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. Stillwater
    Directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), this is a thoughtful, knotty character study, albeit one nestled inside a polished, and less interesting, action thriller.
  2. Lancaster
    Part oral history, part archive, this is a thoroughly researched account of the role of the Lancaster bomber in the second world war. It’s solid, no frills film-making, but that’s entirely appropriate given the sobering stories recounted by surviving members of Bomber Command, now in their 90s.
  3. Jungleland
    Brits Hunnam, O’Connell and Barden are strangely well cast as its all-American grifters. (Hunnam in particular gives a finely tuned performance as a washed-up smooth talker who still knows how to flirt.)
  4. Pet Sematary
    The result may not be groundbreaking or, indeed, particularly scary. But it treats King’s story with reverent affection and, unlike the cover version of the Ramones title song that plays over the end credits, it won’t leave you nostalgically longing for the original.
  5. 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.
  6. Greta
    Mostly, though, as a B-movie, Greta works; the moments in which it leans into its own silliness are its best.
  7. Green Book
    Ali beautifully captures the complexity of the man who juggles whiskey-soured, morning-after regret with a stubborn pride in his true self.
  8. One Of Them Days
    What elevates this raucous romp by music video director Lawrence Lamont is the crackling energy between Palmer (Nope) and singer SZA, making her acting debut here.
  9. The Lion King
    Favreau has simply taken things to their logical conclusion, using cutting-edge technology to create something that looks absolutely real while remaining absolutely unreal.
  10. Capital in the Twenty-First Century
    Documentaries should be more than a vehicle for information. Here, the message is hard to argue with, but the medium – an excess of music video-style cutting, contemporary pop culture montages and literal music cues – does the material no favours.
  11. Loro
    There’s a sloppiness and incoherence in the storytelling.
  12. Tell It to the Bees
    Grainger (soon to be seen in Sophie Hyde’s brilliant, jagged Animals) is a magnetic and sensual foil to the frowning, reliably expressive Paquin. The flirty tension between the two feels quietly credible, the camera occasionally shuddering with desire. A pity, then, that this sweetness is lost as the film makes a tonal swerve in its final third.
  13. All Is True
    I like Branagh’s eye for landscapes too; space is used elegantly, while widescreen canvases glow green and orange.
  14. Migration
    A screenplay by White Lotus creator Mike White elevates proceedings with an enjoyably sardonic bite.
  15. Natural Light
    In theory, natural light is more forgiving than its artificial counterpart: in photographs, it makes the subject look less harsh. Less so here.
  16. tick, tick...Boom!
    Alexandra Shipp is a grounding presence as Larson’s girlfriend, Susan, while Garfield fizzes with energy and outsize emotion. He’s a fabulous crier and pitch-perfect as a shrill, preening narcissist who manages, against the odds, to remain resolutely likable.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Road to Bali
    Bob Hope and Bing Crosby milk a familiar formula for all its worth in their penultimate 'Road' movie (the only one in colour) which takes them on a wise-cracking journey to the South Seas where Dorothy Lamour is inevitably on hand as an Indonesian princess to be rescued and fought over. [13 Oct 2002, p.8]
    • The Observer (UK)
  18. Moxie
    It may lack the depth of Eighth Grade or the punch of Booksmart, but it’s still blessed with enough post-punk energy to raise a smile, several chuckles and the occasional fist-punching cheer.
  19. WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
    The film is fascinating on cult capitalism and the power of personality as a marketing tool for an otherwise unremarkable business plan.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cassandra Crossing
    Coarse international thriller with a standard group-jeopardy dramatis personae set abroad a trans-European express train boarded by a plague-carrying terrorist. Saved from total mediocrity by an all-star cast that includes Sophia Loren, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Ingrid Thulin, Martin Sheen, OJ Simpson, Richard Harris, and Alida Valli. [28 Oct 2007, p.14]
    • The Observer (UK)
  21. Bad Times at the El Royale
    In its better moments, this studio oddity is a tense thriller, at its worst, draggy and self-indulgent.
  22. The Humans
    The Humans struggles to escape its theatrical origins.
  23. Rustin
    This is more of a dutiful plod through the facts than the kind of film that makes history come alive.
  24. The Meg
    It’s not quite Sharknado or Mega-shark Versus Giant Octopus level, but The Meg is certainly on the sillier end of the big, dumb shark-movie spectrum.
  25. Superboys of Malegaon
    Reema Kagti’s fiction feature gets a little bogged down in the tension between the friends, resulting in a marked dip in energy in the second hour. But the (literally) uplifting final act raises the roof and, through rudimentary green-screen technology, some of the cast.
  26. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
    Davis’s deranged games designer Dr Volumnia Gaul and Jason Schwartzman’s showboating compere Lucky Flickerman justify the price of admission.
  27. Napoleon
    A man, even a man as combative as Napoleon, amounts to more than the battles he has fought. And it is in this respect that the film is less successful.
  28. Pig
    Though the film is teed up as a kind of John Wick-style revenge bender, Cage’s star persona is soon smartly subverted.
  29. Peter von Kant
    It’s enjoyable enough, but Peter von Kant is a curiously insubstantial adjunct that trades some of the swirling, savage currents of melodrama of the original – which placed a female fashion designer rather than a male film-maker at the centre of the intrigue – for a frothy, flippant archness.
  30. Motherless Brooklyn
    Motherless Brooklyn is a curious near miss that can be both applauded and criticised for its boundless ambition.
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