be on the blink, but this striking debut makes humanity seem like a beautiful malfunction.
  84. I Never Cry
    This is an enjoyable rollercoaster of absurdities and poignancy, and a marvellous showcase for Stafiej’s talent.
  85. A Day for Susana
    Here is a film that accomplishes the difficult task of capturing the heroic trials of its subject without overly valorising and mythologising the real person.
  86. Three Floors
    It can be overwrought and even absurd but lively and heartfelt.
  87. The Restless
    In narrative terms it never really develops any of its characters or relationships, yet its two utterly heartfelt lead performances make this a grimly authentic spectacle.
  88. Petrov's Flu
    No one could doubt the technical mastery of this movie and its formal audacity. But for all that, I found something unliberating in its mercurial restlessness.
  89. Paris, 13th District
    I’m not sure that Les Olympiades says anything too profound about any of its cast of characters, but Audiard achieves something very watchable and entertaining in anthologising them. This is a connoisseur date movie.
  90. Memoria
    In a calmly realist, non-mystic movie language, this director really can convince you that the living and the dead, the past and the present, the terrestrial and the other, do exist side by side.
  91. France
    Dumont’s secular crisis-of-faith drama has much to say about the corrosive effect of our 24-hour news culture. But it is also indecisive and compromised and plays out as a prolonged admission of defeat.
  92. The Divide
    This is a well-intentioned film with some forthright performances, although there’s a fair bit of actorly shouting going on and the smiley spaciness of Bruni-Tedeschi can sometimes feel a bit affected.
  93. Casablanca Beats
    It is all presented earnestly and engagingly, though self consciously, and if the political debates are unsolved, well, that could be because they are unsolved in real life. It’s certainly a heartening demonstration that new ideas can flourish in a religious society.
  94. Between Two Worlds
    Neither of the two worlds of the film’s English title is illuminated clearly enough
  95. Vortex
    Noé’s extraordinary film unfolds as a tale of murmured terrors and nameless dread, creeping softly around a cramped Paris apartment like a cinematic Grim Reaper.
  96. Fear Street Part Three: 1666
    Janiak has found a way to add new life to old material, gifting us with the rare horror franchise that makes us want more rather than less, the prospect of an expanded universe seeming less like a curse and more of a blessing.
  97. 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.
  98. The Croods: A New Age
    There is just too much going on, and the movie doubles in hecticness with every minute that passes, which may have you rummaging around for a couple of paracetamol.
  99. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
    Even when it’s trying too hard, the very fact that it’s trying at all makes it hard to dislike. The rules might not make any sense but you’ll have fun playing along regardless.
  100. Space Jam: A New Legacy
    The core issues of the film – its numbing swirls of rainbow light popping out every which way, the excruciating pop-culture catchphrases passed off as humor, LeBron’s stilted, if game, acting, the half-assedness with which it delivers the dusty moral to be yourself, the fact that it is unaccountably one half-hour longer than its predecessor – all seem minor in comparison with the insidious ulterior intentions that power this fandom dynamo.
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