The Guardian's Scores

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For 6,581 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: 2,495 out of 6581
  2. Mixed: 3,767 out of 6581
  3. Negative: 319 out of 6581
6581 movie reviews
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  1. All Is Lost
    Redford delivers a tour de force performance: holding the screen effortlessly with no acting support whatsoever.
  2. Bachelorette
    Headland has comic smarts enough to venture both filthily revisionist readings of My So-Called Life and riffs on the Potsdam conference, while refusing her audience any comforting safety nets.
  3. A Royal Affair
    The chemistry between Mikkelsen and Vikander barely simmers, when it should boil. Nevertheless, it's a fascinating affair of state.
  4. Promised Land
    Promised Land seems to lose its nerve a little politically: as it goes on, you realise it isn't about fracking at all, but a tract on machiavellian corporate behaviour and their employees' self-deception.
  5. Quartet
    Hoffman has delivered a love letter to the elderly thesps of his adoptive country. We can forgive him its falsehoods.
  6. Girl Model
    This fantastically depressing film ought to be shown in school assemblies, or wherever impressionable pre-teens gather to discuss their dreams of media stardom.
  7. Stand Up Guys
    Some nice touches, though it needs to be indulged.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Last Vegas
    Last Vegas is a good-natured bimbo of a movie, it'll do just about anything to please you, though luckily that includes delivering the 20 big laughs you feel you're owed (unlike The Hangovers), and gently jerking a tear or two. You enjoy it in spite of yourself.
  9. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
    Like Agatha Christie’s detective novels, there would appear little in the way of aesthetic – as opposed to technological – progression; having set the tone so definitively at the outset, each film delivered exactly what it promised.
  10. Penguins of Madagascar
    Penguins of Madagascar is an injection of sugar direct to the pineal gland and woe betide any parent who tries to get their children to take a nap after seeing it.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kung Fu Panda 3
    This is a visually sumptuous kids’ film that will also charm adults.
  12. Pain & Gain
    The movie needed some more detachment – and brevity – but Wahlberg shows once again he has the comedy chops.
  13. The Place Beyond the Pines
    The Place Beyond the Pines is ambitious and epic, perhaps to a fault.
  14. Tales of the Night
    The pick-and-mix approach is limiting, but there's no denying these are gorgeous amuse-bouches, likely to be devoured by older, more discerning children and dyed-in-the-wool stoners alike.
  15. My Father and The Man In Black
    For Cash devotees who want a hitherto-hidden perspective on their man, though, this is invaluable viewing.
  16. The Big Picture
    The direction from Eric Lartigau keeps things moving along fast and furious: preposterous it may be, the movie is carried off with some style.
  17. We're the Millers
    Hang on for the outtake bloopers over the credits and you'll see Aniston momentarily unsure how to take a joke at her expense.
  18. Saving Mr. Banks
    Saving Mr Banks is an indulgent, overlong picture which is always on the verge of becoming a mess. Thankfully, reliable old Tom Hanks snaps his fingers and – spit, spot – everything more or less gets cleared away.
  19. Pusher (2012)
    The Pusher remake may not have the full flavour of the original, but it makes brutally clear how the economics of drugs make paranoia and violence a fact of life.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oldboy
    Oldboy is lively but numb — checked out, as if Lee were directing it following a period of intense convalescence.
  21. A Liar's Autobiography - The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman
    The film's depiction of the ugliness and strangeness of his self-hating LA celeb lifestyle is disturbing. Not just for Python fans.
  22. In Another Country
    In Another Country looks very much like something written on a napkin and shot in the one afternoon that Huppert could come to South Korea. Slight, diverting, forgettable.
  23. Citadel
    Foy's talent lies in suggesting horror, not delivering it.
  24. La Rafle (The Round Up)
    It's a straightforward, heartfelt drama, well acted and well produced.
  25. Gimme the Loot
    Some of the movie doesn't exactly convince, and some of the scenes have an actors-improv feel to them, but there's always plenty of humour and energy.
  26. Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet
    This film is justifiably celebratory and respectful, and it reaches out beyond the rock fanbase.
  27. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
    This Anchorman sequel knows who its fans are, and does its best to keep them happy. No one will be complaining.
  28. Mud
    Mud is an engaging and good-looking picture with two bright leading performances from Sheridan and Lofland.
  29. Hercules
    There are some rousing battle scenes, preceded by stirring addresses on the subject of going to Elysium – all cheekily borrowed from Ridley Scott's "Gladiator."
  30. The Iceman
    As a demonstration of the banality of evil, The Iceman is certainly effective and Shannon's performance gives the film its power.
  31. The Taste of Money
    It is a strange slo-mo farce, well directed, highly sexualised – shallow, but sleek.
  32. Yossi
    It's a film full of tenderness, resting on a tremendous, sad performance from Knoller.
  33. The Fifth Estate
    This is highly competent catnip for the watercooler crowd.
  34. Caesar Must Die
    The most powerful thing about the film is the "audition" scene at the beginning in which the prisoners have to introduce themselves in two ways: sorrowingly, and then angrily. It is a brilliant sequence, and the rest of the film doesn't quite match it.
  35. Muppets Most Wanted
    A wasted opportunity.
  36. I'm So Excited
    It's all watchable and pretty funny, and the big setpiece is the three wildly queeny stewards Joserra, Fajas (Carlos Areces) and Ulloa (Arévalo) going into a drug-fuelled song-and-dance routine: a rendering of the Pointer Sisters' I'm So Excited.
  37. Simon Killer
    Brady Corbet is excellent as thoroughly unlikable Simon.
  38. The Evil Dead
    You could say this is all good gory fun, and The Evil Dead remains a triumph of brains over budget. But in retrospect, you can’t help wondering if Raimi and co didn’t have some women issues to work through?
  39. One Life
    Quite a spectacle, and a nice family outing.
  40. The East
    The East – a sleek thriller clogged by its noble message – heads south. It becomes sanctimonious, makes you contrary. I left craving a Big Mac.
  41. The Boxtrolls
    Set it against the shiny blandishments that have passed for family fun this season, and it starts to look vaguely radical.
  42. Hunky Dory
    Marc Evans's Hunky Dory is sentimental, sweet-natured and daft as a brush.
  43. From Up on Poppy Hill
    It's a light, breezy 1960s-set coming-of-age tale that strives to convey something of how Japan rebuilt itself after the traumas of the second world war.
  44. Reality
    It's a likable film played with gusto and heart — though fundamentally a little sentimental and predictable.
  45. The Sapphires
    It's an amiable film with some great musical moments and the classic "growing success" montage showing them on the road in south-east Asia. On music, identity and race, the film has a big beating heart in the right place.
  46. Mental
    It's always a pleasure to see Collette, a performer who always cranks up the energy, and yet here, as so often, she gives the impression of a ferocious screen intelligence somehow not being used to the full.
  47. Electrick Children
    Rebecca Thomas's gauzy debut about a 15-year-old Mormon who believes she's had an immaculate conception after hearing a cover of Blondie's Hanging on the Telephone is so deftly done it's three parts enchantment to one part irritation.
  48. In the House
    A black-comic psychological drama with poise and self-possession. Featuring Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas, how could it have anything else?
  49. The Kings of Summer
    The director's background in online shorts manifests itself in an occasional, montage-heavy scattiness, and the broadly conventional closing act can't quite maintain the laugh rate, but there's a lot of warm-hearted and commendably daft business along the way.
  50. Adventures of the Penguin King
    There are some nice images of the teeming penguin population, and great fun to be had witnessing the love life, and indeed sex life, of penguins. It does have to be said, though, there is a fair bit of Disneyfication going on.
  51. The Bling Ring
    The final notes of irony and repudiation may be laboured and obvious, but this is an intriguingly intuitive and atmospheric movie.
  52. The We and the I
    Gondry's argument – that pack mentality crushes individual expression – follows a similarly predictable route, but there's enough of his signature playfulness (especially in the use of mobile-phone footage to present flashbacks) to keep the journey entertaining.
  53. Insidious: Chapter 2
    Wan remains a crafty enough director to draw your eye warily across the frame. You shouldn't feel so daft for flinching this time.
  54. V/H/S/2
    There are some dull stretches here, but also some grisly instant hits: nasty, deplorable, vulgar and sometimes brilliant.
  55. Everybody Has a Plan
    It certainly doesn't bore.
  56. Interstellar
    It’s a glorious spectacle, but a slight drama, with few characters and too-rare flashes of humour. It wants to awe us into submission, to concede our insignificance in the face of such grand-scale art. It achieves that with ease. Yet on his way to making an epic, Nolan forgot to let us have fun.
  57. Jupiter Ascending
    It’s all very chaotic and entertaining, like a bizarre cult sci-fi TV show that somehow survived a threat of mid-season cancellation.
  58. White Elephant
    For all the competence and strength of Trapero's direction, the film is not as powerful as it might have been.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks
    The latest documentary to roll out of the Alex Gibney factory looks at the life and times of the crusading website and explores related themes such as freedom of information and the moral responsibility of activism, but is far less illuminating about its silver-haired standard-bearer.
  60. Dog Pound
    Perhaps this tells us nothing new about life on the inside in the US (there are rapes, riots and suicides), but it at least handles its brief with pace and precision.
  61. Midnight's Children
    The movie's pace flags a good deal once Bangladesh has been born in 1971, and the adult characters are much less interesting than their child counterparts, but there's enough here to entertain – and to send audiences back to the book.
  62. Venus and Serena
    The sisters themselves reveal a little, mostly because of Serena's unguarded imperiousness; but as a study of sports supercelebrity it's a tad subdued.
  63. Sightseers
    Sightseers is funny and well made, but Wheatley could be suffering from difficult third album syndrome: this is not as mysterious and interesting as Kill List.
  64. Finding Dory
    The problem with Finding Dory is it doesn’t know when enough is enough. Its believe-in-yourself message is pounded with the subtlety of a hammerhead shark and the final action sequence is really too far-fetched to fathom.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus
    Crystal Fairy is an acid trip where the frequent bonhomie is doused by sobering introspection.
  66. Austenland
    It is smart and surprisingly literate, its only downfall being in that, in riffing on the work of a very talented writer on the subject of men and women, its screenplay could have used a little more of Jane Austen's immaculate sense of storytelling.
  67. One Direction: This Is Us
    I suspect a previous, wackier idea for the film was ditched in favour of a slick promotional video about their jaw-dropping global tour, but I also have to admit that this is a rather watchable record of a phenomenon.
  68. Paradise: Love
    Does the film tell us anything we didn't know already? And could anyone expect anything but the most straightforward irony in the title? The answer to both questions is no – but there is undoubted technique, and an authorial address to the audience.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Don Jon
    A fun, occasionally flabby romp that should find its audience.
  70. Shadow Dancer
    Marsh's movie is calm, level, downbeat. The tension is subtle – perhaps subtler than it really should be.
  71. Post Tenebras Lux
    An irritating, baffling, fascinating film.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hammer of the Gods
    Bewley is persuasive as the boy who would be king, while Michael Jibson stands out among the support as a foulmouthed berserker, along with Cosmo, who brings a touch of class without ever having to get up from his bed.
  73. Furious 7
    There’s something about the franchise’s earnest investment in its characters that’s quite unique. Its longevity is because it functions as much as a soap as an action flick.
  74. Fill the Void
    The story unfolds intriguingly within an intimate, almost claustrophobic environment. There is perhaps something ultimately undeveloped about it, but the film is a well acted, well presented piece of work.
  75. Drinking Buddies
    It's an intriguing and distinctive story, soberly told.
  76. Lovelace
    Though Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's handsomely mounted period piece evokes the era with impressive detail, Lovelace's journey remains difficult to tell.
  77. Think Like a Man Too
    Put bluntly, Tim Story's film wears you down until you relent and say, yes, I like these people and it's fun to watch them all have such a good time.
  78. Fury
    Fury is a punchy, muscular action film, confidently put together and never anything other than watchable.
  79. You Will Be My Son
    It's all a bit absurd, but Legrand handles the absurdity with some style, and there is something clever in making an apparently minor character responsible for a major narrative flourish. An enjoyable spectacle.
  80. Project Almanac
    Despite the uncomfortable sexism and altogether predictable nature of the film, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t modestly entertaining.
  81. Hannah Arendt
    This is a formal and pedagogic production, but worthwhile nonetheless.
  82. More Than Honey
    The mystery and beauty of bees emerge strongly enough. But should we be seriously concerned, or not?
  83. I Give It a Year
    The result is funny and plausible, with a fair bit of newly modish Bridesmaidsy bad taste, though I kept getting the sense that the romcom template meant Mazer couldn't really let rip with pure comedy pessimism and cynicism in the way he might have liked.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Best Man Holiday
    The Best Man Holiday takes advantage of the actors' pre-existing chemistry to add zing to standard tropes of midlife crisis and melodrama.
  85. Labor Day
    With its frank approach to the basics of human desire, its steady, intense focus on a small-town story which could have come straight from Douglas Sirk, Reitman's fifth feature appears to bear little resemblance the four that went before.
  86. Ping Pong
    Director Hugh Hartford does not patronise his stars, although perhaps there is something too gently celebratory and obviously feelgood about the film. These dynamic table-tennis stars put the rest of us to shame.
  87. Her
    I wished I liked it more. It is engagingly self-aware and excruciatingly self-conscious, wearing its hipness on its sleeve; it's ingenious and yet remarkably contrived. The film seems very new, but the sentimental ending is as old as the hills. There are some great moments.
  88. The Congress
    The Congress contains tricks aplenty and ideas in abundance. The problem comes in herding these scattered, floating elements towards a satisfying whole.
  89. Like Father, Like Son
    This is a sweet-natured, but essentially undemanding film from Kore-eda.
  90. As I Lay Dying
    Franco's As I Lay Dying is a worthwhile movie, approached in an intelligent and creative spirit. The ensemble work from the actors is generally very strong, with a star turn from Nelson as the prematurely aged patriarch, and the story is presented lucidly and confidently.
  91. Blood Ties
    This hoary, hackneyed old cop-opera...is served with such relish that the fun proves infectious.
  92. Borgman
    There's the frustrating sense of ideas bubbling too low beneath the surface, of mordant jokes serving as an end rather than a means.
  93. Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas
    Perhaps as a parable, simplicity is what is required, although sometimes the film does not rise to tragedy. Visually, Age of Uprising is classy and plausible, but delivers less than it promises.
  94. Grigris
    It is a typically calm, lucid drama, presented in the director's unforced, cinematic vernacular and attractively and sympathetically acted.
  95. Venus in Fur
    Venus In Fur is a playful if occasionally heavy-handed jeu d'ésprit on the subject of sexual role-play, the games we all play, illusion and reality, and directing as a sexual act.
  96. Young & Beautiful
    François Ozon's new film is a luxurious fantasy of a young girl's flowering: a very French and very male fantasy, like the pilot episode of the world's classiest soap opera... But this is well-crafted and well-acted.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Non-Stop
    Non-stop is the flimsiest of black box recorders, by contrast, that never threatens to make even intermittent sense, but it hangs together on the bulky shoulders of its star.
  98. Dirty Wars
    The movie has rather silly, Bourne-style thriller graphics, which are unnecessary: it has an important story to tell.
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