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 3.2 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. I Care a Lot
    The result is a nicely nasty tragicomedy, a rollercoaster ride that swaps real moral dilemmas for something more disposably entertaining, picking you up, spinning you around and then spitting you out with a neat sucker-punch ending that leaves you feeling entertained, if a little bit empty.
  2. Mary Poppins Returns
    For me, the moment where it all came together was during Blunt’s haunting rendition of The Place Where Lost Things Go, a heartbreaking lullaby that has something of the spine-tingling melancholy charm of Feed the Birds. Watching this sequence, I noticed I had started crying, and realised that I was safe – the movie’s spell was working and the magic was still here.
  3. Dog Man
    Dog Man, the half-dog, half-cop protagonist of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants spin-off book series, is a gloriously funny creation.
  4. Starve Acre
    Some pleasingly icky special effects add to the general sense of mouldering menace. Where the picture stumbles, however, is in its almost total lack of effective scares.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Madame Bovary
    Decent adaptation by playwright Robert Ardrey of Flauberts great novel, directed in the staid MGM costume-classic style and much superior to the recent Claude Chabrol version. [30 Jan 2000]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Till the End of Time
    Overshadowed at the time and ever since by the similar but altogether bigger The Best Years of Our Lives (which the same studio, RKO, released a couple of months later), this is a very decent contribution to a cycle of movies about ex-servicemen adjusting to civilian life. [29 Aug 2004, p.71]
    • The Observer (UK)
  7. Summer of 85
    Ozon first read Chambers’s novel as a teenager and his adaptation blends the prickly joy of that first encounter with the stylistic confidence of a film-maker revisiting an old flame.
  8. Last Night in Soho
    For all its scattershot reference points, however, Last Night in Soho still emerges as Wright’s most personal film – you can feel how much he loves the material. Frankly, I felt the same way.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Informer
    Expressionist masterpiece. [11 Nov 2007, p.20]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Seduction of Joe Tynan
    The acting by Melvyn Douglas, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn and Barbara Harris (particularly good as Aldas wife) is of a high order, the settings are authentic, but its all a trifle predictable. [30 Jan 2000]
    • The Observer (UK)
  11. Paddington In Peru
    While it’s an enjoyable family romp that should charm younger audiences, the action onslaught can’t conceal that this sequel lacks the inventive agility, wit, comic timing and, most crucially, the magic of its predecessors.
  12. The End We Start From
    I can think of few other films that get into the skin of new motherhood, with its formless terrors and fierce, furious primal love, as inventively and effectively as this one.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Destination Tokyo
    Best-known for his westerns, screenwriter Daves made a considerable impression with this patriotic World War II movie about the hazardous mission by a submarine to gather information inside Tokyo Bay to prepare the way for the first US air-raid on Japan. Cary Grant gives an authoritative performance as the cool commander. [05 Mar 2000, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Land of the Pharaohs
    Uneven, oddly distinguished attempt to examine the pyramid-building obsession of the Pharaoh (Jack Hawkins) and how it was affected by his second wife (Joan Collins) and his architect (James Robertson Justice). Some excellent sets by the great Alexander Trauner, much turgid dialogue and a score by Dimitri Tiomkin. [11 Jun 2006, p.18]
    • The Observer (UK)
  15. Mr. Malcolm's List
    It’s pleasant, frothy, unapologetically by-numbers stuff.
  16. Polina
    Though the film suggests a hardiness borne of her working-class background and mobster father, Polina remains fairly opaque. At least the contemporary dance sequences are beautifully mounted; French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj has a co-director credit on the film.
  17. Pinocchio
    The source material is a neat fit for the Italian film-maker, who traversed similarly episodic fairytale terrain with 2015’s Tale of Tales. It’s also a critique of society that feels timeless or, rather, timely – and not just for Garrone.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hot Rock
    Wittily adapted by William Goldman from a Donald E. Westlake novel, it's the best film Yates made between Bullitt and Breaking Away. [08 Aug 1999, p.10]
    • The Observer (UK)
  19. Bill & Ted Face the Music
    This slapdash movie, with its big-hearted, puppyish positivity, might not save the world but it will surely lift the spirits.
  20. Hearts Beat Loud
    The music they create together is emblematic of the central problem. It’s sterile, manufactured and utterly fake production-line pop masquerading as some kind of indie rock spotify sensation.
  21. Vengeance
    It’s mildly amusing stuff that delivers no surprises, but may muster a few laughs.
  22. Swan Song
    Todd Stephens’s film is an amiable little story, and Kier is clearly enjoying himself immensely, but this is as wafting and insubstantial as Patrick’s chiffon scarf.
  23. Even Mice Belong in Heaven
    The story is a little flat, but the gorgeous, hand-crafted puppets and sets give the film dimension.
  24. Operation Mincemeat
    A quality cast tackle the script’s various twists and turns with aplomb. But the tale itself feels cumbersome and over-furnished, listing under the weight of its bolt-on subplots and endless reams of dialogue.
  25. Ron's Gone Wrong
    The debut feature from animation studio Locksmith is cute but familiar.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Firecreek
    Superior social western in which a torpid backwater community and its irresolute part-time sheriff (James Stewart) are redeemed and revivified through a menacing visit by ageing outlaw Henry Fonda's gang. Weathered oldtimers Dean Jagger, Ed Begley, Jack Elam and Jay C Flippen provide authenticity. Excellent photography by William Clothier. [15 May 2005, p.91]
    • The Observer (UK)
  27. Sunset
    The film’s formal qualities obscure Nemes’s intentions instead of illuminating them. It’s all too vague to function effectively as either a commentary on the build-up to the Great War or as the story of a woman looking to find her place in a city predicated on rigid, gender-determined hierarchies.
  28. The Courier
    With slack pacing and insufficient focus, the film lacks the crackle of tension and propulsive efficiency of something like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
  29. Men
    It’s a playfully twisted affair – not quite as profound as it seems to think, perhaps, but boasting enough squishy metaphorical slime to ensure that its musings upon textbook male characteristics are rarely dull, and sometimes deliciously disgusting.
  30. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
    The final set piece is a little protracted, but the jokes are mostly sharp and enjoyably self-referential and the songs still catchy (one track is titled Catchy Song).
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