The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,640 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Enys Men
Lowest review score: 20 Book Club: The Next Chapter
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 893 out of 1640
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1640
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1640
1640 movie reviews
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  1. The Sheep Detectives
    While it is not quite in the same league as any of the films that clearly influenced it, The Sheep Detectives is an appealingly offbeat children’s film, showcasing Balda’s knack for visual humour while also sheep-dipping into unexpectedly weighty themes.
  2. DJ Ahmet
    It’s a rich depiction of a traditional Yörük community – Turkic tribal people – that feels authentically lived in rather than an ethnographic curio, as well as a fresh coming-of-age film.
  3. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
    DaCosta’s film is a macabre morality tale about the best and worst of human nature. It is utterly brutal, and one of the most compelling so far.
  4. Bugonia
    Even by the standards of a Yorgos Lanthimos film, Bugonia is an unhinged and savage piece of storytelling.
  5. Dragonfly
    This lean, intimate drama is a Paul Andrew Williams film, and anyone who saw his brutal revenge picture, Bull, will have an inkling of how dark his movies can get. Even so, the blunt force of Dragonfly’s tonal swerve is enough to knock the air out of you.
  6. Architecton
    Architecton is a gorgeously photographed poetic reverie on the subject of stone and concrete, permanence and profligate waste.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Gold Rush (1925)
    This technically simple, endlessly inventive film balanced laughter and pathos; its cabin fever sequence is unsurpassed. [28 Feb 2010, p.24]
    • The Observer (UK)
      • Posted Jun 25, 2025
  8. Freaky Tales
    With its VHS bargain-bin aesthetic, this is scuzzily enjoyable stuff.
  9. Warfare
    The overriding impression, once the adrenaline has drained away, is of futility, waste and pointless destruction.
  10. Sinners
    If you pick apart the story threads, Sinners is a little messy, but Coogler’s assurance and vision holds everything together.
  11. One to One: John & Yoko
    Ultimately, One to One might not reveal a huge amount that’s new about Lennon, but it makes him feel bracingly alive in a way few other documentaries have managed.
  12. Drop
    It’s enjoyable stuff: a taut and crisply edited balance between humour and horror.
  13. The Return
    Both are terrific, but Binoche is the standout.
  14. Sebastian
    It’s tender, thoughtful film-making from Finnish director Mikko Mäkelä, exploring the bond between two men separated by generations but joined by literature and love.
  15. The Hermit of Treig
    This lovely, compassionate documentary, which recently won the audience award at the Glasgow film festival, is more than a character study. It’s a portrait of a friendship between Smith and film-maker Lizzie MacKenzie.
  16. When Fall Is Coming
    This spry little French-language picture, which delights in subverting our expectations and leaves us with teasing questions about culpability and a crime, shows the director at his most understated, the better to foreground the excellent, intriguingly layered performance from Hélène Vincent.
  17. The Last Showgirl
    Anderson, whose character is left questioning not just what the future holds, but also the costly choices that shaped her past, is excellent, delivering a performance that has single-handedly rewritten the way she is viewed as an actor.
  18. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
    The narration, by LaKeith Stanfield, speaks on behalf of the photographer, who died in 1990. It’s through his remarkable pictures of South Africa and Black America, however, that we really hear his voice.
  19. Mickey 17
    While Mickey 17 isn’t in the same elevated league as Parasite, it’s a lot of fun.
  20. The Monkey
    Such intricate genre mechanisms are fundamental to The Monkey’s construction, but the film also has a heart that beats with authentic human emotion.
  21. I'm Still Here
    The realisation that her husband is gone for good is a gradual process that plays out, largely without words, on Torres’s face, in a performance of extraordinary intelligence and emotional complexity.
  22. Cottontail
    A delicate gem of a film, with a powerhouse turn from Franky.
  23. Memoir of a Snail
    It’s bleak, certainly. But what makes this a distinctively Elliot film is not the relentless misfortune but the flashes of mordant humour to be found alongside Grace’s hoarded knick-knacks, and the care with which the director handles his damaged, cherished social outcasts.
  24. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
    Like a big old glass of pub wine, it might not be particularly complex or sophisticated but, my goodness, it hits the spot.
  25. September 5
    It’s terrific: nail-chewing, edge-of-the-seat stuff.
  26. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
    The Seed of the Sacred Fig may not be his most elegant picture – it has pacing issues and a laboured final act – but it is without doubt Rasoulof’s most important film to date.
  27. Dog Man
    Dog Man, the half-dog, half-cop protagonist of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants spin-off book series, is a gloriously funny creation.
  28. Bring Them Down
    Bring Them Down is an impressive first feature from Christopher Andrews.
  29. The Colors Within
    With its wide-eyed lack of cynicism and the crystalline delicacy of the animation, this is a heart-swellingly lovely work.
  30. The Brutalist
    The screenplay dwells obsessively on certain aspects and rushes blithely past others. The craft of the film-making, though, is exemplary.
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