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. Strange Darling
    The teasing, tricky structure adds intrigue to a fairly rudimentary horror premise and the cinematography – actor Giovanni Ribisi steps behind the camera as the DOP – is suitably strident, with reds and yellows screaming from the screen.
  2. The Eternal Daughter
    For all its decorous restraint, this is emotionally potent storytelling.
  3. The Settlers
    Not everything in this Leone-inspired Latino western hits its target, but the picture has a venomous bite, and a smart, slippery final scene that turns the lens back on to the act of film-making, questioning cinema’s role in (mis)shaping the way we view history.
  4. The Forty-Year-Old Version
    [A] warm, funny and enjoyably rude debut.
  5. Compartment No. 6
    Beautifully believable performances from Haarla and Borisov add emotional weight, rivalling the nuanced naturalistic charm of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy.
  6. Lucky
    The film is a goldmine of small but perfectly formed parts.
  7. Sleep
    It’s an enjoyably grisly good time – a film that puts both power tools and Pomeranians to gleefully suspenseful use.
  8. 7 Prisoners
    The rather on-the-nose storytelling grows increasingly complex and interesting the further that the protagonist ventures into morally ambiguous territory.
  9. In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50
    Rarely does a music documentary so vividly evoke both the artistic approach and the tricky personality of its subject.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    North Dallas Forty
    Authentic, if unsurprising, look at the brutal, exploitative, drug-ridden world of top-level American football through the honest, if bleary, eyes of an over-the-hill pro, superbly played by Nick Nolte who attended several colleges on football scholarships. [02 Nov 2003, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
  11. 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.
  12. The Road to Mandalay
    A combination of tender details – the way Guo carefully picks the fibres from his girlfriend’s skin after a gruelling shift at the factory – and a strikingly surreal approach to a scene in which Lianqing prostitutes herself for the first time makes this unflinching picture a notable addition to the ever-swelling list of films that deal with migration.
  13. I Am Not a Witch
    This daringly satirical parable of magic and misogyny, superstition and social strictures confirms [Nyoni's] promise as a film-maker of fiercely independent vision, with a bright future ahead.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Deliverance
    Adapted from the novel by the poet James Dickey (who plays the small, significant role of a sheriff in the moral coda to the journey), it's a riveting, resonant film, the male rape sequence as shocking as it was 35 years ago. [28 Oct 2007, p.20]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Eternity and a Day
    Eternity and a Day is a graceful, elegiac, humourless film, a poetical work that invites you to fall in with its meditative pace. [16 May 1999, p.6]
    • The Observer (UK)
  16. The Nature of Love
    It’s a comedy, certainly, but one that leans into the discomfort of the polar differences between the couple.
  17. Cow
    It’s not an easy watch, certainly – I cried more or less solidly through the last 30 minutes – but it’s an important one.
  18. 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.
  19. Red Rooms
    Plante’s measured pacing and cool, dispassionate storytelling burrow into the skin of the character. It’s not a comfortable place in which to spend time.
  20. Orlando, My Political Biography
    Weighty themes are handled with a refreshing lightness of touch.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Objective, Burma!
    Although this is a wartime flagwaver and Flynn pulls out a grenade pin with his teeth, it is still a thoughtful and gritty depiction of platoon life and jungle warfare that uses actual combat footage shot by the US army signal corps. [07 Jul 2013, p.43]
    • The Observer (UK)
  22. Mank
    This is film-making as role-playing, which has immersed itself, method-style, in a past era and aesthetic, which wears its luminous black-and-white cinematography like a costume.
  23. Ava
    The 0-60 acceleration of disaster and melodrama is a little disconcerting, as is the tendency to self-sabotage demonstrated by Ava and her mother. But there’s a jagged emotional authenticity scored into the film like initials carved into a desk.
  24. Architecton
    Architecton is a gorgeously photographed poetic reverie on the subject of stone and concrete, permanence and profligate waste.
  25. 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.
  26. Midnight Traveler
    [A] remarkable documentary.
  27. The Cordillera of Dreams
    It’s a highly personal documentary: in addition to focusing on the mountains, Guzmán revisits his childhood home, now derelict, and explores his own archive footage of the 1973 coup d’état that prompted his relocation to France.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Hondo
    An excellent 1954 John Wayne Western, in which he plays a cavalry scout with Indian sympathies fighting Apaches in New Mexico.
    • The Observer (UK)
  29. Io Capitano
    Central to the spirit of the film is Seydou, a gangly string bean with a smile that warms the screen; a teenager who is still enough of a child to believe that manhood means never being afraid. It’s a gorgeous, sensitive performance from Sarr.
  30. The Goldman Case
    As an account of a notable moment in French legal history, it’s undeniably compelling stuff.
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