The Irish Times' Scores

  • Movies
For 1,136 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Son of Saul
Lowest review score: 20 The Turning
Score distribution:
1136 movie reviews
  1. Mackey, in particular, is a powerhouse. The young star is matched well with O’Connor’s carefully calibrated, appealingly earnest script, which approximates a modern sensibility without striking a false note or straying from Emily’s contemporaneous moors.
  2. Nobody could mistake All Quiet on the Western Front for anything other than an anti-war film, but the deafening, careering action — shot in predictably desaturated tones by James Friend — still works to create an unhealthy surge in the viewer.
  3. A winning cast, mostly drawn from the ranks of Gen Z, ensures that Rosaline’s spurned, sulky plans to steal Romeo back from Juliet can be fun.
  4. Sadly, Prince’s estate refused the rights to the audio of Nothing Compares 2 U. That could have been a big problem, but her famous version’s status as the ghost that didn’t come to the feast adds mystery to an already hugely engaging film. For fans and the uninitiated alike.
  5. A good-looking waste, but a waste nonetheless.
  6. You will learn something of Agojie, the all-woman Dahomean army, from The Woman King, but this is largely popcorn-friendly fantasy pitched at maximum volume.
  7. All of these parties try hard with a script that, while credited to Jen D’Angelo, doesn’t appear to have been entirely written as yet.
  8. Strickland has expressed a passion for This is Spinal Tap and Flux Gourmet has much to do with how close confinement causes creative types to claw out one another’s eyes. The characters here are every bit as cleanly drawn as the members of that fictional rock group and, even if they generate less open affection, they also encourage one to take sides.
  9. Colin Farrell’s central turn, a lovely, soulful study of melancholy, is one of his best performances to date.
  10. Nobody could deny that Dominik layers sympathy on Monroe, but the reduction of her life to a catalogue of torments betrays the complicated, intelligent and — God forbid this were acknowledged — funny person we knew her to be. Defining her solely by misery feels like more postmortem abuse.
  11. This electrifying new film from director Romain Gavras starts as it means to go on: with a riot and fireworks.
  12. The costuming and production design are so crisp one can often overlook the vacuum within the packaging.
  13. The jokes land with satisfactory regularity. The locations are lovely throughout. But a middle-ranking Working Title rom-com – more Wimbledon than Notting Hill – may not be enough to revivify a spluttering genre.
  14. What an auspicious debut for Kline and what a fine showcase for all other parties.
  15. From the moment My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade blasts across the opening credits, this is the unexpectedly moving, nostalgia-soundtracked class reunion that you’ll enjoy despite yourself.
  16. The triumvirate of actors at the heart of the film are so committed and so good. The songs are pleasing. The script is clever. There’s a charming Aristilean intimacy about the fixed location. Conversely, there are too many ideas and ambitions here to fit into a low-budget picture.
  17. See How They Run is not quite so self-regarding as Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, but See How They Run is a delightful, shamelessly affectionate deconstruction of ChristieLand that outstays not a second of its welcome.
  18. The picture doesn’t reach out and grab you. It doesn’t fling viscera in your face. It hangs around outside your house, half hidden in shadow, and gradually insinuates malaise. So, no, not comfort food.
  19. This already improbable dream boasts an interesting supporting cast.
  20. Miller has, as directors often will, followed up a succès d’estime — this is his first film since Mad Max: Fury Road — with something of a personal folly. Better that than bland boilerplate, but Three Thousand Years of Longing grates as often as it charms.
  21. Pritz collaborates commendably and sensitively with his subjects.
  22. Dumb, fun, and definitely not for the acrophobic. See it. Then go argue plot points with people on the internet.
  23. Mr Malcolm’s List plays like Jane Austen fan-fiction, which isn’t the worst subgenre in the world, even if nobody could ever confuse the plot with that of Lady Susan, let alone Pride and Prejudice.
  24. They don’t make them like this any more. To be fair, they never made them quite like this. Passes the time very nicely (and occasionally horribly).
  25. We bounce from one adventure to another without settling into anything like a rhythm. But the nuanced acting and characterisation elevate a film that feels securely connected to a particular place and time. The Bronx has rarely been so affectionately evoked.
  26. Everyone on screen is having a ball — albeit behind the straightest of faces — in this uproarious gallimaufry of movie-related pretentiousness.
  27. Director McLeod — another of Lee’s fellow students — has fun with contradictory accounts, tall tales and faulty memories in a film that pulls the rug just as effectively as its subject and inscrutable star do.
  28. The directors do good work in conjuring up a remote era and teasing out still extant racial tensions. One does, however, end up yearning to hear a little more about how the legal team went about their work. A good complaint to have.
  29. A perfect late-summer diversion.
  30. Pitched somewhere between folk horror, ecological revenge and scathing class critique, The Feast is at its best during the elegantly atmospheric, nervy first hour, as cinematographer Bjørn Ståle Bratberg picks out ominous details.

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