The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,641 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 3.2 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: 894 out of 1641
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1641
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1641
1641 movie reviews
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    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Indian Runner
    In the character of Joe, David Morse and Penn have created an authentic hero of everyday life, and in a generally well acted picture, Charles Bronson as the boys' father reveals for the first time in some years his more vulnerable side and demonstrates what a fine actor he is. [01 Dec 1991, p.60]
    • The Observer (UK)
  2. The Forever Purge
    The cartoonish tone of the relentless violence feels at odds with the otherwise sombre, apocalyptic mood.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Husbands
    Highly uneven, painfully drawn-out, deeply sincere, wildly misogynistic and at times agonisingly tedious. It is also intermittently brilliant, with moments of piercing honesty. There is, however, not a single memorable line of dialogue or anything that might pass for wit.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dead Reckoning
    Director Cromwell lays on the expressionist style of tilted cameras, graphic shadows and sinister silhouettes with some relish. [31 Jul 2011, p.47]
    • The Observer (UK)
  5. The Spy Who Dumped Me
    Director Susanna Fogel handles the action set pieces with gusto but fails to make the chick-chat bonding moments seem like anything more than padding.
  6. After the Wedding
    This story of motherhood and moral conundrums, of privilege and philanthropy and “worthy causes” is one whose dramatic twists and soapy reveals feel at odds with the cultivated tone of serious, muted elegance.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bodies Bodies Bodies
    By the end, I was fond of every single brat, dead or alive.
  8. France
    France is watchable, if not subtle, but the picture labours its message with an overstretched running time and an oddly anticlimactic structure.
  9. Brittany Runs A Marathon
    There’s a note of truth in Bell’s finely tuned performance as a character whose insecurities have calcified over the years, hardening her to genuine goodwill, which she frequently misreads as pity.
  10. The Children Act
    There is no questioning the angular complexity of the central character study, with all its unexpected harmonics and discords.
  11. Sorry We Missed You
    Time and again, scenes of back-breaking struggle end with the screen fading to black, as if the film itself is simply too tired to go on or hanging its head in empathetic shame.
  12. Clara Sola
    This atmospheric debut from Costa Rican-Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén combines mud, moss and mysticism to arresting effect.
  13. The Penguin Lessons
    Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) directs, just about striking a balance between the fluffy sentimentality of the story and its hard-edged political backdrop.
  14. Copilot
    The director treats the film as an empathy exercise, hoping to complicate and humanise a terrorist. Yet this is undermined by the obvious red flags that she plants in each section. Saeed’s flight path becomes a foregone conclusion.
  15. Hilma
    This handsome biopic by Lasse Hallström, with his daughter Tora Hallström in the role of the younger Hilma, attempts to redress the balance.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Vice Versa
    Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage are pleasant enough as the father and son who swap roles, but the result is less funny and less stylish than Peter Ustinov's period version of 1947 which starred Roger Livesey and Anthony Newley. [14 Dec 2003, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
  17. Copshop
    Alexis Louder holds her own as the heroine of (and sole woman in) Joe Carnahan’s lean, mean, 70s-inspired action thriller.
  18. Blinded by the Light
    It is gleefully dorky, hopelessly earnest, sincere, quite possibly to a fault. It unfolds as a series of Springsteen-soundtracked set pieces, each shamelessly engineered to maximise catharsis, cheering and possibly weeping from the audience.
  19. Sing 2
    While there are no surprises whatsoever here, the perky charm remains.
  20. Hustle
    This is quality film-making, with enough that’s distinctive – Dan Deacon’s score is a pulsing, panicky jolt of energy – to appeal beyond basketball fans.
  21. Respect
    Despite top-notch period production design and a couple of convincing studio workout sequences (I was reminded of the brilliant Love & Mercy as Aretha tells her bassist to ditch Alabama for Harlem), the drama rarely has the fiery spark its subject demands.
  22. Greed
    As rambunctiously entertaining as it is crude.
  23. The Call of the Wild
    It should please family audiences; it’s a handsomely mounted, stirring adventure. It’s just a little bit declawed.
  24. The Persian Version
    If the final act overdoes it a little with the wackily-ever-after feelgood vibes, Mohammadi’s flippantly acidic to-camera commentary emphasises the sharp edges within the family embrace.
  25. Amanda
    The film shies away from any kind of political commentary, and as a result feels oddly sapped of fire or urgency.
  26. Dashcam
    Best seen in a cinema with the rowdiest audience you can find.
  27. Scream
    While this is the smartest, funniest and stabbiest film since the 1996 original, it does feel as though Scream has come full circle, an ouroboros serpent of a franchise that is destined to endlessly devour itself until those testy toxic fans finally lose patience.
  28. God's Creatures
    This solid but familiar drama is acted with conviction; Watson and Mescal are equally compelling. But there’s only so much a quality performance can do – and the film leans heavily on shots of Watson’s troubled face – when the material is a well-meaning but dourly rote exploration of cycles of violence.
  29. The Bad Guys
    It’s sharp, silly and frequently very funny.
  30. The House That Jack Built
    This sporadically arresting slice of grand guignol takes pointed swipes at misogyny while occasionally seeming to wallow in it. Perhaps its greatest sin is one of bad timing. As always with Von Trier, we can only guess whether that sin is intentional or ironic.
  31. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
    It’s unabashed froth, as substantial as a tulle skirt. And perhaps that’s exactly what we need right now.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tetris
    Ultimately, if the film is entertaining – and it is, sporadically at least – it’s as much to do with the reliably engaging Taron Egerton in the central role of embattled businessman Henk Rogers, as it is with the wiretaps, honey traps and sneering Soviet security forces.
  33. RBG
    It’s not a showy piece of film-making, but then this indomitable 85-year-old is not an ostentatious person.
  34. Godzilla vs. Kong
    The spectacle is more involving than the plot, especially the dazzling image of Kong floating skyward, serene and surrounded by purple glowing rocks.
  35. The Fire Inside
    The Fire Inside, which was scripted by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and directed by cinematographer turned first-time feature film-maker Rachel Morrison, understands that, with storytelling as with fighting, sometimes all you need to do is stand firm and land the punches.
  36. The Tomorrow War
    Pratt, and in particular Betty Gilpin as his wife, give likable, grounded performances. But the screenplay is a bloated, unwieldy thing that is at least 30 minutes longer than it should be.
  37. In Front of Your Face
    In Front of Your Face is a gentle pleasure and, as such, may not be a picture that will win new fans to the films of director Hong Sang-soo. But admirers of his distinctive style – long takes, zooms, social awkwardness, vast quantities of strong alcohol – will be beguiled by this bittersweet series of encounters.
  38. No Time to Die
    This is where the film slips up. With a Bond as dangerous but dour as Craig’s, the onus is on the villain to inject a little levity, hence the ham-tastic turns from Javier Bardem and Cristoph Waltz in the most recent outings. This film’s main bad guy is Rami Malek’s lacklustre Lyutsifer Safin.
  39. A Different Man
    There are a lot of ideas churning around in this intriguing but scattershot picture, which veers into the surreal and macabre in its quest to explore themes of identity, authenticity and the nature of beauty. Not all of it lands successfully, particularly in the increasingly agitated and fragmented second half.
  40. The Gray Man
    For all the sensory overload – it’s a bit like being trapped inside a first-person shooter challenge being played by a 12-year-old gaming prodigy – The Gray Man is undeniably entertaining.
  41. After Yang
    I’m not convinced that the picture carries quite the philosophical weight that it thinks it does. Still, it’s an undeniably gorgeous place to lose yourself for a while.
  42. The Boy and the Heron
    The lush orchestral score, by regular Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi, is shimmering and exultant. All the elements are in place. So it seems almost churlish to note that this is middling Miyazaki at best.
  43. The Mountain Within Me
    This is a film that is precision-engineered to hit the commercial sweet spot between extreme-sports mountain-climbing adventure docs such as Free Solo, The Alpinist and Touching the Void and feelgood tales of overcoming adversity. And as such, it works.
  44. Maya and the Wave
    Leaning heavily on a wealth of breathtaking slow-motion surf footage, Stephanie Johnes’s crowd-pleasing documentary tracks Gabeira’s triumph over industry sexism and a catastrophic wipeout that nearly cost her career and her life. Stirring stuff.
  45. Don't Worry Darling
    The problem is that Wilde leans too heavily on surface and style, as a distraction from the fact that the story itself is riddled with inconsistencies and barely holds together.
  46. The Beach Bum
    It’s not unfunny watching McConaughey smoke a joint from between Isla Fisher’s toes, but some viewers may find themselves less enamoured of Moondog than the film is.
  47. By the Grace of God
    There’s perhaps an over-reliance on voiceover by way of letters and emails, though the film’s unvarnished formal directness is a good thing, given the sensitive material.
  48. Vivarium
    There’s enough visual and thematic invention to keep viewers gripped and unsettled, particularly in these unprecedented, isolated times.
  49. Bottoms
    Even if the scattershot plotting doesn’t quite hold together, there’s a wayward energy to the picture and a barbed sense of mischief.
  50. Occupied City
    Feels closer in approach to his early gallery installation work than it does to his narrative film-making.
  51. Song Sung Blue
    While the film is largely content to tread a safe path, it does at least feel full-hearted in its appreciation of the way music can connect lost souls and enrich lives.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Land of the Pharaohs
    Uneven, oddly distinguished attempt to examine the pyramid-building obsession of the Pharaoh (Jack Hawkins) and how it was affected by his second wife (Joan Collins) and his architect (James Robertson Justice). Some excellent sets by the great Alexander Trauner, much turgid dialogue and a score by Dimitri Tiomkin. [11 Jun 2006, p.18]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cyclo
    That Ho Chi Minh City is as rotten as the old Saigon, only more cynical and decrepit, is no great revelation, and we learn little of how ordinary people live or how society is organised in Vietnam today. [24 Mar 1996, p.12]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rabid
    Early, low-budget Cronenberg horror flick, emetic in intention and effect. [08 Oct 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Mirror Crack'd
    Third and least good of the quartet of period Agatha Christie movies produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin. [04 Feb 2007, p.2]
    • The Observer (UK)
  56. Marry Me
    [A] silly, shallow romcom, which is as thin and predictable as Kat’s tinny pop songs.
  57. Stockholm
    There’s comedy in its depiction of the Swedish prime minister as a caricature of even-temperedness, but from its gaudy 70s costuming to its goofy, wobbling tone, everything about this film feels uncomfortably broad.
  58. Holy Spider
    It’s a tense, atmospheric piece of film-making but it made me profoundly uncomfortable – and not, I should add, in a good way. There’s a prurience in how the murders are filmed – the camera hungrily scouring the distorted faces of dying women – that borders on dehumanising.
  59. Brightburn
    In its attempts to provide an antidote to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s catalogue of liberal fantasies, the film swings too far in the other direction.
  60. You People
    The first third of the picture is promising, if frequently excruciating. But the points are painfully laboured and the jokes run out of steam.
  61. Stage Mother
    The feelgood tone feels a little flaccid.
  62. Ambulance
    At the core of the film, partially concealed by Bay’s posturing and swagger, is a bracing, slickly executed B-movie.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Black Scorpion
    Essentially this is a rip-off of the 1954 nuclear angst horror flick Them!, about mutant insects produced by bomb tests in New Mexico. Richard Denning and Mara Corday star, somewhat dimly. [21 Mar 1999, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  64. Harold and the Purple Crayon
    Since Levi is the single-use plastic of screen performers – flat, shiny, desperately unfashionable – it’s left to Jemaine Clement to provide the story’s charismatic core as Gary, the villainous failed fantasy novelist with a thing for Mel’s mum.
  65. Captain America: Brave New World
    It’s a humourless drag of a picture, overreliant on clunky exposition and naive geopolitical posturing. Plus it’s ugly, with a greasy murkiness that looks as though the lens was smeared with lard.
  66. Profile
    The ratcheting tension is sadly punctured by unintentionally hilarious scenes of ambitious “research” by journalist Amy (Valene Kane), mostly involving frantic Googling and YouTube tutorials on “how to look younger”.
  67. Sonic the Hedgehog
    Marsden is charming enough, summoning surprising chemistry with Schwartz, and so it’s not total torture spending an hour and a half with the pair. Yet for better or worse, it doesn’t linger.
  68. Swimming with Men
    Based on the true story of a group of Swedish men who competed in the synchronised swimming world championship, Swimming With Men is reminiscent of The Full Monty, its feelgood climax landing with a welcome, if gentle, splash.
  69. The Boss Baby: Family Business
    The pro-family, anti-tech messaging is designed to play to the parents, but while not entirely unwatchable, the film’s demented levels of energy will recommend it to younger audiences and may trigger stress headaches in anyone over 12.
  70. Dear Evan Hansen
    It’s the cinema equivalent of rubbing cut onions in the eyes of the audience: film-making that is cynically and artificially engineered to make the audience weep.
  71. The Critic
    Despite reported reshoots and a fresh edit after the film’s coolly received premiere last year, its sour spirit and a cluttered, clumsy third act remain a problem.
  72. Against the Ice
    There is about as much jeopardy as you’d expect from an action thriller about an obscure land dispute; a tense encounter with an angry polar bear and a phantom hot air balloon are highlights during the endless plodding across the frozen wilderness.
  73. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
    While I had more time than many of my fellow critics for the two previous movie spin-offs from the Sega video game series, it turns out that you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing.
  74. Mr. Burton
    It’s a pity, then, that this sluggishly paced film, which leans heavily on a fussy, twinkling piano score, is so meandering and listless.
  75. Mother's Pride
    This is an underdog tale straining so hard to be endearing that it’s more likely to pull a muscle than tug a heartstring.
  76. Greatest Days
    It’s a film that obediently hits the predictable story beats, is regularly punctuated by peppy, disposable musical numbers, but shows no inclination to be much more than a nostalgic marketing vehicle for a collection of anodyne pop songs.
  77. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
    The prosaic anti-escapism of this sprawling American indie thoroughly subverts the expectations of the festive family movie.
  78. The Marvels
    Of the cast, it’s only Iman Vellani, as Marvel fangirl turned superhero Kamala Khan, who seems genuinely excited to be in the film.
  79. Songwriter
    While we learn little of interest about Sheeran himself, the film is arguably a thoroughgoing demystification of the industrial process behind the modern pop song.
  80. The Beanie Bubble
    It is blithely unquestioning of what the frenzy over glorified Hacky Sacks actually tells us about society.
  81. Cowboys
    Comic actors Steve Zahn and Jillian Bell are uncharacteristically earnest in this achingly well-intentioned but thuddingly heavy-handed family drama.
  82. Werewolf
    Choppy editing adds to the sense that this picture is struggling to achieve a tonal balance and work out exactly what it is trying to say.
  83. Queer
    The yagé trip sequence is overlong, baggy and indulgent. The characters lose all sense of their bodies; the film simply loses its point.
  84. Trolls Band Together
    It’s a peppy sugar rush that should please younger audiences, but the appeal of the series is wearing pretty thin.
  85. Problemista
    Swinton is massively overblown and Torres too wispy and diffident to balance things out.
  86. Pick of the Litter
    In a tussle between the appeal of the subject and the plodding banality of the approach, the pups are ultimately the losers.
  87. Utoya: July 22
    This harrowing retelling of Norwegian rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 terrorist attack on the island of Utøya is less exploitative than Paul Greengrass’s brutal, Netflix-bound, English-language version, but the question remains: does a tragedy have to be turned into cinema for people to engage with it?
  88. Seize Them!
    The small-screen tone of the picture makes it feel like a duff episode of Horrible Histories, albeit with considerably more swearing.
  89. Angel Has Fallen
    Butler is convincingly sturdy as Banning, but the film’s politics are shaky.
  90. Vanguard
    It’s an unforgivable waste of Jackie Chan, action-movie legend, reduced here to pratfalls and gurning double takes.
  91. Land
    Wright is sympathetic and believable, but we never truly get a sense of Edee or her desires outside the bounds of her loss.
  92. Crawl
    The scenes of family bonding are tiresome but the action is mostly tense and cheerfully bloody.
  93. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
    Now in his 60s – not quite old enough to be a US presidential candidate but not far off – the actor lacks some of the hunger and aggression that ignited his career in the 80s, but he remains a uniquely magnetic performer. And somehow he manages to bring a degree of freshness to material that was stale several decades ago.
  94. Yesterday
    There’s a zesty spark between Patel and James, and for a while the film chugs along happily on the goodwill bought by the soundtrack. Then one honkingly misjudged scene knocks the whole movie off key, heralding a toe-curling, tone-deaf terrace chant of an ending.
  95. Papillon
    At a slow two hours plus, the film feels stretched.
  96. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
    It’d be easy to map Gilliam on to Grisoni, a film-maker dogged by his artistic misfires and the mess left in their wake. Really, though, he’s Quixote, stuck in a noble past and wilfully disconnected from a present that jostles uncomfortably close.
  97. Locked Down
    The film busts a gut attempting to free itself from the confines of the couple’s home. In this, it’s at least true to the spirit of lockdown, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
  98. Air
    For all its affable charm, there’s something slippery and disingenuous about this film.
  99. Salem's Lot
    The vampire genre is, like its toothy protagonists, notoriously difficult to kill outright, but this flat and uninspired film could be a nail in its coffin.
  100. Lizzie
    Most irritating is the murder scene itself, which sees both women stripping nude, seemingly in order for the camera to leer more effectively at their bodies rather than to spare them getting their petticoats bloodied.
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