The Guardian's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
  1. Blade
    Blade is an entertainingly macabre and excitingly staged action horror, with a propulsive energy and a prototype “bullet time” sequence one year before the Wachowskis made it famous in The Matrix.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Eel
    Imamura tells his tale, taken from a short story by Akira Yoshimura called Glistening In The Dark, in a bold mixture of styles encompassing horror (the murder) and passages near to farce, while at other times this seems the creation of a classically trained film-maker working out for himself a quiet psychological drama. [11 Nov 1997, p.9]
    • The Guardian
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Western
    Poirier directs with a clear eye, an unsentimental mind and a fine ear for table talk. The humour, and there is plenty of it, comes from within, coloured by a view of the human race that combines realism with affection. [08 May 1998, p.7]
    • The Guardian
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wilde
    A solid biopic, with fine performances – though in its sombre tone and attempt to cover too much of Wilde's life, it could be accused of overstating the vital importance of being earnest.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sonatine
    Mostly, Kitano is as expressionless as Buster Keaton, but now and then a smile breaks out on that weather-beaten face. He doesn't use much camera movement either, but the combination of understatement and outrageousness is unique, and oddly appealing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fireworks
    It's another extraordinary film with a quality of stillness about it, but combined, as usual, with brief bursts of explosive violence and Kitano's lovely deadpan humour.
  7. The Big Lebowski
    It’s a great performance from Bridges, and he seems weirdly young in this film, certainly compared to the brilliant craggy oldsters that later became his acting birthright. You can still see the boyish, vulnerable figure that he was in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. One of a kind. [20th Anniversary]
  8. The Brave
    There's a lot wrong with The Brave, with a pace that may be intended to evoke desert languor, but is often plain leaden. Yet The Brave is oddly haunting, if only for its eccentricity. [13 May 1997, p.2]
    • The Guardian
  9. Love and Other Catastrophes
    It’s a wonderfully spritzy dialogue-driven work, full of oomph and chutzpah.
  10. Crash
    Crash is still creepy, still menacing, still hypnotic, and it is still dedicated, in its freaky way, to the ideal of eroticism, to just drifting from erotic scene to erotic scene without much need for story. But Crash is no longer so contemporary. [4K re-release]
  11. Maborosi
    It is a sombre and painful drama, enacted with reserve. There are no closeups, and it is fully one hour into the running time before we get even a medium shot of the female lead’s face. Even then there are shadows.
  12. Space Jam
    Never was a film so candidly designed to sell products, but it has an archival interest.
  13. Breaking the Waves
    It is shot with fluency and energy; the dreamy chapter-heading inserts are striking, the final image is powerful, and of course Watson herself is a triumph.
  14. Romeo + Juliet
    DiCaprio’s performance is excellent; his Romeo is transformed and astonished by the real thing; he has play-acted at love until now, and he hasn’t realised how vulnerable it would make him. Danes looks more mature than he does (though in fact six years younger) and she is such a smart, stylish player, even at this age. The Luhrmann R+J is a tonic and a delight.
  15. Trainspotting
    Trainspotting is supercharged with sulphurous humour and brutal recklessness.
  16. Lone Star
    A really absorbing and powerfully acted drama, guided with a distinctive kind of Zen wisdom by Sayles.
  17. Ghost in the Shell
    It is a dizzying, headspinning film, replete with violence, alienation and tech-porn. I confess I find it too opaque to make the kind of investment that would qualify me as a real fan. But it should be seen.
  18. Fargo
    McDormand is perfect in the role.
  19. Richard III
    The “fascist” staging could have been hackneyed, but Loncraine carries it off superbly as the showcase for action-thriller noir.
  20. Jumanji
    As for Williams himself, his wild-man routine is only in evidence in his opening scenes; otherwise he dials it down, perhaps sensing that the way to upstage the loony creatures is to be relatively rational. There is something touchingly innocent in his performance.
  21. I Am Cuba
    It is strident, yes, and naive, too perhaps; but lyrical and passionate and visually dazzling.
  22. GoldenEye
    From the current vantage point, this film, not yet entirely dominated by digital effects, looks like a 1960s-vintage second world war film.
  23. Showgirls
    Maybe it’s the last great mainstream exploitation picture, a film which owns and flaunts its crassness; a bi-curious catfight version of All About Eve or Pretty Woman.
  24. Clueless
    Never was a title more misleading. This is sophisticated pleasure.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    First Knight
    A somewhat double-edged Arthurian romance. There's a sharp side, with Sean Connery the noblest of kings, Julia Ormond an impressive Guinevere, and some genuinely epic imagery; on the blunt side, the tragedy is Camelot-via-Tinseltown: Richard Gere's Lancelot is far from convincing and the armour is just too shiny. [31 Dec 2005, p.49]
    • The Guardian
  26. Johnny Mnemonic
    Perhaps it’s quaint, but it’s also watchable, and it is the kind of sci-fi that is genuinely audacious, trying to envisage what the future will be like – and often succeeding.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »