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. Breathing
    The "breathing" of the title becomes a cleverly recurrent motif, and Markovics's script circles around the themes of death and life in thoughtful and elegant ways: it is a well-carpentered screenplay which bears every sign of having been a labour of love, worked on fruitfully over many years.
  2. Little White Lies
    Little White Lies unspools as glossy, high-grade tosh, a sun-dappled Big Chill, without the rigour or insight required to make you care about these people and wonder which bed they will eventually wind up in.
  3. The Expendables 2
    There's some comedy in there, too, intentional – mostly. As a poignant study of the ageing process, it's on a rough par with "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." For The Expendables 3, they might want to consider enlisting Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Judi Dench.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lawless
    Star-studded and violent yet empty as a broken whisky bottle.
  5. The Bourne Legacy
    It has plenty of energy and drive, and Jeremy Renner is really good, better as a Bourne-y agent than Matt Damon, tougher and more grizzled-looking, more convincing as the professional soldier who has grown careworn and disillusioned in the public service.
  6. The Green Wave
    Ahadu pulls the curtain back on a government that was willing to imprison and torture its electorate.
  7. The Awakening
    There are some nicely creepy moments, and director and co-writer Nick Murphy interestingly dramatises some of the neuroses feeding the appetite for ghostly phenomena – repressed sexuality, guilt and self-harm.
  8. Beloved
    The movie is at its lightest, most charming and most persuasive in the 60s; as it approaches the present, something inescapably preposterous weighs it down, though Honoré carries it off with some flair.
  9. Chicken with Plums
    Sit in the front – and don't peer too hard – and Chicken With Plums casts an undeniable spell. It is bold, exotic and distinctive, particularly during the animated angel of death sequence.
  10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
    It's perfectly workable popcorn entertainment for the school holidays.
  11. Dreams of a Life
    Dreams of a Life is a painful film, a Christmas film with no feelgood message, but one which I think would in fact have interested Charles Dickens. Watching it is an almost claustrophobic experience, but a very powerful and moving one.
  12. Searching for Sugar Man
    This movie might itself make a modest contribution to rewriting the history of white South Africa.
  13. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
    Let's hope Klayman gets to make a sequel.
  14. 2 Days in New York
    We've rarely seen comedy this smart since Woody Allen and Seinfeld left New York.
  15. Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap
    With a very simple premise, rapper Ice-T – this film's presenter and co-director with Andy Baybutt – has created a very enjoyable and often fascinating movie.
  16. Killer Joe
    It is up to McConaughey's crooked cop to carry the picture: a sleek, loungingly casual loner whose hunger for violence, like his hunger for fried chicken, is finally and horribly gratified.
  17. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai
    The endlessly prolific Takashi Miike returns with this superbly acted revenger's tragedy.
  18. The Dark Knight Rises
    The Dark Knight Rises may be a hammy, portentous affair but Nolan directs it with aplomb. He takes these cod-heroic, costumed elements and whisks them into a tale of heavy-metal fury, full of pain and toil, surging uphill, across the flyovers, in search of a climax.
  19. Ice Age: Continental Drift
    With the fourth film, the Ice Age family animation franchise is looking almost extinct.
  20. Magic Mike
    Oddly, Magic Mike somehow looks like a much darker and more challenging movie than is actually the case.
  21. Alps
    Follow the film-maker. Let him lead you by the nose. Lanthimos knows exactly where he's going.
  22. Trishna
    Winterbottom's location work in Jaipur and Mumbai has richness and spectacle, but somehow this does not come fully to life.
  23. The Pact
    Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact is a horror film developed from a short, and unfortunately it splits apart while being stretched out to feature length.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brave
    For the animation studio's debut foray into fairytale, Pixar has delivered a rousing family melodrama.
  25. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
    Bekmambetov directs with gusto, and the forthright absurdity of the story, combined with its weirdly heartfelt self-belief is winning.
  26. Take This Waltz
    In theory, these are twentysomethings we're talking about. But they walk and talk like fortysomethings or fiftysomethings, such is their dullness and self-absorption.
  27. The Five-Year Engagement
    As for Violet, Emily Blunt brings to the role genuine sympathy, and she continues to thaw out the ice-queen hauteur of her earlier movies.
  28. The Amazing Spider-Man
    It's the successul synthesis of the two – action and emotion – that means this Spider-Man is as enjoyable as it is impressive: Webb's control of mood and texture is near faultless as his film switches from teenage sulks to exhilarating airborne pyrotechnics.
  29. Men on the Bridge
    All in all, this is a carefully modulated plea for tolerance and mutual understanding.
  30. Polisse
    A drama with interesting moments, but also some false notes and a wildly bizarre ending.
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