The Independent's Scores

For 595 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 52% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Dune: Part One
Lowest review score: 20 Snow White
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 26 out of 595
595 movie reviews
  1. There’s enough warmth to Guerrero’s script, co-written with Shane McKenzie and Perry Blackshear, to paper over the odd rickety effect or wooden performance.
  2. It was Gyllenhaal, here in a producer role, who initially bought the rights to Gustav Möller’s Danish film. You could call this a vanity project, but at least his presence adds a dose of originality to this carbon copy remake.
  3. It is a film of such literal and emotional largeness that it overwhelms the senses.
  4. It’s irresponsible, boring and a waste of everyone’s time.
  5. Cary Joji Fukunaga has made a smashing piece of action cinema with No Time to Die – it’s just a shame it had to be a Bond film.
  6. Pretty Red Dress reaches out gently to a few untouched corners of British film – not only in how it tackles gendered expectations, but in how it finds in Candice neither hero nor villain.
  7. Its self-congratulatory crusade to restore its subject’s reputation has, for the sake of entertainment, distorted reality to the point that it borders on farce.
  8. It's not that Paperback Hero is a duff film, exactly. Just a little flimsy, a trifle slight, a mite schematic. The story turns dog-eared midway through. [03 Sep 1999, p.19]
    • The Independent
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Close-Up is two films in one, a hugely skilful work of cinematic origami about doubles and doubling.
    • The Independent
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Assayas's attention to even the most marginal character is a joy, as are his mesmerising changes of pace and register. A slow-burning delight. [11 Feb 2000, p.11]
    • The Independent
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    With this cast, you might have thought that Hytner didn't need to emphasise anything, but he does a lot of damage to the film's final half-hour by sending the camera off on wild, skyward missions, or slapping George Fenton's score on to the soundtrack with a trowel. In the last minute he repents for his sins, permitting us to leave the cinema with only the creak of rope and wood in our ears.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Space Jam is nothing if not a product made by men who gauge a film's success by how many soft toys it spawns.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It is a harsh and muddling movie, but often an astounding one. [24 Mar 1996, p.11]
    • The Independent
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    One of Ken Loach's more harrowing evocations of working-class British life, anchored by Crissy Rock's performance as a hard-knocked Liverpudlian battling for the right to raise her children. [23 Oct 2014, p.54]
    • The Independent
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This is an audacious project and one which, for all its flaws, has much to commend it.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Iain Softley, its first-time director, handles his actors with skill and has a real flair for comedy. But Backbeat also feels lightweight, not a landmark movie - it betrays its long genesis and many rewrites in an overpacked and unfocussed script, so often the weakness of Palace's previous productions. [01 Apr 1994, p.23]
    • The Independent
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    [Harris's] loud, rough, energetic tale of 'girlz n the hood' is low on polish and production values but certainly drawn from life.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo and based on his cult cartoon, the film is a computer graphics showpiece: best at swooping round structures (skyscrapers) and rotating three- dimensional objects (lots of explosions). But it's the hallucinogenic sequences that tell you why it has become a cult. [03 Feb 1991, p.24]
    • The Independent
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It all makes for an admirable rather than a likeable work, one which hardens its heart against contentment and even good luck. [13 May 1990, p.21]
    • The Independent
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This is one of the best evocations of the end of days ever committed to film: not too shabby, given a meagre budget. [29 Jul 2018, p.66]
    • The Independent
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The special effects are gruesomely convincing, and Robinson views the world of advertising with a characteristically sharp comic eye. [25 Jul 1989, p.29]
    • The Independent
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The cast - Michael Horden, Ronald Pickup, Cyril Cusack - is distinguished, and the film not without sluggish charm. [27 Jul 1989, p.15]
    • The Independent
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    On a first viewing of the film, I was instantly impressed by Nair's narrative skill: the speed and certitude with which she draws you into her world, and the dexterity with which she interleaves half-a-dozen different stories. The second time, her sentimental streak was more apparent and more annoying, but Salaam Bombay still convinces as a modest, uplifting movie. [26 Jan 1989, p.15]
    • The Independent
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are echoes of Jarmusch and Wenders, yet the film looks surprisingly ordinary, especially given Frank's credentials as a photographer. [28 Dec 1989]
    • The Independent
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An austere and appropriate rumination on leave-taking and loss. [07 Dec 2007, p.20]
    • The Independent
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hoskins is admirably twitchy as the crime-boss in the midst of having his henchmen culled, and being unable to work out who is behind it. [06 Mar 2000, p.21]
    • The Independent
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bitter and twisted and a visual marvel. [18 Jul 1996, p.6]
    • The Independent
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Director Tobe Hooper trapped a suffocating depravity in TCSM that film-makers have struggled to copy ever since.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A berserk, angry, funny and exhausting analysis of sado-masochistic power games masquerading as loving relationships.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As in Tokyo Story, the climax is quietly devastating and piercing in its truthfulness. [27 Sep 2012, p.46]
    • The Independent

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