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. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. Slalom
    Favier is smart on the mechanics of abuse, and the sobering inevitability of her heroine’s downhill skid.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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)
  9. 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.
  10. 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)
  12. 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.
  13. 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)
  15. Suzume
    Shinkai casts a spell in the moment, but the magic fades away.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. Clara Sola
    This atmospheric debut from Costa Rican-Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén combines mud, moss and mysticism to arresting effect.
  21. First Love
    Eye-popping is one way to describe the prolific Japanese director’s 103rd film, a cheerfully pulpy Tokyo-set noir.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kirikou and the Sorceress
    The sweet-natured Kirikou and the Sorceress, is a French animated movie drawing on a West African tale that has an authenticity The Lion King lacks.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Stand Alone
    You won't easily forget Seul Contre Tous and you won't rush to see it for a second time. [21 Mar 1999, p.6]
    • The Observer (UK)
  24. The Wife
    Watching the film for a second time, with prior knowledge of the revelations of its final act, Close’s performance seemed even more nuanced, as if each look now meant something different.
  25. All Light, Everywhere
    It springs restlessly between ideas and, while it doesn’t quite cohere into a neat central thesis, the film did leave me with both the means and the inclination to do some further thinking on the subject.
  26. By the Stream
    By the Stream is a wry comedy of manners that muses, in its unassuming way, on the creative act.
  27. Corsage
    At moments, however, the pacing treads a fine line between stately and somnolent. What consistently mesmerises, however, is the lead performance by Krieps.
  28. Red Rocket
    As for Baker and regular co-writer Chris Bergoch, they refrain from judging their characters, observing the world from Mikey’s maniacally self-serving point of view even as comedy turns to queasiness and worse.
  29. The White Tiger
    Powered by a surging, impatient energy and a bracing undercurrent of spite, Ramin Bahrani’s version of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker prize-winning novel is one of the more successful literary adaptations of recent years.
  30. The Colors Within
    With its wide-eyed lack of cynicism and the crystalline delicacy of the animation, this is a heart-swellingly lovely work.
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