The Guardian's Scores

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For 6,573 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 2.3 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: 2,491 out of 6573
  2. Mixed: 3,763 out of 6573
  3. Negative: 319 out of 6573
6573 movie reviews
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  1. Black Water: Abyss
    This is paddling-pool-level entertainment.
    • The Guardian
      • Posted Aug 6, 2020
  2. Echo
    The cumulative effect is like strolling through a Reykjavik gallery where each painting moves within its well-chosen frame.
  3. Howard
    There’s something exciting about a film that immerses you in the life of a creative artist, and so it proves with this documentary about Howard Ashman.
  4. Boys State
    It’s not clear if it’s funny or tragic, if it’s reality TV or reality itself. But Boys State is as exciting and moving as Steve James’s high school basketball epic Hoop Dreams was a generation ago, with its emotional rawness, its guileless patriotism and capacity for hurt and wonder.
  5. Host
    Host is a lean, nasty little exercise that might not linger for very long but it shows what can be done during this difficult time. Once regular shooting resumes, we should look forward to whatever Savage comes up with next.
  6. Calm with Horses (The Shadow of Violence)
    It’s powerfully and pugnaciously acted, and horses are brought in – as animals often are in social-realist movies – as symbols of redemptive nobility. But I felt that in narrative terms it turned into a cul-de-sac of macho violence.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Is King
    It is compelling in every sense and takes you on a moving journey: not only through the story of The Lion King, but through a small portion of the beautiful cultures and traditions that exist within black communities globally.
  8. The Big Ugly
    It plays like several plots, genres and mood boards all mashed together, which makes the end result interesting but not entirely successful.
  9. The Secret: Dare to Dream
    It’s mostly kind of tolerable in a low stakes, rosé-wine-swigging way, inoffensively middling rather than rotten, an easy, undemanding afternoon watch with nothing of note other than a few laughably dumb moments..
  10. Saint Frances
    This is a film with a hopeful message about people, and their ability and willingness to learn – and to get along.
  11. 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.
  12. Make Up
    It’s a clever and expertly made movie; Oakley luxuriates in its winter chill.
  13. Summerland
    Strong on lush cinematography, period knitwear and sincerity, but less effective in terms of historical plausibility, the mostly second world war-set drama Summerland is a mixed bag – a blend of fizzy sherbet lemons and humbug.
  14. Ghosts of War
    This effort is similarly infuriating and entertaining by turns, and features pretty good performances from a handful of up-and-coming young male actors, including Brenton Thwaites and Kyle Gallner, along with lovable old ham Billy Zane putting in a last-act cameo.
  15. Fatal Affair
    There are no left turns or bumps along the way, just a smooth straightforward journey from cliche to cliche, boredom setting in fast.
  16. Father Soldier Son
    It’s an intimate portrait that at times borders on meandering but it remains free of judgment throughout, with Einhorn and Davis using their background as journalists to let the story happen without coercion or commentary.
  17. Benjamin
    Amstell creates a detailed ecosystem of in-jokes from the worlds of media and film, and from that cynical context he conjures a miraculously heartfelt love story, sweet and poignant in all its awkwardness.
  18. Above Suspicion
    The stranger-than-fiction weirdness and emotional dysfunction are what’s interesting here, and the film doesn’t quite take the lid off it.
  19. A White, White Day
    This bizarre and sometimes scary film from Iceland has a way of keeping you off balance and on the edge of your seat.
  20. 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.
  21. I Am Vengeance: Retaliation
    For all its rough edges, there’s a pure-hearted passion for movie-making evident here, that’s often awol in slicker productions.
  22. Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo
    This documentary is a bit reticent on the subject of racism. It’s not a subject that Trejo addresses, other than to say that cops who used to pull him over now do so to get selfies. Yet it’s an amazing true-life success story.
  23. Relic
    Fundamental to Relic’s psychological oomph are three excellent performances, perfectly complementing that sticky-icky ambience.
  24. Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly
    A very absorbing and valuable documentary about the creation of this artwork, which relates to Ai’s honourable record of using art as memorialist-activism.
  25. 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.
  26. Spaceship Earth
    Like the structure at its centre, Spaceship Earth is a smart concept that never really takes off.
  27. The Way Back
    It sleepily hits the beats we expect but without the emotion or passion required to make them land, a by-the-numbers exercise from someone with barely enough energy to count.
  28. Greyhound
    As well as death and tragedy, war is full of absurdity, indignity, chaos, all sorts of bizarre and embarrassing things that don’t get mentioned in the official record. Greyhound is content with its keynote of sombre reverence.
  29. The Old Guard
    The adjective in the title is right. It gets old pretty quickly.
  30. Suzi Q
    This is a fan-servicing but not necessarily hagiographic documentary.
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