The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,641 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 3.1 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: 894 out of 1641
  2. Mixed: 714 out of 1641
  3. Negative: 33 out of 1641
1641 movie reviews
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  1. Fighting with My Family
    It’s a delicate balancing act that Merchant handles with aplomb.
  2. Mr. Jones
    A subplot about George Orwell is perhaps surplus to requirements, but otherwise the film is a striking, efficient political thriller.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hour of the Gun
    An intelligent film reflecting the troubled Vietnam era. [21 Jan 2007, p.2]
    • The Observer (UK)
  4. Smile
    The combination of a committed central performance from the increasingly gaunt and haunted Bacon, and a jarring, tortured score, makes for an enjoyably nasty brush with the smiling face of evil.
  5. Tiger Stripes
    The message is not always clear, but it’s an entertaining ride.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Some Came Running
    A quite brilliant look at the hypocrisy and conformity of small-town life in the Midwest and those who challenge it.
  7. Minyan
    The film’s bluesy woodwind score has a teasing, goading quality that feels tinged with melancholy; the spectre of Aids hovers around the film’s edges.
  8. And Then We Danced
    Gelbakhiani is commanding in his first acting role, metabolising heartbreak and moving with an irrepressible prowling sensuality.
  9. Everything Went Fine
    The latest picture from the chameleonic film-maker François Ozon is one of his less formally adventurous. Ozon adopts a light-footed, naturalistic approach in this study of domestic dynamics. It’s not a film that is interested in taking a moral stance on assisted dying, nor is it a picture that wallows in tragedy.
  10. Deerskin
    Dujardin plays it ingeniously straight, embarking on a violent rampage set to French lounge music.
  11. Paradise Is Burning
    Not everything works in Mika Gustafson’s feature debut, but the performances, in particular that of the magnetic Delbravo, have an unpredictable, wayward energy. And the restless, hungry gaze of the camera captures the savage love and joyous freedom that unites the girls.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Revenge of Frankenstein
    Though short on chills and thrills, Hammer Studio's third, handsomely mounted period horror movie confirmed that they'd discovered a formula for hitting the international jackpot. It's therefore a bloody landmark in British movie history. [02 Aug 1999, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  13. Endurance
    While the 2022 expedition doesn’t match the nail-biting life-or-death stakes of the original venture, it’s compellingly captured through the eyes of a likable cast of eccentric world experts.
  14. Matt and Mara
    Radwanski uses restless, handheld cameras and improvisation to capture micro-moments in which not a lot happens but the implications are huge.
  15. True Things
    With great physical poise and precision, Wilson (who optioned and developed the source book) engages the audience on a visceral level, her deceptively low-key performance taking us deep inside her character’s dreams, desires and insecurities.
  16. Richard Jewell
    There is an elegant, even-handed character study buried within Clint Eastwood’s crisp procedural.
  17. The Night House
    The fuzzy plotting is balanced by Hall’s brilliantly controlled performance as the caustic, sceptical Beth, whose grief has pushed her to the knife edge of sanity.
  18. American Animals
    A heart-pounding heist movie and a bantering conversation between real life and fiction, the debut drama by documentary director Bart Layton (The Imposter) is a great deal sharper – and more slickly executed – than the lunkheaded criminal debacle on which it is based.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Long Riders
    Politically, the film reflects post-Vietnam, post-countercultural blues.
  20. Leave the World Behind
    A provocative, superbly acted action drama that combines big-hitting ambition and spectacle with just enough humour to temper the whole end-of-civilisation meltdown scenario.
  21. Hustle
    This is quality film-making, with enough that’s distinctive – Dan Deacon’s score is a pulsing, panicky jolt of energy – to appeal beyond basketball fans.
  22. Sometimes I Think About Dying
    It plays out at the tipping point at which living with loneliness starts to feel easier than tackling the daunting prospect of conversation with a stranger.
  23. Missing Link
    The film feels more like an elbow in the ribs than a slap on the wrist, revelling in the miscommunications between Susan the Sasquatch’s literal-minded monkey brain.
  24. Dream Horse
    With its hero’s journey structure, punchily edited racing scenes and warmly drawn oddball community (a widow, Maureen, is obsessed with Tunnock’s Tea Cakes), the film is shamelessly predictable and thoroughly feelgood.
  25. The Last Rider
    Spectacular archive footage from the event captures an inescapable sense of excitement – infectious, even to cycling agnostics in the audience – and interviews with LeMond and his wife, Kathy, are unexpectedly affecting.
  26. Pink Wall
    Maslany is magnetic, her coiled fury and sexual energy threatening to erupt as her placid partner plods along beside her.
  27. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
    While it takes a few dramatic liberties and could have benefited from a tighter edit, there’s a swell of goodwill as the story progresses that is hard to resist.
  28. A Quiet Place: Day One
    This is a stylish and satisfying prequel that elegantly integrates Sam’s poet’s sensibility into the storytelling.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It Came from Outer Space
    An exciting, frightening movie, and a landmark of the genre, it stands up surprisingly well. [16 Jul 2006, p.20]
    • The Observer (UK)
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