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. Cleopatra
    Joseph L Mankiewicz's four-hour Cleopatra is a stately but sometimes mindboggling spectacle. The central moment is the queen's jawdropping entry into Rome, for which Mankiewicz creates a sensational Busby Berkeley fantasy, like the world's biggest Olympic opening ceremony.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dr. No
    The other is a scene, improvised on the set, when Bond does a double take on seeing Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington (recently stolen from London's National Gallery) in Dr No's palatial living room. It's the funniest moment in any Bond picture and one of cinema's great art jokes.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sanjuro
    Mifune's slob is deceptive, and the film builds slowly to a shattering ending.
  4. The Birds
    The essential Hitchcock movie, the purest and most confident, a brilliant distillation of the themes that had fueled him ever since he sent the lodger creeping to his upstairs room.
  5. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
    I can't help thinking that the most interesting things happen in the precredit sequence - the fraught childhood, Blanche's sinister "accident" - but it's still vivid, barnstorming stuff.
  6. Cléo from 5 to 7
    A pioneering glory of the new wave.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Music Man
    DaCosta's musical is one of the most exuberant and purely enjoyable of the lot. Much of this is down to the infectious energy of Robert Preston, reprising his stage role as smooth-talking conman. [12 Nov 2005, p.53]
    • The Guardian
  8. Lolita
    Although it is often seen as a precursor to the multiple parts played in Dr Strangelove, Sellers' turn here is a reminder of his true potential, soon to be swallowed up by a stream of ever more awful Pink Panther films.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ride the High Country
    Peckinpah's marvellous elegiac western incorporates the themes of The Wild Bunch - the end of the old west, friendship and betrayal - but is more moving than his blood-soaked epic. That's mainly down to the two stars, leathery veterans Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. [12 Aug 2006, p.53]
    • The Guardian
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Through a Glass Darkly
    This is a noble attempt to shed light on a woman's inner struggle for existence. [02 Jul 2011, p.43]
    • The Guardian
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lover Come Back
    Another glossy, witty battle-of-the-sexes comedy featuring the squeaky-clean Pillow Talk pairing of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. [28 Jan 2006, p.53]
    • The Guardian
  12. Victim
    This gripping thriller, part of the BFI's Bogarde retrospective, daringly smashed through 1961's homosexual taboos, but has weathered best as a study of blackmail and paranoia.
  13. The Innocents
    Filmed with a luminous brilliance by cinematographer Freddie Francis, The Innocents is the apotheosis of old-school Brit spookiness.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    El Cid
    It leaves the facts wounded and strewn haphazardly across the battlefield, but El Cid remains a flat-out terrific movie.
  15. West Side Story
    There is one especially lovely moment. At their first meeting, lovestruck Tony asks Maria if her kindness to him is just a joke. She replies: "I have not yet learned to joke that way. Now I never will." This is a real big-screen event.
  16. Breakfast at Tiffany's
    The movie still looks very good, and you'd need a heart of stone not to love the cat. [Review of re-release]
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Hustler
    The film is marred slightly by an over-abrupt ending and the irritating device of speeded-up clocks, but these are minor flaws in a film that has grown in stature over the years.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pit and the Pendulum
    Corman enhances the narrative with assorted shocks and tinted flashbacks reminiscent of the silent cinema.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Scream of Fear
    The plot is nicked from Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques, full of guttering candles, bumps in the night, and the kind of little shocks you hate yourself for jumping at. [08 Nov 2008, p.53]
    • The Guardian
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
    Global warming? Walter Pidgeon's Admiral Nelson has the answer in this lively, colourful sci-fi adventure. [11 Mar 2006, p.53]
    • The Guardian
  21. Elevator to the Gallows
    It is not free of plot-holes...but what a supremely stylish and watchable picture it is.
  22. La Dolce Vita
    It is a brilliant film, but there is nothing sweet about it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Absent Minded Professor
    Wacky, bouncy Disney comedy.
  24. Breathless
    There is simply no other film which demonstrates so perfectly what it feels like to be young and in love.
  25. The Misfits
    For me, the film is itself a bit of misfit, full of big stagey speeches, contrived moments and some overemphatic performances, but opened out with muscular style by Huston. The faces of Gable, Clift and Monroe together in closeup have a Mount Rushmore look to them.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Grass Is Greener
    The classy cast is willing enough, but let down by Hugh and Margaret Wilson's stodgy adaptation. [28 Jun 2008, p.53]
    • The Guardian
  27. Spartacus
    A stirring classic.
  28. The Hidden Fortress
    The comedy co-exists with a dark view of life's brevity, and Kurosawa devises exhilarating setpieces and captivating images. Arthouse classics aren't usually as welcoming and entertaining as this.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Psycho
    It was Anthony Perkins's maternally obsessed misfit in Psycho who most perfectly distilled the modern fear of the monster who looks just like you.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ocean's 11
    Ocean's Eleven is devoid of morality other than a dedication to honour among thieves; it's consistently funny in a way that invites appreciative smiles rather than loud laughter; it's exciting without bringing disagreeable sweat to the palms; it's engaging, but never does anything as vulgar as taking us out of ourselves.
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