The Irish Times' Scores

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For 1,130 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 4.9 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:
  1. Positive: 637 out of 1130
  2. Mixed: 467 out of 1130
  3. Negative: 26 out of 1130
1130 movie reviews
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  1. Flee
    There are obvious parallels between Rasmussen’s film and such similarly constructed animations as Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir and Keith Maitland’s Tower, although Flee’s rugged lines are never as polished as anything found in either of those films. The sense of catharsis and the heartfelt voiceover, however, offset the roughhewn aesthetics.
  2. Death on the Nile
    Death on the Nile remains the sort of harmlessly enjoyable entertainment they used to make when … well, way back when they made this film.
  3. The Souvenir: Part II
    Hogg has created her own universe and explored it with relentless vigour. Few final shots have so satisfactorily summed up such a magnum opus. Sod the detractors.
  4. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    For all the impeccable production values – including Bakker’s outlandish 1980s costumes, all lovingly recreated by Mitchell Travers – the film’s generosity towards its controversial heroine feels like an unwarranted canonisation.
  5. Jockey
    Bentley, whose father and grandfather rode, has done an exemplary job in recreating that world.
  6. Belle
    Though not quite as extravagantly imaginative as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time or Wolf Children, the eighth feature from Mamoru Hosada marries dazzling spectacle, high-octane action and social commentary.
  7. Parallel Mothers
    Parallel Mothers wears its heart on its beautifully styled sleeve. Even the dark excavation at the heart of the enterprise is delivered with wit, warmth and eye-popping colours. It is difficult to think of another filmmaker who could so effortlessly juggle tones and seemingly disparate elements.
  8. Amulet
    Amulet has been billed as a feminist revenge horror. It’s a savage one, powered along by the same metaphorical heft that made The Babadook such a sensation.
  9. Sing 2
    There is nothing special about the animation. The lead characters are reasonably easy on the eye, but too many of the secondary players look like human beings with animal heads crudely jammed on unwelcoming shoulders.
  10. Fortress
    Almost entirely plotless, it consists mostly of the characters pointing guns and wracking their brains for the next terrible line. Yet they had enough money to pay Willis whatever he asks to sit in two different chairs for a few hours (and he may charge by the chair). Nothing adds up.
  11. Mass
    The performances, carefully calibrated characters, and the unexpected detours in the conversation ensure that the film remains an absorbing piece of cinema, one that locks the viewer in with these angry, bereaved people and their increasingly difficult confrontation.
  12. Cicada
    Though there are some clunking flaws... Cicada has the compact shape of an elegant short story – open-ended, yet not incomplete.
  13. Belfast
    A gorgeous, proudly unreliable glance over the shoulder. A tribute to an often maligned city.
  14. Nightmare Alley
    Production designer Tamara Deverell and costume designer Luis Sequeira make for an arresting spectacle, one that is, ultimately, too luxurious for the sleazy travelling show and 1940s hoboism at the heart of the movie.
  15. Scream
    The script is smartly self-fulfilling. Devil’s Due co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett deliver jump-scares with mechanical precision. The thrill, however, is gone.
  16. Cow
    There are implicit arguments here about the monetisation of motherhood and about the human capacity to shut out unattractive truths.
  17. Memoria
    Sound designer Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr’s compositions are as dramatically impactful as Tilda Swinton’s performance is delicately minimalist. Her carefully calibrated movements sit beautifully within the director’s enigmatic images and hypnotic pacing.
  18. Boiling Point
    Taking place in an upmarket east London restaurant on a busy night during the Christmas season, the film gives a real sense of the frantic stress that underlies such operations. The lack of cuts presses home the real-time scenario and allows no escape from the hurtling momentum.
  19. Munich: The Edge of War
    Ironically, the project’s occasional attempts to pass itself off as a political thriller slow the material down. The run time doesn’t help. A worthwhile historical curio, nonetheless.
  20. A Hero
    In common with the director’s most-admired films – including the Academy Award winner A Separation – this new film seamlessly marries genre kicks and social injustice.
  21. The 355
    It is better to create original action roles for women than to lazily alter the gender of already familiar characters. But there is no other reason for this humdrum film to exist.
  22. Licorice Pizza
    One can scarcely imagine a more enjoyably chaotic way of welcoming in the new year. What a blast.
  23. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
    Had we seen none of Cumberbatch’s earlier troubled intellectuals, we might embrace his performance with enthusiasm. But there are a few too many familiar manoeuvres for comfort in a performance that treads water throughout.
  24. The Humans
    The ensemble remains electrifying against the damp.
  25. Titane
    Nothing is safe and nothing is sacred in Julia Ducournau’s delirious new world. Rev up and get ready to run over everything the hotrods in Fast & Furious hold dear.
  26. The Tragedy of Macbeth
    This is a Macbeth for the head rather than the heart, but no less beguiling for that.
  27. Being the Ricardos
    Sorkin has said that he’s not a particular fan of I Love Lucy’s brand of slapstick and Being the Ricardos goes out of its snooty way to avoid anything as vulgar as Lucille Ball’s comedy, save for a very brief glimpse of the famous grape-stomping scene. The film’s obsession with process means we’re never getting to drink the wine.
  28. The Matrix Resurrections
    In Lana Wachowski’s defence, much of Resurrections does play like a sincere conversation with herself. She and her sister invented this extraordinary world, and they have the right to analyse and deconstruct it. But she is a victim of her own early success.
  29. The King's Man
    After the so-so Kingsman: The Secret Service and the unendurable Kingsman: The Golden Circle, one might reasonably assume that Matthew Vaughn had nowhere else to go with the secret agent pastiche. This everything-but-the-kitchen-sink prequel deflates such pessimism in disreputably enjoyable fashion.
  30. The Story of Film: A New Generation
    It would be wrong to describe A New Generation as a mere coda to The Story of Film. Clocking in at a weighty 160 minutes, the documentary travels to every corner of cinemaspace.
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