The Guardian's Scores

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For 6,601 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: 2,500 out of 6601
  2. Mixed: 3,782 out of 6601
  3. Negative: 319 out of 6601
6601 movie reviews
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  1. Skate Kitchen
    Moselle is at her most astute when concentrating on the fragile social dynamics that govern the tribes adolescents divide themselves into for survival’s sake.
  2. The Meg
    If the shark-versus-Statham bout doesn’t tickle you, the shark-versus-Pekinese sidebar might. Not quite killer, but it’s rare to see a 21st-century blockbuster having this much fun – right through to its sign-off – with its own premise.
  3. The Spy Gone North
    Yoon executes all the classic double-agent set pieces with finesse, and those enamoured of the genre will appreciate a change of setting.
  4. Never Goin' Back
    Watching Never Goin’ Back, it’s easy to see the frames of reference Frizzell pulled from, besides her own teenage escapades. But the film also defies easy categorization; it’s not consistently funny enough to be a comedy, nor lively enough to be a drama.
  5. Like Father
    It’s an undemanding watch, easily digestible while on in the background, but even easier to forget.
  6. Extinction
    Extinction is a competent, if formulaic film. Its dilemma, like many of the films in Netflix’s growing sci-fi catalogue, is the way its best parts are subdued on the small screen while its worst (dialogue and clunky storytelling) are enhanced.
  7. Puzzle
    There is modest craft and genuine heart here, not to mention an eye-catching centrepiece: an actor growing more certain of herself, and more capable than ever of holding an entire picture together – even one as unusual, and sometimes as unlikely, as this.
  8. Cocote
    It is a film with its own miasma of unease.
  9. Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings
    Dee’s investigations are not truly suspenseful, or governed by much hard logic. Without these, what remains is a restless action-comedy with a few nice reversals.
  10. McQueen
    [A] sombre, thorough, intelligent and informative documentary.
  11. Unfriended: Dark Web
    Even if some of the late-stage plotting seems sloppy and increasingly preposterous, there’s a callousness to the brutal last act that, together with the far patchier, yet similarly hard-edged First Purge, feels like a definite product of the time we’re in, as war on terror-era torture porn did in the mid-2000s.
  12. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
    It is a poignant set-up but, disappointingly, Okada’s ideas about motherhood don’t cut as deep as they could.
  13. The Equalizer 2
    The Equalizer pictures operate under a false moral imperative, using the mission of cleaning up the streets as a cover for the same pat hyper-stylized, near-pornographic brutality.
  14. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
    Something in the sheer relentless silliness and uncompromising ridiculousness of this, combined with a new flavour of self-aware comedy, made me smile in spite of myself
  15. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
    Over two-and-a-half hours, you get a lot of deafening bangs for your buck, and the tourist location stunts are impressive - but there isn’t as much humour in the dialogue as before.
  16. Path of Blood
    As a film this is anything but banal, and operates as a potent reminder of the randomness, and casual cruelty of modern terrorism, the way it leeches out the humanity of victims and perpetrators on both sides.
  17. Skyscraper
    This is stupid but it’s also mostly entertaining, thanks to Johnson and a plot that moves fast enough to retain our attention yet without enough, ahem, the originality to ensure it lingers in our minds once the fire has been extinguished.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Whitney
    It’s a film principally and poignantly focused on the absence of Whitney, an aching void felt as much in life as in death. Many of us missed Whitney even before she left; this imperfect documentary preys calmly and effectively on that longing.
  19. The First Purge
    Clumsy attempts at comedy are weaved in to try and alleviate the remarkable grimness but all it really does it add to an uneven tone.
  20. Fireworks
    It’s confusing and disorientating but brings back dreamy teen angst like the strongest of madeleines.
  21. Tau
    For the impressively moronic dialogue, Oldman brings a lack of imagination so complete that he could plausibly explain this performance away as a high-concept ironic joke.
  22. Calibre
    On a beat-by-beat basis, writer-director Matt Palmer’s feature debut skates close to the edge of cliche – only to swerve suddenly in an interesting new direction almost every time.
  23. Love, Cecil
    The film is intelligent, thorough and sympathetic, with Rupert Everett narrating Beaton’s diaries. But it never quite persuades you that Beaton really deserves to be considered a substantial artist.
  24. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda
    Stephen Schible’s documentary portrait follows the musician in the calm and introspective period forced on him – but it also shows him participating in post-Fukushima demonstrations.
  25. Sicario: Day of the Soldado
    This movie channels the paranoia and bad faith that’s in the air at the moment and converts it into a thriller of visceral hostility and overwhelming nihilism. It’s all killer, no filler.
  26. This Is Congo
    A difficult, depressing watch.
  27. A Ciambra
    What a rush of storytelling energy and style.
  28. Never Steady, Never Still
    There are some heartfelt moments, but this is an opaque and frustrating experience.
  29. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
    Eventually, the drama closes in on itself and attains the logic of a dream, though a dream that dissipates quickly on waking.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brain on Fire
    There’s undoubtedly a terrifying true story at the centre and it’s easy to see why the film’s producer Charlize Theron optioned the book but there’s something a little too flat in the delivery.
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