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 First Slam Dunk
    While it leans a little heavily on baffling basketball strategy and court-based machinations, it’s a dynamic and unexpectedly affecting animation.
  2. How to Have Sex
    Here’s a cause for celebration for fans of British cinema: a feature debut that launches not one but two of the most promising talents to arrive in movie theatres for a long while.
  3. Chained for Life
    [A] wonky, charming satire.
  4. The Three Musketeers - Part I: D'Artagnan
    The picture’s seductive power lies elsewhere, with a glorious, typically extravagant performance from Eva Green as the treacherous Milady. She’s great fun in a role that might have been tailor-made for her skill set: Milady is vampy, venomous and dripping with goth jewellery.
  5. Selma
    The film may not be flawless (it’s a touch textbooky at times) but Oyelowo is note-perfect.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pat and Mike
    This undervalued comic masterpiece, scripted by the husband-and-wife team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, would be a fine film even if it didn't try to be funny, which it so successfully does. [06 May 2007, p.64]
    • The Observer (UK)
  7. Thunder Road
    What we have instead is a succession of variously successful vignettes, only some of which hit that sweet spot between horror and humour, as we watch Arnaud’s life collapse around him.
  8. The Assistant
    It’s a credit to Garner that, as a character who effectively has no voice, she manages to say so much about Jane’s predicament through posture, pose and gesture.
  9. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
    It’s an absolute joy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hold Back the Dawn
    Smoothly orchestrated entertainment. [30 Apr 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  11. Hustlers
    Perhaps too reliant on the structure of the original article, which tells the events in flashback, the film wraps up a little hastily. Brilliantly, though, the editing is teasing rather than explicit; Scafaria offers just enough of the girls and their bodies to get pulses racing without exploiting them or their story.
  12. Return to Dust
    It’s a gorgeous, quietly affecting film that finds an unassuming beauty in this simple life in rural China, but which doesn’t shy away from the extreme hardships faced by the very poorest.
  13. Conclave
    The fierce intelligence of Fiennes’s work is magnified by Berger’s elegant direction.
  14. Official Competition
    It dismantles the lofty ambitions of cinema as great, important and significant, a monument on the cultural landscape. Instead, it shows us art for ego’s sake, and it has a lot of wickedly spiteful fun doing so.
  15. Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story
    [An] affectionate, frequently amusing documentary portrait.
  16. Bread & Roses
    Powerful and enraging.
  17. Priscilla
    Coppola evokes the aching loneliness and isolation experienced by women who simultaneously have everything and nothing.
  18. The Innocents
    The child’s perspective on the story means that the film is unquestioning when it comes to the sources of the psychic powers, neatly sidestepping the need for exposition. In a child’s mind, magic is real, black magic painfully so.
  19. 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.
  20. The Painter and the Thief
    Fascinating, confounding and continually surprising.
  21. Black Bear
    Levine’s playful deconstruction of tortured genius is a witty and provocative send-up of tyrannical directors, diva-ish actors and over-invested voyeurs alike.
  22. i'm thinking of ending things
    This is not cinema that leaves you feeling good about things. Nor does it tread a familiar path. But I’m Thinking of Ending Things is one of the most daringly unexpected films of the year, a sinewy, unsettling psychological horror, saturated with a squirming dream logic that tips over into the domain of nightmares.
  23. 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”.
  24. 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.
  25. Chile '76
    Küppenheim is terrific, her precision and restraint in the role drawing us into the story.
  26. Les Misérables
    It’s that sense of beauty – of the possibility of redemption – that prevents Les Misérables from being crushed by the grim weight of the world it depicts. It’s a world in which Ly grew up, and his love of these neighbourhoods, in all their hardscrabble glory, is tangible.
  27. Kajillionaire
    On relationships, July remains as perceptive as ever.
  28. Sujo
    This slow-burning drama, which won one of the top prizes at Sundance earlier this year, elegantly balances a spark of hope against a slowly rising tide of dread.
  29. Top Gun: Maverick
    Top Gun: Maverick offers exactly the kind of air-punching spectacle that reminds people why a trip to the cinema beats staying at home and watching Netflix.
  30. BlackBerry
    The comic potential of the collision of personalities is thoroughly mined: Lazaridis the diffident visionary; Fregin the extrovert oddball; Balsillie the driven, hyperaggressive alpha male.
  31. 3 Faces
    And Shahrzad, a huge star from the 1960s and 70s who was banished after the revolution, is present as a voice rather than a face in the film, but is no less significant for the fact that she is not seen by the camera.
  32. Luzzu
    The magnetic Scicluna is a Maltese fisherman in real life, and part of a cast predominantly made up of non-professional actors. His performance is impressively complex.
  33. Black Dog
    Peng’s performance is physically rather than verbally expressive – he has barely more lines of dialogue than the dog – but Lang’s arc of redemption is explored with heart and humour.
  34. Warfare
    The overriding impression, once the adrenaline has drained away, is of futility, waste and pointless destruction.
  35. Dìdi
    This film understands that, irrespective of where your parents were born, or what part of the world they raised you in, if you grew up in the late 00s, you grew up primarily online.
  36. 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.
  37. Gloria Bell
    Moore’s subtle, empathetic work elevates what could be dismissed as a small-scale, even banal story.
  38. Monos
    Tonally, the film is mercurial, capturing the multiple realities of its young subjects who are both children and soldiers – the distressing, disorienting dichotomy at the centre of its eerie spell. With skill and sensitivity, Landes manages to capture both sides of their fractured world, evoking empathy without resort to pity.
  39. Il Buco
    The wordless earth magic of the storytelling won’t be for everyone, but the film casts a beguiling spell.
  40. Servants
    Ostrochovský’s camera emphasises the constricting architecture of both church and state, with its black and white morality and a claustrophobic central courtyard, frequently portrayed via stiff, judgmental God’s-eye shots.
  41. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
    None of which is to say that Good Luck to You, Leo Grande isn’t admirably subversive and enjoyably whimsical fare.
  42. 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!
  43. 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.
  44. The Humans
    The Humans struggles to escape its theatrical origins.
  45. The Card Counter
    In Oscar Isaac’s enigmatic blackjack player “William Tell”, with his wary hooded eyes and closed book countenance, the film has a broodingly commanding central performance. It’s a pity, then, that much of its promise is squandered by sloppiness, both in the writing and elsewhere.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wings
    A mixture of melodrama, sentimental romance and heavy-handed comedy, Wings was superbly choreographed with skilfully photographed stunt flying and aerial combat.
  47. Diego Maradona
    I found myself gripped by a universally accessible tale of a divided soul – a figure whose dual personas are embodied in the two names of the film’s title; Diego and Maradona.
  48. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
    Along the way, the director, Arthur Harari, takes the exhausted true tale of the lone Japanese soldier and sculpts it into a captivating tragicomedy, a sharp-eyed study of zealotry and self-delusion, ridiculous and heartbreaking in about equal measure.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spellbound
    Trail-blazing tale of murder at an American mental hospital that helped make the sympathetic Freudian shrink a Hollywood standby. [24 Aug 2011, p.56]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alice in the Cities
    Yella Rottlander is unforgettable as Alice. [06 Jan 2008, p.16]
    • The Observer (UK)
  51. Girl Picture
    There are moments – Mimmi biting back her emotions as Emma dances for her alone at night – that tingle with discovery and promise.
  52. Avengers: Endgame
    The final battle is giddily cathartic, but the catharsis arises from prioritising character development over plot and spectacle. This, I imagine, will be the Avengers’ legacy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Harder They Fall
    Inspired by the suspect career of a prewar Italian boxer, it's rather good, but inferior to the novel by Budd Schulberg, the expert on the fight game and Oscar-winner for On the Waterfront. [04 Jan 2009, p.06]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On Dangerous Ground
    A noir classic by the distinguished team of producer John Houseman and director Nicholas Ray. [06 Jan 2013, p.43]
    • The Observer (UK)
  55. The Sisters Brothers
    The film’s sometimes tiresome sense of humour is laddish in its embrace of viscera (blood, boils, vomit and live spiders all feature), but as the narrative trots (or, rather, plods) along, its men are revealed to be endearingly less so.
  56. I'm Your Man
    It asks pertinent questions about loneliness and a world in which algorithms can know us better than our human partners ever will.
  57. 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.
  58. 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.
  59. Barbarian
    It’s one of the most bracingly effective chillers of the year.
  60. Only You
    Vividly rendered, and filled with tangible yearning, it strikes a balance between romantic passion and mundane domesticity, as the skin-prickling attraction of new love is tested by the day-to-day tribulations of real life.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Moby Dick
    Gregory Peck's dignified Ahab is, like his leg, somewhat wooden, but the cast is splendid (not least Orson Welles's guest spot as Father Mapple), and Oswald Morris's experimental colour photography (based on old whaling prints) is commendable. [29 May 2005, p.79]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All That Heaven Allows
    A sharply observed indictment of 1950s country club conformity. [07 Jul 2013, p.45]
    • The Observer (UK)
  63. 1917
    For all the steel-trap visceral efficiency, it’s the more low-key moments that really pack a punch – those moments when we’re confronted with the simple human cost of war.
  64. The Substance
    The Substance not only offers a female perspective on women’s bodies, but also argues that things only start to get properly messy once fertility is a dim memory.
  65. High Life
    The gravitational pull of sex, death and the void is palpable.
  66. Nosferatu
    There’s something about the macabre sensuality and mossy, crepuscular gloom of this retelling of the vampire legend that leaves a mark on the audience. It’s not so much a viewing experience as a kind of haunting.
  67. Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan
    Temple has always used archive material playfully; here, it’s particularly riotous, like a chaotic patchwork quilt tacked together by one of Shane’s drunk aunties.
  68. The Personal History of David Copperfield
    Astutely amplifying the absurdist – and remarkably modernist – elements of his source, Iannucci and co-writer Simon Blackwell conjure a surreal cinematic odyssey that is as accessible as it is intelligent and unexpected.
  69. Fancy Dance
    While Fancy Dance has a tendency to labour its points a little too emphatically, Gladstone and Deroy-Olson are both phenomenal; their connection, played out in shared glances and urgent wordless messages, is palpable, persuasive and vital.
  70. 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”.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magnificent Obsession
    Less magnificent than the Ambersons or the Seven perhaps, but a minor classic nonetheless. [26 Mar 2006, p.14]
    • The Observer (UK)
  72. Asia
    This impressive Israeli feature debut from Ruthy Pribar stars a mesmerising Shira Haas.
  73. Nope
    The film too often seems to be heading somewhere extraordinary, only to disappear into an ambitious conceptual hole that, while occasionally startling, is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.
  74. Longlegs
    There’s an unexpected elegance to this window into unimaginable evil.
  75. Every Body
    Heartbreaking as this story is, the picture’s peppy energy results in a film that is celebratory and defiantly upbeat.
  76. You Will Die At Twenty
    Sudanese film-maker Amjad Abu Alala’s radiant drama dares to wonder if death could inspire courage rather than fear.
  77. 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Masque of the Red Death
    Marvellous, macabre horror story from Corman's Edgar Allan Poe series. Vincent Price is a diabolical delight, his 12th-century Italian tyrant Prince Prospero a worthy model for Machiavelli. [21 Feb 2004, p.53]
    • The Observer (UK)
  79. Silver Dollar Road
    Peck’s film – which, with its themes of race and failures of American justice, has a kinship with Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Garrett Bradley’s Time – is both infuriating and also unexpectedly uplifting in its celebration of family unity.
  80. The Royal Hotel
    A psychological thriller, it’s all the more tense for Green’s smart understatement of the genre elements.
  81. Ailey
    Film-maker Jamila Wignot pays particular attention to the specificity of Ailey’s black influences: the church, blues music and his southern upbringing, all of which informed his best-known work, Revelations (1960).
  82. Babyteeth
    There’s a fearlessness to Murphy’s film-making, a slightly wayward, maverick spirit. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
  83. Slalom
    Favier is smart on the mechanics of abuse, and the sobering inevitability of her heroine’s downhill skid.
  84. Better Man
    Better Man is a notable step up for Gracey. The synthetic, rather soulless panache of The Greatest Showman demonstrated his skills as a slick visual stylist, but here he directs from the heart, tapping into the rawness and vulnerability beneath the CGI monkey suit.
  85. Small Body
    With its colour palette of mossy greens, terracotta and earth tones, and its matter-of-fact approach to themes of folklore and mysticism, this gorgeous first feature from Italian director Laura Samani is as enchanting as it is unusual.
  86. The Promised Land
    This very enjoyable Nordic western from Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair), based on a true story, is at first driven by grit and macho hubris. But thanks to the women in his life . . . the captain belatedly comes to realise that there is more to life than potatoes and royal-sanctioned prestige.
  87. The Nightingale
    It’s a punishing watch; a harrowing film which boots home its message by gouging at the vulnerable soft spots of the audience. Like the world she depicts, Kent’s storytelling shows no mercy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Man Who Knew Too Much
    The classic thriller in which Hitchcock truly discovered his metier as the 'master of suspense' and never looked back. [08 Aug 1999, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  89. Presence
    The element that makes this intriguing – the ghost POV shooting technique – is also a problem, undermining the suspense and distancing the audience from the vulnerable girl whose fate is in the balance.
  90. Maestro
    With its nonlinear structure, Maestro feels a little like a scrapbook of life moments – glittering career achievements; crackling explosions of domestic tension – and Cooper keeps up a zesty, kinetic energy throughout.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Good News
    Amusing first screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who went on to script On the Town and Singin' in the Rain). The evergreen numbers include 'The Best Things in Life Are Free' which, in a romantic, slightly camp sequence, is sung first by a very young Mel Torme, then (in French) by Peter Lawford. [09 Jan 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  92. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
    Set in the murkily atmospheric underworld of 1980s Hong Kong, wildly entertaining, eye-poppingly violent triad martial arts flick is an old-school throwback to the action cinema heyday of the territory.
  93. Olga
    Shot with a documentary-style naturalism and propulsive restlessness that mirrors Olga’s ferocious drive, this is a terrific, timely feature debut.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Young and Innocent
    Lightweight and immensely enjoyable Hitchcock thriller. [22 Oct 2000, p.11]
    • The Observer (UK)
  95. Suzume
    Shinkai casts a spell in the moment, but the magic fades away.
  96. Apples
    It’s the eerie mystery of sadness that rings most clearly through Nikou’s film, a meditation on the construction of personality that, like all the best ghost stories, combines wistful melancholia with a hint of wish-fulfilment, of lost souls who, in forgetting, are trying to remember.
  97. On the Adamant
    The film’s observational approach means that little context is provided for the techniques used here, or for the lives and circumstances of the daily visitors. But the warm, non-judgmental embrace of Philibert’s approach is profoundly affecting.
  98. The Heiresses
    A superb first feature from Marcelo Martinessi, this entirely female-driven story is full of gentle wit and playful observations on the crumbling upper echelons of Paraguayan society – there are parallels with early Lucrecia Martel, and with Sebastián Lelio’s exploration of older female sexuality, Gloria.
  99. The Mustang
    What’s particularly striking is an inventive sound design that tunes us in and out of the blood-pounding fury in Roman’s head – a place, we soon realise, which is not somewhere that’s comfortable to linger.
  100. Clara Sola
    This atmospheric debut from Costa Rican-Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén combines mud, moss and mysticism to arresting effect.
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