The Guardian's Scores

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For 6,571 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: 2,490 out of 6571
  2. Mixed: 3,762 out of 6571
  3. Negative: 319 out of 6571
6571 movie reviews
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  1. Chi-Raq
    While formally quite different from his more universally-respected early work, Chi-Raq has the exuberance and wit you’ll find in Do The Right Thing and Crooklyn. It’s the best film he’s made in a very long time.
  2. A Royal Night Out
    It’s a thin, trickledown sort of fun.
  3. Very Semi-Serious
    It’s a minor work that knows its place in the margins, but is thought-provoking and surreptitiously insightful – and very funny.
  4. Secret in Their Eyes
    Chiwetel Ejiofor, one of our top-tier film actors right now, is on good form throughout, and the others act their hearts out, too. But they are somewhat left out to dry in a production that feels more like syndicated television than a feature film.
  5. Creed
    The script may feature numerous wobbly passages in which everyone eerily states precisely what they are thinking (an unfortunate tradition that runs throughout the series) but if anyone can sell it, it’s Stallone and Jordan.
  6. The Night Before
    Surprisingly, for a movie this ephemeral, the closing sequences, which consist of flashbacks and confrontations, are actually quite touching.
  7. Drone
    Without stridency but with a clear sense of purpose, director Tonje Hessen Schei compiles a mix of original interviews and footage and archive material and simulations to explore the history of drones.
  8. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo
    If the plot’s familiar, no imagination or expense has been spared in mapping the kingdom it winds through.
  9. Tangerine
    There’s real energy.
  10. Love the Coopers
    Amid all this holiday melancholia, Wilde bursts into the film with an intensity that feels held over from another, better movie.
  11. My All American
    My All American is awful; but it gets points, I suppose, for at least looking professional.
  12. The Big Short
    McKay’s attempt to cover so much ground is admirable; and the outrage that courses throughout is deeply felt. But his busy execution...feels labored.
  13. The Dark Horse
    The script could have done without the odd bout of heavy-handed chess symbolism (“a king for a king”) but it’s a solidly entertaining drama with an intriguingly unconventional lead.
  14. Concussion
    A harrowing subject for a film, then, but somehow Landesman – who also wrote the screenplay – never manages to turn it into a gripping movie.
  15. By the Sea
    By the Sea’s uncompromising nature is its most admirable asset. It’s a vanity project that’s difficult to love, but alluring to unpack.
  16. Theeb
    Eid proves a dolefully expressive lead, and Wolfgang Thaler’s ever eloquent camerawork is as fascinated by the discovery of bullet shells in the sand – a clue, and a warning – as it is by the punishingly craggy landscape.
  17. In the Basement
    With In The Basement, [Seidl] seems to falling back on the same old shocks. The freakiness is losing its capacity to disturb.
  18. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
    The pace, which had been so tightly controlled in the first two films, is a curious mess, starting off painfully slowly, then rushing when it really matters.
  19. Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971)
    Out 1: Noli Me Tangere is confounding at every level.
  20. McCullin
    McCullin emerges as an unsentimental, plain-speaking, thoughtful man, disgusted at the inhumanity of war – and yet candid about how he is also personally and professionally drawn to its drama.
  21. Regression
    It’s a crunching disappointment: a dull, crass, formulaic and frankly misjudged chiller.
  22. Afternoon Delight
    Director Jill Soloway's comedy-drama isn't perfect – the leitmotif about open eyes feels over-workshopped, and the ending's a bit pat – but it nails with self-lacerating precision the manners and mores of a certain type of hipster parent, the bourgeoisie's muddled attitudes towards sex workers, and the precarious foundations of friendship.
  23. Blue Ruin
    The endgame is disappointingly predictable, but writer-director-cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier has a lovely touch with faces, light and telling details.
  24. Cheap Thrills
    The script is smarter than the premise sounds, with writers David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga dispensing enough information to make victims both sympathetic and despicable, the instigators charismatic and sinister.
  25. Return to Homs
    Admittedly, there are a lot of documentaries like this, made by citizen journalists recording uprisings in their homelands, but this is one of the best of the recent crop, and a timely reminder of a conflict that's slipped out of the headlines of late.
  26. Mistaken for Strangers
    The result is an amusing, and occasionally touching meditation on fame, sibling rivalry and ambition, with a sweet payoff.
  27. Hide Your Smiling Faces
    Ultimately, it's mostly a mood piece where not much really happens apart from the inciting incident, but as a study of childhood and adolescence (it makes a great companion piece to Richard Linklater's Boyhood) it's ripe with telling details and atmosphere.
  28. The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
    Essential viewing for anyone interested in what freedom of information means in the digital age, this passionate, fascinating, unapologetically partial but fair documentary celebrates Aaron Swartz.
  29. Manuscripts Don't Burn
    Putting aside the worthiness of its politics, this is also a crackling, tense thriller, graced with beautifully measured performances, that explores with wisdom and sorrow the best and worst in human nature.
  30. Soul Boys of the Western World
    Fans of the band will undoubtedly love the package, which puts the group front and centre. Those who are more agnostic about the music but nostalgic for the period will enjoy the peripheral material.
  31. The Way He Looks
    You can’t help feeling you’ve seen variations on this coming-out story too many times (which applies to the gay theme as much as the disability one), and everyone is just a little too nice to be true, even the bullies.
  32. Son of a Gun
    McGregor, who is having a bit of comeback moment right now, is kind of great as the ruthless antihero, and the action set pieces have plenty of fizz.
  33. Coherence
    Byrkit’s parable about choices and how they make us who we are has an eerie potency.
  34. Kung Fu Killer
    The fight scenes are terrific, but the haphazard plotting, off-the-peg characterisations and drippy music elsewhere lack flavour.
  35. The Signal
    A banal and credulity-stretching finale that feels like a bad Twilight Zone episode, but the first hour or so is terrific.
  36. I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story
    It’s tremendously reassuring to find out that Spinney is just the sort of kind-hearted sweetheart you’d expect, a man who’s spent a lifetime making children happy. And it’s a kick to see archive footage and interviews with some of the old, non-puppeteer cast members.
  37. Futuro Beach
    It’s an immensely likable movie, impeccably acted and wise about the nature of exile.
  38. Song of the Sea
    Folky music and Studio Ghibli-level flights of eerie fancy are obvious pleasures, but even more subtle and entrancing is the way Moore and his team use echoed shapes to suggest hidden patterns in nature and parallels between the real and the mythical.
  39. 52 Tuesdays
    The use of video diaries and the expository speeches are painfully on the nose at times, and dramatically spins a bit out of control by the end, while some of the acting is patchy. Still, one can’t but fail to be impressed with the film’s commitment to investigate its issues with subtlety and frankness.
  40. Demonic
    Fashioned out of well-worn, if not hackneyed, horror tropes, Demonic is no meta-level deconstruction of the genre, but it’s a more than competent, fugue-like manipulation that freshens familiar components with a tricky structure.
  41. Cartel Land
    There’s no doubting Heineman and his crew’s audacity as they venture close to the line of fire, but the commitment to observing dispassionately at all times starts to feel a bit like a cop-out.
  42. How to Change the World
    There’s no missing the polemical points being made or doubting the film is meant to inspire further action, but even hardened whale-eating oil oligarchs are likely to be charmed by the idealism and smarts of these audacious activists.
  43. Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger
    Dense thickets of information, told via rostrum-shot photos and documents plus angry mob’s worth of witnesses, become a grind after a while, as does the trite guitar-led mystery music.
  44. Extraordinary Tales
    Animator Raul Garcia’s 70-minute anthology of five Poe stories, Extraordinary Tales, has its moments, and will be a welcome respite for any middle schooler sitting through a boring lecture. But if we were ever asked if we wanted a second viewing, we’d have to quoth the raven: nevermore.
  45. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
    It’s a test of one’s tolerance for watching predominantly empty frames – the anonymous performers scarcely count – in the hope something will jolt us from mounting tedium.
  46. Tokyo Tribe
    Amusingly tacky and offensive though it is, proceedings grow a bit monotonous, because all the tunes have pretty much the same beat and everything is pitched at the same hysterical, OTT level.
  47. The Sound and the Fury
    So bogged down by form, Franco fails to get his head up enough to think about content.
  48. Jem and the Holograms
    This movie sure means well, and it’s just entertaining enough to (slightly) slip off the shackles of the great cultural conformity factory it ultimately represents.
  49. SPECTRE
    It’s deeply silly but uproariously entertaining. At the end, I almost felt guilty for enjoying it all quite so much - almost.
  50. Mediterranea
    If a movie as rich and understanding as Mediterranea suddenly appeared every time we read about a difficult issue in the paper, maybe all of the world’s problems could be solved.
  51. Rock the Kasbah
    There’s a special variety of infuriating that comes from a bad movie by talented people.
  52. Difret
    It’s tempting to give this more of a pass because the subject is so noble and so few African-made films make it over here, but it has to be admitted that the some of the acting is a bit ropey and the script is a little too on-the-nose at times.
  53. Kill Your Friends
    The difficulty with black comedy is avoiding overkill and Kill Your Friends is a dictionary definition of the word.
  54. Field Niggas
    This movie is foremost an ethnographic exercise, and whether it is a rallying cry or poverty porn is for the viewer to decide.
  55. Cut Snake
    Performances are uniformly impressive, with Stapleton guaranteed a place in the pantheon of creepily charismatic Australian screen criminals.
  56. Crimson Peak
    Guillermo del Toro’s gothic fantasy-romance Crimson Peak is outrageously sumptuous, gruesomely violent and designed to within an inch of its life.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Russian Woodpecker
    Gracia succeeds brilliantly in delivering a chilling warning about where Putin and his spooks might go next, by giving Fedor full licence to act the biblical prophet.
  58. Miles Ahead
    Cheadle’s got the cred, and the period evocation is tremendous. It’s just that I’m not sure he has all that much to say
  59. Ixcanul
    What’s most striking about Ixcanul is the elegant way in which it is shot. Scenes are given space, and the audience is allowed ample time to soak up the atmosphere.
  60. Junun
    It’s a good, solid little picture, but it’s not that great, and certainly not noticeably more accomplished or compelling than many of the other music-themed docs that come out each week with less fanfare.
  61. Singh Is Bliing
    Director Prabhudheva’s idea of comedy is broad and very much soundtrack-led.
  62. The Treasure
    Laughs emerge from the recognisable micro-horrors found in modern living, which, if the world was run in the way we all agree it should be run, wouldn’t exist.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    (T)error
    This information needs to be shown to the public, and some will be drawn to it regardless of its form. But as a well-crafted film, it has a long way to go.
  64. Knock Knock
    Little here is going to challenge the opinion of Roth as a bratty provocateur, but it’s still fun to experience a latter-day thriller pushing so many buttons in broadly the right order: if Knock Knock’s no more than a sick joke, it’s been very shrewdly constructed.
  65. Goosebumps
    There’s a streak of old-fashioned B-movie spooky playfulness here, and when actual, motivated characters are on screen it’s delightful.
  66. Bridge of Spies
    Bridge of Spies has a brassy and justified confidence in its own narrative flair.
  67. Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F'
    One innovation: the application of thrash metal to fight scenes, which at least hushes the shriller voice artists.
  68. The Measure of a Man
    The Measure of a Man’s decision to keep its conflicts so microscopic in the service of realism is a real problem. Put bluntly, Brize’s touch is so light that it’s immeasurable.
  69. Sherpa
    Peedom and her team responded to disaster with a steady hand, in more than one sense, and fulfilled a rare opportunity to make a responsive documentary that is large, beautiful, captivating and exhibits deep respect for the people and environments it photographs.
  70. Hitchcock/Truffaut
    A fascinating film.
  71. Narcopolis
    Despite the surface sheen, and some enterprising plot twists, it doesn’t entirely convince.
  72. Going Away
    Director Nicole Garcia strains to give this pablum social grounding, but hair and make-up overtake her.
  73. De Palma
    So many documentaries about artists just want you to accept that their subject is an innovator. De Palma breaks it down and shows you why he is.
  74. Deathgasm
    A dopey splatterfest that features one-dimensional characters and a draggy first act that’s eventually won over by creatively immature gross-outs and absurd violence.
  75. Nostalgia for the Light
    It is deeply intelligent, intensely and painfully political, and yet attempts, and succeeds, somehow to transcend politics and perhaps even history itself.
  76. Northern Soul
    Every other scene showcases a northern treasure (Coogan, Thomson, Tomlinson, Stansfield) and looks, feels and – crucially – sounds true to its sweaty-hazy, slightly cramped corner of history.
  77. Labyrinth of Lies
    While the topic of mass delusion is fascinating, this film is too unfocused to turn it into compelling drama.
  78. This Changes Everything
    A macro argument is being filtered through people’s local concerns, but without getting to know the subjects, you can understand their suffering, but can’t feel it.
  79. The Walk
    The story The Walk tells is, admittedly, an unbelievable one, so it’s understandable Zemeckis should choose to leave subtlety at the door. Sadly, such an approach strips the film of tension, especially at the crucial moment.
  80. Life
    Pattinson gives what is simply a dull performance in a dull role: something in the casting and conception is wrong from the outset. Maybe he would have been better as Dean.
  81. Captive
    The actors are committed – Mara, generally waif-like, appears frail indeed – but there’s barely anything worth committing to.
  82. Palio
    It is a handsome-looking film, though it has a promo look to it occasionally, like a lavish tourist ad. I loved the horse’s-eye view Spender gave us at one stage, careering around the track.
  83. Hotel Transylvania 2
    By the end of this 89-minute film, I was absolutely on the edge of my seat. Not due to suspense, but due to my utter disdain for the infantile plotting.
  84. The Green Inferno
    The Green Inferno will be gleefully offensive and unpalatable to mainstream audiences, who may be more similar to The Green Inferno’s victims than they’d like to think. No one could accuse Roth of lacking guts – even if he hasn’t found the perfect recipe for them.
  85. The Reflektor Tapes
    It’s flabby and repetitive, but peppered with moments of exquisite sonic lusciousness – not unlike the album itself.
  86. Mustang
    While the subject matter is enraging, the film is not without warmth and occasional levity.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brand: A Second Coming
    Even if you’re cynical about Brand’s motives, or just think that he’s a bit of berk, the film convinces you of the almost alarming sincerity of his political mission.
  88. The Intern
    The bulk of The Intern is a morass of wackiness, a chain of sequences shot in a flat and predictable manner that range from tedious to idiotic.
  89. Mission to Lars
    The peripheral interviews with the extended Spicer family are as compelling as the central quest; this is a film with rare honesty and nuance in a field that frequently feels queasy.
  90. Meadowland
    What Meadowland refuses to do, to its great credit, is conform to expectations.
  91. Remember
    The inept script... makes for a perfect bedfellow with Egoyan’s flat TV movie direction and an overwrought score that sounds like a drunk impression of Bernard Herrmann.
  92. Rabin, the Last Day
    Gitai has chosen stylistic cinema over propaganda, and he is a director who regularly gets bogged down a bit in form.
  93. London Fields
    Novelistic, rich and awfully silly, London Fields – like Ben Wheatley’s take on High Rise - is a long-awaited adaptation of a popular and gloomily prophetic book, that seems unnecessary.
  94. Lolo
    This romp is just embarrassing.
  95. Mr. Right
    Mr Right is Grosse Pointe Blank meets Dexter. Liman meets Tarantino. Derivative idea meets sloppy execution.
  96. Sunset Song
    It’s all fairly indulgent. But Sunset Song also has a viciousness that stops it falling too deep into a slumber
  97. The Lady in the Van
    Smith’s performance, honed from the previous stage and radio versions, is terrifically good.
  98. Into the Forest
    Patricia Rozema’s drama doesn’t burrow deep into its end of world scenario.
  99. In Jackson Heights
    It’s an engaging portrait - film-making which works from the ground up.
  100. Hardcore Henry
    Naishuller’s technique is one that could be well served as a shorter gimmick; a solitary action scene in a larger film. Hardcore is unrelenting and unforgiving in its commitment to be loud, fast, destructive and gross.
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