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. Notturno
    Rosi’s broader critique of violence is implied through footage of a play performed by patients in a psychiatric hospital, and of a children’s art therapy class. He is more interested in the reverberations of conflict than the source, focusing on those who have suffered its effects directly.
  2. The French Dispatch
    Anderson’s backdrop, a kind of steroidally enhanced Frenchness reminiscent of films such as Belleville Rendez-Vous and Amélie, is rather lovely, if ultimately as far removed from reality as is the film’s romanticised view of journalism.
  3. Under The Wire
    It gives heart-in-the-mouth insights into the realities of war reporting, and is a testament to the value – and the price – of great journalism.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Road to Morocco
    A witty, light hearted movie in which Bing sings 'Moonlight Becomes You' to a suitably enchanted Dorothy Lamour. [25 May 2003, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
  5. Fever Dream
    The film’s actual pay off – the truth exhumed from this tainted earth – is ultimately not quite as satisfying as the picture’s elegantly constructed mood.
  6. Blind Ambition
    It’s heartwarming, inspirational stuff.
  7. Dirty God
    This is full-blooded (and arrestingly tactile) fare, which gets right under the skin of its central character, in appropriately unruly and unflinching fashion.
  8. Nimona
    It’s a rambunctious adventure, certainly. But it’s also a film that argues for tolerance and LGBTQ+ acceptance.
  9. Il Mio Corpo
    This intimate observational documentary explores poverty in Sicily from two different vantage points, drawing poetic connections between lives that don’t appear to touch.
  10. A Chiara
    There’s a sparky authenticity to the performances , bolstered by the fact that Carpignano cast a real-life family in the central roles.
  11. The Escape
    The result is the kind of stinging emotional candour that makes you wince.
  12. Belfast
    Kenneth Branagh’s unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.
  13. Civil War
    It does, though, capture chillingly the terrible, self-perpetuating momentum of war. A war that, in this case, has reached the point at which people no longer know what they are fighting for, only that they are fighting.
  14. Blindspotting
    What could have been laboured and polemical is deftly handled, defused with comedy and powered by a pulsating score. Dialogue that slides into rap at key moments adds a heartfelt sense of honesty. This is the real deal.
  15. A Private War
    There’s an inherent irony in any drama that places her centre stage. Yet at a time when news itself is under fire, with journalists demeaned and attacked by despots bent on obliterating the very concept of truth, perhaps Colvin’s story is more relevant than ever.
  16. 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.
  17. Martin Eden
    If writing is a democratic art and social leveller, Marcello indicts the celebrity author as a sellout, steamrolling their way to success.
  18. Frida
    While the film doesn’t attempt to explore every aspect and every romantic connection, it does delve satisfyingly deeply into her interior life, explored through her artistic output.
  19. Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy
    Crisply British and deliciously no-nonsense, Kennedy is a wonderfully bracing character for Elizabeth Carroll’s deft documentary.
  20. Mayor
    Deft editing and unexpectedly affecting music choices make for an engaging portrait of the kind of impassioned and dedicated politician who seems in short supply right now.
  21. The Bob's Burgers Movie
    Fans will eat it up (with relish and fries); older kids will adore the oddball humour. And even cinemagoers who have never seen an episode of the TV series (me, for example) are likely to find much to amuse them, provided they have a tolerance for extreme silliness.
  22. Hoard
    Carmoon’s depiction of trauma, grief and mental health in crisis as a kind of putrid, repellent stench that clings to the skin, stings the eyeballs and turns the stomach makes for a queasily insalubrious viewing experience. Hoard is a film I admire, but struggle to like.
  23. Monica
    The result is a film of quiet but considerable power.
  24. Emily
    O’Connor clearly isn’t afraid of rattling cages when approaching sacred texts. There’s something refreshingly untethered about the gusto with which she reimagines Emily, tossing aside the image of a shy, sickly recluse, replacing it with an antiheroine whose inability to fit in with the ordered world is a source of strength rather than weakness.
  25. When Lambs Become Lions
    Kasbe makes the most of his extraordinary access by presenting the film vérité style, preferring to immerse the audience in his characters’ lives to better make the case for each of their choices.
  26. Origin
    The compelling Ellis-Taylor goes some way towards tying together the disparate elements. She is a magnetic, dignified presence, persuasive in both the more melodramatic elements of the story and in the academic journey.
  27. Titane
    Some will be repelled, many will be bamboozled. But for those with an appetite for cinema that gets you in the gut, Ducournau delivers the goods.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ivanhoe
    Best of a series of lavishly mounted MGM historical yarns made in England in the early 1950s with American stars and British supporting casts. [03 Jun 2012, p.46]
    • The Observer (UK)
  29. Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara
    With stately restraint, Bellocchio manages to put the audience in an ever-tightening chokehold of tension and outrage.
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