The Guardian's Scores

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For 6,585 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: 2,496 out of 6585
  2. Mixed: 3,770 out of 6585
  3. Negative: 319 out of 6585
6585 movie reviews
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  1. The Last Full Measure
    Here’s a true story about a young soldier’s exceptional bravery and sacrifice made into a pretty average war movie, insubstantial and TV-ish despite the appearance of some decorated Hollywood veterans.
  2. The True Don Quixote
    A whimsical, good-natured romp, sure, but one that’s only mildly amusing.
  3. 6 Underground
    For pure gonzo outrageousness and steroidal silliness, this action spectacular made for Netflix by Michael Bay has a certain amusement factor and thumpingly unsubtle oomph.
  4. The Climbers
    The gusto and pace put many of 2019’s American blockbusters to shame, and – right through to a wildly overcranked final act that throws up surprises like spindrift – Lee balances vertiginous, windswept set-pieces with satisfying character beats.
  5. The Gentlemen
    Ritchie has made an entertaining return to his mockney roots.
  6. Richard Jewell
    Hauser is the star and he keeps the film on track: poignant, lonely and vulnerable – maintaining the tricky balance of laugh-at and laugh-with.
  7. The Last Tree
    It’s a charismatic performance from Adewunmi, and Amoo’s camera often comes in close to his face and his gaze, suggesting that Femi is on the verge of some kind of epiphany or vision – and it’s nothing to do with the drugs.
  8. Bombshell
    It is a strange film in some ways, speckled with powerful, insightful moments but also with some strained acting, pulled punches and fudged attitudes, unable to decide if its heroines are compromised through having been loyal Fox staffers.
  9. Farming
    Farming is a tough film on a tough subject. There’s not much light and shade – but there can’t have been much light and shade going through it in real life – and Gubu Mbatha-Raw’s role as the concerned teacher is weakly drawn.
  10. The Current War
    This a watchably stylised period film, with interesting visual setpieces and faces looming up at us out of intricately contrived backgrounds.
  11. Tales from the Lodge
    With well-timed rhythms and backchat, the ensemble is quite credible as a gaggle of slightly obnoxious, mildly likable millennials on the brink of middle age.
  12. Holiday In The Wild
    It’s cheesy, it’s stupid, but it’s also really quite charming.
  13. To Kid or Not to Kid
    Even though Trump puts herself, her husband and many members of her family at the heart of the story, the end result never feels navel-gazing or narcissistic.
  14. When Lambs Become Lions
    I’m not sure that I was completely on board with this film, which appears to have smoothly carpentered its narrative in the edit. Is it almost too good to be true?
  15. The Banker
    Inspiring until the end if not entirely entertaining.
  16. The Call of the Wild
    The result is a bit corny, a bit cheesy and you might feel self-conscious going, “Aww …” at creatures that are not real dogs but laptop fabrications. But it’s a robust and old-fashioned entertainment with some real storytelling bite.
  17. Emma.
    Sometimes the casting and staging work well, sometimes not so well.
  18. The Willoughbys
    While The Willoughbys might not boast the slick structure or beating heart of a Pixar animation, there’s enough offbeat charm to make it an easily digestible watch and for any concerned parents, the practice of “orphaning” involves so much work, your kids will likely be scared off.
  19. Gorillaz: Reject False Icons
    With Hewlett Jr often chronicling events in cool monochrome, shooting in close proximity if not exactly total intimacy, this snappy scrapbook tips the hat to the infectious creativity of Albarn’s travelling circus.
  20. Spies in Disguise
    As with so many family animations right now, I felt that the script stays on the safe side, with fewer smart lines and ironic gags than I might have wished for, but this is a good-natured entertainment.
  21. Free Guy
    Free Guy isn’t going to have many MA theses written about it, but it has entertainment value.
  22. The Roads Not Taken
    Sally Potter’s The Roads Not Taken is a sad, painful, self-conscious vignette of a film with forthright performances; it’s a chamber piece in many ways, but with bold flashback excursions that come close to causing its emotional engine to overheat.
  23. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
    A handsomely made return to form for a series that had been showing signs of fatigue.
  24. The Lovebirds
    Nanijani and Rae work well together, although “chemistry” is perhaps a stretch.
  25. Scare Me
    It works for the most part because of Ruben and Cash and the spiky chemistry they share.
  26. Amanda
    [A] good-natured and well-intentioned film.
  27. Sergio
    The sweeping, full-throated romance of the last act might not work for some, who could conceivably argue its dominance leaves gaps in Sérgio’s professional life, but it makes for an emotionally satisfying ending.
  28. Detective Chinatown 3
    There’s a puppyish charm here.
  29. The Booksellers
    The interest of this garrulous, convivial documentary creeps up on you by degrees.
  30. The Amusement Park
    The important thing is to be disturbed.
  31. Present.Perfect.
    This is a film in touch with modernity, but I wonder if the livestreamers were quite as apolitical as this film makes them appear. And I was unsure about Zhu’s decision to correct all the images from colour to black-and-white, an arthouse-ification that the film didn’t need.
  32. The Many Saints of Newark
    Michael Gandolfini is goosebump-inducing as the young Tony Soprano, amid race riots and antagonism towards rival African American gangs.
  33. Raya and the Last Dragon
    While some of the beats might be a little too predictable and while the emotional wallop at the end might be more of a gentle tap, Raya and the Last Dragon works for the most part, a charming, sweet-natured YA-leaning adventure that acts as proof that Disney needs to focus on moving forward rather than continuing to look back.
  34. Shirley
    This film finally flinches from its own menacing implications and dark suspenseful power with a rather feeble ending of empowerment and solidarity. A very 21st-century loss of nerve.
  35. Jumbo
    The kooky premise of Jumbo – a young woman falling madly in love with a fairground ride – might invite bafflement but Zoé Wittock’s idiosyncratic comedy-drama is an entertaining blend of sensory overload and sincere empathy.
  36. Palm Springs
    It’s a goofy, drunken scrap of escapism and while the romantic comedy is not fully back, despite think pieces assuring us that it is, Palm Springs energetically reminds us, yet again, that it’s never really going away.
  37. 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.
  38. Kajillionaire
    I have taken some time to acclimatise to her distinctive, affectlessly sentimental film-making, but it is growing on me, and Kajillionaire is intriguing.
  39. Zola
    The Twitter-to-screen adaptation of Zola is as scrappy and imperfect as the original story but just as likable. There’s something unusually compelling about what Bravo does with the material that makes up for its missteps.
  40. 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.
  41. Cuties
    The film and its accusers turn out to be on the same side: Mignonnes attacks the pornification of girls and young women by social media and society in general; it is about the false promise of liberation in this kind of sexualised display. The offending scenes are gruesomely unwatchable – deliberately so.
  42. The Forty-Year-Old Version
    This is a very unhurried film (I wondered if it might have been better to lose 20 or so minutes) but it has a distinctive language of its own, and a feel for the city.
  43. House of Cardin
    After a somewhat breathless opening section – yes, we get it, Pierre Cardin was a genius – this genuflecting documentary settles down into a watchable portrait of the late fashion designer that astutely showcases Cardin’s ease in front of the camera.
  44. Surge
    Karia is a smart film-maker and this is a valuable beginning.
  45. King Richard
    Enjoyable and well-crafted as it is, this movie can’t quite decide what to do with the tougher, darker side of Richard Williams.
  46. Heimat is a Space in Time
    I was sometimes captivated but often frustrated by this epic essay-film, a meditation on Germany and his own family history that is stark, fierce, austerely cerebral and almost four hours long.
  47. The Courier
    There’s a whiff of familiarity haunting almost every scene and while it would have been rewarding to see Cooke and O’Conner take a few chances or add some more emotional depth, it’s a satisfying enough watch, best viewed with little investment and low expectations.
  48. Uncle Frank
    Uncle Frank doesn’t have the witty indirectness of American Beauty or Ball’s TV classic Six Feet Under, but it has a strong and very convincing performance from Bettany.
  49. Nine Days
    Although arguably a smidge too ponderous and self-serious for its own good, Nine Days still represents a reasonably promising debut for its writer-director Edson Oda.
  50. Tesla
    To watch Tesla the film is to admire its ambition while regretting its follies. Much like Tesla the man, perhaps?
  51. Benedetta
    At the risk of insulting Benedetta, it’s mostly good, clean, wholesome fun.
  52. Blonde
    Well, there’s no doubting that de Armas gives this everything she’s got and that is a very great deal, an expert analogue performance digitally deepfaked into various hallucinations. . . . Her performance is great; the film itself is self-satisfied and incurious.
  53. C'mon C'mon
    It’s an impressively contrived film, almost a machine for winning awards, a monochrome reverie of midlife yearning.
  54. 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.
  55. Extraction
    Extraction is a little bit hokey and absurd, and the very end has an exasperating cop-out – but it has to be admitted that, in terms of pure action octane, Russo and Hargrave bring the noise.
  56. The Salt of Tears
    It is a watchable, insouciant love story with some great incidental performances, although there is a sense of the shark being jumped 30 minutes from the end.
  57. Ride Like a Girl
    It’s a bit hammy and TV-movie-ish, but you can’t help smiling at its feelgood directness and warmth.
  58. Arkansas
    Not much about this film is original, but the buddy-pairing of two equally competent criminals is something we haven’t seen too often.
  59. Last and First Men
    Last and First Men is an interesting if minor work, perhaps comparable to Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s Homo Sapiens or Michael Madsen’s Into Eternity.
  60. Malmkrog
    For all that this film has something exasperatingly opaque and inert about it, it has an uncompromising insistence that ideas matter. These people’s thoughts, although debatable, are not simply presented as absurd. Malmkrog is a long, demanding experience – a real festival event. But that bizarre dreamlike eruption lives on in the mind.
  61. Minyan
    Steel brings a very distinctive kind of control and restraint to his film, both in terms of its subdued colour palette and an emotional language which despite explicit scenes of both sex and homophobic tension and paranoia, has something opaque and elliptical about it.
  62. Minamata
    Minamata is a forthright, heartfelt movie, an old-fashioned “issue picture” with a worthwhile story to tell about how communities can stand up to overweening corporations and how journalists dedicated to truthful news can help them.
  63. Mogul Mowgli
    It is a deeply personal drama about culture, family, community and what it means to represent – though it can also be self-indulgent and even a bit self-involved, though this is arguably a function of the story.
  64. My Little Sister
    It’s a fierce, thoughtful drama.
  65. Undine
    It is possible to come away from the film less than convinced, but very impressed by the sheer force of Petzold’s film-making talent (recently so stunning in his drama Transit) but which has been here deployed for something which is a bit flimsy and silly.
  66. Charlatan
    Charlatan is a film that does not quite satisfy the curiosity it arouses.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mona Lisa
    Ultimately, there is something trite at the centre of the movie, most especially in the overuse of Nat King Cole’s haunting Mona Lisa to suggest Tyson’s ambiguity and Hoskins’s puzzlement. But this is almost concealed by Tyson’s sense of desperation and Hoskins’s painful sincerity.
  68. Sea Fever
    It’s a low-budget effort with high ambitions, something that’s hard not to admire, and while it often feels like the teaser for a bigger and better movie, it’s perhaps a sign that Hardiman is setting sail for Hollywood next.
  69. Selah and The Spades
    For all its fantastical vein, this movie has an interesting grasp of what high school is really like – not a Hollywood narrative, neither funny nor tragic, and certainly nothing like that most unreal of genres, the coming-of-age drama. Rather it’s messy, downbeat and inconclusive, without teachable moments – like everything else in real life.
  70. Malignant
    If only they’d put fuller faith in the true nature of their premise, and leaned all the way into the kookier side of body horror. Instead of trying for the sophistication of Cronenberg and coming up short, they’d be better off embracing the near-absurdity of lower-rent cult objects like Basket Case from the start.
  71. Shithouse
    Life can be desperately embarrassing in your first year at university when you are trying out new identities and personalities. This film replicates that agonising discomfort.
  72. Blue Story
    Onwubolu avoids the usual flash and posturing in favour of a careful, rooted storytelling, finding subtly different perspectives on gang life, and offering his characters as many ways out as there are ways in.
  73. Tigertail
    A sombre, well-acted film about sacrifice and regret.
  74. Drunk Bus
    Believable performances, along with a deep understanding of place, lend Drunk Bus a cheeriness that is entertaining and heartwarming.
  75. Screened Out
    If you’re a parent whose screen-time rules have crumbled in lockdown, under no circumstances watch this film until normal service resumes.
  76. Elephant
    It’s a technically impressive work with some lovely images — and a bit of a sugary taste.
  77. To the Stars
    The period trappings – which must have cost a bomb – are lush and smartly deployed without being heavy-handed, and the two young leads are very watchable.
  78. The Marvels
    Larson, Harris and Vellani are an entertaining intergalactic ensemble.
  79. Four Kids and It
    It's been a while since I've seen a silly baddie get the seat of his trousers set on fire, run around squawking, and then sit down in a water trough with an ecstatic sigh.
  80. Nobody
    It has to be said that Nobody rattles enjoyably and bone-crunchingly along and as for Odenkirk, this career turn more or less pays off. He never tries to be macho exactly, and spends a lot of his time flinching and scowling at all the cuts and bruises on his face.
  81. The Grand Bizarre
    The Grand Bizarre is a film that will alienate many with its video-artiness but the focus here on looking and looking again with wonder at the everyday stuff around us may strike a chord at the moment.
  82. Spaceship Earth
    Like the structure at its centre, Spaceship Earth is a smart concept that never really takes off.
  83. The Half of It
    The Half of It is a strong, warm-hearted and quietly progressive addition to the expanding Netflix teen movie pack which treats its target audience with the respect they deserve.
  84. The Dalai Lama: Scientist
    If you’re looking for a definitive Dalai Lama documentary, this narrow-focus film about his lifelong passion for science probably won’t cut it.
  85. Dangerous Lies
    It’s pacy enough to secure at least our divided attention, competently trotting along in the background revealing surprises that aren’t really that surprising, like a pulpy, well-worn airplane novel that you guiltily devour in a day.
  86. Villain
    Sometimes a seemingly unprepossessing genre film comes along that has finer qualities than you would expect. Such is the case here.
  87. Capone
    It’s an interesting film, which Trank tops off with a contrived finale of bizarre, spectacular (and contrived) violence, yet the woozy slipping-into-dementia-fantasy sequences, although striking, mean sometimes that the visual impact of what we are seeing is sometimes lessened, as we wait to see if it is really happening or not.
  88. A Good Woman Is Hard to Find
    The opportunistic genre-welding holds together thanks to vivid performances. Bolger makes a slightly implausible character arc completely convincing, graduating from panicky improvisation to grim determination.
  89. Beyond The Visible: Hilma af Klint
    This documentary makes a pretty convincing case for the admission of the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint into the boys’ club of abstract art, alongside Kandinsky, Mondrian et al.
  90. Strike
    Here’s a modestly entertaining stop-motion family film with a fuzzily retro homemade aesthetic and a warming gentle Englishness: decent enough, but stretched perilously thin.
  91. Shazam! Fury of the Gods
    This new Shazam film is cordial, with a puppyish good nature and an awareness of its own silliness.
  92. Robert the Bruce
    It takes a good hour or so to get going, but then it builds up some watchable spectacle – although Gray goes way overboard with the moody, fireside lighting, and the rousing orchestral score gets all ceilidh-cutesy for the happy montages.
  93. All Day and a Night
    All Day and a Night is a weightier alternative to the average Netflix original and while imperfectly realised and scrappily plotted at times, it’s another promising sign that, away from the easy-to-digest content, there’s room on the platform for much much more.
  94. Mayor
    The film lets you appreciate Hadid’s delicate and complex situation.
  95. Rising High
    The film’s plausibility-level isn’t perhaps as high as all that (it really works best as a period piece from the pre-2008 crash) but Kross brings to it a jaded, corrupted glamour.
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