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. Chevalier
    Perhaps that is this frothy film’s strength: cherrypicking multiplex-friendly elements from a complex and still largely unknown life in a manner that leaves the audience wanting to know much more.
  2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
    There’s not a frame of this rich, kaleidoscopically detailed animation that isn’t dazzling.
  3. The Little Mermaid
    It’s functionally good-natured rehash fare, bogged down by some watery CG and a few uncomfortable dips into “uncanny valley”, yet buoyed up by Bailey’s winning titular performance.
  4. The Other Fellow
    It’s an intriguing idea that might, perhaps, have sustained a short film.
  5. Beau Is Afraid
    I think Beau Is Afraid is best described as an amusingly patience-testing shaggy dog story that asks: “What if your mother could hear all those unspeakable things you tell your therapist?” Parts of it are hilarious. Other sections sag. Some will find it insufferable.
  6. Under the Fig Trees
    It’s not the kind of film that nails the audience to its seats; rather, it’s a quiet, observational piece of storytelling that pieces together the budding relationships between the labourers.
  7. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    With a smile that frays a little around the edges, and a peppy enthusiasm that can’t quite hide the doubts, McAdams wrings every last drop of pathos from her scenes, almost upstaging her screen daughter in the process.
  8. White Men Can't Jump
    It’s slick, unchallenging and perfectly enjoyable, but it’s hard to see the point of a remake of Ron Shelton’s 1992 mismatched buddy movie about a pair of basketball hustlers who reluctantly team up.
  9. Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
    This very enjoyable film explores his extensive body of work, much of it daringly ahead of its time; it was Paik who, long before the concept of the internet had taken root, first broached the idea of an electronic superhighway.
  10. Fast X
    Disbelief is not so much suspended as detonated.
  11. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
    The real revelations, however, lie in the depiction of Fox’s family life, most notably his marriage to actor Tracy Pollan, who first won his heart by calling him “a complete fucking asshole”, and whose unswerving love leaves him all but speechless when he’s asked what she means to him, save for one word: “Clarity”.
  12. Plan 75
    This is subdued storytelling that, while it drags a little in its pacing, asks tough questions about society’s relationship with elderly people.
  13. Book Club: The Next Chapter
    If anything, the writing in this chocolate-box travelogue of a sequel is even lazier than that of the first film, with much cackling innuendo and sparkly narcissism, a couple of clumsily engineered long-distance domestic crises and interminable heartfelt speeches that made me cringe so hard I nearly dislocated my spine.
  14. The Eight Mountains
    Sweeping and novelistic in scope, the film, adapted from an Italian bestseller by Paolo Cognetti, combines the earthy, rooted grit of Jack London with the vivid emotional landscapes of Elena Ferrante.
  15. A Bunch of Amateurs
    As this terrific and very moving documentary shows, the society, fuelled by bickering, biscuits and cinephilia, is a lifeline for its members, who weather bereavements, loneliness and fiercely argued creative differences within its peeling walls. Lovely stuff.
  16. Pamfir
    It’s a bold, arresting debut from writer-director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, who balances muscular, crime-thriller tropes against moments of striking, unsettling beauty, tension and urgency against knottily complex character development. Highly recommended.
  17. Return to Seoul
    Park’s portrayal of Freddie never misses a beat – an astonishing transformative feat for a first-time actor who seems to arrive on screen as a fully formed, multifaceted performer, inhabiting the film’s kaleidoscopic central character.
  18. The Blue Caftan
    It’s a gentle piece of Arabic-language storytelling, one that softly, slowly enfolds the audience rather than propels them on a journey.
  19. Harka
    While the symbolism can land a little heavily at times, Bessa’s fiercely committed performance and the palpable anger in the storytelling are the picture’s driving force.
  20. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
    Classic rock needle drops and showy, snaking, single-shot action sequences – both GOTG trademarks – abound in a picture that balances a slightly overstuffed storyline with mischief, humour and the biggest of hearts.
  21. Cairo Conspiracy
    Tarik Saleh’s political saga turns progressively knottier and more claustrophobic, almost to a fault. But it’s also horribly tense, richly textured and showcases a terrific supporting performance from Fares as the tale’s shadowy Thomas Cromwell figure.
  22. Assassin Club
    By the end, his getaway car is almost as riddled with holes as the plot itself.
  23. Loving Highsmith
    It’s a thorough, measured, often illuminating portrait, aided by readings from Highsmith’s unpublished diaries and interviews with her ex-lovers.
  24. One Fine Morning
    Hansen-Løve hits a career high note, delivering a quietly thoughtful and ultimately life-affirming portrait of the strange interaction between loss and rebirth. It’s a miraculous balancing act that pretty much took my breath away.
  25. Suzume
    Shinkai casts a spell in the moment, but the magic fades away.
  26. Renfield
    Your standard vampire film would have put Cage centre stage. Renfield, God help it, elects to bury the lede and drive a stake through his heart.
  27. Godland
    There’s a strong element of myth and magic at work here too, most notably in the recitation of an eerie dream about mating eels and mass infidelity, and in the sight of the body of a horse rotting over a period of years and returning to the earth. It all adds to the film’s haunting appeal.
  28. Hilma
    This handsome biopic by Lasse Hallström, with his daughter Tora Hallström in the role of the younger Hilma, attempts to redress the balance.
  29. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
    The Super Mario Bros Movie is a frantic Easter egg hunt of a film that does the bare minimum to please its loyal existing fanbase. Those less enthralled by the antics of the moustachioed Italian plumber will wonder which of Donkey Kong’s weaponised barrels this joyless, noisy mess was scraped from.
  30. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
    And here’s the problem for Statham’s super spy: for all the Ukrainian gangsters he nuts and helicopters he pilots, Orson Fortune is just not particularly interesting or fleshed out as a character. Plaza and Grant, meanwhile, steal every scene they touch.
  31. Air
    For all its affable charm, there’s something slippery and disingenuous about this film.
    • 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. 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.
  34. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
    Földes’s matter-of-fact approach to storytelling balances the tendency towards quirkiness in the material. Dream logic coexists with the crushingly mundane, in a picture that also showcases the director’s musical talents with an intricate and involving score.
  35. Murder Mystery 2
    This crime caper has a certain frenzied energy, but it’s sloppily plotted, crass and so dumb, you wouldn’t trust it to use cutlery unsupervised.
  36. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
    When the film is this much fun, who cares if Grant recycles some of the greatest hits from his gag repertoire?
  37. The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future
    Blending science fiction and magical realism, environmental catastrophe and family secrets, Francisca Alegría’s heady mystery is an ambitious and murkily atmospheric debut.
  38. Chile '76
    Küppenheim is terrific, her precision and restraint in the role drawing us into the story.
  39. Rye Lane
    The result will leave you with a smile on your face, a spring in your step and (hopefully) a renewed confidence in next-wave British film-making.
  40. Other People's Children
    Deftly written, directed with a light hand and acted with honesty and heart, the picture captures moments of acute sadness without ever sinking into sentimentality.
  41. Shazam! Fury of the Gods
    Billy’s inane babbling gets a little wearing, but the action sequences, featuring dragon-based mayhem, cyclopes and an army of formidable hell unicorns hopped up on candy, are pacy and fun.
  42. Pearl
    Goth is riotously entertaining throughout, but two specific scenes, in both of which the camera rests solely on her face for an extended shot, capture the full force of her unnerving talent.
  43. Scream VI
    The only notable development is just how rapidly a satirical skewering of genre formulas can become thuddingly formulaic.
  44. Champions
    The Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.
  45. Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
    Lunana’s appeal is hard to miss: though rather naive in its messaging and unashamedly sentimental, the film is so pure of spirit and so open-hearted, you want to breathe it in, to fill your lungs with it.
  46. Project Wolf Hunting
    Approach with a strong stomach, and don’t bother trying to keep a tally of the body count.
  47. Close
    Astonishingly natural and engaging performances from young newcomers Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele lend heartfelt authenticity to a film that builds upon the promise of 2018’s Girl, confirming Dhont as a deft and empathetic chronicler of the tumultuous anguish and ecstasy of adolescence.
  48. Creed III
    Jordan is doing double duty here, directing as well as starring in this solidly by-numbers chapter in the ongoing Creed saga. He does a workmanlike job – the fight sequences are thrillingly visceral, but his weakness for cheesy montages and the film’s formulaic screenplay ensure that the picture was never going to take the franchise anywhere new.
  49. Ithaka
    Shipton is a fascinating character – abrupt, ill at ease with the voracious press attention, but also possessed of a sharp, unusual intelligence that tends to veer off at jarring tangents.
  50. Enys Men
    What Enys Men “means” will differ for each viewer. For me, it is (like Bait) a richly authentic portrait of Cornwall, far removed from any tourist-friendly vision. . . I’ve seen the film three times so far, and I can’t wait to dive into it and be swept away again. Bravo!
  51. The Independent
    Some of the picture’s taut focus and pacing are lost to an unnecessary cancer subplot involving Eli’s family; like the journalists it follows, the film works best when it is tenaciously single-minded.
  52. What's Love Got to Do with It?
    The sparky chemistry between James and Latif leaves few surprises in how it all pans out, but it’s an unexpectedly, disarmingly sweet film.
  53. Cocaine Bear
    Sporadically goofy fun, a scrappy carnival of ripped limbs, severed heads and spilled intestines, all softened by an only partly parodic family-centred Spielbergian sensibility.
  54. Joyland
    Richly detailed and superbly acted across the board, the film cast a scathing eye over the rigid social constraints that ensnare anyone who fails to conform.
  55. The Son
    Zeller explores how sadness repels; how people involuntarily recoil from depression, perpetuating the isolation of the sufferer.
  56. Nostalgia
    Meandering but richly detailed drama.
  57. The Inspection
    This well-acted outsider’s-eye view of the inner workings of the US armed forces is fiercely candid, in its condemnation of the brutality that is enmeshed in the training programme, and in its celebration of the bonds and brotherhood that grow between fellow cadets.
  58. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
    While subjects as dark as separation and death may be faced head-on (a reading from Philip Larkin’s The Trees had me in tears), there’s a comedic quality that reminded me of Aardman’s sublime Creature Comforts animations – a joyous juxtaposition of quotidian, vérité-style dialogue and fancifully inventive visuals that hits a tragicomic sweet spot.
  59. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
    The film’s main asset is Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror: his performance, with its velvet-soft line deliveries and unfathomable, boundless rage, is the magnetic core of this incoherent effects-dump of a movie.
  60. Sharper
    The performances, so thickly layered with charm and artifice that it’s hard to know what and who is real and what isn’t, are first-rate. It’s a pacy and enjoyable movie.
  61. Saint Omer
    Inspired by Diop’s own experience of attending the trial of a woman accused of murdering her baby, it’s a meditative exploration of a complicated connection between the woman in the dock and the one who bears witness.
  62. EO
    Yet there are also moments of heart-stopping tenderness and beauty.
  63. The Whale
    The film sets out to repulse us, and it frequently succeeds. It would be easy, and tempting, to dismiss it out of hand. But that would be to disregard its redeeming strength – the authentically knotty characters and the performances that inhabit them.
  64. Knock at the Cabin
    As the film’s bleak momentum builds, so does a tsunami swell of existential dread. It’s Shyamalan’s most contained and efficient picture in a while.
  65. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
    This Shrek spin-off is a breezily entertaining DreamWorks animation that harnesses the familiar appeal of the self-aggrandising feline (Antonio Banderas), while also adopting a distinctive and original graphic visual style.
  66. Epic Tails
    The decent quality of the animation of this English-language French production is rather let down by some shockingly poor voice performances and a couple of ear-bleeding musical numbers.
  67. Women Talking
    An atmosphere of empathy, reason and wit pervades Polley’s film, underwritten by an emancipatory urgency (“that day we learned to vote”) that drives the narrative even in its darkest moments.
  68. Blue Jean
    A supremely accomplished debut feature from writer-director Georgia Oakley, Blue Jean captures a specific moment in British history with almost uncanny accuracy.
  69. Somebody I Used to Know
    It’s a wasted opportunity. Brie is clearly a gifted comic actress who deserves better material than this.
  70. Nothing Lasts Forever
    The interview subjects are fascinating throughout, but jewellery designer and author Aja Raden is a particular gift: funny, insightful, dripping with sarcasm and oversized earrings.
  71. Magic Mike's Last Dance
    It’s a diverting enough way to pass a couple of hours, I suppose, although you’ll need a high tolerance for montage sequences and for the alarmingly priapic personal-space-invading exertions of Mike and his boys.
  72. The Amazing Maurice
    This perky computer-animated adventure leans a little heavily on its meta self-aware storytelling devices (expect numerous fourth-wall-smashing to camera asides), but it’s a fun, if slightly macabre option for family audiences.
  73. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
    What becomes clear from the film, which vividly details the cultural backdrop as well as Goldin’s work, is that fear has never been part of Goldin’s vocabulary, either creatively or personally.
  74. The Fabelmans
    If you’re looking for a film that explains where the Spielbergian tropes you know and love came from, then The Fabelmans is for you.
  75. Plane
    It may be big, brawling and somewhat inelegant in approach, but this Gerard Butler vehicle is an aviation fuel-powered good time.
  76. 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.
  77. Hide and Seek
    Using a combination of verité and poetic reconstructions, Fiore paints a sobering portrait of a bright, personable kid whose destiny is preordained.
  78. Babylon
    For all its nudge-wink movie-history nods and self-conscious carnivals of bodily fluids and glamorous excess, Babylon is exhaustingly unexciting fare – hysterical rather than historical, derivative rather than inventive.
  79. Bank of Dave
    Rory Kinnear gives a robustly likable performance as Dave, somewhat redeeming this unashamedly formulaic crowd-pleaser.
  80. Alice, Darling
    What’s impressive about this psychological thriller, the debut feature film from director Mary Nighy, is how tuned in it is to the dynamics of female friendship.
  81. 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.
  82. More Than Ever
    This French and English-language drama is a film about taking ownership over the end of life; about dying personally and, if necessary, selfishly.
  83. In from the Side
    This one almost makes it, but a boggy script slows it down.
  84. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Scarlet Bond
    It’s visually striking, and at times somewhat overwhelming. Expect numerous sword-based battles, ogres, dragons, ancient curses, distractingly voluptuous supporting characters and, of course, slime.
  85. TÁR
    The genius of Todd Field’s superb Tár comes from the way the film-making echoes the treacherously seductive and mercurial nature of its central character.
  86. Till
    An awards-worthy performance from Danielle Deadwyler (who stole the show in 2021’s The Harder They Fall) lends a passionate heart to this solidly engrossing and still contemporary historical drama set in 1955 and dedicated “to the life and legacy of Mamie Till-Mobley”.
  87. A Man Called Otto
    A Man Called Otto taps into a seemingly unquenchable audience appetite for stories of cantankerous grumps redeemed by the healing embrace of community.
  88. Empire of Light
    This is the first film that Mendes has directed from his own screenplay (he had a co-writing credit on 1917), and for all its visual flair, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins, there’s little to suggest that Mendes has the writing chops to match his directing skill.
  89. Piggy
    There’s an atmospheric, unsavoury oiliness to the cinematography and an uncomfortable tussle of sympathies – director Carlota Pereda shows real promise as a genre film-maker.
  90. The Enforcer
    It’s thuddingly predictable stuff that limps through a plot involving nefarious sex traffickers, treachery and a liberal smearing of Miami sleaze.
  91. Corsage
    At moments, however, the pacing treads a fine line between stately and somnolent. What consistently mesmerises, however, is the lead performance by Krieps.
  92. The Pale Blue Eye
    While the picture looks wonderfully atmospheric throughout, with its frostbitten monochromes and consumptive colour palette, the story disintegrates into a lurid and rather silly final act.
  93. France
    France is watchable, if not subtle, but the picture labours its message with an overstretched running time and an oddly anticlimactic structure.
  94. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody
    It should be stressed that the problem doesn’t lie with Ackie necessarily, but rather with a leaden, by-numbers screenplay from Anthony McCarten, who brings to this film the same box-ticking approach he employed with Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
  95. No Bears
    Filtering his immense contribution to cinema through a deceptively incidental lens, he once again reminds us that movie-making can be a profoundly humane endeavour; at once comedic, tragic and truthful.
  96. Emancipation
    In a chase picture that evolves into a war movie, the storytelling is propulsive, but it’s cheapened by crude and manipulative film-making choices.
  97. A Love Song
    There’s a sparseness and stillness to Max Walker-Silverman’s storytelling that is filled by Dickey’s terrific, lived-in performance and the brief spark of connection between two lonely people.
  98. Mr. Bachmann and His Class
    It’s an investment in time, certainly, but this profound and hopeful picture justifies every second of its three hours and 38 minute running time.
  99. Anonymous Club
    While the film is not particularly groundbreaking in its approach to the music documentary, it’s unusually candid and open in what it reveals about the cost of the creative process.
  100. Peter von Kant
    It’s enjoyable enough, but Peter von Kant is a curiously insubstantial adjunct that trades some of the swirling, savage currents of melodrama of the original – which placed a female fashion designer rather than a male film-maker at the centre of the intrigue – for a frothy, flippant archness.
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